The Complete Where Dreams

by M. L. Buchman

  There Jaspar stood, not merely as he’d been drawn. He’d become the youthful promise unfulfilled by the Tragic Prince. He was still so pure, hope for the future brimming over with energy and life. The contrast on stage would be shocking when the boy entered in Act II Scene II. The Prince would be abruptly diminished in the audience’s eyes, because here, embodied in Bill’s ten-year-old child, was everything the Prince had been given as a birthright but been unable to attain.

  And then a young woman stepped from behind the screen. Her dark mane of red hair swept up off her shoulders. Her dark eyes watching him with a frankness and a knowledge that no child could possess. There was a tragedy about her, as if she understood her elder brother’s failure where the younger did not.

  The clothes revealed nothing beyond her sweet shoulders, nothing except the promise of everything she was to become. It would be she who survived the ultimate tragedy. She who carried on to become the next Empress. This was not some young girl, this was a young woman, a woman just born from the child she’d been and discovering her own power.

  “Tamara?” he managed only a whisper. He hadn’t called her by her given name since the day the woman who had given it to her died. But this was no young Tammy.

  Her smile bloomed.

  His children hooted, “Oh, we got you, Dad. We got you so bad.” And the two operatic figures dissolved back into his children as they threw themselves into his arms.

  All Bill could manage was to hold them both tight and kiss them atop their heads.

  When at last he looked up to thank her, he saw that Perrin had left the room.

  Chapter 6

  “Why did you leave? Where did you go?” Bill had finally chased Perrin back to her lair in the store. It had taken three days, but he’d done it.

  She’d done more than leave for the few minutes after she’d transformed his children into operatic wonders, perhaps to do some busywork in the front of her shop. In the days since then she’d become invisible. Arriving at rehearsals mere minutes before they started, departing immediately after they ended.

  She’d delivered the children’s costumes to Jerimy. The photographer had been thrilled and photographed them with Renata the Empress for the publicity campaign. Perrin hadn’t shown up for the photo shoot.

  And the opera had gone crazy. Okay, no crazier than usual, but he’d been unable to get a single minute to track Perrin down in three days.

  Carlo’s girlfriend Melanie had gone to Paris for a fashion shoot. Carlo, while not dumb enough to begrudge her career, was now impossibly prickly about everything that wasn’t absolutely perfect.

  Lord spare Bill from opera-sized egos. Geoffrey Palliser threw a fit about not yet having a costume so he couldn’t be on the advertisement. Pointing out that his contract had forbidden the use of his image on precisely such promotions did little to mollify him.

  Voice lessons with Tammy had taken another chunk out of his afternoons, though under the Chorus Master’s guidance she was coming along wonderfully, showing some real aptitude for the small role. Jaspar wasn’t interested in the singing, but did listen carefully when the director provided stage directions.

  Twice Bill had come by Perrin’s shop only to find it closed and dark. She clearly wasn’t a morning person.

  It was now early evening on Friday. The last of the light was bleeding out of the Seattle sky. The scent of early flowers in small planters outside her shop hovered on the still air. Jaspar was at a friend’s and Tammy was at the library for some schoolwork. With his single stolen hour, he’d walked into Perrin’s Glorious Garb and barely nodded at the clerk before breezing into the kitchen space and through the accessories display in the old freezer and into the design studio.

  Perrin had flinched when he walked in. So, he’d sat down quietly across the cutting table and waited for her to settle before repeating his question.

  “Why did you leave?”

  She began fiddling with the drawings spread across the table. The only light in the room was the worklight directed at the table’s surface. She was little more than shape and form, though her hands were caught by the light. Just a glance revealed the drawings of the rest of the cast, but he forced his attention off them knowing if they went down that path, they might lose track of the present one. He’d promised to pick up Tammy in an hour. It was all the time he had to fix whatever this was.

  His eyes were adjusting enough to see that Perrin wore a form-fitting silken turtleneck as black as her hair, and wool slacks almost as blond as the stripe that still remained in her hair. Simple, chic, and a real pleasure to look at.

  “Why are you avoiding me?”

  “It looked like a great family moment. I didn’t want to… ” She wouldn’t face him.

  “Didn’t want to what?” Bill wanted to lump this in with his usual job of coaxing along crazy artists, but it didn’t feel that way. The dozen drawings spread across the cutting table proved that whatever she needed to create her art, it wasn’t coaxing. She’d done them impossibly fast. And if they were even half as good as the first ones, they’d be the finest costumes Emerald City had put on stage in years.

  She stood and began gathering them up. “Let’s just say that it wasn’t my place to intrude and leave it at that.”

  He stood up and circled the table. When he reached for her hands, she pulled them back.

  “Please don’t,” the sad-eyed girl was back, clutching her drawings as if they were all that anchored her.

  He let his hands fall to his sides. “Did I do something wrong? One of the kids?”

  “Oh, no!” That snapped her attention to his face. “They’re wonderful! And you’re so good with them. I didn’t belong. It was your moment. So I left.”

  “A moment you created.”

