Born in Shame

by Nora Roberts

  "We'll be right along." Maggie sent him a quick, silent signal, then waited until their footsteps faded away. She thought it best to say nothing for the moment and simply wrapped her arms around Murphy.

  "She didn't realize what she was saying," Maggie began, "about having it shipped to New York."

  That was the worst of it, he thought, closing his eyes and absorbing the dull, dragging ache. "Because it's automatic to her. The leaving."

  "You want her to stay. You have to fight."

  His hands fisted on her back. He could fight with those if the foe was flesh and blood. But it was intangible, as elusive as ghosts. A place, a mindset, a life he couldn't grasp even with his brain.

  "I haven't finished." He said it quietly, with a fire underneath that gave Maggie hope. "And neither, by Jesus, has she."

  He didn't ask if she'd come back to the farm with him, but simply drove there. When they got out of the truck, he didn't lead her into the house, but around it.

  "Do you have to do something with the animals?" She glanced down at his feet. He wasn't wearing his boots, but the shoes she knew he kept for church and town.

  "Later."

  He was distracted. She'd sensed that all along the drive back from Ennistymon. It worried her that he was still brooding about what they said to each other at Loop Head. There was a stubborn streak under all those quiet waters, just as there was a flaming wave of passion always stirring under the surface. Already the panic was creeping up at the idea he might insist they talk about the dreams again.

  "Murphy, I can tell you're upset. Can't we just put all this aside?"

  "I've put it aside too long already." He could see his horses grazing. He had a client for the bay colt, the one that was standing so proud just now. And he knew he'd have to give him up.

  But there was some things a man never gave up.

  He could feel the nerves in her hand, the tension in it that held the rest of her rigid as he drew her into the circle of stones. Then he let her go and faced her without touching.

  "It had to be here. You know that."

  Though there was a trembling around her heart, she kept her eyes level. "I don't know what you mean."

  He didn't have a ring. He knew what he wanted for her-the claddaugh with its heart and hands and crown. But for now, he had only himself.

  "I love you, Shannon, as much as a man can love. I tell you that here, on holy ground while the sun beams between the stones."

  Now her heart thudded, as much with love as with nerves. She could see what was in his eyes and shook her head, already knowing nothing would stop him.

  "I'm asking you to marry me. To let me share your life, to have you share mine. And I ask you that here, on holy ground, while the sun beams between the stones."

  Emotion welled up until she thought she could drown in it. "Don't ask me, Murphy."

  "I have asked you. But you haven't answered."

  "I can't. I can't do what you're asking."

  His eyes flashed, temper and pain like twin suns inside him. "You can do anything you choose to do. Say you won't, and be honest."

  "All right, I won't. And I have been honest, right from the start."

  "No more to me than to yourself," he shot back. He was bleeding from a hundred wounds and could do nothing to stop it.

  "I have." She could only meet temper with temper, and hurt with hurt. "I told you all along there was no courtship, no future, and never pretended otherwise. I slept with you," she said, her voice rising in panic, "because I wanted you, but that doesn't mean I'll change everything for you."

  "You said you loved me."

  "I do love you." She said it in fury. "I've never loved anyone the way I love you. But it isn't enough."

  "For me it's more than enough."

  "Well, not for me. I'm not you, Murphy. I'm not Brianna, I'm not Maggie." She whirled away, fighting the urge to pound her fists on the stones until they bled. "Whatever was taken away from me when my mother told me just who I am, I'm getting it back. I'm taking it back. I have a life."

  Eyes dark and churning, she spun back to him. "Do you think I don't know what you want? I saw your face when you walked in this morning and I was cooking breakfast. That's what you want, Murphy, a woman who'll tend your house, welcome you in bed, have your children, and be content year after year with gardens and a view of the valley and turf fires."

  She cut to the core of what he was. "And such things are beneath the likes of you."

  "They're not for me," she countered, refusing to let the bitter words hurt her. "I have a career I've put on hold long enough. I have a country, a city, a home to get back to."

  "You have a home here."

  "I have a family here," she said carefully. "I have people who mean a great deal to me here. But that doesn't make it home."

  "What stops it?" he demanded. "What stops you? You think I want you so you can cook my meals and wash my dirty shirts? I've been doing that fine on my own for years, and can do it still. I don't give a damn if you never lift a hand. I can hire help if it comes to that. I'm not a poor man. You have a career-who's asking you not to? You could paint from dawn till dusk and I'd only be proud of you."

  "You're not understanding me."

  "No, I'm not. I'm not understanding how you can love me, and I you, and still you'd walk away from it, and from me. What compromises do you need? You've only to ask."

  "What compromise?" she shouted, because the strength of his need was squeezing her heart. "There's no compromise here, Murphy. We're not talking about making adjustments. It's not a matter of moving to a new house, or relocating in a different city. We're talking continents here, worlds. And the span between yours and mine. This isn't shuffling around schedules to share chores. It's giving up one way for something entirely different. Nothing changes for you, and everything changes for me. It's too much to ask."

  "It's meant. You're blinding yourself to that."

  "I don't give a damn about dreams and ghosts and restless spirits. This is me, flesh and blood," she said, desperate to convince both of them. "This is here and now. I'll give you everything I can, and I don't want to hurt you. But when you ask for more, it's the only choice I have."

