"You're teasing me, aren't you?"
"I'm dealing the truth here. And there's another thing that guarantees you a place of honor in our fair town."
"What's that?"
"You broke the curse."
She made a face. "If you mention that stupid curse one more time, I swear, I'll-"
"I'd appreciate it if you would not refer to the condition of my former sex life as stupid," he said with grave dignity.
"At least you had a previous sex life. When I look back, I've got to wonder if I was the one under a spell. Two years is a long time to go between dates."
He gave her a smile that curled her toes.
"But it was worth the wait, right?" he said.
"I am not going to respond to such a leading question. Not in public, at any rate. Now, you'll have to excuse me, I'm trying to host a show here." She made to move off.
"By the way," he added, lowering his voice, "there is one more thing I wanted to tell you."
She paused and looked at him inquiringly. "Yes?"
He glanced around, apparently checking to see if there was anyone within earshot. Then he grasped her arm and urged her into a quiet corner of the room.
"Mitch and Sullivan and I think we've got a lead on the Upsall."
Stunned, she just stared at him for a couple of seconds. He was standing very close, one hand braced against the wall behind her. There was something utterly, dangerously masculine in the way he leaned into her slightly, cutting off her view of the room with his broad shoulders. His body language spoke of possession and a silent claim that she knew every other man in the room could probably read.
A sense of deja vu swept through her. This was the way he had stood with her at Lillian's gallery show, she thought. He had put himself between her and the crowd that evening, too, cutting her out of the herd, making her intensely aware of him and then asking her out on a date. She had known in her heart where a date with Nick would lead and her nerve had failed her that night.
Oh, sure, later she had come up with lots of really good reasons for avoiding the risk of getting involved with him, but the stark truth was that her courage had failed at crunch time that first night. She had run from him that evening and several more times after that.
But tonight was different. Tonight, because she had finally taken the risk, she knew him far more intimately and deeply and she could see what lay beneath the surface. In addition to the intensely sensual threat he posed, there was strength and honor and integrity. Dear God, I'm in love.
Automatically she lowered her own voice to a whisper. "Who? What? Where? Tell me what's going on here, Nick."
He looked at her very steadily. "No one's got more of a right to answers than you do. But this afternoon Sullivan and Mitchell asked me to ask you to give them until noon tomorrow to confirm our hunch."
"Why the delay?"
"We need to be sure. We're talking about someone with deep ties throughout the community. People are going to be hurt. We can't afford to be wrong."
She searched his face. He was genuinely concerned about what might happen when it all came undone.
"And if you're right?" she asked gently.
"There will be a lot of fallout. And it won't all come down on the person who took the painting. There is someone else who will probably get dumped on, too. An innocent bystander."
"Collateral damage."
"Yes."
She shivered. "I hate those words. Translated, they mean that real people will get burned."
"Yes," he said again. But this time his eyes went cold. "I told Sullivan and Mitch that, although I'm willing to give them some time, I'm not going to let this thing get hushed up or swept under a rug. One way or the other, by tomorrow afternoon, your name will be cleared, no matter who gets hurt. I'm not going to let you take the rap."
He meant every word, she thought. He was making it blazingly clear that she was his first priority. The realization gave her an odd feeling. No one had ever fought any battles for her and now, in the space of less than a week, Nick had gotten involved in a barroom brawl and was about to expose an upstanding member of the community as a thief. All in her name.
"All right," she said. "Tell Mitch and Sullivan I'll wait until tomorrow."
"Thanks. They'll be grateful."
"I owe them that much," she said. "For Aunt Claudia's sake, if nothing else." She peeked around his shoulder. "I'd better go. This crowd is getting bigger and it looks like the cookies have disappeared."
She made to slide around the broad shield of his shoulders.
"One more thing I wanted to tell you before you run off," he said quietly.
She looked back at him, her mind on the cookie supply issue. "Yes?"
"Something I should have said that first night at Lillian's show. Something I knew at the time. Something I've known all along. Just didn't quite recognize it until recently. Probably because I'm a little out of practice."
"What's that?"
"I love you."
She stared at him, open-mouthed. Bereft of speech.
He gave her a sexy, knowing smile. "Better go check on the cookies."
He pushed himself away from the wall and strolled off into the crowd.
"When are you gonna get your dog?" Anne asked.
"Right after my birthday," Carson said. "That's when the puppies will be old enough to be'dopted. Dad says we'll drive to Portland so I can pick out one. It's the same place where Winston was born."
"What are you going to name him?"
"I don't know yet. I'm still thinking."
"When you bring him back here to Eclipse Bay can I see him?"
"Sure," Carson said, feeling magnanimous. "You can come to my birthday party, too."
"Okay. Do you want to come to mine?"
"Yeah," Carson said. "When is it?"
"August fourteenth."
"I'll bring my dog with me," Carson promised. He looked across the room to where Jeremy stood talking to Hannah and Anne's grandparents. "Is he gonna be your new dad?"
"Maybe." Anne took a bite of her cookie. "Mom likes him a lot, I think. Grandma and Grandpa like him, too. Mom says they have good taste in men and this time she's going to listen to 'em."
