“Diva IX”

On location, an equipment failure put the cast on hiatus while repairs were underway. Dane rented a convertible and drove north with Ellie into wine country, where he booked a room in a heritage inn and paid extra to ensure there were no other guests. They registered as Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Pinkerton, but Ellie was certain that the desk clerk recognized them.

“Not me,” Dane said, dropping their bags inside the door. He was dressed in the same pants and pullover he had worn at the table read, his hair falling soft and light brown into his eyes, and didn’t look like his Hollywood persona at all. Catching Ellie by the hand, he drew her in for a kiss and smiled when they parted. “You could at least try to be a little less gorgeous, though.”

“I could,” she allowed. She slipped free to explore their home for the next couple of days. The room was crammed with clunky Victorian furniture, including a horsehair loveseat in the window bay and a cherrywood four-poster that squeaked when she sat on it. Mildly alarmed by the discovery, she bounced once or twice and the springs merrily responded. “Great,” she remarked, then shrieked with laughter as Dane threw himself full length across the mattress and got a rhythm going with his hips.

They went to bed early and slept late. Breakfast was delivered to their door in the morning, and a picnic lunch arrived shortly before noon. Dane loaded the basket into the car and they ate in a roadside meadow shared by three companionable horses. They walked barefoot in the grass and skinny dipped in the stream, making love in dappled sunlight before sneaking up the backstairs to their room.

He washed her hair while she reclined in the deep claw-foot tub and she fed him strawberries from the garden. “You’re not trying hard enough,” he chided as she dressed for dinner.

Ellie tossed him a puzzled glance. “Hard enough for what?”

“To not be gorgeous.” He lipped at her bare shoulder, his breath lingering over her skin.

She suggested skipping dinner, but he insisted on being seen with her in candlelight. By then she could deny him nothing, though five courses proved excruciating when all she craved was the taste and touch of him.

They talked deep into the night, sipping cognac and smoking the same cigarette. Ellie felt unsteady when she looked into his eyes, though she had never felt so certain of a lover’s affection.

“Do we have to go?” she asked, languishing in the rumpled sheets on their last morning. “The bed has finally quit squealing.”

“Beaten into submission,” Dane cracked from the bathroom. He emerged half-dressed and clean-shaven, a borderline movie star with his hair slicked wet from the shower. “So,” he said, “what do you think? Am I the guy for Eleanor Bond?”