by Peggy Webb
She pulled her glasses off and put them on her desk beside the report she had been updating. If she had been Gigi she would have turned a somersault in delight. But she was Dr. Ellen Stanford. She tilted her elegant head to one side, studying the bouquet and wondering if this was Dirk's way of saying good-bye.
"Sign here," the boy said.
She signed for the flowers and waited until she heard the engine of the departing truck before she opened the card. The fish weren't biting, the card read. Tuck a flower behind your ear, put on your dancing shoes, and I’ll see you at eight.
"So I'm playing second fiddle to a fish," she said as she searched her office for a container large enough to hold the flowers, but she was smiling. There were too many orchids for one vase. By the time she had finished arranging them, her office looked like a hothouse.
"Has somebody died?" Ruth Ann asked dryly. "This place looks like a jungle." She picked her way around the flowers. "Can't even find the desk," she grumbled.
"The flowers are from Dirk."
Ruth Ann looked at Ellen's flushed cheeks and the flower tucked behind her ear. "I didn't think they were from Santa Claus," she said, and picked up the report Ellen had been updating. "Crazy man. Nothing's been the same around here since he came."
She plucked her glasses off and began to polish the spotless lenses, a sure sign that she was upset.
Ellen sat down on the edge of the desk and covered the report with her hand. "Let's talk, Ruth Ann."
"I'm listening."
"You don't like Dirk, do you?"
"I didn't say that." Ruth Ann shoved the glasses back on her nose. "Didn't say that at all. As a matter of fact, he's quite a likable man."
Ellen smiled. "Gigi thinks so, too, and I've never known her to be wrong in her judgment of character."
"And what about you? What do you think?"
"I think"—she bit back the witty reply that had been on the tip of her tongue—"I think that I'm in love with him. I think that I want him to stay on Beech Mountain forever. And I think that I've probably taken leave of my senses."
"That's what I was afraid of." Ruth Ann made a careful pyramid of her fingertips. "I've felt it since he first set foot on this compound. Old maid that I am, I'm not immune to romance going on right under my nose."
"He'll be leaving soon."
"I've known that all along too. There's a burr under that man's saddle, and he won't sit still until somebody plucks it out." Ruth Ann cleared her throat self-consciously. "Why do you think I've hated having him around? I didn't want to see you hurt."
"Life's full of ironic twists, isn't it? I fell in love with a fiancé of my own making. I'm caught in my own web of duplicity."
"If you need a shoulder to cry on, I'm here." Ruth Ann gave her a grim smile. "It's bony and hasn't been used in a number of years, but it's there." She hurried from the room, but not before Ellen saw the telltale moisture behind her glasses.
Ellen selected her dress carefully, a bright yellow linen with full skirt, plunging neckline, and thin straps, just right for dancing. She had to pull it from the back of the closet, and as she did a small stuffed animal tumbled off the shelf and landed at her feet. It was a yellow bear with one button eye and most of his fuzz missing.
Clutching the dress in her hand, she knelt and scooped up the tattered toy. "Pooh Bear," she said softly. "Hello, old friend." She pressed the souvenir of her past against her cheek.
The bear stared placidly back at her, his lopsided grin still intact, and she remembered the wonderful days of her childhood—the spicy smell of Aunt Lollie's gingerbread, the cozy sound of corn popping on a cold winter's day, and the feel of the sun on her back as she lay in the hayloft daydreaming, Pooh Bear at her side.
Carefully she set him on her dressing table. "It seems I've spent too little time these last few years dancing and daydreaming," she mused aloud as she slipped the yellow dress over her head. She left her hair loose and pinned an orchid in the shining red tresses.
"What do you think, Pooh Bear?" She spun around for his inspection. "Remember that prince I used to dream about, the one who would ride a white charger? He's coming tonight." She picked up the stuffed bear and rubbed his scruffy stomach. "The only problem is, he doesn't want to be a prince."
Ruth Ann tapped politely on her door, then poked her head into the room. "Is somebody in here with you?" she asked.
