"There's nothing wrong with you. Nothing at all."

"Of course there is." She dug out his handkerchief as her voice rose and fell and broke. "If there wasn't, I'd never have let him get away with it. I'm dull. He was bored with me almost as soon as we were married. People get bored with me. My students, my a.s.sociates. My own parents are bored with me."

"That's a foolish thing to say." He went to her now, taking her arms to give her a little shake. "There's nothing dull about you."

"You just don't know me well enough yet. I'm dull, all right." She sniffled, then nodded for emphasis. "I never do anything exciting, never say anything brilliant. Everything about me is average. I even bore myself."

"Who put these ideas in your head?" He would have shaken her again, but she looked so pitiful. "Did it ever occur to you that this William with his b.l.o.o.d.y pie charts and cultural whatever it was is the boring one? That if your students weren't enthusiastic it was because teaching wasn't what you were meant to do?"

She shrugged. "I'm the common factor."

"Jude Frances, who's come to Ireland on her own, to live in a place she's never been, with people she's never met and to do work she's never done?"

"That's different."

"Why?"

"Because I'm just running away."

He felt both impatience and sympathy for her. "Boring you're not, but hardheaded you are. You could give a mule lessons. What's wrong with running away if where you were didn't suit you? Doesn't it follow you're running to something else? Something that does suit you?"

"I don't know." And she was too tired and achy to think it through.

"I've done some running myself. To and from. In the end I landed where I needed to be." He bent down to press a kiss to her forehead. "And so will you."

Then he drew her away, rubbed a tear from her cheek with his thumb. "Now, sit down here while I go clear up a few things in the pub. Then I'll see you home."

"No, that's all right. I can walk back."

"You'll not be walking in the rain and the dark and when you're feeling sad. Just sit and drink your tea. I won't be long."

He left her alone before she could argue, then stood on the stairs for a few minutes to get his own mind in order.

He was trying not to be angry with her for not telling him about the marriage. He was a man who took such commitments seriously, because of his faith and his own sensibilities. Marriage wasn't something you wound in and out of as you pleased, but something that cemented you.

Hers had crumbled through no fault of her own, but she should have told him. It was the principle of it.

And he'd just have to get by it, Aidan warned himself. He'd also have to do some careful treading over the sensitive areas of her that circ.u.mstance had rubbed so raw. He didn't want to be responsible for pinching where it already hurt.

Jesus, he thought, rubbing the back of his neck as he headed down to the pub. The woman was a bucket of work.

"What's the matter with Jude?" Darcy demanded the minute he stepped into the kitchen.

"She's all right. She had some news from home that upset her is all." He picked up the receiver on the wall phone to call Brenna.

"Oh, not her granny." Darcy set down the order she'd just picked up, and her eyes were full of concern.

"No, nothing like that. I'm going to call Brenna and see if she can cover for me a couple of hours. I want to drive Jude home."

"Well, and if she can't, Shawn and I will manage."

Aidan paused with the phone in his hand and smiled. "You're a sweetheart when you want to be, Darcy."

"I like her and I think she needs a bit of fun in her life. Seems to be there's been precious little up to now. And having her husband leave her for another woman before her bridal bouquet was dry is bound to-"

"Wait now-hold on a minute. You knew she was married?"

Darcy lifted a brow. "Of course." She hefted the order, sauntered toward the door with it. "It's not a secret."

"Not a secret," he muttered, then with gritted teeth dialed Brenna's number. "The whole village likely knew, but not me."

CHAPTER Twelve

By the time Aidan came back and they walked down to his car, Jude had time to calm down, and to review.

Mortification didn't begin to cover it. She had burst into the pub, then had s.e.xually a.s.saulted the man in his place of business. Perhaps in time-twenty or thirty years, she estimated-she would find that particular memory fascinating, and even amusing. But for now it was just humiliating.

Then she had compounded that by raging, weeping, blubbering, and cursing. All in all, she couldn't think of anything she might have done that could have shocked them both more unless it was stripping naked and dancing a jig on his bar.

Her mother had congratulated her on maintaining her dignity while under terrible stress. Well, Mother, she thought, don't look now.

And after all that, Aidan was driving her home because it was dark and rainy, and he was kind.

She imagined he couldn't wait to be rid of her.

As they b.u.mped up her little road, she tried out a dozen different ways to smooth over the embarra.s.sment, and every one sounded stilted or silly. Still, she had to say something. It would be cowardly, and rude, not to.

So she took a deep breath, then let it out in a rush.

"Do you see her?"

"Who?"

"In the window." Jude reached out, gripping his arm as she stared at the figure in the window of her cottage.

He looked up, smiled a little. "Aye. She's waiting. I wonder if time stretches out for her, or if a year is only a day."

He switched off the engine so they sat with the rain drumming until the figure faded away.

"You did see her. You're not just saying that."

"Of course I saw her, as I have before and will again." He turned his head, studied Jude's profile. "You're not uneasy, are you, staying out here with her?"

"No." Because the answer came so easily, she laughed. "Not at all. I should be, I suppose, but I'm not the least bit uneasy here, or with her. Sometimes-"