Dawn in Eclipse Bay

  “I think she felt that the Madisons got the short end of the stick when Harte-Madison went into bankruptcy. She wanted to level the playing field a little for Rafe and me.”

  “But when Harte-Madison was destroyed all those years ago, everyone lost everything. Both the Hartes and the Madisons went bankrupt. That’s about as level as it gets.”

  “Your family recovered a lot faster than mine did.” He concentrated on the painting in front of him. “I think we both know why. So did Isabel.”

  She flushed. There was no denying that the tough, stable Harte family bonds, not to mention the Harte work ethic and emphasis on education, had provided a much stronger foundation from which to recover than the shaky, shifting grounds that had sustained the Madisons.

  “Point taken,” she agreed. “So Isabel, in her own quiet way, tried to even things up a bit with money.”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “What was the hard part?”

  “The hard part?”

  “You said that getting the backing from her for Madison Commercial wasn’t the hard part. What was?”

  His mouth curved reminiscently. “Structuring the contract so that Isabel got her money back plus interest and profit. She didn’t want to do things that way. She wanted me to take the cash as a straight gift.”

  “But you wouldn’t do that.”

  “No.”

  Madison pride, she thought, but she did not say it out loud. She went back to work on her drawing. Gabe moved on to another picture.

  “I was wrong about you, wasn’t l?” She used the tip of her thumb to smudge in a shadow.

  “Wrong?”

  “Watching you at the banquet tonight, it finally hit me that I had leaped to a totally false conclusion about you. And you let me do it. You never bothered to correct my assumption.”

  He gave her his enigmatic smile. “Hard to imagine a Harte being wrong about a Madison. You know us so well.”

  “Yes, we do. Which is why I shouldn’t have been fooled for even a minute. But I was.”

  “What was the wrong conclusion you leaped to about me?”

  She looked up from the sketch and met his eyes. “You aren’t suffering from burnout.”

  He said nothing, just watched her steadily.

  “Why didn’t you set me straight?” She returned to her sketch, adding more depths and darkness. “Because it suited your purpose to let me think you were a victim of stress and burnout? Did you want me to feel sorry for you?”

  “No.” He started toward her down a dim aisle formed by unframed canvases. “No, I sure as hell did not want you to feel sorry for me.”

  “What did you want?” Her pencil flashed across the paper, moving as though by its own volition as she worked frantically to capture the impressions and get them down in all the shades of light and dark.

  He came to a halt in front of her. “I wanted you to see me as something other than a cold-blooded machine. I figured that if you thought I was a walking case of burnout, you might realize that I was human.”

  She studied the sketch for a moment and then slowly put down the pencil.

  “I’ve always known that you were human,” she said.

  “You sure about that? I had a somewhat different impression. Must have been all those comments you made about how I wanted to date robots.”

  He reached for the sketchpad. She let him take it from her fingers, watching his expression as he looked at the drawing she had made of him.

  It showed him as he had appeared a few minutes ago, standing in front of one of her canvases, his hands thrust easily into the pockets of his trousers, collar and cuffs undone, tie loose around his neck. He stood in the shadows, his face slightly averted from the viewer. He was intent on the painting in front of him, a picture that showed an image that only he could see. Whatever he saw there deepened the shadows around him.

  She watched his face as he studied the drawing. She knew from the way his jaw tightened and the fine lines that appeared at the corners of his mouth that he understood the shadows in the picture.

  After what seemed like an eternity, he handed the sketch back to her.

  “Okay,” he said. “So you do see me as human.”

  “And you saw what I put into this drawing, didn’t you?”

  He shrugged. “Hard to miss.”

  “A lot of people could look at this sketch and not see anything other than a figure standing in front of a canvas. But you see everything.” She waved a hand at the canvases that filled the studio. “You can see what I put into all of my pictures. You pretend to disdain art but the truth is you respond to it.”

  “I spent a lot of the first decade of my life in an artist’s studio. Guess you pick up a few things when you’re surrounded by the stuff during your impressionable years.”

  “Yes, of course. Your father was a sculptor. Your mother was his model.” She put the sketch down on the worktable. Guilt and dismay shot through her. “I’m sorry, Gabe. I know you lost your parents when you were very young. I didn’t mean to bring up such a painful subject.”

  “Forget it. It’s a fact, after all, not something you conjured up out of your imagination. Besides, I thought I made it clear that I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. Sort of spoils the Harte-Madison feud dynamic, you know?”

  “Right. Wouldn’t want to do that.” She hesitated. “Gabe?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When you stated on the Private Arrangements questionnaire that you didn’t want any arty types, you were telling the truth, weren’t you?”

  “I thought we’d decided that I pretty much lied through my teeth on that questionnaire.”

  “I don’t think you lied on that issue. Did you make a point of not wanting to be matched with so-called arty types because of your parents? Everyone knows that they didn’t give you and Rafe what anyone could call a stable home life.”

  He was silent for a moment.

