Saturday, November 22, 2014

1, 2, 3.. As Easy as ABC Ch. 19 — The sibs meet their Irish relatives; family secrets revealed

"Ladies? I believe there's enough time before we prepare the cabin for landing for a couple of more Mimosas, if you're interested," the uber-hot flight attendant said with a smile as bright as the rising sun.

"You bet," Tess replied with a smile and a head-nod, "always have time for Mimosas."

"Coming right up," Ms. Uber-hot replied with a smile to the step-sibs, turning to fetch their drinks.

"Yeah, you would," Jo opined, joining her sis in ogling the attractive flight attendant, "I know I would."

"Yep, in a New York minute," Tess agreed, turning to face Jo again.

"Got a text from Megan when you were in the bathroom at JFK just before we boarded," Tess said, suddenly remembering the text, "she's at the house already and all is well."

They'd made arrangements with Megan to house-sit for them while they'd be in Ireland, preferring to having her do so than a security firm. Megan accepted the offer, of course, and Tess received Mrs. Franks' blessing after asking that her daughter be allowed to house-sit, the request to Megan's parents, a courtesy.

"Good," Jo replied, "that was a brilliant idea to ask her; gives us somebody we trust to watch the place and it'll give her and Janice someplace safe to play."

"Kinda' what I thought," Tess remarked.

Megan and Janice, for all practical purposes, were a 'couple', hardly ever seeing one without the other. Since that first time, the night of Janice's seduction by Megan in the Spring, their only chances for being with each other, sexually, was in the back seat of Meg's car or, on a couple of occasions, at Jo and Tess' home, the sibs understanding the difficulties the two teenaged lovers had in finding privacy.

And, no, there was no attempt to indulge in a threesome with Megan and her Afro-girlfriend, not yet, at least, thought Jo. No, that would come about, in time, she thought to herself, somehow knowing that it would.

Both sibs turned to look at Ms. Uber-Hot as she approached with their early-morning cocktails. With her short red hair, bright blue eyes and small smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, not to mention her well-shaped ass and boobs, well, the sibs simply thought her to be totally fuckable, had you asked.

"Prepare the cabin for landing," the faceless voice announced over the Aer Lingus plane's communication system.

"Don't rush your drinks girls, we're still at least a half-hour away from approach," Ms. Uber-Hot said as she handed the sibs their Mimosas, smiling brightly before turning to return to the galley of the wide-bodied airliner.

"I got a 'ping', did you get a ping?" Jo asked Tess as she sipped her Champagne and orange juice mixture.

"Totally got a 'ping'," confirmed Tess, referring to their gay-dar which was rarely wrong.

"Probably wishful thinking," Jo opined further.

"Still......" Tess remarked in reply, her mind imagining the flight attendant naked in bed.

"Nervous?" asked Jo of her step-sis.

"A little...you?" replied Tess

"A lot...." Jo answered.

"Well, Maggie sounded excited about finally getting to meet her American cousins," Tess observed to Jo, "she sounded genuine about her sadness at having to meet under these circumstances but, after the inter/ment, Maggie promised to show us the land of our heritage," Tess said further.

"I guess I'm feeling guilty that I'm excited about this, more than sorrowful," Jo confessed.

"Don't be, babe, the 'rents would understand our excitement and they'd be happy that we're respecting their wish to be interred in Ireland," Tess smilingly replied, hoping her words would soothe Jo's nerves and conscious.

Buckling themselves into their first-class seats of the wide-bodied plane, the sibs both closed their eyes and held each other's hand, their love for each other seemingly flowing through their hands which brought smiles to their hearts......

Tess had graduated from college just a few short weeks before the trip. Jo had resigned her commission in the Army a few months earlier and was now a civilian, free, now, to be who she was, not what she had to be. The legalities of settling the estate of their parents was behind them now, and the sibs were still reeling from shock as to exactly how well the 'rents had provided for them.

Simply put, the girls were financially secure for the rest of their lives as long as they didn't go 'spree-crazy' with their fortune. And while their shares of the estate would not be entirely in their control until they turned twenty-six, the amount of money, for each, until that twenty-sixth birthday was reached, was more than sufficient to meet the sibs' needs.

Jo had only a year before her twenty-sixth birthday, having turned twenty-five on the day of Tess' graduation from college. Tess would have to wait another five years to receive her full share but, she thought many times, by then I'll have finished Graduate school, so, for Tess, she didn't mind the wait at all.

