Chapter 21
1194 Words
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 s****l 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.”
“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.
- Writer
