“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.