Summer in Eclipse Bay Read Online Free Page A

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