Eclipse Bay

avoid them. He prefers to maneuver behind the scenes.”
    Rafe was unconvinced. “I don’t know. He was plenty pissed last night.”
    She exhaled heavily. “It just doesn’t feel like the kind of trick he would pull. More likely it was a local kid. A budding little sociopath who has graduated from setting fires to torturing animals.”
    Rafe said nothing.
    “You’ve got a problem with my logic?”
    “I’m just thinking,” he said.
    “I can see that. And it makes me nervous.”
    “Me, thinking, makes you nervous? Why?”
    “Because the last time you did some serious thinking you decided to make us partners in Dreamscape.”
    “That’s different.”
    “Bull.”
    “It’s going to work. You’ll see, partner.”
    She pointedly ignored that. “What, exactly, are you thinking about what happened tonight?”
    He hesitated and then decided there was nothing to be gained by keeping silent. “I’m thinking that whatever is going on here might not be about you.”
    “Not about me? That was my dog out there on the finger.”
    “What I meant was it might not be about you alone.” He paused. “It might be about us.”
    “Us? You mean someone doesn’t like the idea that we’re—” She broke off and made another run at it. “Someone doesn’t like the rumors that are going around about us? But why on earth would anyone care if we’re, uh—”
    “Sleeping together?” he offered helpfully.
    “One time,” she said swiftly. “There was only one time. That does not exactly constitute a flaming affair.”
    For some reason he found that observation both extremely irritating and strangely depressing. “Can’t argue that.”
    She sipped her cocoa for a moment, then put the mug down. “I just had a thought. Maybe whoever did this is one of your old flames. A jealous lover from your misspent past?”
    “Doubt it.”
    She was undeterred. “Good grief. If I’m right, we’ve got more suspects than we can count.”
    His incipient depression vanished in the heat of a sudden, fierce anger. He sat forward quickly, flattening his palms on the table. “My reputation in this town was always a hell of a lot more exciting than the reality.”
    She blinked. “Now, Rafe—”
    “Trust me on this. I was there.”
    She cleared her throat. “Well, yes, of course you were, but everyone knows about your reputation in those days.”
    “This may come as a stunning surprise to you, but contrary to popular opinion, I don’t have a legion of old flames hiding in the bushes here in Eclipse Bay.”
    “I don’t believe I used the word ‘legion.’”
    “Close enough. For the record, virtually all of my dates—and there were not as many of them as everyone seems to think—were weekend or summer visitors who came here for the beach, the boardwalk, and a good time. They knew what they were doing and so did I. There was nothing serious with any of them, and I’ve never seen any of them again.”
    Her jaw clenched visibly. “There was Kaitlin Sadler.”
    “Yes. There was Kaitlin Sadler. She was a year older than me, experienced, and she could take care of herself.”
    “I never implied that you took advantage of her. No one ever said that.”
    “I didn’t have a lot of rules for myself in those days, but I had a few and I stuck to them. I never got involved with anyone who was married or too young or too naïve to know the score. Hell, you ought to know that better than anyone else.”
    “Me?” She gripped the edge of the table. “Why should I know anything about the history of your love life?”
    “Because I never laid a hand on you eight years ago, that’s why.”
    For the space of two or three heartbeats she simply stared at him in utter astonishment. Then she pulled herself together with an obvious effort. “Of course you never touched me. I wasn’t your type. You wouldn’t have looked twice at me if we hadn’t been stuck out there at the Arch together that night.”
    A cold, mirthless amusement shafted through him. “You weren’t my type, and you were squarely in the ‘don’t touch’ category as far as I was concerned, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t look twice.”
    Her eyes widened. “Because I was a Harte? Was I some sort of challenge?”
    “The fact that you were a Harte had nothing to do with it.”
    “Then why did you look twice?”
    “Damned if I know. Pure masochism, probably, because I sure as hell knew that you’d never look twice at me.”
    “That’s not true.” She