"I've seen your face a hundred times on every pretty girl who's crossed my path. You haunt me," he said.

His words took me on wings. I saw myself gliding alongside my heron, and when he stepped up to me and took me in his arms, I could offer no resistance. Our kiss was long, our bodies turned gracefully in to each other. When we parted lips, his lips continued over my eyes and cheeks. It was as if he wanted to feast on my face.

"Pierre," I pleaded weakly.

"No, Gabrielle. You feel toward me exactly how I feel toward you. I know it; I've known it all these weeks during which I suffered being away from you. I thought I would try to stay away, but that was a foolish lie to tell myself. There was no hope of that. I could no more stop the sun from rising and falling than I could stop myself from seeing you, Gabrielle,"

"But, Pierre, how can we . . ."

"I've thought of everything," he said proudly. "And I've gotten it all accomplished before I came poling down this canal searching, hoping to see you along this bank. I must confess," he added, "I've been here before, waiting for you."

"You have?"

"Oui."

"But what have you thought of, planned? I don't understand," I said.

"Do you trust yourself, or me, for that matter, enough to get into my canoe?"

I looked at it suspiciously. "And then?"

"Let it be a surprise," he said. "Come along." He took my hand and helped me step into his canoe. Then he pushed off from the bank and turned the pirogue to begin poling away. Someone had taught him well. His strokes were long and efficient. In moments we were gliding through the water. "How am I doing? Will I make a Cajun fisherman yet?"

"You might," I said.

As we continued he described some of the work he had been doing since he had left the bayou, but how his mind always drifted back to me and to this natural paradise.

"And my cook loved your mother's herbs. She says your mother must be a great traiteur."

"She is," I said. "Pierre, where are we going? I don't . . ." I paused when he turned the pirogue toward shore. There was a small dock nearly completely hidden in the overgrown water lilies and tall grass, and beyond it, what I knew to be the old Daisy shack, deserted ever since John Daisy had died of heart failure. He had been a fisherman and trapper. After he had died, his wife had moved into Houma to work and married a postman.

Pierre docked the canoe. "We're here," he said. "Here? This is the old Daisy place," I said.

"Not anymore. I bought it a couple of weeks ago."

"What? Are you serious? You bought it?"

"Oui, " he said. "Come see. I had it fixed up a bit. It's no New Orleans apartment, but it's cozy."

"But how did you do this without anyone knowing?"

"There are ways when you spend enough," he replied with a wink.

"But why?"

"Why? Just to be close to you whenever I want to be and when, I hope, you want me to be," he said. He took my hand. Feeling swept along, I could only follow him up the path to the shack. It was never anything when the Daisys lived in it, but it had fallen into some ruin after John Daisy's death. Pierre had had the floorboards repaired, the holes mended, the windows recovered, the tin roof restored, and the furniture replaced. He had a new rug in the sitting room.

"I brought that in from New Orleans myself," he said, nodding at the rug. "The shack has none of the modern conveniences, but I think that's what gives it all it's charm, don't you?" he said as I wandered through it. "The lamps have oil; there's something to eat and drink and the bed has new linens. What else could we ask for?" he said, and opened a cabinet in the kitchen to take out some glasses and then some wine from a cool chest he had filled with ice.

"I can't believe you did this," I said.

"I'm a man of action," he replied, laughing. He uncorked the wine and poured two glasses. "Let's make a toast," he said, handing me my glass. "To our dream house in our dream world. I hope I never wake up." He tapped my glass and brought his to his lips. After a moment I sipped my wine, too. "So? What do you think?"

"I think you're a madman," I said.

"Good. I'm tired of being Pierre Dumas, the sensible, brilliant, respected businessman. I want to feel young and alive again, and you make me feel that way, Gabrielle. You wipe the cobwebs out of my brain and drive the shadows from my heart. You are all sunshine and cool, clear water.

"Didn't you think constantly of me these past weeks? Didn't you want me to return? Please, tell me the truth. I need to hear it."

I hesitated.

In the back of my mind I heard Mama's voice, I heard all the warnings. I saw myself heading toward a precipice, in danger of a great fall. All that was sensible and logical in me told me to leave, and as quickly as possible; but my feet were nailed to the floor by a love that rippled through my body as firmly as he claimed his did.

