“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 her 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.