by Webb, Peggy
His heart leaped with joy, but he bade it wait. Not yet, he said to himself. Don't push her.
"I want it back, David. All of it. Not in Tupelo, but here, in New York. I want to kiss you good-bye in the morning before I go to lessons, and I want to kiss you hello at night when you come home."
"Rosalie ..."
He started toward her, and she started toward him. They met hallway across the room. Locking hands, they gazed at each other.
"Take me back, David. Take me back to the edge of paradise."
"Not this time, Rosalie." He bent to kiss her lips. "This time we're going all the way.
Epilogue
Seven Years Later
o0o
ROSALIE KELLY DEBUTS AT THE MET, the headlines said.
Setting the newspaper aside. Big Betty wiped at her eyes, then pulled a handkerchief out of her apron and blew her nose.
"Silly, sentimental old fool," she said.
"Now, honey, that's not true." Robert Larkin, the best cook in Tupelo, left the burgers sizzling on the range and came to put his arms around her. "I won't have my bride talking that way about herself."
"We've been married two years, you smooth- talking old fox."
He grinned and kissed her soundly on the lips, never mind that the new waitress was gawking around the door.
"That's why you married me."
Big Betty grinned. "You keep that up, and I’ll show you why I married you."
Laughing, she picked up the paper once more. "Listen to this. 'Local woman makes good. Newcomer Rosalie Kelly proved herself worthy to join the roster of outstanding lyric/coloratura sopranos when she debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in The Barber of Seville. As Rosina, she sparkled with vixenish charm and fioritura brilliance, especially in the lesson scene.'" Grinning, she winked at her husband. "That's my Rosalie."
"They left out how she sparkled with beauty," Robert said. "Sitting there on them reserved seats, I was as proud of her as if she had been my own."
"Walt, wait. Listen to this. 'Patrons of the arts will also know Rosalie Kelly as wife of Captain David Kelly, the artist/police officer whose work is gaining attention throughout the United States.'" Betty wiped another tear. "If I don't hush this bawling, I won't be fit to welcome the special guests."
The cowbell clattered in the old cafe, and the first special guest walked through the door. Jack Westmoreland came striding in, one arm around his fiancee, Maribeth Moore, and the other held wide for Big Betty.
"Jack!" she screamed, running to him. "How's the best-looking future veterinarian in the state doing?"
"Can't complain." Jack grinned. "And if I did, Maribeth would nail my hide to the barn door."
"You're darned right I would." She smiled at him, showing her dimples.
The cowbell clattered once more, and Jim Westmoreland strolled in, looking grand and handsome in his navy uniform.
Robert was the one who greeted him first, calling him the best damned pilot in the whole U.S. of A.
Big Betty brought out the cookies; her husband brought out the milk, and they all sat around talking old times, walling for the other special guests to arrive.
"Don't you think these boys might be getting a little old for milk and cookies, honey?" Robert asked.
"Not as long as I'm living. They're still my babies."
There was a commotion at the door. Big Betty put her hand over her heart and watched Rosalie Kelly enter the old cafe. Time and success and love had heightened her beauty, deepened her spirit.
"Welcome back, honey." Betty ran to her, holding her arms wide. "Welcome back to the Edge of Paradise."
Rosalie held her close, her dearest and best friend—neither time nor distance could change that. Then she reached back and caught her husband's hand. "Thanks to David, I never left."
He put his free arm around his wife's waist and smiled down into her eyes.
"What about me. Mommy? What about me?" The little dark-haired girl in David's other arm chanted, regarding them all with her bright blue eyes.
"You, too, my darling," she said to her daughter. "You, too."
o0o
Much later that evening, with her sons bedded down on sleeping bags in Betty and Robert's sprawling country house, and her future daughter-in-law and five-year-old daughter sleeping in spare rooms down the hall, Rosalie sat at the dressing table, tying a ribbon in her hair.
David leaned against the bedpost, watching her.