  “I didn’t belong. That should be enough for you,” she insisted, then moved over to the next table and slipped the drawings into a portfolio. She held the closed case out as a barrier between them. “Since you’re here, you can take these to Jerimy.”

  “Don’t you need them to build from?”

  “No, they’re in my head once I draw them. But it doesn’t matter, I was only hired as a designer. There are just a couple designs missing. I’ll send those over as soon as I figure them out.”

  “But you built the first three, I thought you’d want to do the other major costumes. And you know that your contract has a clause paying you more if you do so. I also thought you’d want to maintain the quality of—”

  “Here!” She slammed the portfolio flat against his chest so that he had to grab. “You’ve have them. Now just go!”

  She turned her back on him and retreated into the darkness, making it only two or three steps before she ground to a halt.

  Idiot! Bill shouted at himself. There was something far bigger going on here than any lousy set of drawings. He’d been so slow to see it, that he’d probably just made bad matters worse. He set the portfolio on the table and moved up behind her.

  He placed his hands on her upper arms.

  She shrugged him off angrily.

  He did it again and held on this time. When she didn’t protest anymore, he turned her slowly clockwise so that the blond stripe climbed upward across her hair as she came to face him.

  “Why can’t you accept that you didn’t want me there?” she asked as soon as he had her fully turned.

  “But I did.”

  “You idiot!” She shoved him hard in the center of his chest, forcing him to stumble back a step. He regained his balance just before he ran into a clothing rack. He’d expected to find her weeping, instead he was facing the Empress brought to life.

  Perrin stormed several paces away from him until she was blocked by her sewing machines. Then she stalked back toward him, stopping close in front of him in the narrow aisle between the cutting table and a wall of fabric folded onto shelves.

  “Those kids!” she jabbed a finger in the direction of the changing corner where the kids had been. “They’re precious.
You can’t have them imprinting on me. You can’t let them. Please, Bill, for their own safety, you can’t let them. That’s why I walked away. So that you don’t connect them to me.”

  “Are you so awful?” He said it as a joke. It was totally ludicrous for her to think so.

  Normally Perrin didn’t give one whit what a guy thought, let him get smashed by being around her. But she’d never been with a single dad. There’d never been so much at stake.

  She clamped down on her lips so hard they hurt and then nodded once. Fiercely. Yes, she was that awful.

  Bill laughed.

  The stupid man laughed at her.

  She pounded the side of her fist against his chest, which did nothing but bounce off.

  “You are far and away the least hazardous woman I’ve ever run into. Whack-a-doodle! Oh yeah! Hazardous, not a chance.”

  “I’m toxic!” she shouted in his face.

  Any man with the least common sense would turn tail and run, glad to be shut of her. She’d been through this enough times to know for a fact that even this little bit of the truth worked to drive men away. She also knew that she truly was toxic. Her past was a poison that ran through her whole life and eventually killed every relationship she’d ever attempted. She was just being preemptive this time, for the kids’ sake. She couldn’t risk contaminating them with her past.

  “Get out of here and leave me alone!” she yelled again, the pain raking at her throat as she tried once more to drive him off.

  “Perrin!” He got right in her face.

  “What!?”she shouted back, pissed that it hadn’t worked.

  He moved forward, forcing her backward into the deeper darkness. No! She’d pushed too hard. If she screamed would anyone hear her? Raquel had stuck her head in just five minutes ago, but Perrin had nodded it was okay to lock up and leave. She’d been so stupid. Now she was all alone and Bill was far stronger that she was.

  She stumbled back and fell into a chair. She prepared to fight. Her scissors were almost in reach if she just—

  Bill pulled over another chair, set it in front of her, then sat down in it.

  He didn’t attack.

  Just sat there.

  Perrin fought for a breath. Her heart beat faster than any rabbit’s possibly could. Was she safe? All of the old emotions were pounding her adrenaline right past redline, and she’d never been able to do anything about it. Ever.

  He reached out and took one of her hands gone suddenly nerveless.

  “Ah! You’re freezing. And your hands are shaking. What the heck? Are you okay?”

  She shook her head, it was all she could manage.

  “Wait.”

  Perrin could see a dawning comprehension in his eyes and knew she’d underestimated him and interpreted it all wrong.

  “Wait. You thought I’d… I’d never attack a woman!” His shock appeared genuine.

  “Heard that often enough.” Then she flung up her free arm, wrapping it over her mouth and clamping her hand on her opposite shoulder. She had to stop whatever she was going to say next.

  Now Bill looked truly shocked.

  She’d given him the unanswerable. No protestation of innocence could work against such a statement. She freed her other hand from his and pulled her knees up until she could wrap both arms around them and her heels were on the edge of the chair.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled through her knees. “I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve that. I told you I was toxic.”

  He huffed out a breath. He didn’t leave. He didn’t shout back. He didn’t cock back an arm to hit her. He just huffed out another breath.

  “Well,” his voice a soft rumble. “I’ll buy hurt. I’ll buy that there’s someone on this earth who would be better off dead for whatever they did to you,” he actually sounded pissed on her behalf. Then, impossibly he smiled at her.

