Another silence.
Then, after the silence had dragged on long enough that he wondered if she was still there, he heard a quiet, “Thank you.”
# # #
“It’s raining!”
“I noticed!” Perrin dove into the back of Bill’s car and wound up sitting next to Jaspar.
Bill made a signal to Tamara to move back. He should have thought of it sooner, but it had been her turn to be up front.
Perrin stopped her before she even had her seatbelt undone. “Don’t! You’ll just get wet and I’ll get wetter if we try to trade.”
“Some day for a picnic, Dad,” Jaspar accused him as if he had personal control of the weather.
“It was sunny this morning,” he glanced over his shoulder at her and mouthed a, “Hi!” which Perrin returned. It was so damn good to see her he could hardly stand it.
“I guess we could go to a restaurant,” Bill leaned forward to look up at the sky through the windshield and cursed the changeable spring weather.
Jaspar declared his opinion with a loud snoring sound.
“Gotta do better than that, Dad,” Tammy joined in on her brother’s side. “Perrin did pizza and cool costumes last time. You’re gonna have to top that.”
“Ouch! Don’t I get a break, extra points for being your father who can make you wash dishes every night for a month if he feels like it?”
“Nope!” the kids both roared back at him.
Perrin shot him a grin in the rearview mirror.
“What?”
“How about the backup plan we discussed last night?”
She was definitely smiling, something up her sleeve. They hadn’t discussed any backup plan. Oh, she was trying to help him save face in front of the kids, bless her.
“Which one?” he asked, trying to keep up with the game.
“How about the one at CenturyLink Center, on Occidental.”
“Oh right. Sure.”
She winked at him as he pulled back into traffic and Jaspar started telling her all about his stage role even if the backstage stuff was the part that he found to be really “wicked.”
A glance at Tammy told him that, as usual, her dad hadn’t deceived her for even a moment.
# # #
“A dog show!” Both kids had screamed aloud the instant they saw the sign. Bill had spotted the poster, but they hadn’t and he’d kept his mouth shut. Perrin was so brilliant it was hard to fathom.
What finally clued in the kids was a sign running vertically down a street-corner light post. Only when he approached it did he see it had been knit in English Setter white and brown with six-inch tall letters that you wanted to pet they look so fuzzy and friendly.
“Yarn bombing,” Tammy informed him when he asked.
“It’s cool,” he acknowledged.
“Wicked, Dad. According to Jasp, that’s the right word today. Get with the program.” Tammy smiled and took his hand so that he didn’t feel too fuddy-duddy-daddy, one of her phrases.
Once through the door the kids raced off to see everything at once.
Bill tried to keep up, but Perrin grabbed his hand to slow him down.
“You’re not going to find a place safer than this for them to get off the leash a bit. So to speak.”
He guessed that was true, but it didn’t make him any happier. At least they had their cell phones with them if they found any trouble. The Exhibition Center was a tall space. Not enough to feel like outdoors, especially not with all of the steel and concrete structure and numerous pipes running across the ceiling, but enough to give an airy feel to the event.
The vast floor space was clogged with people and dogs. Teacup poodles checked out German Shepherds. Dachshunds greeted anyone who’d listen, and terriers tried to watch everything at once. The animals, all muzzled, were surprisingly well behaved. But it was hard to move without getting wrapped up in a leash or seven.
Off to the right was a vendors’ area for everything from vets to dog hair-care products and specialty foods. Most of the booths had a dog sleeping at the owner’s feet.
To the left were big courses for agility, speed, and whatever other kinds of competitions happened at a dog show, barricaded off with thigh-high fencing. An Australian shepherd was running the course at the moment. A large ring was also fenced off for the show dogs, presently a collection of wrinkle-skinned Shar-peis in every shade of brown, black, and tan. Toward the back, a surprising distance away, there appeared to be long rows of kennels and grooming stations for the participants.
An indoor dog show in Seattle, who knew.
Perrin had.
“You’re an absolute life saver.”
“I saw the rain, did a quick Internet search, and this was the best I came up with. I hope it’s okay?”
“Okay? It’s bloody perfect. Though I’m not taking home a puppy. Not even if all three of you gang up on me. No how. No way.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Bill Cullen, sir.” She saluted him.
He couldn’t help himself. He leaned in and kissed her.
She let him for a long moment, then pushed him gently away. She started them moving forward again, moseying forward though he was oblivious to what was around them. All he could think about was the woman beside him.
“God that felt good.”
“It really did, didn’t it?” Perrin agreed with him.
“I want to do it again.”
“Don’t. Tamara’s expecting it. But Jaspar won’t be. Let it be enough that we’re holding hands.”
Bill glanced down in surprise. They were. He traced it back in his mind. They had been ever since the entry when she’d stopped him from rushing after the kids. It had felt so natural that he’d thought nothing of it.
“This going slow plan sucks.”
