"What's going on here?" he asked with lazy interest.
She straddled him and smiled slowly. "My turn."
"Oh, wow."
She felt him leave the bed again shortly before dawn. Dismay and regret and a strange resentment whispered through her. She opened her eyes and stared at the wall, listening to him pad barefooted across the floor.
Of course he was leaving. What had she expected him to do? Stay until morning? What would be the point? This was a summer affair.
But she was not about to let him just slide out like this. He could say a proper goodbye when he left her bed, damn it.
She turned on her side, searching for him in the shadows, expecting to see him making for the bathroom with his clothes. But he wasn't creeping across the carpet.
He stood at the window, one hand braced against the sill, and looked out at the moonlit bay. The pale glow streaming through the glass etched his shoulders in steely silver and cast his profile into deep shadow.
"Nick?" She levered herself up on her elbows. "What are you doing?"
He turned his head to look toward the bed. "I was just thinking."
"About what?"
"About what happens at the end of the summer."
She did not move. She did not even breathe. "This isn't The Talk, is it? Because if you're trying to sneak it in now—"
"It's not The Talk," he said, his voice roughening abruptly.
She stared at him. "Are you angry?"
"Maybe. Yeah. I think so. I'm trying to have a rational discussion here and you're throwing that crap about The Talk in my face."
He was angry, all right. Fair enough. She was rapidly losing her temper, too.
"Okay, sorry," she said stiffly. "I just wanted to be sure you weren't going to try to deliver that stupid talk now. Because it's much too late."
He did not move for a few seconds. Then he came away from the window and walked back to the bed to stand looking down at her.
"Too late?" he repeated neutrally.
"Whether you like it or not, we are involved in a relationship. It may not work out for a variety of reasons, but I'll be damned if I'll let you put some arbitrary limit on it."
"There seems to be some confusion here," he said coldly. "You're accusing me of trying to specify the time and date when this thing between us ends, but I'm not the one who keeps talking about leaving Eclipse Bay in a few weeks."
She opened her mouth to argue and then closed it quickly.
Okay, he had a point.
She cleared her throat. "That's different."
"Like hell."
She glowered. "I have to be pragmatic. I've got a business to sell. That takes time and planning. And then there's the move. A person can't make those sorts of arrangements on a last-minute basis."
He put one knee on the tumbled bedding. "You're the one who's running scared here."
"That's not true."
"Hell, maybe we've both been running scared for a while." He came down on top of her, pushing her back onto the pillows. "But I think it's time we both stopped."
"You do?"
"If you want to sleep with me, lady, you're going to have to take a few chances."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah."
"What about you?" she managed. "Are you willing to take a few risks, too?"
His smile was slow and enigmatic in the shadows. His eyes had never been more dangerous. Or promised so much.
"I've been taking chances since the day I met you," he said. "Want to know why I didn't give you The Talk back at the beginning of this affair?"
"Yes."
"I forgot about it, that's why. Never even crossed my mind to give you The Talk." He brushed his mouth across hers. "You see? Taking chances."
"Oh."
He bent his head again and put his mouth to her throat. She felt the edge of his teeth against her skin and excitement stormed through her. She wrapped her arms around him and stopped thinking about the end of summer.
Chapter 20
Gail rushed through the door of the gallery shortly after ten-thirty the next morning. "You won't believe this."
"What's that?" Octavia came around the corner of one of the display panels and stopped, staring in amazement. "You're right. I don't believe it. Good grief, what happened? You've got Very Big Hair."
"What? Oh, yeah, my hair." Gail grimaced and put up a hand to touch the crisply starched mountain of hair on top of her head. "You owe me for this, boss. Big time."
Octavia shook her head slowly in disbelief. She could not get over her hair. "That's amazing."
"Carla wanted to color it, too, but I drew the line at that."
"Let me guess. Blonde?"
"Probably. I didn't get into a discussion of shades. I told her I needed to think about such a major move." Gail waved that aside. "But that's not important. What's important here is what I heard while I was trapped in the chair."
"Ah, yes." Octavia propped a scene of Hidden Cove at dawn against the panel. "Your undercover assignment. I almost forgot. Well?"
Gail drew herself up proudly. "Laugh if you will, but I found out something you really ought to know."
Octavia reached up to remove a picture of the marina from a panel. "Okay, Madam Spy. What did you find out at the beauty shop?"
Gail leaned against the counter and examined her nails. "Not much."
"I'm not surprised." She set the marina scene aside and hoisted the picture of Hidden Cove.
"Just two tiny little snippets of information that you might find interesting."
Octavia hung the Hidden Cove picture on the panel in the space that had been previously occupied by the painting of the marina. "And those two tiny little snippets would be?"
"Well, for starters, I found out what caused the big fight at the Total Eclipse last night."
"It was a bar brawl." Octavia stepped back to study the position of the picture she had just hung. "I have it on excellent authority that such events are random acts of nature. They don't need a cause."
"This one apparently had a very specific cause," Gail murmured dryly.
"Really?" Octavia made a tiny adjustment to the frame. "And what was it?"
"You."
Octavia's fingers stilled on the frame. "Someone said that I was the cause?"
"Actually, everyone is saying it this morning."
Octavia turned slowly. "That's very irritating."
