"I know. Eclipse Bay isn't exactly on the art world's radar screen."
"No, and I'm afraid that I'm booked solid in the city. I've got shows scheduled every month until the end of summer there and then I plan to sell both galleries."
"I understand," he said.
"But I can certainly hang a couple of your pictures in my gallery here in town and see if they sell. I have a hunch they will. You've got a real commercial talent. What do you say?"
"I'll go with your intuition. You've got the eye, at least when it comes to art."
"Meaning that I don't have it when it comes to other things?"
"Okay, okay, I admit that I have some strong reservations about you seeing Nick Harte."
"I thought so." She folded her arms and propped one hip on the edge of the table. "He told me that you think he had an affair with your ex-wife."
Jeremy looked stunned. Then his expression darkened and his face tightened with suppressed anger. "I can't believe that he actually talked to you about that."
"He didn't discuss it in detail. He just made the statement that you thought your ex-wife had had an affair with him while you were still married."
Jeremy's hand closed into a fist. "So, he admitted it," he said softly.
"No, he did not admit it. He just said that was what you believed."
"It's not a guess, you know." Jeremy looked hard at the painting of his grandmother. "Laura told me she'd been with him."
"Where is Laura now?"
"Getting ready to marry again, I hear. A lawyer in Seattle."
"When did she meet him?"
"How the hell should I know? I don't keep track of her private life these days."
"You and Laura," she said cautiously, "I assume the two of you were having trouble for a while before you split up?"
"Sure. We argued a lot toward the end. That's usually what happens before you get a divorce, isn't it?"
"That's certainly the way it went in my family." She watched him intently. "Were the quarrels bad?"
"Bad enough."
"The kind of arguments in which both people say things that are calculated to hurt the other person as much as possible?"
Jeremy glanced at her, frowning. "Sometimes. Look, I really don't want to rehash the events surrounding my divorce, okay? It's not my favorite topic of conversation."
"I understand. But I can't help wondering if maybe Laura told you that she'd had an affair with Nick because she knew it would hit you harder than if she said she'd fallen in love with a man you'd never met. Also, it could have been a way of protecting the man she really was seeing at the time."
"What is this? You think you have to defend Harte? Don't waste your time."
"What a terrible position to be in, trying to figure out whether to believe your lifelong friend or your spouse. No one should have to make that kind of decision."
"Look, I'm not after sympathy here," he muttered. "It's over. I've moved on, like they say, okay?"
"Tell me something, did you ever ask Nick directly if he'd slept with Laura?"
"I told him once that I knew about them, yeah," Jeremy growled.
"You accused him. You didn't ask him."
"What's the difference? He denied it."
"Did Nick ever lie to you in the past about anything else that was important?"
"What does the past have to do with this?"
"Did he?" she pressed gently.
"No. But, then, maybe he never had any reason to lie to me in the past."
"You've been acquainted with him since you both were children. Have you ever known him to cheat or steal or betray a friend?"
"Things are different when it comes to sex" Jeremy said with ominous certainty.
"Do you think so? I don't. Cheaters cheat and liars lie. It's what they do whenever things become inconvenient for them or when they can't get what they want in any other way. Most of the people I've known who can lie to your face have had some practice. Aunt Claudia always said that scamming people was an art form that required skill and precision."
Jeremy looked grim. "Your aunt would have known, from all accounts."
"Yes. The only thing I can say in her defense was that she came to regret a lot of the damage she caused. But we're not talking about her. Tell me about Laura. Looking back, can you recall occasions when she lied to you?"
Jeremy started to say something but he closed his mouth before uttering a word. He just stood there, gazing at one of the landscapes he had painted.
"How long did you know her?" she asked.
"We were married three months after we met. She thought she was—" He stopped.
"She thought she was pregnant?"
Jeremy nodded. "It was okay by me, although my family was a little put off by the rush, and Grandmother was mortified. She's a little old-fashioned, you know."
"Yes. I know."
Jeremy grimaced. "She became my biggest supporter, however, after she found out that Laura came from a socially prominent family in Seattle. But as far as I was concerned, I was excited about starting a family. It felt right, you know? Nick had little Carson and I… Well, it didn't happen for Laura and me. Turned out she wasn't pregnant, after all."
"She lied about it?"
He shoved his fingers through his hair, looking hunted. "To tell you the truth, I don't know. I've sometimes wondered. She said it was a mistake at the time. The test didn't work properly or something."
"How long were you married?"
"Eighteen months. Like I said, her family was old Seattle money. Lots of connections. Her parents were never particularly thrilled with me. They felt she could have done better. Once or twice I got the feeling that maybe she'd married me just to defy them and then…"
"Came to regret her decision."
"Things got worse in a hurry when I told her that I was thinking of moving to Eclipse Bay. I said it would be a good place to raise a family. She hated the idea so I put it off."
"You like it here. Don't you?" Octavia asked.
He regarded the painting of his grandmother for a while. "It's strange, but I do kind of like it here. Feels like home, you know?"
A wistful feeling drifted through her. "Yes. I know."
Sometimes feelings for places were wrong, she thought, but there was no need to go off on that tangent. Her intuition told her that Jeremy was, indeed, at home in Eclipse Bay. Like the Hartes and the Madisons, he had several generations of family history here.