“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.