  "The only choice you'll see." He drew back. His eyes were cool now, with turmoil only a hint behind the icy blue. "You're telling me you'll go, knowing what we've found together, knowing what you feel for me, you'll go to New York and live happily without it."

  "I'll live as I have to live, as I know how to live."

  "You're holding your heart back from me, and it's cruel of you."

  "I'm cruel? You think you're not hurting me by standing here and demanding I choose between my right hand and my left?" Abruptly chilled, to the bone, she wrapped her arms around herself. "Oh, it's so easy for you, damn you, Murphy. You have nothing to risk, and nothing to lose. Damn you," she said again, and her eyes were bright and bitter and seemed not quite her own. "You won't find peace any more than I will."

  With the words searing on her tongue, she whirled and ran. The buzzing in her ears was temper, she was sure of it. The dizziness outraged emotions, and the pain in her heart a violent combination of both.

  But she felt as though someone were running with her, inside her, as desperately unhappy as she, as bitterly hopeless.

  She fled across the fields, not stopping when she reached Brianna's garden and the dozing dog leaped up to greet her. Running still when she stumbled into the kitchen and a startled Brianna called her name.

  Running until she was closed in her room alone, and there was nowhere left to run.

  Brianna waited an hour before she knocked softly on the door. She expected to find Shannon weeping, or sleeping off the tears. The single glimpse Brianna had had of her face as she'd streaked in and out of the kitchen spoke of misery and temper.

  But when she opened the door, she didn't find Shannon weeping. She found her painting.

  "The light's going." Shannon didn't bother to look up. The sweep of h
er brush was passionate, frenetic. "I'll need some lamps. I've got to have light."

  "Of course. I'll bring you some." She stepped forward. It wasn't the face of grief she saw, but the face of someone half wild. "Shannon-"

  "I can't talk now. I have to do this, I have to get it out of my system once and for all. I have to have more light, Brie."

  "All right. I'll see to it." Quietly she closed the door behind her.

  She painted all night. She'd never done that before. Never needed to or cared enough. But she'd needed this. It was full morning when she stopped, her hands cramped, her eyes burning, her mind dead. She hadn't touched the tray Brianna had brought up sometime during the night, nor was she interested in food now.

  Without looking at the finished canvas, she dropped her brushes in a jar of turpentine, then turned and tumbled fully dressed into bed.

  It was nearly evening again before she woke, stiff, groggy. There'd been no dreams this time, or none she remembered, only the deep, exhausted sleep that left her feeling hulled out and light-headed.

  Mechanically she stripped off her clothes, showered, dressed again, never once looking at the painting she'd been driven to start and finish within one desperate night. Instead, she picked up the untouched tray and carried it downstairs.

  She saw Brianna in the hall, bidding goodbye to guests. Shannon passed without speaking, going into the kitchen to set aside the tray and pour the coffee that had been made for her hours before.

  "I'll make fresh," Brianna offered the moment she came in.

  "No, this is fine." With something close to a smile, Shannon lifted the cup. "Really. I'm sorry, I wasted the food."

  "Doesn't matter. Let me fix you something, Shannon. You haven't eaten since yesterday, and you look pale."

  "I guess I could use something." Because she couldn't find the energy to do anything else, she went to the table and sat.

  "Did you have a fight with Murphy?"

  "Yes and no. I don't want to talk about that right now."

  Brianna turned the heat on under her stew before going to the refrigerator. "I won't press you then. Did you finish your painting?"

  "Yes." Shannon closed her eyes. But there was more to finish. "Brie, I'd like to see the letters now. I need to see them."

  "After you've eaten," Brianna said, slicing bread for a sandwich. "I'll call Maggie, if you don't mind. We should do this together."

  "Yes." Shannon pushed her cup aside. "We should do this together."

  Chapter Twenty- Three

  It was a difficult thing to look at the three slim letters, bound together by a faded red ribbon. And it was a sentimental man, Shannon mused, who tied a woman's letters, so few letters, in a ribbon that time would leach of color.

  She didn't ask for the brandy, but was grateful when Brianna set a snifter by her elbow. They'd gone into the family parlor, the three of them, and Gray had taken the baby down to Maggie's.

  So it was quiet.

  In the lamplight, for the sun was setting toward dusk, Shannon gathered her courage and opened the first envelope.

  Her mother's handwriting hadn't changed. She could see that right away. It had always been neat, feminine, and somehow economical.

  My dearest Tommy.

  Tommy, Shannon thought, staring at the single line. She'd called him Tommy when she'd written to him. And Tommy when she'd spoken of him to her daughter for the first, and the last time.

  But Shannon thought of him as Tom. Tom Concannon, who'd passed to her green eyes and chestnut hair. Tom Concannon, who hadn't been a good farmer, but a good father. A man who had turned from his vows and his wife to love another woman-and had let her go. Who had wanted to be a poet, and to make his fortune, but had died doing neither.

  She read on, and had no choice but to hear her mother's voice, and the love and kindness in it. No regrets. Shannon could find no regrets in the words that spoke of love and duty and the complexity of choices. Longing, yes, and memories, but without apology.

  Always she'd ended it. Always, Amanda.

  With great care, Shannon refolded the first letter. "She told me he'd written back to her. I never found any letters with her things."

  "She'd not have kept them," Brianna murmured. "In respect for her husband. Her loyalty and her love were with him."