The step-sisters/lovers would remain in the family home, Tess would matriculate a scant half-hour's drive from her home, and Jo would finally realize her dream of opening, and running, her own restaurant.

For the sibs, life was good.........

"Mary Margaret, you'll not be telling me what I HAVE to do," Agnes said to her daughter.

Bloody hell, thought Maggie, why can't she call me Maggie as the rest of the world does, but ignoring the slight to reply.

"Mum, it's the right thing to do; the girls NEED to know the truth of their circumstances," Maggie pressed her mother, "You're Uncle Robert's only surviving sibling. When you're gone, there's no one left who knows the truth."

"You do," Agnes replied defiantly but knowing, in her heart, that her daughter was right.

"It's not my place, mum....they need to hear it from you, not from me," Maggie said tenderly to her aged mother.

"Well, we'll see, we'll see....." Agnes answered, the conversation clearly over as far as she was concerned.......

As Jo and Tess prepared to depart their plane, Ms. Uber-Hot slipped a piece of paper into Jo's hand when she shook it while thanking the girls for choosing Aer Lingus for their flight. Waiting until they were through customs and heading towards baggage claim, Jo unfurled the note to read:

"I'm staying at the Hyatt near the airport for my rest period before my next flight. I'd love to buy you girls a pint or two if you're able to join me. Colleen O'Hara."

"Isn't that the same hotel we're staying at?" Jo asked Tess after Jo read the note to her.

"Yep, Maggie'll pick us up the morning for the drive to Cork," Tess replied.

"Must be Karma," Jo opined with a smile to Tess.

Having retrieved their bags, the girls found their way to the hotel shuttle queue. As they approached the Hyatt's spot, they saw that some of the flight crew of their plane were already waiting as well.

Spotting the sibs when they turned the corner of the shelter, Colleen excused herself from her conversation with her fellow attendant and, smilingly, stepped forward to greet the sibs.

"How fortunate that my two favorite passengers are staying at the crew's hotel. Hi, ladies, good to see you again," Colleen gushed to Jo and Tess.

"Our cousin won't be picking us up 'til tomorrow for the drive to Cork, so we plan to nap off the jet lag this afternoon for a few hours, and then.....is the offer for a drink still on?" Tess explained/asked.

"Absolutely...meet you in the lobby around seven'ish?" Colleen asked, "should give us all a good nap; you're right to do that, you know, we do it as well after every flight across the pond."

"Sounds like a date, then," Jo contributed to their conversation.

"Yes, it certainly does," agreed Colleen, "and there's a lovely pub not too far from the hotel that I'm sure you girls will enjoy," Ms. Uber-Hot remarked.

"We're on your turf now," Tess said, "you lead, we'll follow," smiling broadly to the flight attendant as the hotel's shuttle arrived.

"Oh, I hope so," her smile spreading across her too-cute Irish face, "sounds wickedly delightful, looking forward to it," the too-cute flight attendant replied as the three women boarded their shuttle bus to the hotel.

Since flight crews are pre-checked into their hotels by their airlines, all Colleen had to do was produce her Aer Lingus I.D. to get her key.

As the sibs moved to the desk to begin their check-in process, Colleen leaned in close and said to them both, "Now, be good girls and get plenty of rest you two, we've a long night ahead of us," winking, then walking to the lift to go to her room for a nap.

Turning to stare at Colleen as she walked away, the sibs turned to each other, both having a 'look' on their faces.

"Did that mean what I think it did?" Tess asked her sis.

"Oh damn, I sure hope so," Jo replied, both of the girls bursting into laughter at the comment...

Both of the girls had been able to get a few hours of sleep on their overnight flight into Dublin, both glad they had chosen to fly first class with those wonderful, stretched-out seats available for the pricey tickets. Even so, after getting into their room, at the Hyatt, they 'crashed' within a nano-second of their heads hitting the pillows of the king-sized bed.

Having put in a request for a wake-up call from the front desk for five that afternoon, they awoke, took their showers and were ready for whatever lay ahead for them that night with Ms. Uber-Hot on that first night in Ireland, by six-thirty.

"Buy you a drink?" Jo asked of Tess as they took the lift down to the lobby.

"Get out of my head, Jolene," joked Tess in response, "it's really spooky how you can read my thoughts."

"Tough titty, I'm in your head for the duration," Jo joked back.

Smiling, Tess replied, "And I'm very thankful that you are," giving her step-sis a sweet kiss to her cheek.

They sat in the lobby of the hotel, sipping the excellent Irish Whiskey, neat, of course, chit-chatting about everything and about nothing of importance, just whiling away their wait for Ms. Uber-Hot to join them.