She bumped shoulders with him. “This is so not slow. We really need to figure out what’s going on between us soon. If there’s even a chance for us, or if I’m going to hurt your kids horribly, even unintentionally. I’d rather walk out the door now than hurt them, though it might kill me to do so.”
“Well, you’re the woman three steps ahead of everyone. Any brilliant ideas?”
Perrin went silent at that. They managed two whole aisles of the vendors’ area without any ideas between them. Two aisles of things they would never need in their lives. Hand-tooled leather collars fit for a mastiff. A small bookstore with everything from a photobook of the Queen’s corgis to how to train your dog for sheep herding.
“They still do that?”
“Apparently.”
Buffalo meat dog food. Emu meat dog food. Vegetarian dog food as if the master’s predilection made any sense for the pet.
They circulated out by the agility ring so that the kids could spot them more easily. Now it was Golden retrievers racing the course at a dead run, guided by whistles and hand gestures of their trainers. At impossible speeds they were ducking through knee-high pipes, leaping over barriers, and winding through upright stanchions so close together that the dogs looked like eels while passing through.
“Could you get free Tuesday evening? Not the night, but at least the evening?”
“Why? What do you have in mind?”
Perrin shook her head, “Yay or nay, Mr. Cullen. You either can or can’t.”
“I’ll find a way. Actually Lucy, my sister, has been wanting the kids for an overnight. Would a night as well be okay?”
They were so close together that it felt as if their bodies were about to meld, though their only actual point of contact was their clasped hands.
“The night would be wonderful.” Perrin almost looked teary, though he’d never seen her cry.
“What is it?”
She shook her head part way, then hesitated, somehow knowing she’d told him too little and it was on the verge of bothering him
.
“I just can’t get over that you want to be with me. That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
She nodded.
“Woman, you are going to make me totally insane yet.”
“Really? Cool!” Her voice had flashed mercurially to bright, chipper, funny.
He scanned the crowd, but didn’t see the kids. Eyeing her carefully, he could see the edge of the tease and tried to figure it out, but couldn’t.
“Okay, what am I missing?”
“You actually like me enough for me to make you totally insane. That’s cool.”
“Wicked!” he corrected her. And yep! She had him pegged for sure.
# # #
Jaspar spotted them. Dad and Ms. Williams sat at a small table with four chairs at one end of the dog obstacle course.
Ms. Williams who Tam kept calling Perrin like they were best friends. Fine, if they didn’t want him around, that was just fine.
Though Tam had been cool as they’d gone to visit the dogs. And she’d said she was sorry that the boy in Captains Courageous hadn’t at least been captured by pirates rather than fishermen, so maybe she was still okay.
But now Dad sat holding hands with the costume lady. That didn’t feel right.
“Hey Tam?”
“What?” She was all involved in the dogs racing around the track.
He tipped his head toward the distant table and the grownups. Then he pretended he was more interested in the collie dogs that were coming into the ring so that it wouldn’t be like they were both spying if they got caught.
“Bet they’ve kissed.”
His sister was quiet so long that he turned away for a second to look at her. Her shrug said enough for a clear yes.
“Is she trying to marry Dad?”
Again the shrug, different meaning this time. This time Tam didn’t know. He turned his attention back to the dogs.
Stuff was changing again and he didn’t like this change one bit.
# # #
“Do you think we should be worried about the kids yet?” Bill looked at her nervously. He’d been doing his best not to fuss.
Over Bill’s shoulder Perrin spotted the kids down at the other end of the ring. Tamara noticed her attention almost immediately, which told her that the girl had been keeping a close eye on Perrin and her dad for some time. Tamara said something to Jaspar, then grabbed her brother, held rapt watching the dogs, and began towing him by the shoulder in their direction.
“Oh,” she turned her attention back to Bill. “I can make them appear if you want.”
“How?” He narrowed his gaze at her.
“Easy. They’re growing kids.” The kids had made it about halfway through the crowds. “Ready?”
“Sure. Do your worst, lady.”
Perrin closed her eyes and waved her hands over the empty table as if consulting a crystal ball. “Gee, I wonder if anyone’s hungry?”
“We are!” the kids shouted from inches behind Bill who practically levitated out of his chair he was so shocked.
He stuck his tongue out at her as he hugged his kids.
“You all go find us lunch. I’ll hold the table. I eat anything.”
Bill led them away and she sat there.
She felt odd, as if she both was and wasn’t Perrin Williams. If she was, it wasn’t a version of herself that she recognized.
She knew the driven designer, consumed by the need to create beauty and joy with each of her dresses.
She knew the “cheery loon” who kept both her friends and newly-met strangers on their toes. The one who could never seem to let a straight line lie on the ground untended, unquirked. The one who kept everyone at a safe distance, even those closest to her.
And the woman who drove men away before they could even begin to get close—her she understood less, but knew well. So often Perrin had wondered if that woman was afraid that she’d be tested and found wanting, or was she just plain afraid?
And she remembered the girl, remembered her far too well. The one who took years to learn that waking in terror was not normal. The one who didn’t understand for years more that she was the only one who prayed each night to wake up in the morning and learn that she’d been orphaned while she slept.
