He was pretty sure that was the truth. Octavia was a great mystery to him in many ways, but when it came to this aspect of her personality, he felt very sure of himself. She would never hold the sins of the father, whatever they might be, against the son.

Carson remained dubious. "Promise me you won't ask her out again until after she chooses one of my pictures."

"Okay, okay, I won't call her again until she makes her selection."

That was a safe promise. He figured it would be at least another three or four days before he could fortify himself to make a seventh phone call.

"Let's see your pictures," he said.

"They're in the bedroom." Carson whipped around and dashed off down the hall.

Nick followed him around the corner and into the downstairs room that his sister Lillian had turned into a temporary studio a few months earlier.

Three large squares of heavy drawing paper were arranged in a row on the hardwood floor. The pictures were all done in crayon, per the rules of the exhibition.

Nick went to stand looking down at the first picture. The scene showed a house with two stick figures standing very close together inside. The taller of the two figures had one arm extended protectively over the head of the smaller figure. A yellow sun shone brightly above the peaked roof.

There was a green flower with several petals in the right-hand corner.

"That's you and me," Carson said proudly. He indicated the stick figures. "You're the big one."

Nick nodded. "Nice colors." He moved on to the next drawing and pondered it for a moment. At first all he could make out was a vague oval shape done in gray crayon. There were several jagged lines around the outside of the oval. He was baffled until he noticed the two pointy projections on top. Dog ears.

"This is Winston, I take it?" he said.

"Yeah. I had a little trouble with his nose. Dog noses are hard."

"Good job on the ears."

"Thanks."

Nick studied the third picture, a scene of five brown, elongated shapes thrusting out of a blue crayon circle. "The rocks in Dead Hand Cove?"

"Uh-huh." Carson frowned. "Aunt Lillian said it would make a good picture, but I dunno. Kind of boring. I like the other two better. Which one do you think I should give to Miss Brightwell?"

"That's a tough question. I like them all."

"I could ask Aunt Lillian. She's a real artist."

"She and Gabe are stuck in Portland for a while because Gabe is tied up with Dad and Sullivan while they hammer out the plans for the merger. You'll have to make the choice without her advice."

Carson studied the two pictures with a troubled expression. "Huh."

"I've got an idea," Nick said smoothly. "Why don't you take all three pictures with you tomorrow when we go into town? You can show them to Octavia when you take her the coffee and muffin. She can choose the one she likes best."

"Okay." Carson brightened immediately, clearly pleased by that suggestion. "I'll bet she goes for Winston. She likes him."

Not yet six and the kid was already displaying an intuitive understanding of the client, Nick thought. Carson was a natural for the business world. Unlike himself.

He had hated the corporate environment. His decision to leave Harte Investments, the company his grandfather, Sullivan, had founded and that his father, Hamilton, had taken over had not gone down well. Although his father had understood and supported him, his grandfather had been hurt and furious at the time. He had seen Nick's refusal to follow in his footsteps as a betrayal of everything he had worked so hard to achieve.

He and Sullivan had managed a rapprochement eventually, thanks to the intervention of everyone else in the family. They were back on speaking terms at any rate. But deep down, Nick was not certain that Sullivan would ever entirely forgive him.

He did not really blame his grandfather. Sullivan had poured his blood and sweat into building Harte Investments. He had envisioned the firm descending through generation after generation of Hartes. The company had been a personal triumph for him, a phoenix rising from the ashes after the destruction of Harte-Madison, the commercial real estate development business he had founded with his former partner, Mitchell Madison, here in Eclipse Bay.

The collapse of the company decades earlier had ignited a feud between Sullivan and Mitchell that had thrived until recently. The bad blood between the Hartes and the Madisons was legendary in these parts. It had provided fodder for the gossips of Eclipse Bay for three generations.

But the first crack in the wall that had separated the two very different families had come last fall when Rafe Madison, the bad boy of the Madison family, had married Nick's sister Hannah. Several more bricks had crumbled last month when his other sister, Lillian, had wed Gabe Madison.