  “For years I blamed most of what wasn’t good in my childhood, including my parents’ deaths, on the fact that they were both involved in the world of art,” he said finally. “Maybe, in my kid brain, the mystique of the wild, uncontrolled, temperamental, artistic personality was convenient. Better than the alternative, at any rate.”

  “What was the alternative?”

  “That we Madisons were seriously flawed; that we couldn’t manage the self-control thing.”

  “But you’ve proved that theory wrong, haven’t you? I’ve never met anyone with more self-control.”

  He looked at her. “You don’t exactly fit the image of the temperamental, self-centered artist who has no room in her life for anything except her art, either.”

  “Okay. I think we’ve successfully established that neither of us fits whatever preconceptions we might have had.”

  “Why did you bring me here tonight, Lillian? I know it wasn’t because you needed to pick up some supplies.”

  She looked around at her paint-spattered studio. “Maybe I wanted to find out how you really felt about arty types.”

  He raised one hand and traced the cowl neckline of her black dress. His finger grazed her throat. “Let’s see where we stand here. We’ve established that you don’t think I’m a machine.”

  She caught her breath at his touch. “And you don’t think I’m typical of what you call the arty type.”

  “Where does that leave us?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  He lowered his head until his mouth hovered just above hers. “I think we ought to find out, don’t you?”

  “Sex is probably not the best way to explore that issue.”

  He kissed her slowly, lingeringly. When he raised his head she saw the hunger in him. She felt her blood heat.

  “Can you think of a better way to explore it?” he asked.

  She swallowed. “Not right at the moment.”

  He put one hand on her knee just beneath the hem of the little black dress. His smiled slowly and eased the skirt higher. Sh
e caught the ends of his silk tie in her hands and drew him closer.

  He took the invitation the way a shark takes prey; smoothly and swiftly, leaving her no time to consider the wisdom of moving back into shallower waters.

  Between one heartbeat and the next, he was between her knees, using his thighs to part her legs and open her to him. The black dress was up to her hips now, leaving only a scrap of midnight-colored lace as a barrier to his hand. It proved woefully inadequate to the task. She felt the silk grow damp at his touch.

  She gripped the ends of the necktie and hung on for the ride.

  He roused himself a long time later, sated and content. For the moment, at any rate. He sat up on the edge of the worktable. Beside him Lillian was curled amid scattered sheets of drawing paper, brushes, and tubes of paint. Her hair had come free from the sleek knot in which it had been arranged earlier in the evening. The little black dress that had looked so elegant and tasteful at the head table was now crumpled in an extremely interesting, very sexy and no doubt less-than-tasteful manner. But it looked terrific on her that way, he thought.

  His tie was now looped around her throat instead of his own. He grinned, remembering how it had gotten switched in the middle of the lovemaking.

  She stirred. “What are you staring at?”

  “A work of art.”

  “Hmm.” She nodded once in appreciation. “A work of art. That was pretty quick, Madison.”

  “Pretty quick, you mean for a man who is still recovering from a truly mind-blowing experience?”

  “Gosh. Was that your mind?” Her smile was very smug. “I didn’t realize.”

  He grinned. “I handed you that line on a platter. Admit it.”

  “I admit it. You’re good, you know that?”

  “At the moment, I’m a lot better than good.” He leaned down to kiss her bare hip. “I’m terrific. What about you?”

  “I think I’ll survive.” She hauled herself up on her elbows and surveyed herself. “But the dress is dead meat.”

  “I’m sure there are plenty more where it came from.”

  “Probably. Department stores are full of little black dresses.” She noticed the tie around her neck and frowned. “How did that get there?”

  He eased himself off the table, stood and stretched. “Some questions are better left unanswered.”

  He studied a canvas propped against the wall directly across from him as he zipped his trousers and buckled his belt. It was another one of her unique, riveting creations, all hot, intense light and dark, disturbing shadows. He felt it reaching out to pull him into that world, just as her other works did. He had to force himself to look away from it.

  He turned his head and saw that the sensual, teasing laughter that had gleamed in her eyes a moment ago had evaporated. She was watching him in the same way that he had looked at the painting, as if she were wary of being sucked into his universe.

  “Does this mean we’re having an affair?” she asked.

  Curious. Polite. Very cool. Just asking.

  Her deliberately casual air wiped out a lot of the satisfaction that he had been enjoying. Whatever was going on here was a long way from settled.

  “Yes,” he said. I think we’d better call this an affair. I don’t see that we have any real choice.”

  She sat up slowly and dangled her legs off the edge of the worktable. “Why is that?”

  She had small, delicate ankles and beautifully arched feet, he noticed. Her toenails were painted scarlet. And here he’d never considered himself a foot man.

  He walked back to the table, fitted his hands to her waist, lifted her and set her on her feet. He did not release her. “Be sort of awkward to have to admit that we’re into one- and two-night stands, wouldn’t it?”

  “Might make us both look extremely shallow and superficial.”

