Dawn in Eclipse Bay

rubbery-chicken business dinner complete with long, boring speeches?”
    “I’ll be giving one of those long, boring speeches. Do you want to come with me or not?”
    “I’ll think about it.”
    “Think fast. I’m going to drive into Portland Monday morning so that I can get some time in at the office before the dinner. I plan to stay overight and drive back here Tuesday.”
    “Hmm.”
    “What does that mean?”
    She shrugged. “Going into Portland for the night would give me a chance to stop by my studio and pick up some odds and ends that I left behind. Yes, I can see where the trip might be marginally worthwhile for me.”
    “Okay, I get the point. It wasn’t a real romantic invitation, was it?”
    “I can live with the unromantic part. Just so we’re clear that this is not to be considered as your sixth, contractually arranged, bought-and-paid-for Private Arrangements date.”
    “Call it whatever you want.”
    “I’ll do that,” she said curtly and opened the screen door. “And another thing you should know before we drive into Portland for this big evening on the town.”
    “What’s that?”
    “I feel that we both need to give ourselves a chance to evaluate the future direction of this relationship.”
    He stilled. “What the hell does that mean?”
    “In simple terms?”
    “Yeah, I do best with simple terms.”
    “It means no more sex, at least not for a while. I want some time to think about what’s going on here. I believe that you should do some thinking about it, too.”
    He said nothing. Just looked at her.
    “Is that a problem for you?” she asked.
    “Hell, no. I can think. Do it all the time. Sometimes I have two or three whole thoughts in the course of a day.”
    “I thought you could probably handle it.”
    “What I’m thinking now is that this decision not to have any more sex for a while has something to do with that scene that just took place with Mitchell.”
    She hesitated. “Maybe his sudden appearance on the doorstep first thing this morning did help to put some things into perspective. But don’t blame him. They were things that I should have thought about last night.”
    “Like what?”
    “Do you have to get obsessive about this, too?”
    “I just want some answers.”
    She put one hand flat on the screen. “I want us both to be sure that we know what we’re doing.”
    “Does that mean you don’t know what you’re doing? Or that you don’t think I know what I’m doing?”
    “I came here to Eclipse Bay to paint. You came here to recover from a bad case of burnout. Neither of us planned to get involved in a relationship.”
    Understanding hit him.
    “What happened between us last night scared the hell out of you, didn’t it?” he asked softly.
    Her nails made little indentations in the screen.
    “Maybe we should both be a little scared, Gabe.”
    “If it’s Mitchell you’re worrying about, forget it. I’m pretty sure he bought that story you gave him about walking over here for coffee this morning. He doesn’t know you spent the night.”
    She looked down the long drive to the place where Mitchell’s SUV had disappeared.
    “He knows,” she said.

    “Where’s that damn cell phone?” Mitchell asked.
    Bryce took one hand off the wheel long enough to reach into the small space between the seats. He picked up the phone and handed it to Mitchell without comment.
    Mitchell found his reading glasses, fished a notebook out of his pocket, flipped it open and located the number he wanted. He carefully punched the digits on the phone, peering carefully at the display to make sure he’d struck the right ones. It wasn’t easy. The arthritis made some things harder than they had been in the old days.
    “Why do they make these buttons so damn tiny?” he asked.
    “People like small phones,” Bryce said. “Small phones require small buttons.”
    “That was what they call one of them rhetorical questions.” Mitchell listened to the phone ring. “You weren’t supposed to actually answer it.”
    “You ask me a question, you get an answer,” Bryce said.
    “You’d think I’d know that by now.”
    “Yes, sir, you would think that.”
    The phone rang a third time.
    “Shoot and damn,” Mitchell said. “He’d better be there. I don’t have time—”
    The fourth ring was cut short.
    “Hello?” Sullivan Harte said.
    Mitchell grunted with satisfaction at the sound of the cool, graveled voice. He and Sullivan hadn’t had much to do with each