"I love watching you do that," he said.
"I'm getting too old for ribbons."
"Never."
Their eyes met in the mirror, and she smiled at him.
"I had given up ribbons, you know," she teased him.
"Only in public."
"Remember when I put that first ribbon in my hair again. . . ." Her eyes shone with memories.
He left his watch at the bedpost, and bending down, embraced her from behind. "I did this," he said, cupping her breasts.
Her reaction was clearly visible through the sheer lace bodice of her gown.
"And I did that," she said, laughing at her instant reaction to him.
"I believe I'm getting old. You'll have to show me what we did next."
She turned and stood up in his arms. "What we did next was create our little miracle, Ariel."
He kissed the side of her throat where the soft blue veins pulsed, then nudged aside her straps.
"What we always do together is create a miracle, Rosalie," he whispered, right before he took her deep into his mouth.
She wound her hands into his hair, holding him close. "Oh, yes, David. Yes."
In the moonlight the white canopied bed beckoned.
-o0o-
Chapter One from Duplicity by Peggy Webb
"You're late." Dr. Ellen Stanford looked up from the notes she was studying and assessed the man standing in her doorway. He had the muscles of a linebacker, piercing black eyes, and a little-boy smile.
She sighed. Trust Rachelle to pick a football player.
"You're taller than I wanted, but you’ll do." She set her notebook on a cluttered desk, perched on its edge, and crossed her legs. "Just so we have a clear understanding of this job from the outset, I am not paying you for sex—just to act as if we have it."
The man didn't bat an eyelash. He simply leaned against the door and surveyed her with those unsettling eyes. By the time he got to her face, she felt like squirming. Now she knew how all those poor bugs she had studied under the microscope had felt. She wondered if she should go back to Duke University and apologize to them.
"Rachelle didn't tell me your name," she said. "What is it?"
"Dirk."
She liked his voice, deep and rumbly, like thunder in the mountains. "That's it? Just Dirk."
"Since we're not going to have sex, I think that's all you need to know." His expression was as unreadable as Beech Mountain. Only the twinkle in his eyes betrayed his amusement. "You can supply the rest."
Ellen found her gaze wandering to his hips, noting the snug fit of his jeans, the powerful lines of his thighs. She almost blushed when she realized he was aware of where she was looking. Fortunately he didn't grin. If he had, she would have kicked him all the way down this North Carolina mountain, and she would have forgotten all about the family reunion.
"I'll call you Smith," she said. "Easy to remember. You need to get acquainted with Gigi before we leave. She's out back waiting for her banana."
o0o
For the first time since he had entered the cabin, Dirk Benedict had second thoughts about going along with this charade. Somebody out back waiting for a banana sounded as if she would have all the appeal of his friend Anthony's snaggle-toothed cousin, Frances Jean.
"Who's Gigi?" he asked.
"My gorilla." The good doctor slid off her desk with the nonchalance of a person who had just claimed ownership of a tabby cat. "She's waiting to meet you. Right through those double doors and to the left. My assistant, Ruth Ann, will show you the wa
y."
She turned her back on him in dismissal, picked up the half glasses she wore for reading, and began making rapid notations in the margin of the report she was studying.
Dirk gave her a final measuring look, adding the escaped red curl on the nape of her neck, the amber glint in her green eyes, and the graceful way she stood to his growing catalog of details.
An extra burst of adrenaline pumped through his body as he shoved open the heavy doors and prepared to meet the gorilla. He chuckled to himself. For a man
who had faced firing squads and assassins and some of the world's most powerful crime figures, one gorilla named Gigi should be a piece of cake.
His overheated car radiator could wait. If that stunning woman in the white lab coat didn't find out his deception, this charade could prove to be just the thing he needed to take his mind off his work.
o0o
The minute Dirk was through the doors, Ellen breathed a sigh of relief. She was gifted with the power of total concentration, but right now her notes could not hold her attention.