"I thought of nothing else," I admitted. "I, too, saw your face everywhere, heard your voice in every sound. Every day you didn't return was an empty day, no matter how much work I filled it with," I said. His face brightened.

"Gabrielle . . . I love you," he said, and took me into his arms. Then he scooped me up and carried me to the bedroom that would be our love nest.

After what Octavious Tate had done to me and what Virgil Atkins had said to me, I thought I would never taste love on my lips nor ever know what a soft, gentle caress of affection was like. I thought I would die resembling a wild rose, never seen, never smelled, never touched, a flower that would be kissed by the sun and the rain until it bloomed radiantly, but then would eventually wither and decompose, its petals floating sadly to the earth, its stem bending until the next rain pounded it into dust to be forgotten, to be treated as if it had never existed.

But in Pierre's arms, I felt myself blossoming, exploding with color and vibrancy. His kind and tender touch filled my heart with a warmth I never dreamed I'd feel. Nothing was rushed; nothing was grotesque. When we were naked beside each other, we were silent, speaking only with our eyes and our lips. His fingers made secret places on my body tingle, places I never imagined would ever feel as alive. I closed my eyes and clung to him when he moved over my breasts with his lips and touched me with the tip of his tongue. I felt as if I were falling, but as long as I held on to him tightly, I would be safe, forever.

He didn't rush to put his manliness inside me. It was as if he knew what I had experienced under the gritty, violent pawing of Octavious Tate, as if he knew I had to be brought back to a virgin state first and then, gently, affectionately, lovingly, taken on that ride young women dream about from the first day they realize what can happen between them and some loving man. It all happened now the way it was meant to happen. That horrible violation of me was erased with every tender caress, every word of love whispered.

When we coupled on the bed, we paused and gazed for a long moment into each other's eyes. It was then that I realized the act of love could be the ultimate confirmation of our deepest feelings for each other. We weren't taking from each other as much as we were giving to each other. I could hear Pierre's thoughts, hear his plea: "Come with me, soar with me, for these precious moments forget everything but us. We are the world to each other; we are the sun for each other; we are the stars."

It was wonderful to surrender myself completely and feel him submerge his identity completely into me. We were, as the poets say, one.

Afterward we lay beside each other, tingling, still touching each other with our lips as well as our fingers.

"This is our secret place," Pierre said. "No one must know. I will come to you as often, as many times, as I can for as long as I am able," he promised.

"But how, Pierre? You are married."

"My wife and I live separate lives right now. She is content being the queen of the block, one of New Orleans's royalty, a princess of the city. Her friends are not my friends. I do not enjoy the affairs she attends and the people with whom she surrounds herself. They are all . . . fops, dandies, artificial men and women who lie to each other and to themselves continually and then whisper behind each other's backs. But Daphne enjoys the games, enjoys being the center of things, being kowtowed to and catered to and treated like the blue blood she believes she is."

"But, Pierre;is it not sinful what we are doing?" I couldn't help thinking about Mama now and all her warnings. "Tell me that love makes this all right," I moaned, the tears burning beneath my eyelids.

"Shh." He put his finger on my lips and then kissed the tip of my nose and smiled. "Yes, darling Gabrielle. Love does make this all right, especially a true love, for love like ours must be divinely inspired, blessed. It's too wonderful to be created by the devil and it's too pure. I love you without lust, but with affection; I love you without selfishness, but with only the hope to make you happy."

"But what if you're eventually discovered here? What if . . ."

"I would risk everything I have a hundred times," he pledged, "because what I have means nothing without you."

He kissed me and held me, and before we dressed to leave our secret place, we made love again. Afterward we returned to the pirogue and Pierre took me close to my shack home, but far enough away to leave me off unnoticed. We kissed and held each other.

"I will return as soon as I can," he said. "I'll get word to you and you will find me there, waiting. Let every day become an hour, every hour become a minute, so I can see you sooner," he said, and kissed me again before pushing off. I watched him pole away, my apparition, my dream lover, until he was gone behind a bend.