  “Can’t have that,” he said easily. “Come on, let’s go back to your apartment. We need some sleep. Got a long drive back to Eclipse Bay tomorrow morning.”

  chapter 12

  A deceptively bright sun supplied light but very little heat to Eclipse Bay. Small whitecaps snapped and sparkled on the water. The brisk breeze promised another storm soon. They drove through the community’s small business district on the way back to the cottage. Lillian noticed that the handful of men standing around a truck at the town’s only gas station were huddled into goose-down vests and heavy windbreakers.

  Sandy Hickson, the owner of the station, spotted Gabe’s car and waved a casual greeting. His companions turned to glance at the vehicle. Even from where she sat, Lillian thought she could see the open speculation in their eyes.

  A Harte and a Madison could not even drive through Eclipse Bay together without drawing interested gazes.

  “Small town,” Gabe said. He sounded completely unruffled by the attention.

  “Very.”

  “Not like there’s a heck of a lot to do around here in the middle of winter. It’s almost like we’ve got a social obligation to bring a little excitement to town.”

  “Since when did Madisons worry about their social obligations?”

  “Since we started hanging out more with you Hartes. You’re a bad influence on us.”

  She noticed the illuminated message indicator on the answering machine when she walked into the Harte family cottage a short time later.

  Gabe saw it too. “Got a hunch Mitchell ratted us out.”

  “Looks that way. Probably my mother. Great.” She put down the carton of painting supplies she had carried in from the car. “I’ll deal with it later.”

  “Thought you said your folks were on a business trip in San Diego.”

  “They are. But you know as well as I do that gossip travels fast among the Hartes and the Madisons, especially since the wedding.”

  “Well, we both knew we wouldn’t be able to keep this a secret. And it’s not as if we’re not all adults here.”

  He sounded a little too philosophical, she thought. Downright upbeat, in fact. As if the prospect of explaining away a red-hot affair between a Harte and a Madison was no big deal. Just a walk in the park.

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “We’re all adults here.”

  He set her suitcase in the hall and looked at her, brows raised in polite inquiry. “Need backup?”

  “From a Madison? That would be like pouring oil on a burning fire.”

  “We Madisons are good at that.”

  “I’ll remember that the next time I’m trying to start a blaze instead of putting one out.”

  “This is going to be a tough fire to put out,” he said softly.

  She did not know if she ought to take that as a warning or just another teasing remark. Upon brief reflection, she decided it would be best to assume the latter.

  “I’m an adult,” she said. “I make my own decisions. My parents know that.”

  “Uh-huh.” He looked unconvinced but he turned to walk toward the door. “Well, if you don’t need my assistance in pacifying your mother, I’ll be on my way. See you for dinner.”

  He said it with such breathtaking casualness, she thought. Taking the concept of dinner together for granted. The unspoken expectation of spending the night was very clear. He was moving right into her daily routine, making himself comfortable.

  Well? They had both agreed that they were starting an affair, hadn’t they? Why the sudden qualms?

  But the answer was there in the next heartbeat. For all her fine talk of being a grown-up, the bottom line here was that getting involved with Gabe was a dangerous business.

  “Why don’t we go out tonight?” she said on sudden impulse.

  Dining out in public would be more like a date. She could handle a date with him. Dates were more structured, more ritualized. They were not infused with quite the same degree of casual intimacy as cooking dinner together and eating it at the kitchen table. A date allowed her to keep a little distance. So what if they went back to his place later and made wild, passionate love. Some people did
that after a date. Or so she had heard.

  “Fine.”

  Something told her that he had guessed what was going through her mind. But he did not argue. Instead, he walked out onto the porch.

  “I’ll pick you up. Six-thirty okay?”

  “I can meet you at your place.” She went to stand in the doorway. “It’s a short walk.”

  “No. It’ll be dark. I don’t want you walking alone after dark.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about. We’re not exactly crime central around here. Especially in the dead of winter.”

  “Eclipse Bay isn’t the same town it was when you and I were kids. It’s not just the summer tourists who cause trouble around here now. Chamberlain College is expanding and so is the institute. I’d rather you didn’t stroll around on your own after the sun goes down.”

  She propped one shoulder against the door frame, amused, and crossed her arms. “Are you always this bossy?”

  “I’m cautious, not bossy.”

  “And maybe a tad inclined to be overcontrolling?”

  “Sure, but hey, isn’t everyone?” He brushed his mouth across hers. “Humor me, okay?”

  “Okay. This time.”

  He nodded, satisfied and went down the steps. “See you later. Good luck with your painting.”

  “What are you going to do this afternoon?”

  He paused and looked back over his shoulder. “I’m going to go online to do some deep background research on a potential Madison Commercial client. Why?”

  She made a face. “Have fun.”

  “I thought I explained to you that what I do at M.C. is called work, not fun.” He gave her his slow, sexy Madison smile. “Fun comes later, after work. I’ll show you.”

  He walked to the Jag, opened the door and got behind the wheel.

  Back at the beginning she had made the mistake of assuming that he was a victim of burnout because he claimed that running Madison Commercial was not fun for him. In one sense, she thought, he was right. But work wasn’t the correct label, either, although it was the one he preferred. The truth was, Madison Commercial was his passion.

  Passion wasn’t fun. Passion was serious stuff.