Why couldn't Rachelle have chosen somebody less imposing? she wondered. And why did that man have such a strong effect on her?
She forced herself not to think about him, and to think about Gigi instead. The gorilla was making remarkable progress in the area of abstract thought. Although Ellen's work was labeled maverick and unsubstantiated by some of her colleagues, she believed that her methods of language research with gorillas would someday be the yardstick by which ail other research was measured. She became so absorbed in her work that she didn't hear the front door open.
The young man, unsure of himself in the presence of a woman doctor, shifted from one foot to the other, and finally worked up enough courage to interrupt. "Ah, excuse me."
Ellen lowered her report and looked over the top of her glasses. She judged the sandy-haired, baby- faced man to be at least six years her junior, around twenty-three or so. "What can I do for you?" she asked.
The transition from total absorption to charming hospitality was made so smoothly that the young man thought he had just dreamed that the doctor had been working when he'd come in out of the bright sunlight.
"I'm Nate Jones," he said, "and I guess you already know why I'm here." He ran a finger under his collar to release some of the sudden heat he felt in the presence of this awesomely beautiful woman.
"Why don't you refresh my memory?" Ellen suggested. She rapidly backtracked through her mind, trying to recall what her business with this ill-at-ease young man could be. Delivery boy for one of her suppliers? A new laundry man on the route? A reporter?
"It's about the—" He stopped speaking long enough to still the nervous bobbing of his Adam's apple. "Well, I need the money, you see, and when I heard about you wanting a man . . . That is . . ." He wiped the sweat off his forehead with a giant paisley print handkerchief. "Rachelle sent me." His snort of relief sounded like the blowing of a horse.
"Rachelle sent you?" Ellen spoke carefully, not believing what she had just heard.
"That's right, ma'am. I'm happy to go with you to the family reunion and pose as—"
He never got to finish his sentence. Ellen's notebook crashed to the floor as she bolted for the double doors. "Who the hell is that man back there with Gigi?"
Her feet flew down the corridor, out the back door of the building, and into the bright sunlit area that housed Gigi's summertime enclosure. She slowed down as she stepped into the sunlight and willed herself to regain her composure. Angry scenes were avoided in front of Gigi. Upsetting a two-hundred-pound gorilla could be dangerous.
She spotted them through the fence. Dirk and Gigi were sitting cross-legged, facing each other and sharing a banana. Ellen quietly let herself through the gate and approached the pair. She smiled in spite of her recent news. They looked like two solemn Buddhas, watching each other chew and pausing between bites for Gigi's ritual of carefully measuring and doling out the next two pieces.
Ellen sat beside Gigi and faced the man who called himself Dirk. "Who are you?" she asked.
"Found me out already, have you?"
"Yes. The man I thought you were is standing in my office right now adjusting his Adam's apple."
"The sex part made him nervous, did it?"
"You seem to have a one-track mind."
"This game was your idea, not mine." He stopped talking long enough to take the piece of banana Gigi handed him, pop it into his mouth, and solemnly submit to the gorilla's investigation to see if he was actually chewing.
“I like Gigi," he said. "She's a woman of few words, Dr. Stanford."
"Five hundred to be exact. How did you know my name?"
"Your assistant, Ruth Ann. But seeing Gigi jogged my memory. I've read about your work. Congratulations. You seem to have done everything you claim."
"I wish my colleagues would say that! But let's not get sidetracked from the main issue here. You are not who you claim."
He laughed. "Maybe not, but you've already told me that I’ll do. Why don't you fill me in on the details? Just what is it that you want me to do . . . except act as though we make love three times a day?"
"I didn't say that!"
"You disappoint me. Dr. Stanford. Only twice a day?"
"How often I make love is none of your business."
She felt the blood rush to her face. She had never encountered a man who could keep her continually off-balance. What made it even worse was that she liked him. In spite of his deception, in spite of his word games, she liked the big hunk. She liked the way he smiled. She liked his unruly thatch of dark hair, his black eyes. She liked his self-confidence, almost arrogance, and the quiet dignity he used with Gigi.
