by Peggy Webb
o0o
The moon was riding high when they left the bower, replete. Clutching their rumpled clothes in their hands, they walked through the moonlight to Anthony's cabin.
Dirk held open the door for her. "There's no need to return to the compound tonight," he said.
"No need," she agreed.
"The car might disturb them."
"They're probably already asleep."
"Do you want the light?" he asked. The cabin was flooded with the light of a full moon that poured through the enormous skylight in the center of the room.
"How can you improve on nature?" she said.
His eyes sparkled as his gaze raked her body. "Impossible," he agreed. "Nature outdid herself." He took a step toward her.
She lifted her hands, laughing. "Dirk! Don't you ever get hungry?"
"Only for you." He leaned over and nipped her neck.
Pretending impatience with him, she crossed her arms on her bare breasts. "Are you going to feed me or do I have to steal Rocinante and make my escape down the mountain?"
"You distract the cook." He walked to a closet and pulled out a blue denim shirt. "Here," he said, tossing it to her. "Put this on or well never get around to food."
She caught the shirt deftly and headed for the shower. Anthony's cabin was almost as familiar to her as her own. He had been her friend and confidant since she had moved to Beech Mountain. "Don't fix eggs," she called over her shoulder. "I hate eggs."
Dirk fixed them anyway. He had many skills, but cooking was not one of them. His hale and hearty body was not a tribute to his cooking, but rather to his habits of exercising and eating natural foods.
When Ellen returned from the shower, Dirk's shirt buttoned low, exposing the tops of her breasts, she saw the table was set with a platter of fresh fruits—peeled oranges, sliced apples, bananas, and bunches of grapes—a loaf of whole wheat bread, and a platter of eggs.
Dirk, dressed in a clean pair of faded cutoff jeans, pulled back her chair. "Welcome to this humble repast," he said. He captured her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist before sitting down at the other side of the table.
"Eggs!" she said.
"My specialty." He dished up a generous helping. "What's yours?" He grinned wickedly at her. "Cooking, I mean."
"I'm a scientist. I don't cook," she said serenely as she helped herself to the fruit. "Why do you think God invented Betty Crocker and Sara Lee?"
He chuckled. "It's a good thing we don't plan a permanent liaison. We'd starve to death."
"A very good thing," she said, but the words had the hollow ring of falsehood and the fruit in her mouth turned to sawdust.
She propped her elbows on Anthony's glass-top table. It was best not to talk about things like permanence and commitment, she decided. They were mutually exclusive with brief affairs.
"How do you know Tony?" she asked. A nice, safe topic, she thought. One guaranteed not to cause racing pulses and crazy thoughts.
"Tony and I met in Spain—on the Costa del Sol." Dirk laughed, remembering. "His yacht was moored in a harbor at Malaga. We had both come in from a day's fishing. He was empty-handed and I had a catch big enough to feed half the population of Spain. I shared my fish, and we've been fast friends ever since. He's a remarkable man. "
"So he is. Not many men can make their first million before the age of thirty and retire at forty- five." She glanced around the cabin. Its rustic exterior was deceiving. Modern chrome-and-glass furniture, plush white throw rugs, Chinese porcelain, and carved jade accessories all reflected the expensive tastes of its owner.
Ellen turned her attention back to Dirk. She knew why Tony had been in Spain: He went where whim carried him.
But what about Dirk? Would she learn one more tidbit to fit into the jigsaw puzzle of his life? "Why were you in Spain?" she asked.
"Would you believe me if I told you I was living in another convent, posing as a nun?"
"No."
"I thought not." He looked out the window into the darkened woods. His hands paused in the act of breaking a piece of brown bread, and he seemed to be struggling to come to a decision. Abruptly he turned back to her. "I was there on business."
Ellen had not even been aware that she was holding her breath. It came out in a relieved whoosh. First his real name and now his work, she exulted. It seemed that tonight she had hit the jackpot.
