by Nora Roberts
"You know how it is. Regular madhouse since we clinched the Gulfstream account. You're the golden girl there, Shan. Two major notches in your belt in six months between Gulfstream and Titus."
She'd forgotten Titus, and frowned now thinking of the concept and art she'd come up with to help sell tires. "Gulfstream's yours."
"Now, sure, but the brass knows who initiated it. Hey, you don't think I'd take credit for your work."
"No, of course not."
"Anyway, I thought I'd let you know the guys upstairs are happy, but our department's starting to feel the pinch with the fall and Christmas campaigns getting underway. We really need you back."
She felt the light throbbing in her temple, the warning of a tension headache brewing. "I have things to work out, Tod. Personal things."
"You had a rough patch. I know you, Shannon, you'll have your feet back under you again. And I miss you. I know things were a little strained between us when you left, and I wasn't as understanding as I should have been, as sensitive to your feelings. I think we can talk that out, and get back on line."
"Have you been watching Oprah?"
"Come on, Shan. You take a couple more days, then give me a call. Let me know your flight number and E.T.A. I'll pick you up at the airport, and we'll cozy down with a bottle of wine and work this out."
"I'll get back to you, Tod. Thanks for calling."
"Don't wait too long. The brass has a short collective memory."
"I'll keep that in mind. Bye."
She hung up, discovered the cord was wrapped messily around her fingers. She concentrated on meticulously straightening it again.
"That was New York," she said without turning around. "A friend of mine at work." Before she swung around, she made sure she had a bright smile on her face. "So, how's the strudel?"
"See for yourself." Brianna poured Shannon tea to go with it. Her first instinct was to comfort. She held back the urge, trusting Murphy to do the job. "I think I hear the baby," she said and hurried through the adjoining door.
Shannon's appetite had fled. She glanced listlessly at the strudel, bypassed it for her tea. "My, ah, office is swamped."
"He wants you back." When Shannon's eyes lifted to his, Murphy inclined his head. "This Tod wants you back."
"He's handling some of my accounts while I'm gone. It's a lot of extra work."
"He wants you back," Murphy said again, and Shannon began to poke her fork in the strudel.
"He mentioned it-in a noncommital sort of way. We had a strained discussion before I left."
"A discussion," Murphy repeated. "A strained discussion. Are you meaning a fight?"
"No." She smiled a little. "Tod doesn't fight. Debates," she mused. "He debates. He's very civilized."
"And was he debating, in a civilized way, just now? Is that why you're all tangled up?"
"No, he was just catching me up on the office. And I'm not tangled up."
Murphy put his hands over her restless ones, stilling them until she looked at him again. "You asked me to be your friend. I'm trying."
"I'm confused about things, a number of things," she said slowly. "It doesn't usually take me so long to figure out what I want and how to get it. I'm good at analyzing. I'm good at angles. My father was, too. He could always zero in on the bottom line. I admired that, I learned it from him."
Impatient, she jerked her hands from under Murphy's. "I had everything mapped out, and I was making it work. The position with the right firm, the uptown apartment, the high-powered wardrobe, the small, but tasteful art collection. Membership in the right health club. An undemanding relationship with an attractive, successful man who shared my interests. Then it all fell apart, and it makes me so tired to think of putting it together again."
"Is that what you want to do? Have to do?"
"I can't keep putting it off. That call reminded me I've been letting it all drift. I have to have solid ground under me, Murphy. I don't function well otherwise." When her voice broke, she pressed her hand to her lips. "It still hurts so much. It still hurts to think of my parents. To know I'll never see them again. I never got to say goodbye. I never got to say goodbye to either of them."
He said nothing at all as he rose and went to her, but simply lifted her to her feet to cradle her in his arms. In his silence was an understanding so perfect, so elemental, it devastated. She could weep and know that her tears would fall on a shoulder that would never shrug away from her.
"I keep thinking I'm over it," she managed. "Then it sneaks up and squeezes my heart."
"You haven't let yourself cry it through. Go ahead, darling. You'll feel better for it."
It ripped at him, each shuddering sob, and knowing he could do no more than be there.
"I want them back."
"I know, darling. I know you do."
"Why do people have to leave, Murphy? Why do the people who we love and need so much have to leave?"
"They don't, not all the way. You still have them inside, and you can't lose them from there. Don't you hear your mother talking to you sometimes, or your father reminding you of something you did together?"
Tired and achy from crying, she turned her damp cheek so it could rest against his chest. Foolish, she realized. How foolish it had been to think it was stronger to hold in the tears than to let them go.
"Yes." Her lips curved in a watery smile. "I get pictures sometimes, of things we did together. Even the most ordinary things, like eating breakfast."
"So they haven't left all the way, have they?"
She closed her eyes, comforted by the steady beat of Murphy's heart under her ear. "Just before the Mass, my mother's funeral Mass, the priest sat down with me. He was very kind, compassionate, as he was only months before when we buried my father. Still, it was the standard line-everlasting life, mercy, and the eternal rewards both my parents would reap having been devout Catholics and good, caring people."
She pressed against him one last time, for herself, then drew back. "It was meant to comfort me, and perhaps it did, a little. What you just said helps a lot more."
