"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."