"And what kind of business is that, Dirk Benedict?" she asked softly.
His black-as-doom eyes sparkled as he slowly put down his bread and reached across the table. He captured both her hands and turned them over, letting his thumbs trace the pale network of blue veins on the inside of her wrists.
"I have a confession to make," he said.
"What?" She scarcely breathed.
"There's something I've been wanting to tell you for a long time." His thumbs continued their sensuous circling.
Would it explain the scar? she wondered. Would it explain his reticence? "You can tell me anything."
Still holding her hands, he stood up and walked around the table. Pulling her up beside him, he tipped her face so that he could look deep into her eyes. "You have grape juice in the most provocative place."
"Oh, you ..." She started to vent her frustration that he had once again hidden behind his wall of secrecy, but his head dipped toward hers, and she felt his tongue flick the side of her mouth. Her frustration changed to pleasure as the touch sent shivers down her spine.
"Hmm, nice," he said against her skin. "I've always wanted to have a loaf of bread, a bunch of grapes, and you."
"I think that's 'a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and—' "
"Hush," he murmured as his lips moved across hers. "This is my fantasy."
The kiss was silk against silk, feather-light and provocative. She felt the familiar fire that only Dirk could kindle begin deep in her loins and inflame her body. She wound her hands in his hair as he pushed her back against the edge of the table and reached behind her.
Holding her hips to his with one hand pressed against the small of her back, he lifted his head. "I've always wanted to have my grapes this way." He moved his head toward the bunch of white grapes in his free hand. With one deft motion he plucked a grape with his teeth.
Taking her cue, Ellen lifted her lips toward the tantalizing fruit in his mouth. "Hmm," she murmured as their lips meet and the sweet juice squirted into their mouths. The kiss lasted until not a trace of juice was left.
Ellen cocked her head to one side. "There's something I've been wanting to tell you all evening," she said teasingly.
"What's that, my love?"
"I've always wanted to do a scientific study on the correlation between grapes and sexual pleasure." She plucked a grape with her mouth and stood on tiptoe to place it on the shelf of his shoulder between his neck and his collarbone.
He stood very still as she bit the grape and traced the tiny trail of juice with her tongue. That questing tongue sent surges of pleasure ripping through him, and he wondered why he had denied the pleasure for so long. Her hot tongue moved across his chest, far beyond the reaches of the grape juice, and her hips began a rhythmic cadence against his own.
Unable to restrain himself any longer, he lifted her and carried her to the plush white rug in the center of the cabin. The moonlight streaming through the skylight turned her hair to flame as he laid her down. Leaning over her, he unfastened the top button of the blue work shirt and placed a grape between her breasts. "Between my fantasy and your scientific analysis," he said, "this could take a long time."
"A very long time," she said. He lowered his head, and she shivered with delight when she felt the small rivulet of juice run between the valley of her breasts.
"Doctor, I love your fruit," he murmured against her moon-silvered skin as his lips and tongue followed the path of the juice.
"I can't draw ... a conclusion . . . until all . . . the data... is in." She spoke between sharp gasps of ecstasy.
And those were t
he last words uttered until the grapes were gone and the fantasy had ended. Only the moon was witness to what they did with the grapes, and if Ellen had ever decided to publish her findings, nobody would have believed her.
At last, redolent with the sweet scent of grapes and the pungent scent of love, they retired to Tony's enormous brass bed and fell into exhausted sleep.
o0o
Ellen stirred in her sleep and pressed herself closer to Dirk's back. In the semidarkness of predawn, she became aware of sound. It was a soft agonized moan. Years of round-the-clock research with Gigi made her instantly alert.
Dirk flung his arm out and groaned again. It was a half-articulated "No," a denial of the dark things that haunted his dreams.
