Summer in Eclipse Bay

been just sort of floating through my life, as it were."
    "A free spirit."
    "That's how I described it, but it was more like being unanchored or untethered, if you see what I mean."
    That fit with what he had figured out for himself, he thought. "Sounds like a form of depression or something."
    "Maybe." She snapped her fingers. "But whatever the problem was, it's fixed."
    "Because we had great sex last night?"
    "The quality of the sex probably wasn't as much of a factor as the fact that I actually did the deed." She smiled coolly. "It has been a while, you see. My social life was one of the things I put on hold when Aunt Claudia got so ill. I never really got back to it."
    "Glad I could serve in a useful capacity."
    "You were
extremely
useful." She pushed her glasses up more firmly on her nose and cleared her throat. "Since we're having this conversation, I should probably take the opportunity to apologize for that unfortunate little scene last night as you were running out the door. Let's just chalk it up to two years' worth of celibacy, the storm, and the last remnants of my weird emotional condition."
    "A nice tidy list of reasons." He shoved his fingers through his hair. "And for the record, I was not
running
out the door. It was late and I had to pick up Carson and get back to the cottage."
    "Of course." She glanced at her watch. "I'm glad we've got that settled. You'll have to excuse me. I need to get back to the gallery."
    "Now who's running?"
    Her mouth tightened. "I've got a business to see to and you've got a missing painting to investigate."
    "Sure." He wished he could see her eyes behind those damn sunglasses. "Would you like to come out to my place and have dinner with Carson and me tonight?"
    She hesitated. "Thanks, but I'm afraid I'm busy this evening."
    The chill returned to his gut. "Seaton?"
    "Why, yes, as a matter of fact. How did you know?"
    "Lucky guess," he said grimly.
    "He wants me to look at some of his paintings." She turned away to start back toward the gallery. "He has never exhibited his work and he wants me to give him a professional opinion on whether it might have commercial possibilities."
    "Bullshit. He wants to talk you into bed."
    She stopped and looked back over her shoulder. "Would you like to tell me what it is between you two?"
    "What the hell. I never told anyone else." He wrenched open the driver's side door of the BMW and got behind the wheel. "Might be
therapeutic
for me."
    "Nick, wait-"
    He slammed the door and looked at her through the lowered window while he started the engine. "Seaton hates my guts because he thinks that I had an affair with his ex-wife while they were still married."
    Her mouth opened but no words emerged. Her speechless condition gave him some satisfaction, but not much.
    "One more thing," he added, snapping the car into gear. "What happened last night between you and me wasn't therapy. It was great sex. There's a difference."
    He drove out of the marina parking lot, leaving her standing there in her bright purple jumper and ridiculously sexy shoes.

Chapter 11
    "What the hell do you expect me to do?" Sullivan snarled into the phone. "I'm trying to put together a merger here."
    "Hate to break this to you," Mitchell growled on the other end, "but my grandson and your son don't need any help putting the finishing touches on the Madison-Harte merger. Both of 'em have been running their own companies for years. They know what they're doing. You're just gumming things up, hanging over their shoulders there in Portland. Leave 'em be and pay attention to the larger issues."
    "Larger issues? Never heard you use a fancy phrase like that before, Mitch."
    "Must have picked it up from one of you silver-tongued Hartes. Look, we've got a problem here in Eclipse Bay."
    Sullivan cranked back in the chair and contemplated the view from the window of the temporary office his new son-in-law, Gabe Madison, had provided for him. The headquarters of Madison Commercial, soon to become
    Madison-Harte, were located on the top floors of a Portland office tower. From his perch he could see the boat traffic on the Willamette River.
    The summer afternoon was sunny and warm. The weather reporters claimed that it was hot down there on the city streets, but he spent most of his time in Phoenix these days. He knew hot, and this was not hot.
    "Seems to me that
you
have a problem, Mitch," he said, stalling for time while he considered the
larger issues.
"Not me. You're the one who