Summer in Eclipse Bay

morning. And just as quickly shifted away again.
    Even if Hannah had not been kind enough to give her a wake-up call and a warning, Octavia thought, she had been in Eclipse Bay long enough to know what this peculiar attention meant.
    There was fresh gossip going around and she was the focus of it.
    She had been well aware of what would happen if she accepted a date with Nick Harte, she reminded herself. And the fact that everyone now knew that she was related to the infamous Claudia Banner just added a whole lot of very hot spice to the stew that was now brewing in Eclipse Bay.
    She paused just inside the doorway and drew a deep breath. Hartes and Madisons handled this kind of stuff routinely. Aunt Claudia wouldn't have so much as flinched. If they could do it, so could she.
    She gave the small crowd a polite smile and moved forward, weaving a path through the gauntlet of tables. It seemed a very long way to the counter, but she made it eventually.
    "Good morning," she said to the brightly robed Herald who waited to take her order. "Coffee with cream, please."
    "May the light of the future be with you today." The Herald's ankhs and scarab jewelry clanked gently when she raised her palm in greeting. "Your coffee will be ready in a moment."
    The door opened again just as Octavia handed her money to the Herald. She did not need to glance over her shoulder to see who had walked into the bakery. The fresh buzz of excitement said it all.
    "Hi, Miss Brightwell," Carson called from the far end of the room. "Dad said he saw you in here."
    She turned, cup in hand. A deep sense of wistful longing welled up inside her at the sight of Nick and his son together. In his matching black windbreaker, jeans, tee shirt, and running shoes, Carson was a sartorial miniature of his father. But the resemblance went so much deeper, she thought. You could already see in Carson the beginnings of the strength of will, the savvy intelligence, and the cool awareness that were Nick's hallmarks. There was something more there, too. Carson would grow up to be the kind of man whose word was his bond because integrity was bred in the bone in the Harte family.
    Like father, like son.
    She squelched the sudden rush of emotion with a ruthless act of willpower. Nick and Carson had everything they needed in the way of a family. And she would be leaving at the end of the summer.
    "Good morning," she said to Carson. She looked at Nick and felt the heat in his gaze go straight to her nerve endings, setting off little explosions. "Hello."
    "'Morning," he said.
    There was an unmistakable intimacy in the low greeting, a dark, heavy warmth that she was certain everyone in the bakery had picked up on. She knew, with a certainty that was so strong she wondered if she'd developed telepathic powers, that he was thinking about that good-night kiss on her front porch.
    Not that she had any right to complain. She was thinking about it, too.
    Actually, she'd spent far too much of the night recalling it, analyzing it, contemplating every nuance and cataloging her own responses. She had examined that kiss the way she would have examined a painting that had the power to capture her attention and force her to look beneath the surface.
    Her reaction had been over the top and she knew it. In fact, the all-night obsession with the details of that encounter on the porch had made her very uneasy this morning. You'd have thought it was her first serious kiss. And that made no sense at all. This was what came of being relationship-free for nearly two years. A woman tended to overreact when the long drought finally ended. She needed to get some perspective here.
    Nick and Carson arrived at the counter. There was more than just amusement in Nick's eyes. There was some sympathy, too.
    He glanced around with mild interest. "Don't worry about this. The news is out that you're related to Claudia
    Banner and that we were seen together in my car last night."
    "Yes, I know. Hannah called me first thing this morning to warn me."
    "It'll all blow over in a couple of days."
    She wasn't so sure about that, but she decided this was not the time or place to argue the point. "Sure."
    "Give me a minute to grab some coffee for myself and some hot chocolate for Carson," he said. "Then we'll walk you over to the gallery."
    Before she could object or agree, he started to give his order to the Herald.
    Carson looked up at her while they waited for the coffee and chocolate. "Have you framed my picture