He was checking underneath the platform to see if any balls had rolled under there when there was a slight, raspy sound. A woman clearing her throat. He hopped up.

“We’ll be open again in an-Mrs. Ortz?”

Looking distinctly uncomfortable, Earline Ortz stood, clutching her handbag and peering at him through horn-rimmed glasses. Even though they’d never spoken, seeing her gave him a macabre sense of déjà vu. In the weeks before he’d slept with Shay, he’d dreamed of her often; after her death, it became her parents’ grief-stricken faces that haunted his nightmares.

He wanted to ask Mrs. Ortz what he could do for her, but the answer was painfully obvious: nothing. She’d lost her only child, and he could never take back his part in that.

She cleared her throat a second time. “I’m working the crafts booth for the church,” she said suddenly, as if to explain her appearance here.

The booth that was down on Poplar Street? It was three blocks away. He remained silent, knowing she’d sought him out for a reason, uncertain he wanted to know what that reason was.

She squared her slim shoulders. “Mr. Sloan, not a day goes by that I don’t miss my daughter. I loved her very much.”

He winced, wondering if there would ever come a time when the guilt left him completely. Rationally he knew that he was no more to blame than the Templetons, but it was hard to be rational about it when they were dead.

“I’m sure she loved you, too,” he replied stiffly. He’d endured the looks on the Ortzs’ faces when he passed them in town, endured being the occasional subject of gossip, had even endured being questioned by the police, but there had never been any direct confrontation. Was that why Earline was here now, to finally blame him face-to-face?

“But even though I loved Shay,” Earline said, her voice cracking when she said her daughter’s name, “I wasn’t blind to her faults. Her father never wanted to see her as anything other than his little girl, but…Mr. Sloan, are you a churchgoing man?”

“Not regularly,” he admitted.

“We talk about the power of forgiveness, even as we cling to grudges and old hurts. Miss Waide was right in what she said this week. It’s been fourteen years, and you shouldn’t be punished forever. I…Between you and me, Mr. Sloan, I want you to know, I think it was a terrible accident involving people who’d made bad judgments in their personal life. I don’t think-It wasn’t your fault.”

Gabe was appalled to find that his eyes stung. Unchecked emotion welled up in him. Not even his own father had ever absolved him of responsibility for Shay’s death. If anything, Jeremy had implied that his adulterous son had reaped what he’d sown, the “wages of sin” being death. Gabe was overcome with the urge to hug Mrs. Ortz, but recognized that, in spite of her benevolence today, she probably wouldn’t return his warm and fuzzy sentiments.

“Mrs. Ortz.” There was a lump in his throat, and his choked voice sounded alien in his own ears. “Thank you.”

She paused as if she might answer, then merely nodded and bustled away.

As the woman retreated down the path between buildings, Gabe looked around him. The sky seemed bluer, the birdsong seemed more harmonious. It was a new world.

No, the world’s the same. It’s a new you. And he knew exactly who had been responsible for most of the recent changes in his life. If not for what Arianne had said at the town hall, would Earline have been moved to make today’s overture? For the first time in fourteen years, he felt like a free man, unshackled from shame and other people’s censure.

I have to tell Ari.

He covered the distance that led to the kissing booth, then drew up short at the line. There were at least half a dozen paying customers in front of him. Gabe wanted to knock them all aside, take her into his arms and share with her his unbelievably good news.

Since the fair’s patrons were good sports here for a bit of fun-he noticed many of the guys flirting with Arianne in bad piratespeak-they paid their dollar, dropped a quick kiss and went away. The line moved at a brisk clip. Ari, who was busy making change in the cash box and filling in tiny premarked sections of the lip poster, had yet to notice him. As he waited his turn with the woman he’d foolishly tried to walk away from, Gabe realized what he wanted to do.

He saw the exact moment she spotted him. She froze in the middle of teasing Beau Albright-the guy had made a joke about the size of his cannon, and Arianne had pretended disgust, calling him a bilge rat. Her eyes locked with Gabe’s and even from this distance, the electric current between them was unmistakable.

Hell with this. I’m claiming what’s mine. He reached into his pocket, slapped the patch over his eye and cut in line.

“Away wi’ ye,” he growled to the two guys who’d been ahead of him.

Arianne put a hand on her hip, projecting a fierce demeanor, but her lips twitched in amusement. And desire for him danced in her eyes. “And what d’ ye think yer doing?”