"And did my girls listen to my advice for rest?" the voice, behind them, asked, Ms. Uber-Hot ordering a round for the three of them from the roaming wait-person before sitting down with the sibs.

"We did, Mistress," Tess answered, 'playing along' with Colleen's comment, "all rested and awaiting your commands, m'lady," beaming a smile to the lovely Irish lass.

"To us," Colleen toasted to the sibs, all three sipping afterwards, "to a night of marvelous fun for the three of us."

Colleen, unlike most of her flight crew was not a 'Dub', or Dubliner, her family's roots being in Galway, some distance to the west of the Irish capital. "I don't usually go home between flights, simply not enough time," She explained to Tess and Jo. "When I have several days' leave, I will, of course, but between flights it's much easier for me to stay here, in Dublin," she explained further.

The trio exchanged short bios of each other, revealing that, though she didn't come close to looking her age, she was thirty-three, single and planned to remain that way.

"Too much drama in marriage for my tastes," the red-headed cutie declared, bringing about a nodding of heads all around their conversation nook, "much prefer to play the field as you Yanks say."

"Boyfriends?" Jo asked out of curiosity and, as a 'test' of what Ms. Uber-Hot was 'all about'.

"Hardly," Colleen declared with a smile of amusement at the question but, with no other explanation.

"Well, my darlings, shall we take a lorry to our den of iniquity?" Colleen asked her two companions as they finished off their drinks.

"Lead the way, m'lady," Jo replied with a smile.

When Colleen told the driver the name of their destination, Tess thought she saw an expression of 'Ah-Ha!" slide across his face, followed by a smirk.

'The Bean' was an odd name for a pub thought Tess and Jo when they arrived after a short, ten minute ride, but what did they know? It was their first time out of the country for the sibs.

Jo's time in the middle east? That was different. Nothing pleasurable about that stint out of the country so, in her mind, it didn't count as being anything other than what it was, a horrible year in a horrible place.

Judging by the greeting that Colleen received from the crowded pub's patrons, it was clearly not her first time here.

"Over there, there's a small table against the wall we can squeeze into," Colleen said, over her shoulder, to the step-sibs after she had spied it, sending them to the table and she to the bar to order them a round of Black and Tans from the server gal.

"Oh, wow, its warm and strong," Jo commented after taking her first sip of the Guiness concoction.

"Our ales are a bit stronger than your American brews and we don't chill ours as you Yanks seem to prefer," Colleen affirmed, "but, drink away girls, I won't let anything untowards happen to you," laughing at her 'joke'.

Didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that they were in a pub that catered to women, most, but not all, seemingly manly in their demeanor, a 'butch-bar' it would be called back home in the States.

From the moment they had stepped inside, both of the sibs' gay-dars were pinging away like crazy which brought a smile of 'Ah-Ha!' to their lips.

"I'm curious," Jo said to Colleen, leaning closer to her to be heard over the din in the small pub, "what made you assume that we'd like a place like this?"

"I have a 'sense' of other women's proclivities," Colleen explained, "always seemed to have from the time I was a young lass; you Yanks have a term for it....." her explanation cut short by Tess' interjection.

"Gay-dar? Is that the term you're referring to?" Tess interrupted.

"That's it! Gay-dar!...what an amusing term," Colleen confirmed.

"So, you assume that we're......." Jo started to say, but was interrupted when an attractive woman spied Colleen and leaned over their small table to give her a hug and kiss to her cheek, running off to join her party afterwards.

"You're not?" Colleen asked, finishing Jo's comment for her.

"Yeah, we are," Tess answered for she and her sis, all three chuckling at the openess of their 'secrets'.

"And your thought for our evening is....." Jo pressed Ms. Uber-Hot further.

"I thought that to be quite obvious," Colleen replied, "share a few pints and then, back to the hotel for some delicious 'bean flicking', of course."

Seeing the look of confusion on the faces of the two sibs at the term, Colleen laughed and went on to explain the Irish slang for cunnilingus, the 'bean' being a woman's clitoris.

"Bean flicking," Tess laughed, "love that term; I'm stealing it from you, Colleen," all three women laughing together.

"I'm assuming that you girls do find me 'flick-worthy'," Colleen commented/asked of the sibs, knowing, of course, that they did. Couldn't mistake their leers of her on the flight over the pond, no, she had made no mistake about that, Colleen was sure.

"Very much so," Jo replied, confirming what Colleen already knew to be a truth.

