Summer in Eclipse Bay

cane on the gravel again. "Hang on a minute. I'm the first to admit that you've got a right to keep your private business private, but now that you've mentioned Claudia and what happened in the past, I think maybe I've got a right to know why you've suddenly decided to pull up stakes."
    "It's hard to explain."
    His hawklike eyes gleamed with shrewd comprehension. "It's Nick Harte, isn't it?"
    She was dumbfounded. "I, uh-"
    "He's been pestering you, hasn't he? I knew it. I saw the way he moved in on you the night of Lillian's show. When he turned up in town a couple of weeks ago and settled into the Harte cottage for the summer, I got right on the phone to Sullivan."
    "You
what
?"
    "I warned him that he'd better keep Nick reined in good and tight. Told him I wouldn't stand by and let his grandson play any of his love 'em and leave 'em games with you. I don't care if Nick is still broken up about losing his wife. That's no excuse to fool around with you. Time he got over what happened and straightened himself out. Time he started acting like a real Harte again."
    "A, uh, real Harte?" she repeated carefully.
    "Damn right. Hartes don't mess around and have affairs. Hartes get married."
    "I've heard that theory," she said dryly. "But there are exceptions to every rule. In any event, set your mind at rest, Mitch. This has got nothing to do with Nick Harte."
    Even as the words left her lips, she realized she was lying through her teeth. Leaving Eclipse Bay had everything to do with Nick Harte. She just wasn't sure how to explain the connection, not even to herself, let alone to Mitchell.
    "Bullshit." Mitchell glowered. "Pardon my language. But you've got to admit that the timing is more than a tad suspicious."
    "Look, Mitch, we're getting a little off-topic here. I stopped by to tell you about my link to Claudia Banner.
    But since you already know about it, maybe I should tell you why I came here to Eclipse Bay in the first place."
    There was a short silence. She could hear the distant clatter of pots in the kitchen. The light breeze off the bay shifted tree branches in the corner of the garden. Birds chattered overhead.
    "Sullivan and me, we decided maybe you were just curious," Mitchell said after a while.
    "It was more than mere curiosity," she said quietly. "I should probably start at the beginning."
    "If that's what you want to do."
    She hesitated, looking for the right place to begin. "I was with my aunt a lot during the last couple of years of her life. She needed someone to take care of her and there wasn't anyone else. Aunt Claudia was not the most popular member of the family."
    "Hell, I didn't even realize she had a family. She never mentioned the subject."
    "She was the renegade. The black sheep. The one who was always a source of acute embarrassment. But I had always liked her a lot. And she liked me. Maybe it was because I looked so much like her. Or maybe she just felt sorry for me."
    "Why would she feel sorry for you?"
    "I think she saw me as a loner, just as she was. My parents divorced when I was small. They both remarried and started new families. I spent most of my youth shuttling back and forth between them but I never felt at home in either house. Aunt Claudia sensed that, I think."
    "Go on."
    "Claudia was very special to me. I know she had her faults, and her business ethics left a lot to be desired. But I loved her and she cared about me in her own way. She worried that I was too inclined to play it safe. She said I spent too much time trying to smooth things over and calm the waters. She kept urging me to take a few chances."
    "She
sure knew how to take 'em." Mitchell chuckled reminiscently. "Maybe that was one of the reasons I couldn't take my eyes off her back in the old days."
    "She never forgot you, Mitch. When she became seriously ill, I went to stay with her until the end. It took over a year for her to die. We had a lot of time to talk."
    "And one of the things you two talked about was Eclipse Bay? Is that what you're saying?"
    "Yes. She became increasingly obsessed with what had happened here. Said she didn't have a lot of regrets, but the destruction of Harte-Madison was one of them. She talked about how she wished that she could make amends."
    "She should have known she couldn't go back and fix something that happened so long ago," Mitchell said.
    "I know. But the subject became more and more important to her. Maybe because toward the end she became a serious student of New Age