"I like him, too. Do you?"
"Uh-huh." Anne nodded enthusiastically. "He came to our house for dinner last night and everybody laughed and we played games and stuff. He liked my pictures. It was fun." She looked at Octavia, who was moving across the room toward the cookie table. "Is Miss Brightwell gonna be your new mommy?"
"I think so," Carson said. Then he frowned, still a little troubled about some aspects of the situation. "Unless Dad screws up again."
Octavia spied the Willis brothers shortly before the end of the event.
She was about to bid them a pleasant good evening and thank them for attending the show when she suddenly remembered the mysterious key she had found in the back room closet.
"Torrance? Walter? Have you got time for a quick question?"
"Thinking of doing a little remodeling in here?" Walter surveyed the gallery with a speculative expression. "A new paint job wouldn't hurt. We can give you a good price on a few cans of taupe."
"I'm not planning on doing any painting for a while. This is more of a hardware issue. I found a key in the closet. It doesn't fit either of the doors. You two did the security and locks here and I thought I'd see if you recognized it. If not, I'll toss it."
They followed her into the back room and looked around with interest while she took the key off the closet hook.
"Sure is cluttered in here," Torrance said. "We could build you some shelving or maybe some racks for stacking all these paintings."
"That's not a bad idea," she said. "I'll think about it." She held out the key.
Walter took it from her and gave it a quick, cursory glance. "No problem. Reckon we know what this goes to, don't we, Torrance?"
"Sure do," Torrance said. "Leastways, it's the same brand we used for that job. I remember we ordered it
in special after the problems with that little rash of break-ins we had a couple years back." He looked at Octavia. "Turned out to be some kids fooling around. Summer people, you know. Sean Valentine took care of the situation, but a few folks around here got nervous and asked us to upgrade their locks and such."
"Won't be hard to check and see if this key fits where we think it does," Walter said.
Chapter 23
Octavia parked in the drive in front of the old, two-story house, turned off the ignition, and got out of the car. It was six-thirty in the morning, but fog veiled the early light and cast a damp pall on the entire town.
Or maybe it was just her mood, she thought as she went up the steps and crossed the front porch. She had not slept much last night.
She banged the brass knocker on the front door. When there was no response, she banged it a second time.
Eventually the door opened a crack.
"What on earth are you doing here at this hour of the morning?" Edith Seaton demanded.
"I think you know why I'm here," Octavia said gently. "I came to get the Upsall."
Edith stared at her through the narrow opening for a long moment. Without warning her face suddenly crumpled. In the space of five or six seconds she seemed to age at least a decade.
"Yes." She stood back and held the door open. "Yes, I suppose you'd better take it."
Octavia stepped into the shadowy foyer.
Edith turned, not speaking, and led the way toward the living room. She wore a long, faded dressing gown and slippers.
Octavia took a quick look around as she followed Edith. The house was decorated with what appeared to be leftovers from Edith's shop. There was a display of carnival glass in a case that stood against one wall. Small porcelain figures were arranged on the end tables. The furniture was heavy and old-fashioned.
Edith sat down very stiffly in a rose-patterned rocking chair. Octavia went to stand at the window that overlooked the garden.
"How did you figure it out?" Edith asked in a resigned voice.
"I came across a key in my back room. Last night I asked the Willis brothers if they recognized it. They said they had installed a special lock in the door of your shop. We checked. The key fit. Last night I got a phone call from Noreen Perkins. Sean Valentine had tracked her down to ask her about a missing painting and she was worried that I might think she'd had something to do with the theft."
"And you asked her about the key, I suppose," Edith said dully. "She no doubt told you that several months ago we exchanged keys and that she also gave me the security code to the gallery."
"Yes. She said that both of you had occasionally gotten accidentally locked out. She had trouble remembering the security code for the alarm system so she made sure you had it in case she ever needed it."
"We thought it would be a convenience for both of us."
Edith said. "But after she left, I forgot all about having the code and a key in my desk. Just never gave it another thought."
"Until the day you and everyone else in town discovered that Claudia Banner was my great-aunt."
"I couldn't believe it." Color rushed back into Edith's face. Her gnarled, spotted hands knotted into fists. "It was as if her ghost had come back to haunt me. Worse yet, it was happening all over again, just like it happened all those years ago. But this time it was my grandson she, I mean you, seduced."
"I did not seduce Jeremy."
"All that talk about putting his pictures on display in your gallery. Encouraging him to do more paintings for you. It was seduction, all right, and well you know it."
"It was business, not seduction."
"You went out to dinner with him several times, too."
"We are friends, Mrs. Seaton. But not lovers."
"Only because something better came along," Edith shot back hoarsely. "You dropped my Jeremy like a hot potato when Nick Harte started to date you. Don't deny it."
"I do deny it. Every single word. You're putting your own spin on this, Edith, but I think deep down you know that it isn't the truth."
"You caused trouble between Jeremy and Nick the same way Claudia Banner did with Mitchell Madison and Sullivan Harte."
