The first entry was written years ago. Cayden must have been eight-years-old by the date on the top of the page. I would have been twenty-three. This knowledge gave me pause for just a moment, for more reason than one, but I read my name written over and over and over on the page with intermittent doodles.
Winter Winter** Winter**WINTER §
≈≈≈winter W*I*N*T*E*R* WINTER
Winter◊◊◊
Then nothing more except for the periodic script of my name until Cayden was fifteen. This entry was heartbreaking. Cayden wrote….
The doctors are trying to tell me I am suffering from something called post traumatic stress disorder and do not believe me when I say I have lost someone named Winter. They tell me there has never been any such person in my life and try to explain her away, saying I may be creating someone in my mind in order to compensate for other more painful suppressed memories. They want me to talk about my parents but I have no memory of them other than what I have heard from my brother. It upsets Chance because I do not mourn my parents, never morning them. It should probably upset me. Maybe there is something really wrong with me? No one wants to understand, not the doctors, not my Aunt and not even my brother.
He called his brother Chance. Shaking my head, I flipped a few more pages ahead to see another entry when Cayden was sixteen:
I need to find Winter and I have no idea how to find her. My need to see Winter plagues me. Is she a ghost which haunts my dreams and my waking thoughts? Possibly. I wake up every night with her name on my mind and I have no idea who she is but I know I will find her someday, I have too. I miss her and I have to find what I have lost and never knowing how I have lost her is something I do not understand.
I sat quietly, pondering these entries. Amazing. Truly unbelievable, yet Cayden’s words were filled with a truth that was hard to escape. Everything I have heard since leaving Colorado, and everything I have seen, has been more than a dream, surreal. And reading Cayden’s diary was astonishing to me.
Can love really conquer death? I recalled being in the hospital thinking how Austin said he would always stay with me, but he was gone. I wondered where he was, where he had disappeared to, and knew he had left me. I brought to mind the burning; almost tearing needed within my soul to find him. I remember thinking I must to hold on to Austin. A part of me clung to the belief death could not be the end.
Could Austin have loved me so much he fought to stay with me? Could Cayden and Austin really be linked to each other on some spiritual level? I know I love them both unconditionally, both equally as if the two of them are one. And so I asked myself in this moment. If I had been the one who died sixteen years ago, would I have fought to stay with Austin? My answer is simple, yes. It is unbelievable, but maybe I should take Jewel’s advice and stop questioning things. Perhaps I should believe.
I skipped ahead in Cayden’s diary to the year Cayden turned seventeen. He wrote about my book and how after reading it he had finally found “my Winter” as he put it. This was exactly how Austin referred to me when introducing me to people. He would say, “This is my Winter.”
There on the side of the page was another sketch of my eyes along with three words….
I’m in love.
Unstoppable tears streamed down my face. I closed the book and placed it back onto the shelf with shaking hands.
“I’m in love, too, Cayden,” I whispered.
I walked away from his diary and took a seat on the foot of his massive bed. To say that I was stunned would be an understatement. I sat there silent, almost motionless, staring off into space or sometimes out the window. I lost track of time, but when I saw the paleness of the sky at twilight, I decided to get up. Cayden could not see me in this condition. I located my luggage, propped up in the hallway outside the bedroom door. I grabbed the two bags, dragging them in. I unpacked quickly, and placed my clothes in Cayden’s oversized walk-in closet.
Inside his closet were racks and racks of brand new clothing, most of which had obviously never been worn. There was one long rack of nothing but jeans along with another long rack of miscellaneous Tshirts. My fingers moved the hangers. I saw vintage Tshirts: Pink Floyd, The Doors, Van Morrison, The Cure, and an old shirt with Russian Vodka displayed prominently with red, white, and black lettering. I traced my fingertips over the Pink Floyd shirt. I remembered wearing a similar shirt of Austin’s.
