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day, but he couldn't. He had seen Emily leave around nine-thirty this morning with the middle-aged man he'd seen visiting often. He was sure the guy was Fowler Jordan, her late husband's uncle, the man who hadn't missed a day of Mitch's trial. From the way they'd been dressed, Mitch assumed Emily and Jordan were headed for church. Emily was a good little girl, the type the old Mitch Hayden had avoided like the plague. That alone should have been enough warning. But no, it had simply increased his desire to know her, the hauntingly beautiful woman who often watched him from her porch.
    She had no idea who he was, of course. Even if she had seen the few newspaper photographs of him taken during the trial, she wouldn't recognize him. He'd changed so much in the past five years, he doubted his own brothers and sisters would recognize him. The man he was now bore little resemblance to the man he'd once been.
    When he had rented the cottage on the beach, he hadn't meant to become so fascinated by Emily, hadn't meant to think of her as anything more than a victim to whom he owed recompense. He had told himself all he wanted to do was make certain she was okay—really okay—and find out if there was anything he could do to help her.
    Hell, it wasn't as if he needed a woman's company so damn bad. If he did, all he had to do was take up the offer he'd seen in that waitress's eyes, the bosomy blonde at Andy's, where he often ate supper after work.
    Getting a woman wasn't his problem. A sexual relationship with Emily wasn't the reason he was here. Guilt and remorse motivated him, and the hope for redemption.
    The spring sunshine warmed his face and heated his body through his jeans and shirt. Cottony white clouds filled a brilliant blue sky, and the tawny white sand crunched beneath his feet. A soft breeze floated in off the Gulf as the murky blue-gray water of
Mobile
Bay
drifted in and out to the rhythm of the ocean's heartbeat.
    There was a dreamlike serenity to this private stretch of beach, and only the sound of a piano could be heard over the lapping surf and mild wind. Slow and soft, gentle music filled the air. Mitch listened carefully, not recognizing the tune, but immediately aware that it was something classical. It figures, he thought. Emily Jordan looked like the classical type. He wasn't surprised that the melody coming from her small cassette player would be something written hundreds of years ago. Even though he was standing a good twenty feet away from his neighbor, he could make out her delicate features as she sat, concentrating on the sketch pad in front of her. Her oval face was as golden tan as her slender arms and legs. Her nose was small and slightly tilted at the end. Her chin held a hint of a dimple. Her mouth was full and pouty—the kind of mouth that made a man want to taste it.
    She had tied her pink cotton blouse in a loose knot at her waist and hiked her full floral skirt up to her hips. She'd bent her legs at the knees so she could use them as a makeshift prop for her pad. Mitch had a perfect view of her long, trim thighs and shapely calves.
    Fabric in the same design as her skirt draped around the wide-brim straw hat she wore. Long tails of flowery pink material cascaded down her back and covered part of her sun-streaked, dark-brown ponytail. Loose tendrils of hair curled about her face, clinging to her forehead where perspiration dampened it.
    When he was within a few feet of her, Mitch stopped. She seemed totally oblivious to his presence as she continued using the charcoal in her hand to create a sketch of the bay. When the music ended, she didn't stop drawing; she merely reached down with one hand to where the cassette player lay on the quilt beneath her and turned over the tape. Another tune, completely alien to Mitch, permeated the air, mixing the sound of harp with the light spring breeze.
    He felt like a fool standing there staring at her. He wasn't some insecure teenage boy hoping to impress a