Ellen placed her lips on the scar slanting across his back and tenderly rubbed her hand across his shoulder. "Hush, love," she crooned. Another anguished sound escaped his lips. She wrapped both arms around him and gently rocked. "It's all right, Dirk. It's all right." She spoke softly, soothingly, holding and rocking him until his restlessness stilled and his breathing became an easy rise and fall of his chest.
Lifting herself on her elbow, she looked down at him. "What demons haunt you, my love?" she whispered. "What is the secret that keeps you locked away from me?"
She lay back against the pillow and closed her eyes, but sleep evaded her. She stared through the skylight at the first pink of morning and rose quietly from the brass bed. Padding barefoot to the white rug, she retrieved Dirk's shirt and shrugged into it. The latch of the door clicked faintly behind her.
The splinters on the porch pricked her bare bottom as she sat and looked out across the vista of Beech Mountain. Nature was putting on another glorious display as it gave birth to a new day. The dew on the grass took on the jeweled hues of rare diamonds, and the songbirds outdid themselves inventing new arias to welcome the day. The still morning air was heady with the mingled perfumes of mountain wild flowers.
Ellen hugged her knees to her chest. Her affair was only one day old, and already she could feel the lonesomeness of the parting. Already she knew that the man lying on Anthony Salinger's enormous brass bed inside the cabin was more to her than a fake fiancé. He was also more to her than a passing fancy. He was the other half of herself. He was the one man who could fill the void in her heart. Out of all the men in the world, Dirk Benedict, man of mystery and deceit, was the only one who could make her life complete.
"A pretty pickle you've gotten yourself into. Dr. Ellen Stanford," she scolded herself. "You should have stuck to gorilla research and left the grapes to somebody else." She sighed. She didn't know love could hurt so much.
Chapter Nine
Dirk and Ellen spent the next few glorious days alternating between building the fence and building their relationship. That the fence took six days to build, instead of the projected two, spoke eloquently of their preoccupation with each other.
Part of Dirk's belongings were in the guest cabin on the compound and part of them were still in Tony's cabin. Ellen and Dirk whizzed giddily up and down the mountain, following whims and the urgings of their flesh. The white rug, the brass bed, the rose bower beside the lake, and the spool bed on the compound all became special places of delight.
Often the ringing of their hammers would cease before the sun had reached its noonday brightness. All it took between them was one look, and they would join hands and disappear into the summer day.
Ruth Ann accepted the affair with stoic silence, and Gigi accepted Dirk's presence with outrageous displays of joy. Ellen taught Dirk the signs that Gigi used, and a bond of genuine affection was forged between man and gorilla.
Whenever she saw them together, Ellen would again feel something akin to envy. Nothing was held back with the gorilla. Gigi constantly signed love with her hands, while Ellen could only sign love with her heart. Though they were on the mountaintop, miles removed from civilization, she could not put aside civilized restraints. Dirk had set the boundaries for the affair—no commitments—and she would not be the first one to cross the line.
o0o
The sun-filled, love-filled days of June and July slipped by. Ellen and Dirk pretended not to notice their passing. They deceived themselves into thinking the summer would go on forever.
But August came, and with it a thunderstorm. Ellen stood at the window of the guest cabin on the compound and watched nature lash Beech Mountain with her fury. What was Dirk thinking? she wondered, as she watched the play of lightning in the night sky. He had been brooding and tense all day, and not even their lovemaking had dispelled her feeling that he was a keg of gunpowder, set to explode.
Half turning from the window, she spoke over her shoulder. "The storm reminds me of you."
He leaned back against the pillows and pretended a nonchalance he didn't feel. His mind swung back to the letter he had received—his new assignment. His palms became damp, and he felt a familiar surge of excitement that he would once more be embroiled in the life-and-death adventure of battling evil.
He gazed at the woman at the window, and the excitement became tinged with sadness. The job he loved was waiting, but Ellen made going back hard.
"In what way, love?" he asked. His light question was a masterpiece of deception, an elaborate pretense that the summer would never end. But Ellen knew him too well.