I stood inside his closet for a long time before hanging my clothing next to his jeans and Tshirts, and without warning, more tears fell. I was unsure how I was going to settle myself down before Cayden came home. I went over to a dresser drawer, opened it, and scooted some of his socks and sweat pants over. I placed my things beside them. Next, I made my way into the bathroom. I set out my make-up along with some other personal items onto the vanity. I saw some of Cayden’s cologne, picked up the bottle, opened it, placed it to my nose, and inhaled. Tears. I touched his comb, ran my fingers over his razor. More tears. I needed to calm myself down.
I sauntered back over to the closet where I pulled out a large gray T-shirt. Surprised to see “Julliard” printed across the front. Cayden had never actually attended Julliard, but once again I was faced with yet another similarity to Austin. I shook my head in utter amazement while pulling off my clothes. I tugged his T-shirt on. It hung long, and the shoulder seams were dangling down to the middle of my upper arms. I giggled to myself, grabbed a towel, bounced downstairs, headed out the back door, and walked over to the brightly lit pool. It shimmered clear blue against the setting sun and the lights of the city. Breathtaking.
I put one foot into the pool then swirled my foot around. The warm water caressed me. I slid down into the pool and sunk beneath the surface of the water until I floated motionless in the quite depths. The wet warmth surrounded all of me. Like being wrapped in a perfectly warm, perfectly secure cocoon of liquid blue. It was familiar. Reminiscent of losing myself in the clear liquid blue of Cayden’s eyes. Needing air, I popped my head up, breaking the surface, taking in the much needed oxygen into my lungs. Once I brushed the water and the wet hair from my face, I saw Cayden standing at the edge of the pool. I focused on him, smiling from ear to ear, and looking down at me as if I was the only women in the world. He was perfect and even brighter than the lights of the city. He shined.
“Hey,” he greeted before he stripped off his shirt, letting it hit the concrete.
“Hey yourself,” I replied, watching him take everything off. And I do mean everything.
Chapter Six
Am I Dreaming?
Cayden inched down into the water. I grinned when he reached out and took me into his arms. He held me tight against his rock hard body. I placed my wet cheek against the steely strength of his shoulder. He moved my body with his and maneuvered us closer to the waterfall. It sounded like a tropic paradise. The water cascaded over the edge of the glass wall before finding its end in the pool.
“I’m sorry,” he said then looked at me quite serious. The tone in his voice apologetic. “But this shirt you are wearing has got to go.” He tugged at the bottom, moving me without effort into the corner of the pool. “Lift.” So I lifted my arms up while he pulled the shirt up over my head. He gave me his crooked guilty smile and hurled the shirt into the bushes. “And these, too.” Cayden yanked at my panties. They slipped down my thighs and free from my ankles. He let them go, free floating. I watched them sink to the bottom of the pool. I felt my cheeks blush hot.
“I probably look like a drowned cat,” I muttered while hiding my face in the crook of his shoulder.
“A drowned cat should look so good,” he replied in his low silky voice.
Cayden placed his right hand then his left hand to my waist. His hands always fit perfectly upon my body. Using the buoyancy of the water, he drew himself into my body even more. As he towed me forward, my back that was wedged into the corner arched. I felt his long strong fingers move up the curve of my spine.
“Have you ever made love in pool?” he in
quired, smiling. By his expression, I knew he was quite pleased with himself in this moment.
“No. Have you?”
“No, but there is a first time for everything.”
Cayden kissed me so long and hard I thought the water was beginning to boil over the edges of the pool from the heat we generated. By the time we exited the pool, and I gathered up the Julliard T-shirt from the bushes, it was almost dry. I jerked the shirt on over my head then fished out my underwear with the pool net. I glanced at my fingertips; they were prune-like, extensively wrinkled from being submerged so long in the pool water. I laughed. Cayden who was wearing his pants came to hug me around my waist.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“We have been so preoccupied with each other and in the water so long my skin is like a prune. This shirt is almost dry. I feel like jelly, and I am fishing out my underwear with your pool equipment. Do you think we are crazy or what?”