"Totally," was Tess' one-word opinion of the question.

"Good," was Colleen's simple comment, a smile at the two Yanks her punctuation of the comment.

With a clear ending of their night at the pub in mind now, the trio relaxed and drank Black and Tans, the 'Yanks' warming quickly to the kick of the Guiness mix. Quickly finding that the three of them shared a sarcastic, sardonic sense of humor, the laughing trio found no lack of 'targets' for their witticisms, themselves being fair game of the jestful comments and barbs, not mean spirited, in the least.

Colleen shared the fact that she didn't find the 'dyke-studs' to her liking, though, she freely and unashamedly admitted, she did enjoy playing them, leading them on, being a bit of a tease with 'them'. But, at the end of the day, she said further, she found 'lipstick lezzes' more to her taste, you know, like the good-looking, well-built, sibs, she had said to the girls.

"Must say that I'm finding it a bit hard to restrain myself from reaching to both of you and simply grabbing a handful of those gorgeous breasts to play with," Colleen admitted very matter-of-factly, her eyes searching both girls faces for reaction.

"Then we should do something about that," Tess suggested, the strong, stout ale doing her talking for her, in truth.

"Not before I go pee," Jo exclaimed, her need to do so evident in her face.

"The loo is down that hallway, behind you; fair warning, the hallway is narrow and cramped, as is the facility," Colleen advised as Jo stood to follow the lass' directions.

'Narrow and cramped' was a 'generous' description thought Jo as she twisted and turned around the pub's patrons, making her way to the hallway, it barely large enough for one person to pass. Just as she approached the door of the bathroom or, loo, as it's called on this side of the Atlantic, the door opened, forcing Jo to cling to the hallway wall to make room for the exiting woman.

It was an impasse as neither women could move past the other in the narrow hallway, the size of their respective racks causing a bit of a body-jam, so to speak. Both women smiled at the awkardness of the situation, neither able to move past without rubbing tits, no matter how tightly they hugged their bodies to the wall.

"I've got it," said the cute blonde/reddish-haired woman, a femme, not a butch, and placing her hands on Jo's shoulders, she twisted her and Jo's bodies until each had a tit between the tits of the other. Each of the women turned, much like a cogged-toothed gear as they sidled pass each other, finally clearing their bodies from the other.

"See how simple it can be," said the woman, both women laughing at the absurdity of it all. The blonde turned to exit the hallway while Jo opened the door to finally pee like a racehorse. But, as they left each other, both turned for a final glance at each other, both smiling a bit from their encounter of each other in that small, narrow hallway of the pub.

Joining Tess and Colleen, her relief giving her joy, Jo quickly scanned the crowd but didn't see the woman of the hallway.

But, tucked away in a corner of the pub with her date, well, her date for the night anyway, the hallway gal saw Jo and decided that she liked what she saw.

Liked it a lot, if truth be told.

"Shall we, my dears?" Colleen asked after they had finished their fourth, and final, pints, "my knickers are getting wet with desire for you two lovelies," said the Irish flight attendant, now feeling her four pints as it loosened her tongue to speak her mind.

"We shall," Tess declared with Guiness-fueled assuredness, her eyes positively raping the Irish woman, looking all sexy in her tight skirt and blouse.

Thankfully, thought Colleen, the cab ride was short, allowing the two sibs to massage the inside of the attendant's thighs, each with a hand under her skirt, their activities not able to be seen by their driver, rubbing, caressing, their soft grasps of her thighs almost making her orgasm in the back seat of the lorry. Five minutes more and I'd climaxed, Colleen thought to herself, also knowing that she'd not be able to do so quietly.

She was never quiet when in the throes of orgasm, not Colleen.

"Our room? We have a king bed," suggested Jo as they approached the lift to the upper floors.

"Oh, good, mine is but a double," the redhead said to the sisters.

"Oh, yeah, we'll need more room than that," Tess commented, bringing a chuckle to the horny trio...

Entering first, Colleen turned to face the sibs as Jo locked their hotel room's door. Taking Tess into her arms first, the Irish beauty kissed the younger sib with much lust, both mouths opened, both with tongues exploring, Colleen's hand quickly fondling Tess' breasts. Holding an arm towards Jo, Colleen pulled Jo to her and Tess' bodies, sighing when Jo's hand fell upon first, her breast, then to her blouse's buttons.

 Slipping her mouth from Tess', Colleen kissed Jo next while Jo slowly unbuttoned the Irish woman's blouse, Colleen's hand on Tess' ass, squeezing and pulling Tess' pussy against her hip.

