She let the others go ahead to the restaurant while she rushed backstage. With Jerimy’s assistance, she’d helped Tamara and Jaspar into their matching outfits from the bag she’d delivered earlier. These were the idea she’d had when she’d made the other dresses for her friends. The children were now attired to be the shining stars of the emotional progression she’d made with the five dresses and with the opera itself.
Tamara’s dress was easily recognizable as the Empress-to-be, but shifted in two ways: into high fashion and unbridled joy. It wouldn’t be appropriate for any lesser party, but it would be a smash hit tonight.
Jaspar’s suit combined the fulfillment of the Young Prince’s eternal promise with the Overlord’s majestic power. She’d designed the sling right into it, in a way that turned the “accident” of both the sailboat and the supposed sword accident, into a representation of the small cost of his ultimate triumph.
Jaspar had declared it “Most excellent!”
Perrin had to agree.
By the time they were ready, Bill had arrived, changed into an elegant charcoal suit for the party. Hand in hand, the four of them walked through the warm May evening for the couple blocks to Angelo’s new restaurant.
Perrin felt as if she was floating on air, Bill with Tamara on one arm and her on the other, and Jaspar holding her down to the earth with his good hand in hers.
Forewarned, Russell had been waiting at the entrance with his camera. No matter what else happened, Perrin knew that whatever her past might be, she would have photographic proof of just how much joy was possible.
Chapter 21
Perrin followed Tamara and Jaspar’s instructions to the letter, and once again been unable to resist arriving at Bill’s house early. She went with casual but pretty. The same outfit she’d worn the first time they met: the flirty fall skirt, clingy spring blouse, and the same filmy batik summer scarf. She’d substituted the leprechaun-green hat just as a fun tease. And not one single color of the opera, which was actually a relief.
When Bill answered the door, she handed him the large pizza she’d brought with her.
“What are you doi—” He smacked his forehead. “That’s why the kids wanted to sleepover at Lucy’s. Why those conniving, sneaky, pint-sized—”
“Would you rather I leave? If I do, I take the pizza with me.” She offered him her most innocent smile as she reached out to take back the box.
He yanked it out of reach, wrapped his free arm around her waist and hauled her against him so fast she barely had time to laugh before his kiss crushed down on her smile.
“The pizza’s still hot,” she teased him.
He dropped it to the floor, landing it flat she was glad to see, and dragged her to the sofa, the bedroom being much too far away.
The pizza was long gone cold by the time she let him leave her long enough to reheat it, so that finally they could have some dinner in bed.
It was in the shower the next morning that Bill learned something new about Perrin.
“You’re shy.” It was so unexpected that he actually said it aloud.
She didn’t turn to meet his eyes as she rubbed a soapy washcloth over one of those impossibly long legs of hers, foot propped on the edge of the tub.
“How many women are you, Perrin Williams?”
“What?” that made her look up at him over her shoulder. “I’m not schizoid.”
“No, you’re impossibly healthy. Both of body, which we’ve gone to some trouble to prove once again, and of mind, because you are the most magnificent woman I’ve ever met. Not schizoid. But definitely multi-faceted, like a jewel.”
“How Irish are you, Bill Cullen? Because that sounded like total blarney.” She switched legs, offering him something else to admire.
“The name is, but I don’t really know. We’re pure American melting pot mutts. So fess up, how many Perrin Williamses are there?”
“You tell me.” She pushed him out of the flow of water to rinse herself off, with her back still mostly toward him. Okay, there were scenes like this in movies. It was just odd that he was in the middle of one. He leaned back against the end of the shower stall to enjoy the view of the water sluicing through her hair and down her back and hips while he thought about it.
“Okay, there’s the Perrin Williams born the day she met Jo and Cassidy. Still wild and crazy, but finding ways to control herself, to break from her past. Then there’s the amazing designer who had to find a creative channel for all of the incredible energy and joy that had been buried for eighteen years too long and was desperate to find expression.”
She turned beneath the water to face him, the shower still cascading over her, blurring and softening lines, only her face clear of the water. She looked amused, but not very.
“I think I count two more, three if you count the goddess whose body I can never tire of.”
That earned him a brief smile.
“There is the quiet genius who really doesn’t want to be noticed. The scary smart one. The one who, whenever anyone even glimpses her existence, ducks behind the old familiar cloak of craziness as a distraction.”
That widened her eyes and wiped away any remaining hint of amusement. He reached out and brushed his hand over her cheek, she leaned briefly into the caress, then returned to watching him quietly.
“I’m not sure that anyone other than Maria has ever seen her clearly.”
Perrin slowly shook her head, then added softly, “And you.”
“And me. Cassidy knows she’s there,” he continued. “That’s why you’re so close. But she can’t quite hold focus on that Perrin.”
“What’s the last one?” Her voice barely sounded over the falling water. She hooked one hand over her opposite shoulder, masking her breasts. Bill was aware of the protectiveness of the gesture, even if she probably wasn’t. One last shield?