"Faith's a kind of remembering, Shannon. You need to prize your memories instead of being hurt by them." He brushed a tear from her cheek with the side of his thumb. "Are you all right now? I'll stay if you like, or get Brie for you."
"No, I'm okay. Thanks."
He tipped her chin up, kissed her forehead. "Then sit down, drink your tea. And don't clutter your mind with New York till you're ready."
"That's good advice." When she sniffled, he took his bandanna out of his pocket. "Blow your nose."
She laughed a little and obeyed. "I'm glad you came by, Murphy. Don't stay away again."
"I'll be around." Because he knew she needed time to herself now, he turned to take his cap from the peg. "Will you come to the fields again soon? I like seeing you painting there in the sunlight."
"Yes, I'll come to the fields. Murphy..." She trailed off, not sure how to put the question, or why it seemed so important she ask. "Never mind."
He paused at the doorway. "What? It's always better to say what's on your mind than to let it circle in there."
Circling was exactly what it was doing. "I was wondering. If we'd been... friends when my mother was ill, and I'd had to go away to take care of her. To be with her. When she died, if I'd told you I could handle all of it, even preferred to handle all of it alone, would you have respected that? Stayed away?"
"No, of course not." Puzzled, he settled his cap on his head. "That's a stupid question. A friend doesn't stay away from a friend who's grieving."
"That's what I thought," she murmured, then stared at him long enough, hard enough to have him rubbing the back of his hand over his chin searching for crumbs.
"What?"
"Nothing. I was-" She lifted her cup and laughed at both of them. "Woolgathering."
More puzzled than ever, he returned her smile. "I'll see you then. You'll, ah, come to the ceili, won't you?"
"I woul
dn't miss it."
Chapter Fifteen
Music was pouring out of the farmhouse when Shannon arrived with Brianna and her family. They'd brought the car as Brianna had made too much food for the three of them to handle all of it, and the baby, on a walk.
Shannon's first surprise of the evening was the number of vehicles along the road. Their wheels tipped up onto the grass verge left just enough room from another car, with a very brave or foolish driver, to squeeze through.
"From the looks of this, he'll have a houseful," Shannon commented as they began to unload Brianna's dishes and bowls.
"Oh, the cars and lorries are only for those who live too far away to walk. Most come on foot to a ceili. Gray, don't tip that pot. You'll spill the broth."
"I wouldn't tip it if I had three hands."
"He's cross," Brianna told Shannon, "because his publishing people have added another city to his tour." She couldn't quite keep the smugness out of her voice. "Time was the man couldn't wait to go roving."
"Times change, and if you'd come with me-"
"You know I can't leave the inn for three weeks in the middle of summer. Come on now." Despite the load they both held, Brianna leaned forward to kiss him. "Don't fret on it tonight. Ah, look, it's Kate."
She hurried forward, her call of greeting floating on the air.
"You could always cancel the tour," Shannon said under her breath as she and Gray followed.
"Tell that to her. 'You'll not be neglecting your responsibilities toward your work because of me, Grayson Thane. I'll be just where you left me when you get back.'"
"Well." Shannon would have patted his cheek if her hands hadn't been full. "She will. Cheer up, Gray. If I've ever seen a man who's got it all, it's you."
"Yeah." That lifted his spirits a little. "I do. But it's going to be hard to feel that way when I'm sleeping alone in Cleveland next July."
"Suffering though room service. In-room movies, and the adulation of fans."
"Shut up, Bodine." He gave her a nudge to send her through the door.
She hadn't realized there were so many people in the entire county. The house was full of them, alive with their voices, crowded with their movements. Before she was ten paces down the hall, she was introduced to a dozen, and hailed by that many more she'd already met.
Music of flutes and fiddles streamed out of the parlor where some were already dancing. Plates of food were piled high, balanced on knees while feet enthusiastically stomped the time. Glasses were lifted or being pressed into waiting hands.
Still more people crowded into the kitchen, where platters and bowls were jammed end to end along the counters and the center table. Brianna was there, already empty handed as the baby was passed around and cooed over.
"Ah, here's Shannon." Brianna beamed as she began to unload the dishes from Shannon's arms. "She's not been to a ceili before. We'd have the music in the kitchen traditionally, but there's no room for it. But we can hear it just the same. You know Diedre O'Malley."
"Yes, hello."
"Get yourself a plate, lass," Diedre ordered. "Before the horde leaves you nothing but crumbs. Let's have those, Grayson."
"I'll trade you for a beer."
"I can do that for you." She chuckled as she took platters. "There's plenty to be had out on the stoop there."
"Shannon?"
"Sure." She smiled as Gray stepped out the door to fetch bottles. "It doesn't look like there'll be much business at the pub tonight, Mrs. O'Malley."
"No, indeed. We've closed. A ceili at Murphy's empties the village. Ah, Alice, I was just talking of your boy."
With the bottle Gray had given her halfway to her lips, Shannon turned to see a slim woman with softly waved brown hair come in the kitchen. She had Murphy's eyes, and his quick smile.
"They've shoved a fiddle in his hands, so he'll not get past the parlor for a time." Her voice was mellow, with a laugh on the edge of it. "I thought I'd fix him up a plate, Dee, in case he finds a moment to eat."