"No. I just found my old friend. Pooh Bear. His ears are tattered, but he's a good listener."
"While you were renewing old acquaintance with your stuffed toy, somebody came to the door."
"Dirk!"
"Who were you expecting? Herbert Hoover?"
Ellen whizzed out the door, and if she had turned back around she would have fainted. Ruth Ann actually had a smile on her face. It was a sad smile, tinged with nostalgia, but still, it was a smile.
o0o
"I hope she remembers this bony old shoulder, Pooh Bear," Ruth Ann said softly. "She's going to need it." Her sensible shoes clicked against the floor as she hurried out of the room. "Lord, just listen to me. Talking to myself. I've been on this mountain too long."
o0o
"Orchids become you," Dirk said. He was leaning against the door, looking impossibly handsome in an Italian-made shirt of raw silk and fawn-colored pants that seemed designed to show off his muscular legs.
"More than grapes?" Ellen asked. She moved quickly to him and put her hands on his shoulders.
"Not more than grapes." He grasped her waist and pulled her close. "Never more than grapes," he said as he bent down to claim her lips.
"It seems like years," she said when they came up for air.
"Is it my fault you didn't come fishing today, Doctor?"
"I have to keep up the appearance of working." As he escorted her to the car, she reached up and touched his lips. "Even if my mind was on the fish."
"Is that what you're calling it now? Fish?"
"Did anybody ever tell you that you have a bawdy tongue?"
"Why do you think I kept getting shuffled off to so many different orphanages? A bad influence, I was called." There was no rancor in his voice. He even laughed when he said it.
She slid across the seat and put her head on his shoulder. "Well, I call you wonderful. Did I thank you properly for the orchids?"
"You thanked me properly. What I'm hoping for is an improper thank-you."
"Like I said ... a bawdy tongue."
They kept the banter going all the way down the mountain. Dirk turned left on Beech Mountain Parkway and drove to the Beech Haus. "This should make a nice change from my eggs," he said once they were seated.
"Actually I've grown quite fond of your eggs."
"Not to mention my grapes."
She delicately kicked him. "Is that any way to behave in a proper restaurant?" she whispered.
"It's better than what I'm thinking of doing in this proper restaurant."
"I wouldn't touch that statement with a ten-foot pole." She hid her smile behind the menu.
The waitress recommended their Bavarian chicken soup, and as Ellen placed her order she felt Dirk's foot creep up her leg. "Soup" came out "coop," and she had a coughing fit to cover her laughter.
By the time she got to the potato pancakes, his foot had wormed its way under her skirt and was sending indecent shivers up her thigh. Her face was as red as her hair from suppressing her laughter, and she heard herself tell the poor confused waitress that she wanted grape strudel for dessert.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but apple is the only kind of strudel we have."
Dirk straightened the whole thing out, cool as a cucumber, just as if his toes weren't busy kneading the insides of her thigh.
After the waitress left, Ellen leaned across the table. "Thank goodness for long tablecloths."
"Thank goodness for warm, sweet thighs."
"Grape strudel, indeed! Look what you've done to me."
"You should see what you've done to me." He grinned wickedly.
"It's that sexy yellow dress."
"Remove your toes."
"If you'll remove that dress."
She felt exhilarated. He was the old Dirk again, arrogant and totally outrageous. For the moment the CIA and summer's end were forgotten.
In their darkened corner she leaned against the back of her padded booth and casually let one strap slide from her shoulder. "Now?" she asked softly.
"After the chicken soup," he said calmly. But he removed his foot.
They made it a leisurely meal, savoring the food and each other.
"Mmm, delicious," she said of the soup. But her eyes said it of Dirk.
"Wonderful," he pronounced the pancakes, but his gaze was locked on Ellen.
They shared the strudel. Prolonging the intimate dessert, she broke off tiny pieces and put them into his mouth. He nibbled her sugared fingers as his dark eyes held hers across the candlelit table. Every touch of her fingers was a knife wound in his heart, for tomorrow he would be leaving.