“It’s the Perrin Williams that I always see. Though, now that I think of it, maybe I’m the only one. No, my kids do, too. But I’m guessing that even you don’t. She has a quiet center and a heart that is so open that it’s always right there. It’s the heart that let Jaspar and Tammy come straight in with no games, no defenses. They’ve learned to love you, but you loved them from the moment they roared into the Costume Shop before the first piece of paper was torn. She’s the Perrin who shines before me every time I look at her.”
“I don’t know her.”
“Oh, but you do, my love.” He moved forward and kissed her ever so lightly, though her crossed arm still separated them. “Every time you are with me, those other Perrins aren’t the ones that leap to the fore. Except at that first meeting with Wilson in your shop when I was being such a jerk, you’ve always showed me the true you. Every time you turn shy, it’s because you think you don’t know her, but you do. She is the Empress, powerful and vulnerable. She is the Princess, gorgeous and unaware at the same time. And she is most definitely the True Love, brilliant and caring and sharing. She is so loving that she can’t help but pour her heart out into the world. And Perrin? All those many facets of you… ”
“Yes?” her voice was slow and careful. Immensely cautious.
“That’s who I always want beside me when I wake. I want her to be the mother of Jaspar and Tammy. And I want to have a child with you, Perrin Williams. That child would be a true miracle with you for a mother.”
She narrowed her eyes, having to blink them a few times to clear them of the water trickling out of her hair.
“Did you just propose to me?”
“Yes, I did.” Bill hadn’t really planned on it, at least not yet, but he’d meant it with every cell of his being.
“In the shower?”
He looked up at the spray still cascading over them and slid his hands onto her hips, pulling her partway out of the water.
“Well, at the time I thought it was a waterfall in a tropical paradise, but this would appear to be a shower that we’re standing in. So yes, I seem to have proposed to you in the shower.”
<
br /> “Oh.”
“Oh? That’s all you have to say, is ‘Oh’?”
“Would you prefer if I said, ‘Oh yes’?”
“That was sort of the point of asking.”
Without breaking eye contact, she slid her arm out from between them, and wrapped both of her arms about his neck. Pulling him beneath the water with her, she kissed him hard.
Then she eased back just a bit, the water streaming over them. Her impossibly brilliant smile lit her blue eyes and stunned him speechless as she so often did.
“We have to ask the kids, but otherwise that’s a really big, yarn-bomb sized, ‘Oh Yes!’” Her kiss was wet, but there was no question about it being totally heartfelt. Perrin had always kissed him with her heart wide open.
But she had never before kissed him with the taste of tears running down her cheeks.
Chapter 22
Perrin had insisted that she had one last load to fetch at the apartment before the move was complete. Bill thought they’d left it clean, but he must have missed something.
The family had all sat together and decided that she should move in and unpack in the days before the wedding, so that after the ceremony she would simply be home when she arrived. She and Tammy were even staying in Cassidy’s spare bedroom tonight, so as not to spoil tomorrow, neither the wedding nor the first homecoming.
Perrin’s home studio was mostly put together in the spare room off the dining room. A small cutting table, an eight-foot set of shelves full of fabrics on one side, an open-style closet down the other. At one end, beneath the row of north-facing windows, stood the Featherweight sewing machine. And by the door, a pair of small desks.
She’d insisted that the kids would always be welcome there to do their homework or anything else, even if she was working. When he’d asked where his spot was, she’d pulled out one of the tall stools from beneath the cutting table. His name had been knit into a soft seat covering.
Over Tammy’s desk, Perrin had mounted a massive crochet hook on which had been carved with burned-in letters, “Chief Assistant Empress Tamara Cullen.” Over Jaspar’s hung a wooden sword, exactly like the one he’d worn on stage, with the same-style letters saying, “The True Prince Jaspar Cullen.”
The kids had almost died when they saw them. If either of them could have loved Perrin more after she did that, they would have.
Bill had offered to go with her for the last load, but she’d insisted it was a one-woman job. Then she’d turned right around and asked the kids if they wanted to go with her. He’d watched them drive off in her van, as perplexed as ever about what she was up to. He knew that she would keep him on his toes for years, no, for decades to come. He also knew that it would always be a joy. Even the hard times. She would stand beside him and he beside her.
Tomorrow, they would all stand together as a family for the first time. They had made it a combined wedding, adoption, and name change ceremony. She’d tried to hold onto her own fabricated last name out of respect for their mother, but the kids had overruled her.
At the wedding, Tammy would stand as maid of honor, with Jaspar making sure his dad didn’t explode or collapse from sheer nerves. Despite his probing, Tammy had only said that her and Perrin’s dresses were, “Totally Killer!” It was the same judgment Jaspar had declared when he and Bill had tried on their tuxes together. Bill had checked, but the girls had been smart and kept Jaspar in the dark about the dresses. Bill was trying to be patient, but it was really hard.
He finished breaking down the last of the moving boxes and stored them in the garage. They were gone long enough that he’d just finished installing the last shelf she’d asked for when they pulled into the driveway.
Bill could hear the excited laughter of the three of them as they came into the house, the best sound he’d ever heard. He went to meet them in the living room.
The kids were grinning like lunatics, of course they’d been doing that all week as the wedding came closer and closer, but then so had he.
