“And now,” Cliff said, interrupting, “it’s ten years later.”

“Why should that matter?” she demanded. “My parents were killed ten years ago— Time doesn’t make any difference.”

“That,” he countered, less gently than he’d intended, “had everything to do with you.”

With a sigh, she allowed herself the weakness of resting her head against him. “I know how Joyce is feeling now. Everywhere I look, something draws me into this.”

The more Maggie talked of Joyce, the less Cliff thought of the quiet brunette, and the more he thought of Maggie. His fingers tangled in her hair. It wasn’t desire he felt now, but an almost fierce, protective urge he’d never expected. Perhaps there was something he could do, he decided, drawing her away.

“You didn’t know William Morgan.”

“No, but—”

“I did. He was a cold, ruthless man who didn’t believe in words like compassion or generosity.” Deliberately, he set Maggie aside and tended to the meat under the broiler himself. “Half the town would’ve cheered ten years ago if it hadn’t been for Louella. She loved the old man. Joyce loved him, too, but both of them feared him every bit as much. The police won’t have an easy time proving who killed him, and the town won’t care. I detested him myself, for a lot of reasons.”

She didn’t like knowing that he could speak of a man’s murder so calmly, so coldly. But then, as she’d told him herself before, they really didn’t understand each other. To keep her hands busy, Maggie went back to the salad. “Joyce?” she asked casually.

He glanced at her sharply, then leaned on the counter again. “Yeah, for one. Morgan believed in discipline. Old-fashioned discipline. Joyce was like my kid sister. When I caught Morgan going at her with a belt when she was sixteen, I threatened to kill him myself.”

He said it so casually Maggie’s blood froze. He saw the doubts and the questions in her eyes when she looked at him.

“And so,” Cliff added, “as the stories go, did half the population of Morganville. No one grieved when they fished William Morgan’s car out of the river.”

“No one has the right to take a life,” Maggie said in a shaky voice. “Not their own or anyone else’s.”

He remembered that they had fished her husband’s car out of the water, too. He remembered that the final verdict had been suicide. “You’d be better off not making comparisons,” he said roughly.

“They seem to make themselves.”

“What happened to Jerry Browning was a tragic waste of a life and of a talent. Do you plan on taking the blame for that, too?”

“I never took the blame,” Maggie said wearily.

“Did you love him?”

Her eyes were eloquent, but her voice was steady. “Not enough.”

“Enough to be faithful to him for six years,” Cliff countered.

She smiled as her own words came back to her. “Yes, enough for that. Still, there’s more to love than loyalty, isn’t there?”