But the moody feeling was a warning, loud and clear. It was time to make some new plans; time to take control of her future. Her mission here in Eclipse Bay had been a failure.
Time to move on.
Her mission.
For months she had told herself that she had come here to right the wrongs of the past. In the beginning she had established a schedule that had allowed her to divide her time between this gallery and the main branch in Portland. But as the months went by she had found more and more reasons to extend her visits in Eclipse Bay.
Deep down she had actually been elated when her assistant here had run off with the artist. On impulse she had placed the Portland branch in the capable hands of a trusted manager, packed her suitcases, and moved her personal possessions into the little cottage on the bluff near Hidden Cove.
What had she been thinking? she wondered.
It was obvious that the Hartes and the Madisons did not need her help in healing the rift her great-aunt, Claudia Banner, had created so many years ago. The proud families were successfully putting the feud behind them without any assistance at all from her. There had been two weddings in the past few months that had united the clans, and now those old warriors, Sullivan Harte and Mitchell Madison, could be seen drinking coffee and eating donuts together at the bakery whenever Sullivan was in town.
No one in Eclipse Bay needed her. There was no reason for her to stay. It was time to go.
But that was easier said than done. She couldn't just close the door of the gallery and disappear in the middle of the night. Bright Visions was a small business, but it was thriving, and that meant it was worth a goodly sum. She would have to make arrangements to sell up and that might take a while. And then there was the matter of her obligations to the various artists whose work she exhibited and the commitment she had made to the Children's Art Show.
The art show had been her idea. She was the one who had come up with the concept and lobbied the members of the Eclipse Bay Summer Celebration committee to include it as one of the activities associated with this year's event. Enthusiasm for the project ran high. She knew that the children who planned to draw pictures for the event would be crushed if she cancelled it.
All in all, she concluded, what with getting Bright Visions ready to sell and fulfilling her business and civic commitments, she would probably not be able to escape Eclipse Bay until the end of the summer. But by fall she would be somewhere else. She had to find a place where she truly belonged.
Chapter 2
That afternoon she closed the gallery at five-thirty and drove over to Mitchell Madison's house. She got out of the car and waved at Bryce as she went past the open kitchen door. He looked up from the pot he was stirring on the stove and inclined his head in a solemn greeting.
She smiled to herself. Bryce was the strong, silent type. He had worked for Mitchell for years. No one knew much about his past before he had arrived in town, and Bryce had never felt any impulse to enlighten anyone on that subject.
She understood where he was coming from, she thought.
She wandered into the garden and looked around, savoring the little slice of paradise that was Mitchell's creation. She had spent enough time in Eclipse Bay to know that, while everyone in the vicinity was quick to point out his legendary character flaws and remind you of his several failed marriages, no one disputed Mitchell's brilliance as a gardener. Gardening was his passion, and no one came between a Madison and his passion.
She came to a halt on the other side of a bed of gloriously blooming rose bushes.
"I've made a decision, Mitch."
He looked up at her from the padded kneeling bench he was using to work around the plants. He had the face of an aging, beat-up old gunslinger, she thought fondly, one who had only hardened with the years; a guy who could still hold his own against the young toughs if called upon to do so.
"What kind of decision?" Mitchell demanded.
The sharpness of his tone was a surprise. Mitchell never spoke sharply to her.
"I'll be leaving town at the end of the summer," she said.
"You mean you'll be spending more time back in Portland." He nodded, evidently satisfied, and went back to his weeding. "I can see where you might need to give more attention to your gallery there come fall. It's a much bigger operation."
"No," she said gently, "I mean that I will be leaving Eclipse Bay for good at the end of the summer season. I plan to sell both branches of Bright Visions."
He stiffened, eyes narrowing against the fading sun. "You're gonna sell up? Well, shoot and damn. Why the hell do you want to go and do a thing like that?"
"It's time." She smiled to cover the wistful feeling. "Past time, really. In fact, I probably shouldn't have come here in the first place."
"Not a lot of money in the art business here in Eclipse Bay, huh?" He shrugged. "No surprise there, I reckon. Eclipse Bay isn't exactly the art capital of the universe."
"Actually, the gallery here is doing fairly well. We drew clients from Chamberlain College and the institute this past winter, and now with summer here, we're picking up a lot of tourist business. Bright Visions is starting to get a reputation as an important art stop here on the coast."
His brows bunched together. "You're saying your business here is doing all right?"
"Yes, I expect to sell at a profit."
"Then why the hell are you talking about pulling out?"
"As I said, I think it's time for me to go."
He squinted at her. "You don't sound right. You feeling okay today, Octavia?"
"Yes."
"Not coming down sick, are you?"
"No."
"Shoot and damn. What's going on here?" He holstered the trowel he had been wielding, gripped the handholds on the low gardener's bench, and hauled himself to his feet. He seized his cane and turned around to confront her, scowling ferociously. "What's all this talk about leaving?"
"There's something that I want to tell you, Mitch. I don't plan to let a lot of other folks know because I don't want to upset people and cause talk. Lord knows, there's been enough gossip about the Hartes and the Madisons in this town. But you and I are friends. And I want my friends to know who I am."
"I know who you are." He thumped the cane once on the gravel walk. "You're Octavia Brightwell."
"Yes, but there's more to the story." She looked at him very steadily and braced herself to deliver the shocker. "Claudia Banner was my great-aunt."
To her astonishment he merely shrugged. "You think we didn't figure that out a while back?"