Moonlight on Monterey Bay

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Sam felt such a strong response that he stepped away.

  “I think these colors will work well too,” Maddie went on. “The house is so wonderful and the view so beautiful, you don’t want to compete with it. You want to be at one with it. And the plantings around the house—”

  “What plantings around the house?”

  “The ones we’re going to put there,” Maddie said simply.

  She smiled at him again, a smile so confident that Sam found it difficult to question her judgment. He wondered if she was as secure and determined in all the other aspects of her life.

  “Your house needs to be kept airy, not burdened with heavy furniture, Sam,” she went on. “I need to spend some more time there to figure out all the details. These are only ideas.”

  “I want it done soon.”

  “I understand,” Maddie said, barely concealing her excitement. He hadn’t said no. If she worked it right, there wouldn’t be room for him to get one in.

  “All I need is a bed, a few pieces of furniture,” Sam said. “That’s all the hell I’m asking for.”

  Maddie smiled sweetly. “We can manage that too.”

  “It’s the opposite of the way it was done before,” Sam said, struggling.

  “You don’t strike me as the kind of man who needs elaborate surroundings all the time, Sam,” she said softly. “For relaxing, for leaving work behind and letting your spirit breathe—well, I think this will do fine.”

  “Exactly.” Eleanor’s voice dropped to a gentle tone. “It’s been so long since you’ve relaxed that you probably don’t know what you’d be comfortable in, but for some ungodly reason, this young woman here seems to know.”

  Sam spoke now as if Maddie weren’t there. “You seem to know a lot about this design firm.”

  “No, nothing. We both know that I called them by mistake. But fate has a way of barging in sometimes.”

  “So now fate is selecting my furniture.”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “You think I should go with this firm, then?”

  “Of course.” It was Maddie and Eleanor, speaking in unison, their voices, the young and the old, melding together in a powerful chorus.

  Sam looked back to the table, to the swatches of fabric, the plain, undecorated windows. Oh, what the hell. All he cared about was having a place to which he could escape. The furniture was irrelevant, a practical necessity at best.

  And then he glanced back at the painting of the child’s room and a strange feeling rode his belly, blotting out his clear logic. It was a disorienting feeling.

  Maddie had walked to the other side of the office and was discreetly looking out the window, leaving Sam and Eleanor alone at the table. “Hope,” Eleanor said softly, glancing from his face to the picture and then back again. “That’s what this is, a house of hope, of new beginnings.”

  Sam felt the pounding inside him come back. He looked at his watch again and didn’t acknowledge Eleanor’s comment. Instead he glanced back at the stack of plans and then strode to the door. With one hand on the knob, he turned around, fixing Maddie with an intense stare. “Since Eleanor seems to have her mind made up, the job is yours. You can work out the details with her.”

  He closed the door then, the thud of wood against wood echoing in the large room. In a second, Maddie was across the room. She flung her arms around Eleanor. “I have no idea in the world why you are putting yourself out on a limb this way,” she said, “but I’m enormously grateful.”

  Eleanor clasped Maddie’s shoulders, holding her slightly away, and looked into her clear green eyes. She said simply, “It’s for Sam, Maddie. I’m doing this for Sam.”

  Maddie and Joseph celebrated getting the job with dinner from the corner deli, which they devoured at the table in the conference room, surrounded by sheets of paper, color swatches, and pictures of furniture.

  “Joseph,” Maddie announced as they wiped the last crumb from the shiny tabletop and scooped up their work into neat piles, “I’ll be gone for a couple of days.”

  “You’ll what?” Joseph’s bushy white brows nearly caught his receding hairline. “Maddie, is there a loose connection somewhere? Sam Eastland wants this place finished yesterday!”

  “Of course, Joseph. Calm down.” She rested one hand on his arm. “And that’s why I’m going to devote twenty-four hours a day to this lucrative ticket-to-Joe’s-comfortable-retirement project.”

  Joseph sank back into the chair. “Okay. So you’re going up to the San Francisco market to check out furnishings. Good idea.”