The sibs now took control of both the situation and their guest, mouths, tongues, fingers exploring freely, removing clothing, until the trio was as naked as new-borns. Moving to the bed, it would not be incorrect to describe the sibs' swarming over the Galway gal as just that, swarming.

It would be Jo who got her first taste of Irish pussy that night, positioning herself between the freckled thighs of Colleen as Tess kissed, tongued and fondled the flight attendant's breasts, sucking on those freckled orbs of delight as if it were her first time sucking titties.

"Ummmm, oh girls.....my, my, but this is positively heavenly," Colleen cooed and mewed to her two lovers, loving everything these two Yanks were doing to her.

Slipping her hands under the ass of their playmate, Jo lifted Colleen's ass to bring that red-pubed pussy to her mouth to devour and, lordy, did she ever.

As Jo explored Colleen's sweet-tasting snatch, Tess had positioned herself so that Colleen could now suck and bite on her breasts and nipples, the small teeth clenching around her nipples causing her to moan with excitement and arousal while she roughly felt up Ms. Uber-Hot's uber-hot tits.

"Up here, my sweet, up here so that I can taste you, sweetheart," Colleen's pleas to Tess almost sounding like begging, but, not quite.

And riding Colleen's mouth to the gates of heaven, Tess climaxed repeatedly, one after the other, Colleen joining her with her own cries of release from Jo's excellent oral maipulations of her sex.

Flopping onto her back on their bed, Tess pulled Colleen to sit on her face so that she, Tess, could finally get a taste of the flight attendant's sweet-smelling sex. Without moving from her position near the end of the bed, Jo crawled between her step-sis's legs to pleasure Tess as Tess pleasured Colleen.

As much as Jo loved the taste of pussy in general, she loved the taste of Tess best, no other ever being quite as 'sweet' to her senses as her sis' snatch. And she especially loved going down on Tess when they shared themselves with others, somehow, that fact providing Jo with a bit of extra excitement. She didn't know why, or care why, she just went with it, much to the sibs' mutual pleasure.

After a brief bit of rest for the trio, Colleen slid her body down in the bed to take turns at pleasuring the two Yank gals, each in turn, as they kissed and fondled with each other.

Their kissing of each other as she ate them provided Colleen with a level of excitement that she had not felt in quite sometime. It wasn't all that often that Colleen could seduce a pair of playmates but to do so with siblings? Well, that was, indeed, very special, and hot, very, very hot.

"Girls, believe me, it is so tempting to stay and play but I do have an early flight in the morning," Colleen regretably said to the sibs, slipping back into her skirt and blouse, undergarments stuffed into her purse.

"Its been fun, you two, enjoy your stay in Ireland," and kissing each goodnight, Colleen locked the sibs' hotel room's door on her way out.

"Wow, that was intense," Tess commented after a few minutes, turning to face Jo when she did.

"You've got pussy juice all over your mouth and lips," Jo laughingly pointed out to Tess.

"Like you don't?" Tess correctly retorted to Jo.

"That was definitely a fun fling," Jo sighed as Tess snuggled up to her older step-sib.

"Fun and tasty," Tess contributed as she felt the exhaustion of their sex-play and jet-lag overtaking her being, now.

"Ooooh, yeah, very tasty," Jo replied dreamingly, both sibs falling asleep in each other's arms.....

"Tess? It's Maggie," said the thickly Irish-accented voice over the phone, "I'm downstairs, parked under the canopy, if you girls are ready."

"We're just getting ready to leave the room, Maggie; should be down in a few minutes," Tess replied to her never-before-met cousin.

"I'm in the silver Volvo, cousin," Maggie replied with a lilt to her voice, excited to no end to meet her American relatives.

Settling up with the clerk, the sibs pulled their luggage behind them as they spied their cousin's car, the hatch-back lifted and a pair of legs all that could be seen of Maggie.

Hearing the wheels of the girls luggage as it rolled over the cobblestoned driveway of the hotel, Maggie called over her shoulder, "Give me just a minute more and there'll be plenty of room for your bags, girls." Shutting the in-floor storage compartment's hatch, Maggie backed out of the rear of the station wagon after stowing some loose stuff that was taking up the needed room for the luggage.

"Finally, I swear I don't know how I manage to gath...." her voice stopping, mid-sentence, when she turned to greet Tess and Jo....

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, but if you're not the bloody spitting image of my dear departed grandmother," Maggie said to Tess, not knowing it was Tess, not yet anyway.