Gabe slapped his dollar down on the cash box, then stepped behind the table.

“You know,” she whispered, a sweet quaver in her voice as she melted against him, “you’re not really supposed to be back here.”

He grinned. “Pirates don’t have to follow rules.” Then he bent her backward over his arm and kissed her with fourteen years’ worth of pent-up emotion, never wanting to come up for air, never wanting to return to the bleak world as it had been before Arianne. Distantly he was aware of applause and whistles.

Pulling away, he studied her face, hoping his stunt hadn’t angered her.

She winked at him. “So does this mean you’re okay with people knowing we’re dating?”

“The more, the better.”

Starting with all the guys behind him who’d been planning to kiss Gabe’s girl. He reached into his wallet and extracted all the cash he had-two twenty-dollar bills.

Ari’s eyes went wide. “Forty bucks?”

“Does that meet your shift quota?”

“Well, yeah, but-”

“Then I claim the pirate queen for my own,” he informed the crowd.

Onlookers who hadn’t expected to get nearly this much entertainment value hooted and stamped their feet in approval. Arianne squeaked in surprise when he hefted her into his arms and carried her away.

“I should apologize for my rash behavior,” he told her, with absolutely no intention of doing so. “But you know how it is when you get an impulse. You have to act on it.”

“I CAN’T BELIEVE I LET YOU talk me into this,” Gabe groused good-naturedly from the nursery doorway.

“As if you had better plans!” Arianne wasn’t fooled by his bluster. He looked perfectly content to be here with her. And since she’d never spent this much time alone with a baby, she greatly appreciated the extra pair of hands. She’d canceled going to an annual Halloween bash one of her college friends threw, but she didn’t mind.

“Do you even get trick-or-treaters out where you live?” she asked, trying to picture Gabe handing out mini candy bars to three-foot-tall princesses and goblins.

“No, which is my point. We could have had a completely uninterrupted Halloween evening.” He waggled his eyebrows. “You could have busted out that lady pirate costume…”

She shot him a look as she finished dressing her niece. “As I recall, you ripped that pirate costume trying to get it off me last weekend.”

“Ah, yes.” He smiled in fond recollection. “Good times.”

“Here, come take Bailey for me.” The high-tech diaper pail was getting full, and Arianne needed a few minutes and two free hands to figure out how to empty it.

Gabe obliged, but held Bailey slightly away from his body, eyeing her as nervously as if she were a ticking bomb. Which in some ways, Arianne supposed, babies were.

Arianne laughed. “You’re not scared, are you?”

“Scared of this beautiful girl?” He grinned at the infant, who cooed adoringly in return. “Of course not. What I’m scared of is dinner with your family next weekend.”

The Waides often had Sunday dinner as a family, but this weekend was Rachel and David’s first away from the baby. They’d gone to nearby Helen, Georgia, leaving Bailey in the care of her doting aunt. Arianne tried not to take it personally that they’d called eight times to check on the baby and had only been gone since that morning. When the family reconvened for their usual group meal next week, Gabe would be joining them.

“They’ll love you,” she promised, passing by him toward the garage. “But if you want any more pointers-”

“Enough with the pointers. I didn’t study as hard for the SATs as you’ve been drilling me for this meal.”

Was she really that bad? she wondered as she washed her hands. All she wanted was for everyone to see Gabe the way she did-warm and wonderful. He was coming out of his shell more, but it wasn’t easy to overcome a decade of antisocial habits.

She joined them in the living room, where Gabe had set the baby on an activity blanket on the floor. “You know what I think would be fun?”

Gabe looked imploringly heavenward. “Please let there be costumes involved in this suggestion.”

“Fetishist!” she scolded. “I was thinking about a book club.”

“A book club?” he echoed, looking at her as if she’d suddenly started speaking Swahili.

“Yeah. You like to read, right? Why not get a group of our friends together, maybe every two weeks. We could decide what we wanted to read, then talk about the story-the themes, the symbols, what we liked, what we would have changed. My mom and dad belong to one and really enjoy it.”

He’d gone from looking confused to looking the same way he had earlier when he’d smelled a dirty diaper. “I don’t know, Ari. I like reading whatever I’m in the mood for when I have the time, not trying to meet someone else’s deadline. Themes? Symbols? Half your friends are teachers.”