  “I’m not going to the market. I’m spending the next two days at East of the Ocean.”

  “You’re what?”

  “I’m going to have the house tell me what it needs, get to know it a little better—”

  “Know the house?” Joseph rolled his eyes. “Maddie, I’ll introduce you.”

  “How can you possibly know what a house needs unless you’re intimate with it? It’s like any relationship, Joseph, when a man and woman—”

  “Ohmeohmy!” Joseph rubbed the back of his neck. “Enough, Madeline. I get the picture.”

  “I want to be in that house for two days. That’s all I ask. I want to wake up in the morning and see where the sun is. I want to see what kind of colors it paints across the floor. I want to listen to the wind and walk the rooms, listen to the walls, feel the spirit of it all—” She rose and kissed Joseph’s forehead. “It’ll work, trust me. See you on Thursday.” And she left, a blur of bright blue, disappearing into the dark night.

  It was late Tuesday night when Maddie arrived at the Eastland beach home. Determined to approach her stay as one would approach abandonment on a deserted island, she had brought only essentials: a sleeping bag, flashlight, and large bag of groceries. She hadn’t even brought Eeyore, who was staying with a neighbor. For two days, nothing short of fire, earthquake, or pestilence would budge her from East of the Ocean, and in that time she would commune with the house and the land around it. She would fall in love with East of the Ocean, and then she would fill it with that feeling.

  Walking slowly through the clean, bare rooms, Maddie stretched her arms high above her head and sighed out loud. This was great. Such a wonderful house. It needed people, love, that little girl skipping through it with a sand pail clutched in her hand.…

  Maddie remembered the newspaper shot of Sara Eastland. It had been grainy, as such shots often are, and all she could tell was that the then toddler was fair like her father and had delicate features. She’d be around five now. Five years old … The familiar tug, the painful stab in her heart came suddenly, but it was never a surprise. It would always be there inside of her, and that was as it should be, because the connection between herself and her own five-year-old daughter would never be broken.

  Maddie slid down to the floor and folded her legs over each other, her back straight and her body facing the open windows. And then, with conscious effort, she pulled her thoughts and longings out of her body and let them rest on the smooth surface in front of her. With the moon spreading its light across the ocean in the distance, she closed her eyes and breathed in the tangy air and prepared for sleep.

  All morning Sam Eastland had dialed the London number. Wednesday. Middle of the week. Nine hours later in London than in California. It was evening every time he had called. Surely they’d be home. Sara had invaded his thoughts the night before and had been with him ever since, through restless dreams and a day of long, tedious meetings. He didn’t know why; it was troublesome, that her image should haunt him this way. He should be able to concentrate, save his thoughts of the mess he had made of his life for after hours. Perhaps it had been better they weren’t home. Sara had trouble talking to him. He was a stranger, thousands of miles away. With each new level of growth and awareness in Sara’s life, Sam slipped more into the shadows; he was a gray image to his daughter, time and distance sucking away his vitality to her.

  He poured himself a Scotch and w
atched the flicker of lights dotting the city. Everyone was going home to begin the weekend. It was time for him to go home too.

  Home for Sam was a coveted address to which he had moved when Elizabeth left and the enormous home they had shared was sold. It was a skyscraper condominium that cost more than many people made in a lifetime. It was elegant and sleek—and tonight it was the last place in the world he wanted to be.

  Sam shook his head. He had been doing fine, busy as always and handling the latest growth of his company with excitement and finesse. And then something happened. What was it? What had stopped him in his tracks, stifled the excitement, robbed him of the thrill of deals and contracts?

  The telephone rang in the outer office and stirred Sam out of his reveries. While the answering machine picked it up, he loosened his tie, and headed for the door. There was a cocktail party at the Civic Center tonight, but he knew before reaching his private elevator that he wouldn’t be going. A crowded social gathering on a steamy night was not his idea of fun.