"The charade is over," she said. "You can take your bite of banana and go. The man I need is waiting in my office."
"How do you know I'm not the man you need?"
She chose to ignore the implications of his question. "You're too forward. You're too tall. You're too dark and you talk like a Yankee. Need I say more?"
"Yes. Go back to 'You're too dark and you talk like a Yankee.' Personal prejudices?"
"Partially. I prefer my men blond. As for the speech, my relatives are suspicious of anybody who doesn't talk with a Southern drawl."
"Once they get to know the lovable me underneath this Yankee exterior, they'll change their minds. But don't ask me to bleach my hair. There I draw the line." He winked at Ellen and shook his head at Gigi's offer of another bite.
Ellen stood up. "Tell Gigi good-bye. You won't be going with us to the family reunion."
Before Dirk could reply, Gigi grabbed him with one hand and frantically signed to Ellen with the other.
Ellen shook her head at the gorilla. "No, Gigi," she said while signing. "Man go. Ellen come back."
Dirk laughed. "I can't read what she's signing. American Sign Language, isn't it? But it looks like I have a two-hundred-pound gorilla on my side."
"Don't look so smug. You not only have her on your side, you're stuck with her. She told me, 'Man stay. Gigi love.' It looks as if you've made at least one conquest today."
"Just my luck. It's with the wrong woman."
Ellen laughed. "Don't let Gigi hear you say that. She's liable to take exception."
"You think she understands?"
Dirk was genuinely interested. Ellen's work intrigued him, and he admired her courage in trying unusual methods of research more than he admired her legs. Which was quite a lot of admiration, he thought, for he hadn't seen a set of legs like hers since he left Paris.
"At least some of what we're saying," she said. "Probably more than we realize." She turned back to the gorilla. "Man like Gigi too. Man must go. Tell good-bye."
Gigi reacted to that outrageous suggestion by going into a corner to pout.
"This way, Dirk." Ellen preceded him through the gate.
"I hate to go and break her heart this way."
"Don't flatter yourself. I'll have Ruth Ann bring her some potato ch
ips. Shell have forgotten you by the time she's ripped open the bag."
"Fickle woman."
When they returned to her office, the nervous young man was still waiting, standing beside the door and twisting his handkerchief into knots.
Dirk smiled as he lounged carelessly against Ellen's desk. He was going to enjoy this scene, he decided.
"I'm so sorry to keep you waiting," Ellen said. "What did you say your name was?" She noted the adoring-puppy look on the man's face and felt an instant sympathy for him. She didn't mean to generate that kind of adoration. It just seemed to happen.
"It's Nate, ma'am. I already told you once."
"So you did, Nate. My mind was on my gorilla."
Dirk noticed the way Nate's eyes widened at the mention of that fearsome animal. "The gorilla who's going with you to this family reunion," he said.
Although he wasn't absolutely certain that was true, he thought it was highly probable. He had been putting together random bits of information.
Anyhow, the statement was made to achieve maximum effect. He noted with satisfaction that it did. As Nate wiped his face with the most godawful handkerchief Dirk had ever seen, he could tell that the young man hadn't expected a gorilla to be a part of the deal. Dirk winked at Ellen, and thought that if looks could kill, he would be dead on the spot.
"A baby gorilla?" Nate asked.
"Full grown," Dirk said before Ellen could answer. "Over two hundred pounds. If I were you, I'd meet her before I started on a long trip. She might not like you."
"Rachelle didn't mention a gorilla, ma'am."
"Now don't you worry about a thing, Nate." Ellen said. "Gigi is harmless as a flea. And anyhow, my assistant is going along to take care of her." To Dirk she hissed, "You stay out of this."
"Excuse me, ma'am, but I'd like to get all this straight. I'm supposed to pose as your fiance for all your kinfolks, and the gorilla is going too?"