But the earth-shattering news that Harte Investments and Gabe's company, Madison Commercial, were in the process of merging had been the final blazing straw as far as the good people of Eclipse Bay were concerned. The newly formed corporation, after all, effectively re-created the company that had been ripped apart at the start of the feud. Life had seemingly come full circle.

"You may be right about the Winston picture," Nick said. "But the house is pretty good, too. The green flower is a great touch."

"Yeah, but there will be lots of houses and flowers in the art show. All the kids I know like to draw houses and flowers. Probably won't be any other dogs, though. Hardly anyone can draw a dog, especially not one as good as Winston."

"Winston is unique. I'll give you that."

Carson looked up at him with a considering expression. "I've been thinking, Dad."

"What?"

"Maybe you shouldn't come with me when I take my pictures to Miss Brightwell tomorrow."

Nick raised his brows. "You want me to wait in the car?"

Carson smiled, clearly relieved. "Good idea. That way she won't even see you."

"You're really afraid I'm going to mess up your shot at getting a picture into the gallery show, aren't you?"

"I just don't want to take any chances."

"Sorry, pal. I've got my own agenda here and I'm not about to waste a perfectly good opportunity to move ahead with it just because you're worried she won't hang your picture."

So he didn't have a lot of interest in the family business. He was still a Harte, Nick thought: He was just as goal-oriented and capable of focusing on an objective as anyone else in the clan.

"If you wait in the car," Carson said ingratiatingly, "I promise I'll tell Miss Brightwell that it would be okay to go out with you."

One of the Harte family mottos in action, Nick thought, not without a degree of sincere admiration. When you find yourself backed into a corner, negotiate your way out of it.

"Let me get this straight." He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans and looked down at his son. "If I agree to stay out of the way tomorrow, you'll put in a good word for me?"

"She likes me, Dad. I think she'd agree to go out with you if I asked her."

"Thanks, but no thanks. I may not have followed in the family footsteps like Dad and Granddad, but that doesn't mean I don't know how to get what I want."

And he definitely wanted Octavia Brightwell.

That, he thought, was the real reason he and Carson were in Eclipse Bay for an extended stay. He had come here to lay siege to the castle of the Fairy Queen.

"Well, okay, but promise you won't wreck things for me."

"I'll do my best."

Resigned, Carson turned back to the dog picture. "I think Winston needs more fur."

He selected a crayon and went to work.

She was an out-and-out coward.

Octavia sat on the stool behind the gallery sales counter, the heels of her sandals hooked on the top rung, and propped her chin on her hands. She regarded the phone as if it were a serpent.

One date.

How could it hurt to go out with Nick Harte just once?

But she knew the answer to that. If she accepted one invitation, she would probably accept another. And then there would be a third. Maybe a fourth. Sooner or later she would end up in bed with him and that would be the biggest mistake of her life. Some thrill rides were just too risky.

They called him Hardhearted Harte back in Portland. Nick had a reputation for confining his relationships to discreet, short-term affairs that ended whenever his partner of the moment started pushing for a commitment.

According to the gossip she had heard, Nick never went to bed with a woman without first having delivered what was known as The Talk.

The Talk was said to be a clear, concise position statement that made it plain that he was not interested in any long-term arrangements like marriage. Women who chose to sleep with Nick Harte went into the relationship with their eyes wide open.

They said that even if you lured him into your bed, he would be gone long before dawn. He never stayed the night, according to the stories that circulated about him.

Here in Eclipse Bay, where gossip about the Hartes and the Madisons had been raised to a fine art, folks were certain that they knew the real reason for The Talk. The local mythology held that Nick, being a true Harte, was unable to love again because he was still mourning the loss of his beloved Amelia. He was under a curse, some said, doomed never to find another true love until the right woman shattered the spell that bound him. His reputation for never staying the night with any of his lovers only fanned the flames of that particular legend.