  And by the time he slipped into his green Jaguar, he knew what did seem like fun—well, what seemed bearable. Without a backward glance, he headed for the hills and the ocean beyond.

  The road wound through the dark Santa Cruz Mountains. Tonight it was lit by the headlights of commuters hurrying to their homes in the hills. And just on the other side of the hills were the ocean and his empty beach home. Elizabeth had never asked for its furnishings, but he had had them shipped to her anyway, every picture, every chair. It was done out of some sense of purging, he supposed. And then he had foolishly let the house sit there empty for three years.

  The low sports car took the sharp curves easily, and Sam smiled into the darkness, breathing in the smell of the pines that climbed the rocky hillside off to the right. He forked his fingers through his thick, windblown hair. Yeah, this was where he should be, not at some crowded cocktail affair, restrained by an uncomfortable tux.

  Thirty minutes later he was walking through the hollow hallway of his beach house. The wall switch proved useless, and Sam realized with a curse that there were no lamps in the house. He’d have to settle for the moonlight.

  He paused when he reached the living room. Something was different tonight. Looking around, he saw that the telephone was still on the floor, the rooms still empty. In the dim moonlight he spotted some narrow brush strokes of paint along one wall that hadn’t been there before, but that wasn’t it. It was something else, something more intimate. What was it, then? And then he recognized a soft smell, feminine was how he’d describe it. Clean, soapy.

  Well, good. Maddie must have been overdoing some measuring or whatever people in that business did. Great. Maybe the next time he came, there would actually be a bed to sleep in and he could spend the night.

  As he walked out onto the deck he noticed a bouquet of wildflowers tucked into an empty soda bottle. He hoped it wasn’t a harbinger of things to come; Sam didn’t need fancy things, not like Elizabeth had, but there were limits.

  He stood on the deck, his hands flat on the railing, his eyes half-closed as he faced the ocean below. The rhythm of the waves pounding the shore below slowly invaded his body, easing the tightness in the muscles across his shoulders. The night hung heavy, the moist, briny air a thick cushion for the smell of wildflowers.

  Sam didn’t know how long he had been in that trancelike state, looking but not seeing, breathing in, emptying his mind, when a rustle below interrupted the flow. He opened his eyes and peered into the moonlight. An animal? He strained to see into the green-black shadows.

  And then the noise grew louder, this time taking on new tones, the wet slap of something against stone. Footsteps.

  The only light around was one small security floodlight—but it didn’t illuminate the pathway down to the ocean. The only break in the black night was beams cast by the moon. Within a second or two the noise took human form, and Sam stared at the shadowy shape of a woman walking slowly up the stone pathway.

  Sam’s eyes widened.

  Coming out of the blackness into a stream of moonlight, she was like some goddess moving in slow motion, her body a silvery-black, fluid form, a graceful blend of light and shadow. The painting of the birth of Venus, the goddess born from the foam of the sea. And then the figure coming up the stairs stepped into a thin stream of light from the only spotlight on the deck. Her head lifted, turned slightly, like a young deer alerted to danger. Their eyes met.

  Sam gasped.

  Birth of Venus, hell! The masterpiece had nothing on the incredible vision in front of him. She was beautiful. Exotic.

  And every solitary bit as naked.

  FOUR

  Sam stared, mesmerized.

  But Maddie was quick as a fox.

  Before he could utter a word, she glided over to the side of the deck, lifted a towel from the floor, and wrapped it around her, tucking it up beneath her arms and across her breasts.

  She allowed herself a few seconds to take several deep breaths, then turned slowly toward Sam. “I thought I asked you to call before coming here again.”

  Sam tried to process her words, but he couldn’t see her wrapped in the towel. He could only see an exquisite, slim body: breasts swinging loose as she walked, firm and smooth, contoured in strokes of silver moonlight. What he saw was a startlingly beautiful naked woman who took his breath away.

  With great difficulty, he steadied himself, pulled his brows together, and looked at her with stabilizing indignation. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Asking to be molested?”

