Summer in Eclipse Bay

Eugene announced to the entire bar that you had bestowed your favors upon Nick for certain agenda-driven reasons."
    She stared at him. "I beg your pardon?"
    "Eugene implied that you had commenced an affair with Nick, here, with the goal of causing him to become so bemused and befuddled that he would be unable to think clearly. The net result would be that our intrepid investigator would be unable to detect that you were the person most likely to have stolen the Upsall."
    Octavia made it to the end of the counter and grabbed hold of it to steady herself. "Good lord."
    "Of course, Eugene didn't put it in precisely those words." Jeremy glanced at Nick for confirmation. "Don't think he used the words
bemused
and
befuddled,
did he?"
    "No," Nick said. "I believe what Eugene said was that Octavia was
screwing me senseless."
    Jeremy shook his head. "Don't think he said
senseless,
either. Maybe it was
screwing your brains out."
    "Right." Nick raised a cup in a small salute. "That was it. He said that Octavia was
screwing my brains out
in an effort to distract me from my investigation."
    Jeremy turned to Octavia. "There was also some question about the naturalness of your red hair. Naturally, Nick could not let Eugene and Dickhead get away with talking about a lady in such crude terms. Hence the bar brawl."
    Octavia clutched the counter, feeling dazed and disoriented. She looked at Nick, hoping he would tell her it was all just a big joke. "The brawl really did start because of me?"
    "Don't worry about the gossip," Nick said, dismissing the entire event with another shrug. "It'll blow over in a few days."
    "Are you kidding?" Jeremy asked. "Folks around here still talk about the big fight between your grandfather and Mitchell Madison that took place outside of Fulton's decades ago. What makes you think that forty or fifty years from now, they won't be telling the story of what happened last night at the Total Eclipse?"
    "Jeremy's right," Gail said. "You're a Harte, Nick, and Octavia is related to the woman who sparked the original Harte-Madison feud. Trust me, the legend of the big brawl at the Total Eclipse will live on forever."
    Jeremy nodded in agreement. "Mostly because there's so little to talk about in a small town like this."
    "Well, it's only to be expected, I suppose. You do know she is related to that Claudia Banner woman. The one who started the Harte-Madison feud all those years ago."
    Octavia froze in the act of putting the six-pack of bottled spring water in the basket of the supermarket cart. The voice came from the next aisle over, the one labeled
Canned Veg amp; Beans.
    "My Hank said there hasn't been a brawl like that at the Total Eclipse in ages. Not since that biker club came through town three years back. Fred claims that there was a couple of thousand dollars worth of damage done in the pool room last night."
    She recognized the voices now. Megan Grayson and Sandra Finley. Both women had come into Bright Visions to browse on occasion and both served on the Summer Celebration committee.
    "If you ask me, Fred's just taking advantage of a golden opportunity," Megan said. "One of the Willis brothers told my husband that Fred has been thinking about repainting the Total Eclipse for years. He put it off because he was too cheap to pay for the job. But he knows he can get the money out of Nick Harte and Jeremy Seaton now, so why not go for it?"
    "You have to wonder why Nick and Jeremy were playing pool together in the first place. Those two haven't had much to do with each other in a couple of years. Not since Jeremy's divorce, in fact. Everyone assumed they'd had a falling out of some kind."
    "And then they both went and dated Octavia Brightwell here in Eclipse Bay." Sandra made a disapproving noise that sounded a lot like the clucking of a chicken. "That can't have helped the situation. In fact, you'd have thought that those two would have been at each other's throats by now. Nothing like a woman coming between two men to cause trouble."
    "Well, from all accounts they were on the same side in that bar fight last night. Sounds like they must have settled their differences."
    "Who would have thought a Harte and a Seaton would get into a barroom brawl? Oh, sure, you expect that sort of thing from a Madison, but I always thought the Hartes and the Seatons were a lot more refined."
    "Don't you believe that for one moment," Megan said. "Remember, it was Sullivan Harte who got into that fist-fight with Mitch Madison