So he didn't have a lot of interest in the family business. He was still a Harte, Nick thought: He was just as goal-oriented and capable of focusing on an objective as anyone else in the clan.
"If you wait in the car," Carson said ingratiatingly, "I promise I'll tell Miss Brightwell that it would be okay to go out with you."
One of the Harte family mottos in action, Nick thought, not without a degree of sincere admiration. When you find yourself backed into a corner, negotiate your way out of it.
"Let me get this straight." He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans and looked down at his son. "If I agree to stay out of the way tomorrow, you'll put in a good word for me?"
"She likes me, Dad. I think she'd agree to go out with you if I asked her."
"Thanks, but no thanks. I may not have followed in the family footsteps like Dad and Granddad, but that doesn't mean I don't know how to get what I want."
And he definitely wanted Octavia Brightwell.
That, he thought, was the real reason he and Carson were in Eclipse Bay for an extended stay. He had come here to lay siege to the castle of the Fairy Queen.
"Well, okay, but promise you won't wreck things for me."
"I'll do my best."
Resigned, Carson turned back to the dog picture. "I think Winston needs more fur."
He selected a crayon and went to work.
She was an out-and-out coward.
Octavia sat on the stool behind the gallery sales counter, the heels of her sandals hooked on the top rung, and propped her chin on her hands. She regarded the phone as if it were a serpent.
One date.
How could it hurt to go out with Nick Harte just once?
But she knew the answer to that. If she accepted one invitation, she would probably accept another. And then there would be a third. Maybe a fourth. Sooner or later she would end up in bed with him and that would be the biggest mistake of her life. Some thrill rides were just too risky.
They called him Hardhearted Harte back in Portland. Nick had a reputation for confining his relationships to discreet, short-term affairs that ended whenever his partner of the moment started pushing for a commitment.
According to the gossip she had heard, Nick never went to bed with a woman without first having delivered what was known as The Talk.
The Talk was said to be a clear, concise position statement that made it plain that he was not interested in any long-term arrangements like marriage. Women who chose to sleep with Nick Harte went into the relationship with their eyes wide open.
They said that even if you lured him into your bed, he would be gone long before dawn. He never stayed the night, according to the stories that circulated about him.
Here in Eclipse Bay, where gossip about the Hartes and the Madisons had been raised to a fine art, folks were certain that they knew the real reason for The Talk. The local mythology held that Nick, being a true Harte, was unable to love again because he was still mourning the loss of his beloved Amelia. He was under a curse, some said, doomed never to find another true love until the right woman shattered the spell that bound him. His reputation for never staying the night with any of his lovers only fanned the flames of that particular legend.
Of course, that did not stop shoppers in the narrow aisles at Fulton's Supermarket from holding forth on the subject of the importance of Nick marrying again in order to provide his son with a mother. They said the same thing at the post office and in the hardware store.
But Carson didn't need a mother, Octavia thought. Nick was doing a fine job of raising him, as far as she could tell. The boy was the most self-assured, well-adjusted, precocious little kid she had ever met in her life. And there was no shortage of feminine influence available to him. Carson enjoyed the warmth of a close-knit, extended family that included a doting grandmother, a great-grandmother, and two aunts, Lillian and Hannah.
She unhooked her sandals, rose from the stool, and went to stand at the front window of Bright Visions. The morning fog was thinning, but it had not yet burned off. Across the street she could just make out the pier and the nearby marina. The lights were on in the Incandescent Body bakery down the street, and she could see the erratic snap and pulse of the broken neon sign that marked the Total Eclipse Bar amp; Grill. The tavern's logo, Where the Sun Don't Shine, was just barely visible.
The rest of the world was lost in a sea of gray mist.
Just like her life.
A shiver went through her. Where had that thought come from? She wrapped her arms around herself. She would not go there, she vowed silently.
But the moody feeling was a warning, loud and clear. It was time to make some new plans; time to take control of her future. Her mission here in Eclipse Bay had been a failure.
Time to move on.
Her mission.
For months she had told herself that she had come here to right the wrongs of the past. In the beginning she had established a schedule that had allowed her to divide her time between this gallery and the main branch in Portland. But as the months went by she had found more and more reasons to extend her visits in Eclipse Bay.
Deep down she had actually been elated when her assistant here had run off with the artist. On impulse she had placed the Portland branch in the capable hands of a trusted manager, packed her suitcases, and moved her personal possessions into the little cottage on the bluff near Hidden Cove.
What had she been thinking? she wondered.
It was obvious that the Hartes and the Madisons did not need her help in healing the rift her great-aunt, Claudia Banner, had created so many years ago. The proud families were successfully putting the feud behind them without any assistance at all from her. There had been two weddings in the past few months that had united the clans, and now those old warriors, Sullivan Harte and Mitchell Madison, could be seen drinking coffee and eating donuts together at the bakery whenever Sullivan was in town.
No one in Eclipse Bay needed her. There was no reason for her to stay. It was time to go.
But that was easier said than done. She couldn't just close the door of the gallery and disappear in the middle of the night. Bright Visions was a small business, but it was thriving, and that meant it was worth a goodly sum. She would have to make arrangements to sell up and that might take a while. And then there was the matter of her obligations to the various artists whose work she exhibited and the commitment she had made to the Children's Art Show.
The art show had been her idea. She was the one who had come up with the concept and lobbied the members of the Eclipse Bay Summer Celebration committee to include it as one of the activities associated with this year's event. Enthusiasm for the project ran high. She knew that the children who planned to draw pictures for the event would be crushed if she cancelled it.
All in all, she concluded, what with getting Bright Visions ready to sell and fulfilling her business and civic commitments, she would probably not be able to escape Eclipse Bay until the end of the summer. But by fall she would be somewhere else. She had to find a place where she truly belonged.
Chapter 2
That afternoon she closed the gallery at five-thirty and drove over to Mitchell Madison's house. She got out of the car and waved at Bryce as she went past the open kitchen door. He looked up from the pot he was stirring on the stove and inclined his head in a solemn greeting.
She smiled to herself. Bryce was the strong, silent type. He had worked for Mitchell for years. No one knew much about his past before he had arrived in town, and Bryce had never felt any impulse to enlighten anyone on that subject.