Tanya Michaels: Mistletoe Hero

“No-I mean, yes. No to the first question,” he backpedaled. Would they be able to reach some kind of compromise, instead of ending on Wednesday’s disastrous note? “After this, I’m all yours.”

GABE HADN’T PARTICIPATED in one of the town’s festivals since he was a boy, but even as distracted as he was today by thoughts of Arianne, he was enjoying himself. As predicted, the mayor and his wife put on quite a spectacle for the crowd when she forced him to “walk the plank.” A few of the Whiteberry faculty members chipped in to have Patrick thrown into “Davy Jones’s locker,” as a kind of initiation.

Patrick grumbled teasingly from within the ball pit, “Whatever happened to the days when folks said howdy by baking the new guy a cake?”

Lilah Waide also got tagged three different times by her students to go off the plank into the pit; by the third time, though, she’d caught a grinning Tanner actually giving the kids dollar bills.

“There will be payback,” she cheerfully threatened her husband as Gabe helped her out of the pit.

Quinn passed by midmorning to check in on the festivities and to rather thoughtfully bring Gabe a freshly made funnel cake-also known as an elephant ear because of its size and shape. Warm and gooey with powdered sugar, the fried dough dessert was almost too big for one person to eat alone, and he caught himself scanning the crowd for Arianne. Even though he knew that she was busy elsewhere, he automatically wanted to share this with her, see her smile at the first sweet bite. He wanted to kiss away the dots of sugar she’d no doubt have clinging to the corner of her lips.

The thought reminded him that she was working in the kissing booth. Now that he’d seen her attire for the day, the jealousy he’d battled earlier returned to gnaw at him.

“How are things going over at Arianne’s booth?” he asked Quinn, hoping he sounded nonchalant rather than covetous.

The look she gave him was far too knowing. “Have you seen the poster over there? It’s a big set of lips that represents how much money they’re trying to raise. Each girl colors part of it red during her shift to show whether or not she’s on target to make their goal. Poor Ari’s probably gonna end up kissing a lot of frogs today for the sake of the school. If it helps to know…”

“Yes?” Gabe prompted, surprised to see Quinn blushing.

“Lilah and I asked her to work some of the shifts at the booth, but that was before…you.”

Her words humbled him. He recalled too vividly how he’d hurt Arianne by making her think he wouldn’t want anyone to know that they were a newly formed couple. Who had he been kidding? It was Mistletoe; people would figure it out. By not openly acknowledging his budding feelings for Arianne, he wasn’t protecting her but merely fueling the potential for speculative gossip. He should be thrilled that people might link him and Arianne; she was certainly the best thing to happen to him in a long time.

“Quinn, you don’t owe me any explanations. But thanks for thinking of me.”

She shot him a mischievous smile. “Well, I just know how I’d feel if Patrick was over there working that particular booth. So I empathize.”

He dropped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed in a quick, casual hug and thanked her again for the funnel cake.

“I promise to be back later with something to drink,” she said. “But the cakes were too big for me to carry beverages, too!”

The festival committee had agreed ahead of time that the pirate plank fundraiser would only be open for certain posted hours since a lot of the officials who were being “dunked” also had other duties they had to perform while they were here. Gabe hung a sign that invited interested parties to come back in an hour, and used the break to check the platform stability and replace the dozen or so balls that had fallen out while victims were exiting the enclosure.

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.