“When did you become an expert?”
“Good point. Forget it.” Rafe drummed his fingers on top of the food processor. “I’m taking a date to Mitchell’s house tomorrow night.”
“Someone local?” Gabe sounded only casually interested.
“You could say that. Hannah Harte.”
“Hannah? Are you kidding me?”
“No.”
“She agreed to go with you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure, if you want the truth. Probably thinks it’s a step toward getting her hands on Dreamscape.”
“You, uh, led her to think that might be the case?” Gabe asked carefully.
“Sort of.”
“But you’ve got no intention of giving up your claim on that mansion.”
“No,” Rafe said, “I don’t.”
“What the hell is going on there?”
“I’ll let you know when I find out. I’ve got to go now. Talk to you later.”
Rafe hung up the phone and switched on the food processor. He thought about Hannah while the machine turned the mixture inside the bowl into tapenade. An old proverb flickered through his mind, something about bringing a long spoon when you dined with the devil. Madisons had used it to describe the risks of dealing with Hartes for years.
Chapter 6
Rafe wrapped his hands around the porch railing and gazed out over his grandfather’s magnificent garden. A lot of people in Eclipse Bay gardened, but none of them could match Mitchell’s spectacular display of lush ferns, herb borders, and rosebushes. A large greenhouse dominated the far end of the scene. Inside it were more horticultural wonders. A vegetable plot occupied a section near the house. Even in early fall when blooms were fading, Mitchell’s garden was a work of art.
In the dark months after the death of their parents, Mitchell had taken his two grandsons into the garden a lot. The three of them had spent countless hours there. Mitchell had shown Rafe and Gabe how to prepare the ground, water the tomatoes, and trim rosebushes. They hadn’t talked much, but Rafe knew that they had all found some solace in the work of growing things.
Mitchell had lived a turbulent life by anyone’s standards. The years had seen the financial and personal devastation brought on by the destruction of Harte-Madison and the ensuing feud with his old army buddy, Sullivan Harte. The turmoil of four divorces and the breakup of innumerable affairs had taken a toll. The loss of his only son, Sinclair, had been a cruel blow. Rafe knew that the unexpected burden of raising two grandsons had come as a shock to a man who, until then, had not worried overmuch about his family responsibilities. But through it all, Mitchell had never lost his interest in gardening.
Gardening was Mitchell’s passion. As everyone knew, when it came to a Madison and his passion, nothing was allowed to stand in the way.
Rafe went down the steps. “How’d you meet Octavia Brightwell?” he asked, partly out of curiosity and partly in a bid to find a neutral topic. Conversations between himself and Mitchell were fraught with problems.
For as long as he could remember, he had been at odds with his grandfather. In recent years they had achieved a prickly détente, but that was only because both of them had tacitly abandoned the open warfare that had characterized so much of their earlier communication. Some would say that they had matured, Rafe thought. But he and Mitchell knew the truth. They had both given up butting heads for the most part because it had become obvious that it was a pointless exercise. Which was not to say that they did not occasionally engage in the activity from time to time, just to stay in practice.
They had both been on their best behavior throughout dinner this evening, he reflected. True, things had been a little tense for a few minutes after he walked in the front door with Hannah, but to his credit, Mitchell had recovered quickly. Rafe’s theory was that the older man was determined to play the genial host in front of his new girlfriend.
Octavia Brightwell was, indeed, young enough to be Mitchell’s granddaughter. She came as a surprise to Rafe. She had proved to be warm, friendly, and intelligent. He could tell that Hannah had liked her on sight. During the course of the conversation at dinner Octavia had explained that the gallery she had opened in Eclipse Bay was her second. The first was in Portland. This summer she had divided her time between the two locations.
“She stuck her head over my garden fence one morning at the beginning of summer and told me that I was handling my roses all wrong.” Mitchell snorted. “Told her I’d been dealing with roses since before she was born. She brought me a book on how to grow roses. Told me to read a few pages. I told her the author of the book was a damn fool. You might say we just hit it off.”
“I see.” Rafe watched Mitchell pause to remove a dead bloom from a rosebush.
Something twisted deep inside him at the sight of his grandfather’s hawklike profile. It hit him that the old warrior with whom he had fought so many battles would not be around forever. It was difficult to imagine the world without Mitchell.
The tough, irascible Mitchell had the usual Madison flaws, Rafe thought, but he had been the one solid anchor in his grandsons’ lives since the day their father’s motorcycle had collided with a truck.
Rafe thought about the mysterious weekly trips to Portland. If there was something seriously wrong, it did not show. Mitchell used a cane, but he still looked strong and fit. He could have passed for a man fifteen years younger. There was a sharp glint in his slightly faded green eyes. The hard lines of his face had softened little with age. There was a slight stoop to his shoulders these days, and he had lost some muscle with the years, but the physical changes were well concealed by his undiminished will and determination to control his world and everyone in it.
“I take it you and Octavia spend a lot of time together,” Rafe said as casually as possible.
“Some.” Mitchell nipped off another dead rose.
This was not going to work, Rafe decided. If Mitchell did not want to discuss his relationship with Octavia Brightwell, that was the end of the matter. His grandfather had never talked much about his affairs and liaisons over the years. When it came to women, he lived by an old-fashioned code. A man did not kiss and tell. He had drilled that same cardinal rule into both Rafe and Gabe.
Rafe went down the steps and came to a halt on the path beside Mitchell, who was examining a cluster of ferns.
“I understand you’ve been going into Portland on a regular basis,” Rafe said. “To see Octavia?”