“Really?” He seemed so genuinely surprised that her smile broadened.
“Yeah. I don’t want to…miss out on you. Just because you have the wrong job.”
Jack laughed. “Are you sure you’re not the one with the wrong job?”
“I don’t even know exactly what my job is right now, so no,” she said with a grin. “I just have one condition. We have to be honest with each other. We’ll lie to the world but not to each other, okay?”
Jack opened his mouth…then he hesitated. It was only for a split second, but it worried her.
“Do you have a problem being honest?” she asked, frowning and rocking back on her heels.
Jack opened his mouth again, but before he could speak, the bar door swung open again and Dax walked out.
“Hey, Penny, your wallet…” He paused and stood still. Slowly, he let his gaze wander back and forth between them. “Am I interrupting?” he finally asked sourly.
Jack sighed heavily. “As usual, yes —”
“— No, of course not,” Penny said at the same time.
“Hmm,” Dax replied. “Interesting. Anyway, Penny, you left your wallet on the bar.” He waved her black wallet.
“Oh, crap, I didn’t even notice.” She had been so distracted.
“No problem.” Dax grinned. “But, tell me, is your middle name reallyWise?”
“Oh, dear.” She made a face. “You looked at my ID.”
“Well, I had to make sure that the wallet belonged to you,” he said innocently. “So, it’s true?”
“Wait a minute,” Jack now chimed in, the corners of his mouth bowing upward in amusement. The traitor. “You’re… Penny Wise? Pennywise?”
“Like the horror clown?” Dax added with a grin. “From Stephen King? FromIt?”
She sighed heavily. “Yes, I know the book. And yes, my father got to choose the middle name, and my mother was pumped full of too many painkillers to talk him out of it.”
Dax laughed loudly. “God, that’s great. Jack is afraid of clowns.” He slapped him on the shoulder. “He fainted on a ghost train once! I was sitting right next to him. It was hilarious. His eyes rolled back into his hindbrain!”
Penny smiled…while the wheels in her head started turning in confusion. This story triggered a memory. Wait. She knew it. She knew that Jack was afraid of clowns. He had told her on the plane. The day they met. And she knew about the ghost train, too. Jack had said that he was fourteen and had been traveling with his brother…
Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened in shock.
No.
No, no.
Jack must have mixed it up, right? Must have confused Dax with his brother and…
“Penny?” Jack looked at her, uncertain.
She clenched her teeth, looked from one to the other, studied their faces…well, they did look alike.
It was their chin and the dimples in their cheeks.
“Oh God,” she breathed. How had no one ever noticed? They looked so damn similar! And Dax hadn’t told anyone he’d caught them together because he…because he… “You’re brothers,” she said tonelessly, narrowing her eyes and shaking her head. “But…how? That’snotin your files! That’s…that’s not stated anywhere!”
“What?” Dax’s eyebrows shot up in alarm and he glanced around, visibly nervous, as if he was afraid someone might overhear them. “No. We… What makes you think that?”
And that was all the confirmation she needed.