  She allowed a slight smile, but her knuckles, gripping the towel, were white as the moon. “By whom, a raccoon?”

  “People walk the beach. Vagabonds, rapists. Dammit, I don’t believe this.” And he didn’t believe the way she had looked with moonlight cascading down her long, curved back, then rising over the perfect swell of her buttocks. He certainly couldn’t believe the way he felt: stunned, moved, shot straight through by desire.

  “I’m not a fool,” Maddie said calmly. “You’re the only intruder.”

  “Intruder? This is my damn house.” His hand slammed down on the railing. The anger had moved up from some small pocket inside him, a tonic for his frustration.

  “I’m sorry, but you hired me to do a job here.”

  “I’m paying you to walk naked through my property at night?”

  Maddie frowned then, and the displeasure on her face made Sam hold back.

  She didn’t attempt to answer him. Instead she pushed down her own rising bubble of anger and explained in a carefully modulated voice. “You’re paying me to decorate this house. And since you refused to give me any hints about your tastes, I am proceeding in my own way. Spending a couple of nights here was one way for me to get a feeling for the place. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get something to eat. Swimming makes me terribly hungry.” She turned toward the French doors.

  “You’re the damnedest woman I’ve ever met.” His words floated after her, but she didn’t stop. Obviously she didn’t intend to respond, so Sam followed her into the house.

  Just inside the door, Maddie reached down and snapped on an electric lantern.

  Sam looked around in the soft, flickering light. Now he noticed the signs of life he had missed earlier: a rumpled sleeping bag against the wall, a paperback book, a small radio. Beyond, in the open kitchen, he spotted a large net sack and several packages of food. He needed a drink, that’s what he needed.

  Maddie had disappeared into the bathroom off the front hall, and returned now, clothed in a lightweight sweatshirt and loose baggy pants. They moved against her slim legs as she walked past him into the kitchen, making a light rubbing noise that Sam found curiously exciting. She had pulled her hair back and wound it into a fat braid that hung halfway down her back. Her feet were bare.

  Sam watched her easy movements, the shift of her shoulders and long line of her back as she opened the refrigerator. But what he continued to see, what he knew he’d be se
eing for days to come, was Maddie in the moonlight, naked.

  A yellow light from the refrigerator fell across her face as she intently surveyed its contents. She seemed oblivious to Sam’s presence. Finally she looked over at him. “Are you hungry?”

  Her question jarred him. It was such an ordinary, human land of question, not fitting easily into his frame of mind. “Yes,” he said finally, forcing his mind to clear. He was standing at the edge of the kitchen, his hands shoved into his pockets, his mind playing with various images. Food hadn’t been one of them, but it might prove a decent distraction.

  Maddie tucked a bottle of water beneath her arm, then picked up a net sack of plastic-wrapped sandwiches. She walked back past Sam and out onto the deck, settling herself on the floor next to a built-in barbecue pit.

  Sam observed the proprietary way she sat down, watched her fishing around in her pocket until she produced a match. There was no inhibition about her, no reticence about being in his house, and absolutely no embarrassment that minutes ago she had been standing stark naked in front of him.

  Maddie leaned forward, oblivious of Sam’s scrutiny, She lit a match, fiddled with twigs and sticks until they caught, filling the large pit with a bright fire. She glanced over at Sam, then nodded toward the pile of sandwiches, “Which would you prefer—avocado and sprouts or peanut butter and banana?”

  “Tough decision,” he grumbled.

  “I wasn’t expecting company. When you’re paying, you can choose the menu.” Without waiting for him to join her, she reached for a sandwich and began to unwrap it.

  “I could use a drink,” Sam said.

  Maddie held up the bottled water.

  “He shook his head no and asked, “Do you have any Scotch?”

  “Sorry, I don’t have anything like that.” She went back to her pita-bread sandwich.

  Finally Sam strode over and sat down beside her on the deck, then pulled a sandwich from the stack and unwrapped it. He frowned as strands of white-and-green sprouts fell onto his legs. Who the hell ate this kind of food?