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excitement when they thought a pair of bald eagles was nesting here, but apparently the pair moved down the coast to the large preserve near Cape May.
    Awash in melancholy, Clay looked at his watch. 6 P.M. He bent down and patted his dog’s head. “Let’s go, boy. Mom’s not expecting us tonight, so I’d better stop somewhere for dinner before we show.”
    He pulled up to one of the few restaurants open off-season and told Terror to be a good boy and take a nap. He’d be back soon. He climbed out and held Terror in while he closed the door, sliding his hand out at the last minute. He bumped the door with his hip to get the latch to give its final click.
    Suddenly, Terror remembered his lessons about standing with his paws on the window ledge. He reared up and watched Clay with sad, accusing eyes.
    “I’m coming back,” he assured the animal.
    Terror looked skeptical. It was as if he knew how Clay had come back to Leigh.
    He shook off the guilty feeling as he pulled the restaurant door open. The dog knew nothing. It was his own conscience talking, more tender than ever after the visit to the house by the bay. He took a table by himself at the back of the dining room and gave his order. He pulled out James Scott Bell’s latest legal thriller and began to read.
    Unfortunately he couldn’t keep his mind on the well-written caper. Leigh kept popping up on the page, her brown eyes alternately warm as they’d been when he left her all those years ago or scornful as he imagined they’d be today.
    “Fine Christian you turned out to be,” she’d say. “Venal as any other man.”
    Lord, what am I going to do about her? I know she lives in thegarage behind our house. I know she went out of her way to ignore me when I was here for Dad’s funeral. And the other times I’ve been here since, she’s been pointedly gone. God, I know this mess is my own fault, but could You help me anyway?
    He saw her again in his mind—young, lovely, and lonely, so very lonely. And he’d taken advantage of her vulnerability. There was no other way to describe what he’d done.
    Oh, not that he’d forced any intimacy on her. She’d been more than willing. She welcomed it, in fact, and for a while he allowed himself to hide behind that truth. He wasn’t all that culpable because she had been eager, compliant. But he couldn’t hide long from the fact that she’d been susceptible to his loving because no one had loved her in a terribly long time, if ever.
    He could still see her as he prepared to leave her house that long ago night, her hair mussed, her eyes warm and full of deep emotion.
    Already his conscience was screaming at him now that his body wasn’t. “Leigh, I—” The “I’m sorry” stuck in his throat.
    She misunderstood. “It’s all right if you can’t say it tonight, Clay.” She raised a hand and rested her fingers gently against his lips. Her other hand lay over his heart. “I love you, too.” She rose up and gave him a quick kiss. “Just hug me good night. You can say it later.”
    But there hadn’t been a later. He’d known there wouldn’t be even as he held her in his arms and kissed her again and again. He was leaving the next morning with his parents and Ted for a last family vacation, and as soon as they returned, he would leave for the Naval Academy and four years where his time wouldn’t be his own.
    Tell her there’s no later
, he ordered himself.
Tell her!
    But he hadn’t. He’d been a coward, and that night had colored the rest of his life as no other single experience ever had.
    He had driven past her house twice between vacation and leaving for school, but it looked unoccupied. When he’d come home at Christmas, his first break from the Academy, he’d driven past again, telling himself that if he saw her, he’d stop and apologize. Not that an apology was sufficient for the hurt he’d dealt, but it was the best he could offer. He’d been both disappointed and relieved when no one seemed