She turned fully from the window so that she could face him. "Both of you are charged with power."
He smiled, and it, too, was a masterpiece of deception. "Come back to bed, love. I'll show you power."
She locked her hands behind her back, forcing herself not to run into the safe haven of his arms, where questions didn't exist and answers didn't matter. "It's more than the power—" She stopped, watching his face. Although the smile stayed in place, the black eyes showed caution. "It's the violence." The face didn't change.
She walked across the room and sat on the edge of the bed. Putting her hand on his back, she let her fingers trail the bronze skin until she found what she sought. "Tell me about the scar, Dirk." She rubbed her fingertips along its jagged edge.
He sat very still for a moment, letting the feel of her hands and the nearness of her body seep into his turmoiled spirit. "Ahh, Ellen." Winding his arms tightly around her, he crushed her against his chest. "Do you know how good you are for me? Do you have any idea what this summer has meant?"
"Tell me." Her voice was muffled against his shoulder.
"You've given me a sense of place and a sense of family. I feel almost as if Beech Mountain were my home."
It could be, she wanted to say. Instead, she remained silent, waiting for him to continue.
"I have no family, Ellen, and my home was always whichever orphanage would take a rambunctious boy who was too much trouble to be adopted."
"Then you were telling the truth that first day on my front porch?"
"I've always told you the truth"—he lifted his head to grin crookedly at her—"more or less."
She cupped his face and rubbed her cheek against his jaw. "Less than more, I think."
"The government gave me a chance to belong, to be a part of something, even if it was only a system."
She sucked her breath in sharply, and a feeling of foreboding filled her heart. She put her fingers over his lips.
"Shh. You don't have to say any more, Dirk."
He kissed her fingertips and removed her hand. "I think I do. It's time—past time—for you to know the truth."
"No." She shook her head, and her green eyes widened. Outside the storm battered the roof and assaulted the windows. Lightning ripped the dark sky and thunder ricocheted off the mountains. Her emotions rivaled the storm. "Summer's almost over," she said. "You'll be gone. Let's just leave the mystery."
"It's become important to me that you know why I must go." He looked deep into her eyes. "I work for the CIA, Ellen."
She let out a long, ragged breath. Sometimes, she thought, there's more hope in mystery than in the truth. If he had gone, shrouded in mys
tery, she could have pretended that he would change his mind and come back. But not now. Now she knew. She knew about the scar. She knew about the "no commitments" policy. She knew about the feeling of power and violence that surrounded him.
She leaned her forehead against his neck. Her demons suddenly seemed pussycats compared to his.
"The scar is a souvenir of my job," he continued. "I was working undercover in Casablanca when it happened." He squeezed her tightly. "Danger is a part of-my life. Violence is my constant companion." His lips brushed her hair back from her forehead. "I could never ask anyone to share that with me."
She squeezed him as if she would never let go. She willed time to stand still, but she could hear autumn, wearing storm trooper boots, coming in on the heels of the rain. So much loving and so little time. She squeezed again. He was as implacable as Beech Mountain. It was foolish to waste time arguing that she could share anything as long as it was with him. She lifted her head and looked at him with false brightness.
"Mr. Dirk Benedict, are we involved in a summer affair or in a dreary discussion?" She leaned down and playfully nipped his neck. "Time's a-wastin'."
He smiled and took her with all the passion of the storm outside. Theirs was a fierce joining without tenderness, a desperate coming together that sought to deny endings.
o0o
Everything changed after that night. It was almost as if Ellen and Dirk had already said goodbye. Their last two weeks together were blurred, like a movie reel run too fast. And they continued the gay deceit, right to the very end.
"Special delivery for Dr. Ellen Stanford." Ellen's white lab coat flared as she spun around at the sound of the voice. Her concentration on her work had been so intense that she had not heard a vehicle drive up. A delivery boy was standing in the doorway, his face hidden behind an enormous bouquet of yellow-throated orchids.