I love you, he tried to tell her with his eyes, and he hoped that she understood.
o0o
After the meal they climbed into Rocinante and Dirk drove back up Beech Mountain.
"I thought we were going dancing," Ellen said.
"We are."
"Where?"
"Trust me."
"I already did that once tonight, and what did I get? Chicken coop and grape strudel."
"That's what you get for being a bawdy woman."
"Ha! Look who's talking." She pressed her head into the curve of his shoulder and thought, That's what I get for being a woman in love. She didn't even lift her head when they passed the compound. She knew where they were going.
Dirk parked the car in front Tony's cabin. "Here we are, love. A private club."
"My favorite night spot."
He helped her from the car. "Did anyone ever tell you that you're brilliant. Doctor?" Pulling her against him, he nuzzled her hair.
"Only Gigi," she said, "and I'm not sure she's to be trusted."
I'm even going to miss that gorilla, Dirk thought. Taking Ellen's hand, he urged her inside. "Come, love. The orchestra awaits."
"I hope they're wearing blinders. I've always fancied dancing in the nude."
Dirk's laughter startled a screech owl in the pine tree beside Tony's porch. "Is that any way for a sweet Southern belle to talk? We Connecticut Yankees have delicate sensibilities."
"I've never been sweet a day in my life, and if you're delicate, I'm a monkey's uncle."
"A monkey's mother," he retorted, kicking the door shut behind him. He looked down at her and suddenly the teasing stopped. "Ahh, Ellen." He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly against his chest.
She clung to his broad shoulders, rubbing her cheek against the roughness of his raw silk shirt. "Start the music. Dirk," she said.
And he did.
o0o
"Is this a new kind of dancing?" she asked.
"Yes." His lips nudged her straps aside and seared the tops of her breasts. Her skirt made a bright splash of yellow as he lowered her to the rug. Leaning over her, he let his hands trace her legs through the dress. "You look like a bright yellow daffodil." His hands moved up her body, following the indentation of her waist and the shape of her breasts. "This is called 'The Waltz of the Flowers.' "
She smiled. "I think that's already been done."
"Not the way I plan to do it." He stretched out beside her and pulled her into his arms.
"Innovation is your strong point," she agreed as their gazes locked and held in the moonlit room. She felt his hand on her zipper and heard the metallic whisper as he lowered it, inch by sensuous inch, letting his fingers caress her skin in its widening path.
"Is that a scientific observation, Doctor?" he asked. Both hands were on her bare back now, doing magic things to her skin as he pushed the dress aside.
"No. It's a personal preference." She popped open the first button on his shirt and moved her hands inside. The dark springy hairs on his chest curled around her fingers in possession.
"This waltz could take a long time," he said thickly as he lowered his head.
"A very long time," she murmured while there was still time to talk. And then they were caught up in the ancient waltz of love, lost in the music of their own making.
o0o
Afterward they lay on the rug, arms and legs still entwined, looking up through the skylight.
"Summer's almost gone," he said quietly.
"Yes." An ominous feeling overcame her. Her arms tightened around him.
"I'll be leaving tomorrow."
She had been dreading this moment since the first of August. She had known the end was coming. Even so, her chest felt so constricted that she could hardly breathe. "So this is good-bye?"
"No. I don't like good-byes."
"Neither do I."
They held each other in silence and watched the moon track across the sky.
"It's been a beautiful interlude," he said finally. His tongue felt too thick for his mouth, and he wondered why the words were so hard to say.
He did hate good-byes, especially this one. He wanted to plunge into the dark forest and howl his loneliness like a wolf. He wanted to bang his fist against a tree and curse the Fates who had made their union impossible.
For the first time in his life he resented the element of danger in his job, a danger that precluded intimate relationships. Life was full of twists of fate, he thought. The thing he found most intriguing about his work—the danger, the excitement of pitting his own cunning against those who threatened his country, the freedom of others—was what stood between him and Ellen. There was too much risk. He couldn't endanger the woman he loved.