These were all at least familiar.
The one she didn’t know at all sat here ever so quietly. A hundred dogs running about her. And a man who had offered her a glimpse of another world, an impossible fantasy somehow come to life. This new Perrin scared her to death. Because she dared to want.
She could feel her heart start racing until it was in rhythm with the rushing dogs.
Look at you playing Happy Family games.
She couldn’t think.
Who do you think you’re kidding, you loser!
Couldn’t breathe.
Run!
She had to run!
She couldn’t stand!
Clawing at the table, she managed to gain her feet. A chair crashed to the floor somewhere behind her. An English Setter glanced her direction and missed a gate.
She turned to push free of the crowd too close around her.
She ran blindly into a man who wrapped his arms around her.
She fought, struggled, would have clawed if she could but the arms tightened around her until she couldn’t move.
“Whoa! Perrin. Perrin!”
The nightmare never knew her name. Not that name. It knew a different one, a name she hadn’t used in twelve years. Perrin was her safe name.
Safe name. Safe.
“Perrin!”
She knew that voice. She followed the voice back. Back until she found the face that…
“Oh god, Bill. I’m so sorry.” She covered her mouth and searched for the kids.
They were only now returning, heavily laden with trays of food.
She turned away, so they couldn’t see her face. “Give me a minute. Just a minute.”
He held her just a moment, an infinitely reassuring moment, then kissed her on the forehead and released her.
“Okay, land it there, kids.”
She heard a chair scraped upright. A dog bark. The slow return of normalcy about her.
It had been years since she’d lost it like that. Years since she’d lost her firm grip of control. She stepped farther away, hoping to find and leash a few more pieces of herself. Even Jo had never seen that part of her. Only Cassidy. Only her.
“A kiss on her forehead doesn’t count as number four, Dad,” Tamara teased somewhere behind her.
“Number four what?” Jaspar sounded grumpy.
“So dense,” Tamara complained to her dad.
Jaspar made a raspberry sound.
She could feel them waiting for her to join them. A nice, normal family. They had no wife or mother, but were a good, solid family nonetheless.
And they’d all begun to cast her for the missing role… her! Perrin Williams! How could they be so wrong? She closed her eyes. Perhaps if she couldn’t see them. She focused on the excited panting of the dogs in the nearby ring and the hum of the crowd’s conversation. Perhaps if she couldn’t hear them. Perhaps then she could walk away.
But she could hear them. And when she managed to turn, she could see them; involved in some game for which the prize was someone else’s French fry. Thankfully, Bill had seated the kids with their backs to her.
Ten steps. Ten lousy steps and she could rejoin them.
Or she could turn and run.
She looked over her shoulder toward the entrance, the chaotic Seattle weather had now allowed sunshine to light the wet street beyond the glass entry doors, making it glisten. The distant view of daylight painfully bright and real compared to the industrial lighting inside the hall.
Perrin turned back and took the ten steps to
the table. They were hard. Maybe the hardest thing she’d ever done. She had to count each one under her breath to make them real, to prove to herself that she was making progress.
But she made it.
She’d soon lost half her French fries to Jaspar, clearly the table’s master of the game she didn’t bother trying to understand. He may have been targeting her specifically, but that didn’t seem likely. Bill ended the game at that point anyway. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t sure if she could eat much.
Bill’s knee pressed hard against Perrin’s own as he teased Tamara about her third career choice of the week: opera singer, fashion designer, dog trainer.
Bill’s knee. It was all that anchored her in place. But it was enough.
# # #
Bill felt her pressing her knee so hard against his. What had just happened? The woman beside him made the lost waif look rational.
“You gotta see them!” His son started towing Bill out of his chair and pointing toward the grooming stations at the back of the dog show.
Once he was on his feet and the table was cleared, Tamara had started leading them. But she drifted back to coax Perrin out of her chair when she didn’t follow right away.
Perrin had scared the hell out of him. The stark terror on her face exceeded anything in the awful movies his kids sometimes made him watch, even the ones he wouldn’t let them watch. He’d certainly never seen anything like it in real life. For a moment Perrin had been gone and the woman in her place had been terrified for her very life.
Somehow, she’d reached deep and pulled it together. He’d watched her fight some titanic battle while he’d distracted the kids. It had almost killed him to not go to her as she stood so alone in the aisle, facing whatever demons had sent her crashing into him. But he couldn’t.
She was also right, they were going to have a talk, and real soon. If there was something he needed to know to protect his kids, she’d have to explain it, shields be damned. Or else they were through.
A glance back showed that Tammy had slipped a hand around Perrin’s forearm, for Perrin’s hands were plunged deep in her pockets. She’d looked like a ghost of herself. She was slowly recovering, but he could see the brittle layer, the near transparent façade holding her together.
He almost called Tammy away, maybe Perrin had been right about not bonding with the kids.
Where Dreams Unfold Page 11