"So you took the painting the night of the storm and tried to destroy my good name in a noble attempt to defend Jeremy from my wiles?" Octavia shook her head. "I'm not buying that, Edith."
Edith sat in rigid, stubborn silence.
"Do you know what I think?" Octavia sat down in the chair across from the older woman. "I think you used Jeremy as an excuse to take revenge for something that Claudia Banner did to you all those years ago. She is beyond your reach and maybe you told yourself you had put it all behind you. But when you realized that I was her niece, the old anger came rushing back, didn't it?"
Edith flinched. "She got away with it. But then, Claudia Banner got away with everything. She never paid for the trouble and pain she caused."
"Tell me what my great-aunt did to you, Edith."
"She seduced my husband." Edith surged up out of her chair. "And then she used him."
Octavia was on her feet now. "How did she use him?"
"Phil was the accountant for Harte-Sullivan. She got him to doctor the company books while she carried out her scam. That was the reason Mitchell and Sullivan never saw the bankruptcy coming until it was too late."
Octavia drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I see."
"It was as if she was some sort of sorceress," Edith whispered. "She put my Phil under a spell for a time. The poor fool never realized how she'd manipulated him until he woke up one morning and discovered that she had vanished. He actually thought that she would contact him after the heat died down. He really believed that she loved him and wanted him to run off with her. It was months before he finally understood that he'd been used."
"Was that when you discovered his role in the bankruptcy?"
"Yes. I'd suspected he was having an affair with her, but I never dreamed that she had seduced him into helping her drive Harte-Madison into bankruptcy. I was stunned. He was a Seaton, after all. How could he do something like that?"
"But you kept the secret."
"I had no choice. I had to think of the family name. I had the children to consider. Just imagine what they would have had to face here in Eclipse Bay if it had come out that their father had had a hand in the destruction of Harte-Madison."
"It would have been rough on them."
"And then there was the financial situation. If the truth had surfaced, my husband's career as an accountant would have been destroyed. At the very least the shame and humiliation would have forced us to leave town. Where would we have gone? This was our home."
"So you buried the past as best you could. Your husband never told Mitchell and Sullivan what he'd done."
"Of course not. I pointed out to him that there was nothing to be gained by confessing his part in their disaster and everything to lose."
"You succeeded in protecting your husband and the Seaton name, but you never forgave him or Aunt Claudia."
"I swear she was some sort of witch. She never paid for her wicked works. Probably never even gave her victims a second thought."
"You're wrong there, Edith. Aunt Claudia thought about the past a lot toward the end. In a way, she was obsessed with it."
There was no need to get into the specifics, Octavia thought. No point bringing up the fact that Claudia had never even mentioned the name Seaton during those times when she had talked about her adventures in Eclipse Bay. The only people who had concerned her at the end had been the Hartes and the Madisons.
"I have no right to ask you to forgive me for what I did," Edith said. "My only excuse is that, for a while after
I discovered who you were, I went a little mad. It was as if a curtain had opened and I was looking at the past again. It all came crashing back and the only thing I could think about was punishing that dreadful woman."
"It's called visiting the sins of the father on the son, or in thi
s case, visiting the sins of the great-aunt on the niece."
"I told myself I was doing it to show Jeremy and Nick the truth about you, but you're right, of course. I did it to avenge myself."
"So you took the Upsall and started the rumors that I was the thief."
"When I finally came to my senses, it was too late. It will all come out now, won't it? What Phil did in the past and what I tried to do to you. This time I won't be able to keep the stain off the family name. Jeremy will be embarrassed. The rest of the family and most of the people in town will think I've gone senile. And as for my friends-" Edith trailed off, bowing her head.
So much for nearly four decades of Wednesday and Saturday bridge games and civic committee meetings, Octavia thought. Even if the community and her friends were willing to forget the affair, Edith would never be able to hold her head up high in Eclipse Bay again.
She put a hand on one of Edith's thin shoulders. "You know, it was Aunt Claudia who urged me on her deathbed to come to Eclipse Bay. She said she wanted me to see if perhaps I could repair some of the damage she had done here. I assumed that she was referring to the Harte-Madison feud, and I have to tell you that I was feeling pretty useless because the Hartes and the Madisons took care of that issue all by themselves."
Edith took a hankie out of the pocket of her old robe and dabbed at her eyes. "Yes. Those two stubborn men seem to have become friends again."
"They didn't need me," Octavia said. "But maybe I was looking in the wrong place. Maybe this was the damage I was supposed to repair."
"I don't understand," Edith said.
"I know. I'll explain it to you while you get dressed. Hurry, we don't have a lot of time."
"It's very kind of you to want to help me after what I did to you, but it's too late, my dear. The truth will be all over town by nightfall. It's only right after all this time."
"You're going to have to trust me on this, Edith. For Jeremy's sake and the Seaton family name."
"But-"
"Aunt Claudia owes you this much," Octavia said.
She unlocked the gallery an hour earlier than usual and went straight to work reorganizing and tidying up the shop.
She took down drooping balloons and swept the cookie crumbs off the floor. It required three trips to the Dumpster to get rid of all the used paper cups, plates, and napkins.
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