"You're a darling man, Murphy." Grinning, she kissed his cheek.
"So all the ladies tell me." He tugged on a loose curl of hair. "And what would your Yank think if he came across you charming me in my own field?"
"He's not my Yank." She shifted as Murphy only lifted one black brow. "You like him, don't you?"
"Hard not to like him. Is he worrying you, Brianna?"
"Maybe a little." She sighed, gave up. There was nothing in her heart and mind she couldn't tell Murphy. "A lot. I care for him. I'm not sure what to do about it, but I care for him, so much. It's different than even it was with Rory."
At the mention of the name, Murphy scowled and stared down at the tip of his cigarette. "Rory's not worth a single thought in your head."
"I don't spend time thinking of him. But now, with Gray, it brings it back, you see. Murphy... he'll leave, you know. As Rory left." She looked away. She could say it, Brianna thought, but she couldn't deal with the sympathy in Murphy's eyes when she did. "I try to understand that, to accept it. I tell myself it'll be easier for at least I'll know why. Not knowing, my whole life with Rory, what was lacking in me-"
"There's nothing lacking in you," Murphy said shortly. "Put it aside."
"I have. I did-or nearly. But I ..." Overwhelmed, she turned away to stare out over the hills. "But what is it in me, or not in me, that sends a man away? Do I ask too much from him, or not enough? Is there a coldness in me that freezes them out?"
"There's nothing cold about you. Stop blaming yourself for someone else's cruelty."
"But I've only myself to ask. Ten years, it's been. And this is the first time since I've felt any stirring. It frightens me because I don't know how I'll live through heartbreak again. He's not Rory, I know, and yet-"
"No, he's not Rory." Furious at seeing her so lost, so unhappy, Murphy tossed his cigarette down and ground it out. "Rory was a fool who couldn't see what he had, and wanted to believe whatever lies he heard. You should thank God he's gone."
"What lies?"
The heat stirred in Murphy's eyes, then cooled. "Whatever. The day's wasting, Brie. I'll come look at your car tomorrow."
"What lies?" She put a hand on his arm. There was a faint ringing in her ears, a hard fist in her belly. "What do you know about it, Murphy, that you haven't told me?"
"What would I know? Rory and I were never mates."
"No, you weren't," she said slowly. "He never liked you. He was jealous, he was, because we were close. He couldn't see that it was like having a brother. He couldn't see that," she continued, watching Murphy carefully. "And once or twice we argued over it, and he said how I was too free with kisses when it came to you."
Something flickered over Murphy's face before he checked it. "Well, didn't I tell you he was a fool?"
"Did you say something to him about it? Did he say something to you?" She waited, then the chill that was growing in her heart spread and cloaked her. "You'll tell me, by God you will. I've a right. I wept my heart out over him, I suffered from the pitying looks of everyone I knew. I watched your sister marry in the dress I'd made with my own hands to be a bride. For ten years there's been an emptiness in me."
"Brianna."
"You'll tell me." Rigid, braced, she faced him. "For I can see you have the answer. If you're my friend, you'll tell me."
"That 'tisn't fair."
"Is doubting myself all this time any fairer?"
"I don't want to hurt you, Brianna." Gently he touched a hand to her cheek. "I'd cut off my arm before."
"I'll hurt less knowing."
"Maybe. Maybe." He couldn't know, had never known. "Maggie and I both thought-"
"Maggie?" she broke in, stunned. "Maggie knows as well?"
Oh, he was in it now, he realized. And there was no way out without sinking the lot of them. "Her love for you is so fierce, Brianna. She'd do anything to protect you."
"And I'll tell you what I've told her, time and again. I don't need protecting. Tell me what you know."
Ten years, he thought, was a long time for an honest man to hold a secret. Ten years, he thought, was longer still for an innocent woman to hold blame.
"He came after me one day while I was out here, working the fields. He went for me, out of the blue, it seemed to me. And not being fond of him, I went for him as well. Can't say my heart was in it much until he said what he did. He said you'd been... with me."
It embarrassed him still, and beneath the embarrassment, he discovered there remained that sharp-edged rage that had never dulled with time.
"He said that we'd made a fool of him behind his back and he'd not marry a whore. I bloodied his face for that," Murphy said viciously, his fist curling hard in memory. "I'm not sorry for it. I might have broken his bones as well, but he told me he'd heard it from your mother's own lips. That she'd told him you'd been sneaking off with me, and might even be carrying my child."
She was dead pale now, her heart crackling with ice. "My mother said this to him?"
"She said-she couldn't, in good conscience, let him marry you in church when you'd sinned with me."
"She knew I hadn't," Brie whispered. "She knew we hadn't."
"Her reasons for believing it, or saying it, are her own. Maggie came by when I was cleaning myself up, and I told her before I could think better of it. At first I thought she'd go deal with Maeve with her fists, and I had to hold her there until she'd calmed a bit. We talked, and it was Maggie's thinking that Maeve had done it to keep you at home."
Oh, yes, Brianna thought. At home, that had never been a home. "Where I'd tend her, and the house, and Da."
"We didn't know what to do, Brianna. I swear to you I'd have dragged you away from the altar meself if you'd gone ahead and tried to marry that snake-bellied bastard. But he left the very next day, and you were hurting so. I didn't have the heart, nor did Maggie, to tell you what he'd said."
"You didn't have the heart." She pressed her lips together. "What you didn't have, Murphy, you nor Maggie, was the right to keep it from me. You didn't have the right any more than my mother did to say such things."
"Brianna."
She jerked back before he could touch her. "No, don't. I can't talk to you now. I can't talk to you." She turned and raced away.