"Me?" Tess replied a bit taken aback at the declaration from their cousin.

"I'm sorry, that was rude," Maggie said to the sibs, recovering from the shock, "Obviously, I'm Maggie and, you're Tess? I'm guessing?"

"Yes, and my step-sister, Jolene," Tess replied, Jo initiating the greeting of hugs all around.

A bit more than that, Tess, thought Maggie in that moment, a bit more than that.

"Well, let's get you girls loaded up into the hatch, shall we," Maggie said, hositing one of the two bags into the stowage compartment of the Volvo wagon, Jo tossing hers in, afterwards.

Opening the passneger door, Tess' mouth dropped as she stared at the steering wheel? in front of the passenger seat. Looking towards the rear of the Volvo, Tess saw smirks on the faces of Jo and Maggie.

"Left hand drive in the Isles, Sherlock," Jo said to her bewildered sis, "Now, you know why I didn't want to rent a car."

The rain pelted Maggie's wagon as she found her way to the highway for Cork, the three of them trying to get a life's worth of talking into the two-hour drive.

"The urns arrived yesterday, girls, and I've spoken with the caretakers at the funeral park; all is set for the internment tomorrow, if that's still good with you."

"Yes, it is, Maggie. We can't thank you enough for making all of the arrangements for us," Tess said from her front passenger's seat, the absence of a steering wheel in front of her, still a bit confusing for her, a bit difficult to wrap her mind around.

"Afterwards, we'll take mum back to her apartment and have a bite. Tonight and while you're here, you'll stay at my place in the spare bedroom, if you don't mind sharing," Maggie explained, "we'll do a bit of exploring during the day, letting you get the feel of your roots," she cheerfully added.

"Sounds like a plan," Jo answered and with that, the cousins used the remainder of the drive to play catch-up with their lives......

"Sweet Mother of God," Agnes exclaimed when the girls entered her apartment in the Seniors Complex, "But, if you aren't the....."

"She knows, mum, I've already said as much when I laid eyes upon her," Maggie said, cutting off her mother's words when doing so, "Show her the pictures, mum, let her see for herself."

Hugs and greetings overwith, the four women settled into the small parlor of the apartment with three huge albums of generations of pictures of the family.

"Wow," was all the sibs could muster as they slowly peeled back the layers of their heritage. Clearly, as Agnes and Maggie had said, Tess was, indeed, the spitting image of Agnes' mother.

"Y'all may think me crazy but there were a couple of pictures that sorta' resembled me," Jo mentioned as she sipped the strong brewed tea that Maggie had fixed for the quartet.

Maggie and Agnes quickly glanced at each other when Jo said that, the 'look' between the mother and daughter not lost on either of the sibs.

"What?" Jo asked, "did I say something I shouldn't have?"

"Mum?" Maggie said in response, her eyes hard on her dear mother's face when saying it, "You know you have to, mum, it's only fair."

Tess and Jo switched their eyes between Agnes and Maggie, trying hard to follow the cripted remarks, both of their minds in a state of confusion as they did so.

"Girls, there's something you need to know about Robert and Christine, and Mary Margaret you had better bring down the 'good stuff', for I'm fearing that we'll need it before its overwith," Agnes said, steeling herself for what was to follow.

"When Shamus and Elizabeth emigrated to America, Elizabeth was already pregnant with Christine, giving birth soon after settling in the States. Robert was eight years old at the time that they left Ireland and I was engaged to my dear Ian."

Pausing to take a breath, Agnes continued.

"Elizabeth was our first cousin, her mother being my mum's sister, so Robert and Christine were second cousins, girls." Agnes said further.

"So, that means, that Jo and I are....." Tess started to ask.

"There's more, Theresa, hear me out," Agnes pleaded.

"Christine was engaged to the man you would call dad, Jolene and....oh dear God, give me strength; when Robert emigrated to America to pursue his position at the University, he stayed with Shamus and the family."

"Your mum, Christine, was almost through with her medical degree when she and Robert met....and, you have to understand, they didn't want this to happen, but it did. They've both told me that it was an instant attraction and though they knew they should have resisted the temptations, they didn't and, well, they didn't, they couldn't and Christine became pregnant, pregnant with you, Jolene," Agnes said in what seemed like one breath, tears forming as she talked to the girls.

"So, Tess and I are cousins?" Jo asked, not really grasping all of what had just been force-fed into her brain to process.

"No, my darling, my baby brother, Robert, is your birth-father, Jolene; you and Tess are sisters, half-sisters........

(continued in Chapter 20)

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