There. He had finally admitted it. Love. That special something he had sought in his early life and run from in his adult life had finally caught up with him. He loved Dr. Ellen Stanford, and that made the parting all the more sorrowful.
"Yes," she said while her heart broke in two. "A beautiful interlude."
He kissed her damp forehead and thought how he would miss her. He wanted to say I love you, but he dared not. He clenched his jaw against the words.
"Did you say something?" she asked.
"No." He rubbed his cheek against hers. First there had been the parade of orphanages that had made permanent ties with friends and even pets impossible, and now this. His work. Was it possible, he wondered, that Ellen had the strength to deal with his job?
He quickly squelched the thought. It wouldn't be fair to ask someone else to share the danger. He held her tightly, and the agony of choice threatened to break him. He had never dreamed that once he found love it would be so hard to let go.
He wanted to say, I can never let you go, Ellen. Instead, he said, "Is it all right if I stop by the compound tomorrow to see Gigi before I go?"
"I think you should," she said. "I’ll let her know you're coming."
Gigi will vent her feelings, she thought. She won't hide her heartbreak under polite conversation and a brave smile.
Dirk turned to her and looked deep into her eyes. "Ellen." That's all he said, just her name. But his voice was haunted with all the loneliness of his past and all the lonesome times of his future.
They came together in a frenzy of passion that sought to hold back time. But nature kept her appointments, and when the last star was dimmed by the approaching sun. Dirk took Ellen back to the compound.
o0o
Ellen stood outside the new fence, watching Dirk and Gigi say good-bye. The bright August sun beat down on them, wilting the goldenrod bouquet Gigi was clutching tightly in her hand. The gorilla's face was solemn as she watched Dirk sign and speak.
"I have to go, Gigi."
She put the bouquet on top of her head and asked with her hands, Man go see brothers and sisters?
"No," Dirk signed. "Go to work. Go to big city."
Where big city?
/> "Far away."
Gigi come too.
"No. I'm sorry, Gigi. I must go alone."
No. Gigi come. Her face lit up with sudden inspiration. Gigi drive!
Ellen covered her mouth to keep from laughing. She noticed that Dirk was also struggling to suppress his mirth.
He reached out and patted the gorilla's face. "Gigi must stay. Ellen needs Gigi."
Gigi swung her massive head around to look at Ellen. Her bright eyes snapped with intelligence as she looked back at Dirk.
Ellen brave, she signed. Ellen stay alone. Gigi go.
"I'm sorry, Gigi. I must go alone. Work hard. No women can go."
No fine animal gorillas? Gigi stuck out her lower lip.
"No fine animal gorillas."
Gigi have sad heart.
Dirk touched Gigi's heart and then touched his own. "Man have sad heart too. Good-bye, Gigi."
Ellen watched as Gigi accepted the farewell. The gorilla lifted her hand in a solemn wave as Dirk strode from the summer enclosure.
Dirk hurried toward his car, bent on putting the mountain compound out of sight as quickly as possible. Out of sight, out of mind, he hoped. But his footsteps slowed when he saw Ellen standing beside the fence.
He lifted his hand, intending a brief wave and a hasty departure, but he could no more have passed her by than he could have flown to the moon. He strode quickly to her. Without speaking, he pulled her into his arms for a fierce kiss.
A world of unspoken vows was in that kiss, and when it was over, he lifted his head and looked into her eyes.
"Take care, Ellen," he said gruffly.
"Be safe," she whispered.
And then he was gone.
o0o
He waited until he was halfway down the mountain before giving vent to his feelings.
"Damn!" he exploded.
Instead of going back to his job with a renewed sense of purpose, he was going back reluctantly. More than reluctantly. For the first time since he had taken this job, he didn't feel a surge of excitement at pitting himself against the evils of the world. He didn't welcome danger as a means of keeping his world free.