“Yes but who cares,” he replied before his lips brushed my jawline. “Come on.” Cayden grabbed my soaking wet underwear from the inside of the net and handed them to me.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You have got to be hungry. I know I am famished.”
We entered in through the back doors of his home to find Chandler sitting in the family room. He was watching some sort of a game on one TV and holding a Corona with his index finger wrapped around the neck of the glass bottle. I smiled. He held it just like Cayden and Austin.
Turning to look at me, he asked, “How was the water?”
There I stood with my panties wadded up in a soaking wet ball inside my hand. They were dripping pool water on the tile floor. “Um…,” I mumbled.
“It was perfect,” Cayden said.
Without any further conversation, Cayden pulled me into the kitchen.
“Maybe I should do something with these,” I suggested. Hand up, still dripping.
“Here, let me help you.” He took them from my hand, opened up the lid of the trashcan, and threw my balled up wet panties as though he were making a hook shot. Cayden smiled his crooked guilty smile. “Perfect form. Did you see that shot?”
“Hey,” I protested. “Those were comfortable.” I pouted.
“You don’t need them and no pouting.” He brushed his fingertip over the surface of my bottom lip.
“I can’t run around without underwear, babe.”
“In my perfect world you can. In fact, I think I should insist you never wear underwear again.” He grinned, toothy white. “Except…I really like the satin and lace panty garter thing, so that can be the exception to the no panties decree. Oh…yeah and maybe those hot pink boy shorts.”
I giggled. I could not help myself.
He turned and looked at me quiet serious. “Now, do you like Chinese food?” he asked.
I smiled at how this question came from nowhere.
“Yes.”
“Yes, you agree to my no panties decree, or yes, you like Chinese food?”
“Yes, babe, I like Chinese food, and I’m still not sold on the whole no panties thing.”
Cayden picked up the phone. With his free hand, he reached out and gave my backside a playful little tap.
“You just like watching my ass jiggle,” I said.
“Shit, yeah,” he hooted, wrapping his knuckles on the counter. Then he proceeded to order the most God-awful amount of food, saying there would be an extra tip for Jim if the food was delivered in thirty minutes.
“That was a lot of food,” I commented. Cayden placed the phone back onto the receiver and winked at me.
“I told you I was famished. You, my love, seem to work up my appetite.”
“I guess so.”
Cayden opened up the refrigerator, pulled out a two liter of Coke, unscrewed the lid and drank it straight from the bottle. I eyed him. He looked at me. “Want a drink?”
“Sure.”
He placed the bottle to my lips and tilted it so I could take a sip.
“Very sexy,” he commented.
When I was done with my drink, he plucked the bottle top from my lips and winked at me again. I laughed as he finished off the rest of the Coke. He was full of himself.
“Chandler!” Cayden called out, pulling me by the hand again.
“What?” Chandler said, irritated at the interruption to his game.
“I ordered from The Jade Palace. It will be here in thirty minutes. Will you take care of it? I need to take a shower.”
“Sure,” Chandler yelled out over his shoulder but never broke his gaze from the TV.
Cayden looked at me quite serious. “We have thirty minutes. Do you think we can be back down here that fast?”
I shrugged. “I guess so. I can be fast at taking a shower when I need to.” Cayden smiled wickedly. “But if you really need me to be quick than don’t distract me,” I interjected.
“Well,” he remarked casually. Cayden started tugging me up the stairs then he gave up. He took me into his arms and flung me over his right shoulder with ease as though I was a sack of potatoes. “Extremely nice view.”
I laughed. He bounced me on his shoulder before I felt his perfect lips on my backside pressing in through the material of his shirt that cupped the edge of my bum. He carried me into his room then sat me down feet first. I was still laughing from the silliness of it all.
With a serious face, Cayden instructed me, “Don’t move.”
“Um…,” I muttered, confused.
