Jeremy was the grandson of Edith Seaton, owner of an antiques shop located next door to Bright Visions Gallery. The Seatons had roots in the community that went back as far as those of the Hartes and the Madisons. Although Edith's husband, Phil, had died several years ago, she continued to take an active role in local affairs. Her son and daughter had moved away, but Jeremy had recently returned to take a position as an analyst at the Eclipse Bay Policy Studies Institute. The social and political think tank was one of Eclipse Bay's few claims to sophistication.
He knew Jeremy very well from the old days. They were the same age and they had been good friends at one time. But things had changed a couple of years ago. Women sometimes had that effect on a friendship.
He looked at Carson. "Miss Brightwell obviously doesn't think highly of me, but it's pretty clear that she likes you."
"I know she likes me," Carson said with exaggerated patience. "That's because I bring her coffee and a muffin every morning when we go into town to get the mail. But she might change her mind if you make her mad."
The sad fact was that Carson had made a lot more headway with Octavia than he had, Nick realized. His son adored the Fairy Queen of Eclipse Bay. For her part, she seemed to be very fond of Carson. The two of them had developed a relationship that somehow completely excluded him, Nick thought. It was frustrating.
"Don't worry," he said. "She's not the type to hold a grudge against you just because she doesn't want to go out with me."
He was pretty sure that was the truth. Octavia was a great mystery to him in many ways, but when it came to this aspect of her personality, he felt very sure of himself. She would never hold the sins of the father, whatever they might be, against the son.
Carson remained dubious. "Promise me you won't ask her out again until after she chooses one of my pictures."
"Okay, okay, I won't call her again until she makes her selection."
That was a safe promise. He figured it would be at least another three or four days before he could fortify himself to make a seventh phone call.
"Let's see your pictures," he said.
"They're in the bedroom." Carson whipped around and dashed off down the hall.
Nick followed him around the corner and into the downstairs room that his sister Lillian had turned into a temporary studio a few months earlier.
Three large squares of heavy drawing paper were arranged in a row on the hardwood floor. The pictures were all done in crayon, per the rules of the exhibition.
Nick went to stand looking down at the first picture. The scene showed a house with two stick figures standing very close together inside. The taller of the two figures had one arm extended protectively over the head of the smaller figure. A yellow sun shone brightly above the peaked roof.
There was a green flower with several petals in the right-hand corner.
"That's you and me," Carson said proudly. He indicated the stick figures. "You're the big one."
Nick nodded. "Nice colors." He moved on to the next drawing and pondered it for a moment. At first all he could make out was a vague oval shape done in gray crayon. There were several jagged lines around the outside of the oval. He was baffled until he noticed the two pointy projections on top. Dog ears.
"This is Winston, I take it?" he said.
"Yeah. I had a little trouble with his nose. Dog noses are hard."
"Good job on the ears."
"Thanks."
Nick studied the third picture, a scene of five brown, elongated shapes thrusting out of a blue crayon circle. "The rocks in Dead Hand Cove?"
"Uh-huh." Carson frowned. "Aunt Lillian said it would make a good picture, but I dunno. Kind of boring. I like the other two better. Which one do you think I should give to Miss Brightwell?"
"That's a tough question. I like them all."
"I could ask Aunt Lillian. She's a real artist."
"She and Gabe are stuck in Portland for a while because Gabe is tied up with Dad and Sullivan while they hammer out the plans for the merger. You'll have to make the choice without her advice."
Carson studied the two pictures with a troubled expression. "Huh."
"I've got an idea," Nick said smoothly. "Why don't you take all three pictures with you tomorrow when we go into town? You can show them to Octavia when you take her the coffee and muffin. She can choose the one she likes best."
"Okay." Carson brightened immediately, clearly pleased by that suggestion. "I'll bet she goes for Winston. She likes him."
Not yet six and the kid was already displaying an intuitive understanding of the client, Nick thought. Carson was a natural for the business world. Unlike himself.
He had hated the corporate environment. His decision to leave Harte Investments, the company his grandfather, Sullivan, had founded and that his father, Hamilton, had taken over had not gone down well. Although his father had understood and supported him, his grandfather had been hurt and furious at the time. He had seen Nick's refusal to follow in his footsteps as a betrayal of everything he had worked so hard to achieve.
He and Sullivan had managed a rapprochement eventually, thanks to the intervention of everyone else in the family. They were back on speaking terms at any rate. But deep down, Nick was not certain that Sullivan would ever entirely forgive him.
He did not really blame his grandfather. Sullivan had poured his blood and sweat into building Harte Investments. He had envisioned the firm descending through generation after generation of Hartes. The company had been a personal triumph for him, a phoenix rising from the ashes after the destruction of Harte-Madison, the commercial real estate development business he had founded with his former partner, Mitchell Madison, here in Eclipse Bay.
The collapse of the company decades earlier had ignited a feud between Sullivan and Mitchell that had thrived until recently. The bad blood between the Hartes and the Madisons was legendary in these parts. It had provided fodder for the gossips of Eclipse Bay for three generations.
But the first crack in the wall that had separated the two very different families had come last fall when Rafe Madison, the bad boy of the Madison family, had married Nick's sister Hannah. Several more bricks had crumbled last month when his other sister, Lillian, had wed Gabe Madison.
But the earth-shattering news that Harte Investments and Gabe's company, Madison Commercial, were in the process of merging had been the final blazing straw as far as the good people of Eclipse Bay were concerned. The newly formed corporation, after all, effectively re-created the company that had been ripped apart at the start of the feud. Life had seemingly come full circle.
"You may be right about the Winston picture," Nick said. "But the house is pretty good, too. The green flower is a great touch."
"Yeah, but there will be lots of houses and flowers in the art show. All the kids I know like to draw houses and flowers. Probably won't be any other dogs, though. Hardly anyone can draw a dog, especially not one as good as Winston."
"Winston is unique. I'll give you that."
Carson looked up at him with a considering expression. "I've been thinking, Dad."
"What?"
"Maybe you shouldn't come with me when I take my pictures to Miss Brightwell tomorrow."
Nick raised his brows. "You want me to wait in the car?"
Carson smiled, clearly relieved. "Good idea. That way she won't even see you."
"You're really afraid I'm going to mess up your shot at getting a picture into the gallery show, aren't you?"
"I just don't want to take any chances."
"Sorry, pal. I've got my own agenda here and I'm not about to waste a perfectly good opportunity to move ahead with it just because you're worried she won't hang your picture."