Perrin looked tall and beautiful and majestic. He noticed two things.
“Your hair!”
“See, I told you he’d notice,” Jaspar informed Tammy. “Our dad’s not a total dork.”
Bill chose the safe course and ignored the aside.
Perrin had dyed her hair gold-blond and cut it short fully revealing her astonishing neck and delicate face. For the first time since college, Perrin Williams had returned to her natural hair color and perhaps the first time ever, ceased hiding behind her hair.
As if she’d finally become herself.
“You’ve bypassed the Empress, my love,” he moved down the hall toward them. “You’ve tipped right over into goddess.”
Her smile was radiant. This was the Perrin he’d always seen.
It was as he leaned in to kiss her over the kids’ heads, that his mind fully registered the second thing.
Tucked in the crook of Perrin’s arm lay the tiny brindle-colored Cairn terrier they’d seen at the dog show. It had grown from one handful to two.
“I kept the breeder’s card,” she scratched the dog behind the ear. “She was just finally weaned last week. We figured if three-to-one couldn’t win the vote to adopt her, maybe we just needed a fourth vote. All in favor, raise your paw.”
The kids each shot up a hand. Perrin lifted the paw on the tiny ball of fluff—who perked up both of her ears at the attention—as his fiancée grinned up at him.
“Oh man.” Well, it took a wise man to know when he was beat. Just as it had taken a wise man to see the real Perrin, then be smart enough to fall in love with her, and tenacious enough to win her heart.
As their children danced around them, he raised his own hand to make it unanimous.
Where Dreams Are Written
Chapter 1
Melanie stood, poised, at the edge of the “wedoption” of her friend Perrin. The ceremony had tradition, spontaneity, and so much heart. A wild mix, just as Perrin was. She had taken vows with her husband as his two children stood by them in Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth Ristorante in the heart of Seattle’s Pike Place Market.
It was Perrin’s new ten-year old son who had named the ceremony. The wedding of Perrin and his dad, and her adoption of Bill’s children—the “wedoption.” The kids were adopting Perrin as much as she was doing so for them.
It was all so sweet that Melanie felt mushy and sniffly inside, not that she’d ever let it show. She pulled out no handkerchief, had no pockets in her sleek dress to carry one. She only showed emotions carefully, and never mushy and sniffly ones. Being one of the fashion industry’s leading models, she’d learned long ago that showing her own emotions was almost never appropriate. Everything she presented, both on the runway and off, was very carefully considered. She occasionally wished she could simply react, but that never seemed to work out.
She let her present boyfriend, Carlo, swirl her into a dance across the space cleared at the middle of the restaurant.
“That was magnifico, Carlo. Your Ave Maria.” The operatic tenor, just finished with a highly successful production at Emerald City Opera, had indeed filled the restaurant with liquid soaring tones that evoked the sanctity of a small church set in the Italian countryside rather than Angelo’s fine dining restaurant in the Market.
“This place and Angelo’s food made it simple. It looks and smells so Italian, I sing from heart. The couple…” he slipped his hand from her waist for a moment to toss a kiss to the sky.
“Yes, molto bello.” Melanie had dressed carefully, to not outshine the bride, but she needn’t have worried. One of the most innovative designers working today, Perrin had judged herself and her maid-of-honor daughter perfectly despite their sharply contrasting coloring. Perrin’s golden hair and fair skin and Tamara’s darkly flowing curls and her birth-mother’s dusky complexion had both radiated in Perrin’s designs.
“I could marriage her myself. So pretty.” Carlo swirled her among the other dancers with effortless control. Carlo’s F
rench was as poor as her Italian and his English was non-existent. So, she always spoke in her school-girl Italian and he spoke to her in a child’s rudimentary French. That way they always understood one another and the inability to discuss more complex topics had not been a major issue. Carlo was not a deep man.
But he was a kind and considerate lover. Also, his Mediterranean-dark skin, classic Italian good looks, and international fame had made them a stunning couple, frequently gracing the tabloid covers. But his limitations had soon become apparent and were now wearying. Soon they would be finished.
“I have received call on phone,” he whispered as they pulled together for a slow passage of the song. “Marko Lerano has taken ill and they need an Alfredo for Traviata at La Scala.”
“That’s such wonderful news for you. La Scala,” at least she thought it might be, so she offered her support. “When do they need you?”
“I have already called the taxi. They say the tickets at the airport will be. You keep hotel room as long as like.”
Well, that was abrupt, but she knew such contracts were rare, vital to a career, and lucrative. Still…
“There is more, isn’t there, Carlo?”
He nodded sadly.
She needed no other cue, she was about to be dumped. People didn’t dump Melanie, she dumped them. She considered getting angry, but she wasn’t, and hated people who put on a show for others. This was the perfect opportunity for a drama queen: a large audience, grinding someone else’s celebration to a total, upstaged halt. Why did some women do that? She’d never understood.
What she did know was that, being Italian and male, it would be hard for Carlo to say the next sentence. They had done well together but she too had known it was over, for her at least. She wouldn’t have minded if he had been left to pine away for her un petite moment, but if such was not to be, c’est la vie. She could at least be kind.
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