  She had no idea what to do with a smile. Her childhood taught her to never trust it. Her adulthood merely taught her that any man smiling wanted only one thing, even if he was nice enough to ask first. But Bill’s smile made no sense. Especially not with what she’d just accused him of. But he still smiled at her nonetheless.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and slouched back in the chair as if just getting comfortable. The worklight behind him making him little more than a silhouette. Not quite giving him a halo.

  “But if you want the title of toxic, you’re going to have to convince me, because I’m not buying it.”

  “I’m not telling you my life’s story.”

  “You have something better to do this evening?” He was being Mr. Oh So Amiable.

  “No. But I’m still not telling.” Though if he kept it up, Perrin might find she wanted to smile again, not something she’d done in the last three days.

  “In that case,” Bill stared up at the pipes on the ceiling as if contemplating the breadth and width of the broadcloth of the universe. “I’ll just have to convince you that you aren’t.”

  “Can’t fight reality.” She wished he could, but not even the Tragic Prince could do that.

  “Hey, I work in opera. You can’t get much further from reality than that. So, here goes. You ready?”

  She nodded. Did this man know what he was doing to her? No one had ever been on her side except Jo and Cassidy. Her two college friends loved her and did their best to protect her from herself, and she’d always bless the heavens for the two of them. But no one ever really tried to understand her. To have a man try to protect her from the impossible… That was new and felt amazing inside.

  “My first exhibit should be my kids. But I don’t want them in the middle of this any more than you do. So I’ll simply just happen to mention that what you’ve done for them in just the first two days since you met has already changed them, and in a good way. Did you know that Wilson Jervis offered them formal contracts which included Union Scale contributions to their college funds? Do you have any idea how proud that made them to be earning money for the family? How proud that made me? And Tammy is really enjoying her voice lessons.”

  “You said it was unfair to use them, and it is.” Though she loved hearing how they were doing. They’d barely met, yet she’d missed them horribly these last days. It was the closest she’d been to tears in a long time, just hearing about them.

  “So, for the official first example, I’ll offer Jo Thompson.”

  That startled her enough to sit up and look at him. “You know Jo?”

  “Not really. But I called her on her honeymoon while you were passed out on my couch. That one of the most accomplished and powerful women of Seattle loves you so much speaks volumes. By the end of the call, she was ready to get on a plane with or without her new husband. I take it she knows you well?”

  Perrin nodded, “No one better, except Cassidy.”

  “Who is my second official exhibit. You mentioned she will be coming to the opera with you tomorrow. Yet here you are being miserable and still she’s not here with you. As I happen to know she’s in France, she also must be very attached to you to attend an opera on the same day she flies halfway around the world.”

  Perrin had forgotten about the jet-lag when she’d invited Cassidy.

  Bill waited for her to accede his point.

  “She’s the best.” This man deserved some truth. “Cassidy saved my life.” She managed to say it without getting too choked up.

  He took that as a win without asking for details; another point in his favor even if he didn’t know it.

  “And third, at lunch, I couldn’t get near you because Melanie and Josh were just so glad to be in your company.”

  She hadn’t really thought of it that way, they were just good friends. “How does all this make your point?”

  Bill laughed again, but it didn’t make her angry this time.

  He reached out and slowly unclamped her hands from around her knees until he was holding both hands, and her feet slipped back to the floor.

  “You tell me. Does that sound
like someone who’s toxic? Someone who sweeps every person they meet off their feet and they never recover?”

  “Maybe not. But… ”

  “No! Cut that out. It’s my round. I won it fair and square and you’re not going to spoil it. Heck, I deserve a prize. If I’m stuck being human, you are hereafter going to have to live under the cloud of being ‘not toxic.’ Can you live with that?”

  Perrin managed to smile at him. “Guess I’m stuck with it, aren’t I?”

  Bill just grinned and stroked his nice warm thumbs on the back of her freezing fingers.

  She stood slowly, not releasing his hands. Ever so gently, she lowered herself down until she was sitting in his lap.

  “You’re right,” she acknowledged as she settled into place. “You have to get a prize.”

  “I wasn’t trying to get you to—”

  And she kissed him. Softly, just barely rubbing her lips over his.

  “And that,” she deepened the kiss for a delicious moment before pulling back to finish her sentence, “is exactly why you deserve a prize.”

  Then she stopped any reply with her lips and tongue.

  His hands slid out of hers as she reached up to dig her fingers into the waves of his hair. It was even softer than it looked.

  He slid his hands around her, snugging her body more tightly against his. His hands hesitated at her waist.

  Perhaps she did know Mr. Too-Decent Bill Cullen better than she thought. Reaching down, she coaxed one of his hands upward. They were good hands, big, strong, and they hadn’t hit her, not even when she’d pushed him to the edge. He was so gentle. How could she have ever doubted that in this man?

  He buried his face in her neck and just stopped there.

  She wrapped her arms around him. And he seemed content to stop there, to just remain there.

  “You miss her that much?” she made a guess.

  He nodded without raising his head.

  “Have you even touched a woman since then?”

  He hesitated, then shook his head.

  She held him against her and stared at the lit worktable. How had she ever thought anything but the best of him? He was too decent for his own good.