From our earlier conversation, I expected a continuation of a shower scene together, but it seemed there would be no such scene. Cayden walked over to his dark gray suit coat. It lay strewn across his bed. He palmed something small that he had taken from his front left pocket.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “I thought we were going to take a shower?”
He turned around and looked at me for a long moment from across the room. “Please, come here,” he said quietly.
“Okay.”
I walked over to him. I saw his right hand firmly tucked behind his back. I observed him get down on one knee. I almost froze as understanding began to creep in. He took a little blue box from behind his back and opened the lid. He held the open box up toward me. There nestled inside the satin was a large lucid shape diamond from Tiffany’s. The ring had two offset triangular emerald stones on either side of the diamond and more diamond stones imbedded within the band. It was shimmering beneath the light brighter than the shimmer of the stars. It had to be more than four karats and flawless. Immediately, my hands shook.
I looked at Cayden, who was totally calm, as beautiful as ever in his jeans and his dark blue shirt still unbuttoned. His tousled hair, the picture of perfection, had one darkened wet strand falling over the smooth span of his forehead. His eyes were so clear and so blue I could see forever. Comparatively, I was water logged. My hair was twisted in long wet dark tangles, and I was standing in a half-dry Julliard T-shirt and nothing else.
Cayden glanced up from beneath his thick dark lashes. He stared directly into my eyes. The shadow from his long lashes splayed elongated lines across his high cheekbones.
“Winter Shae Perri, I am desperately in love with you. I cannot live without you. You are my heart.” Cayden kissed my hand before staring back up into my eyes. “Winter, will you please marry me?”
Without any thought of how this moment could be possible and without a voice I stood there, crying tears that fell to the floor. I finally moved. Nodded my head up and down to indicate yes. Cayden got up, smiled a bright wide breathtaking smile, and kissed the tears from the right side of my cheek then the left side.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Cayden pulled me into his arms. He engulfed me, held me tight for what seemed like a ceaseless moment. He took my left hand, slid his ring on my third finger before tightly intertwining his fingers with mine.
“You have made me the happiest man in the universe. I love you.”
Be
fore I could say anything in return, Cayden kissed me in earnest. My head was spinning when the kiss ended. Cayden placed one hand to my waist and began to move, to dance. I followed his lead, dancing with him in the middle of his bedroom. I had to smile. It did surprise me, plus we had no music.
“Cayden,” I whispered into his ear.
“Yes?”
“You do realize we are dancing without any music?”
“Oh there is music, just listen to my heart. You are the beating of it,” he whispered back.
A few minutes passed, Cayden and me in each other’s arms dancing to the sound, the beating of his heart.
“We need to find Chandler,” he said.
“We do? Why?” I asked, becoming aware of the pout was beginning to form around my lips.
Cayden picked up my left hand and kissed it. “First, I need to tell him the news. Second, I really am starving and the food should be here.” He laughed his low even laugh. “And third, I thought after we eat we could continue our dance only outside, on the rooftop, underneath the stars.”
“The love scene,” I said.
“It was a really great scene only….”
“Only what?”
He smiled an impish grin. “Only I believe it could have been better written.”
“Really? And what would have made it better?” I asked, curious.
“You dressed exactly in this shirt,” he replied as he pulled at the bottom of his T-shirt crinkled up on my body.
“Well, as wonderful as my current fashion statement is,” I mused. “I better put some shorts on if we are going downstairs to eat. I doubt it is proper etiquette to be eating dinner with my aspirations hanging out.”
“Baby, I love that aspiration,” he teased and grabbed my backside securely within his two large hands and squeezed.
When we finally made our way back downstairs, I was still wearing the T-shirt per Cayden’s request. However, we had come to a compromise so I was also wearing shorts. He was whispering naughty things in my ear making me blush when we walked hand and hand into the dining room. Chandler was unloading all the square red and white cartons from The Jade Palace onto the formal dining room table. The smell of spice and sweetness filled the room.
Eternal Page 7
