BOMAW Vol. 10-12 (52 page)

"No, not him at all, I have something else I'd much rather do."

"Oh yeah, what is that?"

The doorbell rang.

Deidre had been in the back making sure of everything and checking with the chef on the starters, entrees, main course and dessert. With the sound of the door, she was hurrying and nodded at the correct wines chosen and made her way back to the front of the house, "They're here, my goodness!"

"Wait, don't open that door yet." Sylvia came to her feet and before Jeremiah or Deidre could ask why, she was off towards the stairs and up them out of sight. She wasn't so sure how Shawn was going to come through that door and didn't want to have a scene before them.

The two left standing there eyes met, "Well..." Jeremiah invited with his outstretched hand indicating the door, "...better let'em in."

"AYE! I'll let'em in!" Charlie called charging forward from the back, "Wait over there Dee-Dee, remember, you don't open doors."

Deidre sighed, "I know who it is Charlie."

"Good for you - so do I - you don't open doors!" Charlie therefore did so to face Shawn and family standing looking in; blocking their way she looked each face over, ending last on Angela. With a sigh, her eyes traveled back up to Shawn, "And you are?"

"Charlie! Let - them - in!"

Charlie glanced back at Deidre and then backed up in the door holding it open. The butler hired to get the door was in the dinning room preparing the table.

Deidre stepped forward with a smile, "Well, come on in everyone. Uh, this is Charlie, Charlie - this is Shawn, Angela's father."

Shawn stepped in nodding to her with a smile, his hand out to shake it.

Charlie obliged him with a return of the gesture, shaking his hand while checking him out, and not being shy about it.

"Charlie, behave yourself!" Deidre warned knowing her as she did.

"What? What I do, Dee-Dee? I'ain' done nothing, I'm just appreciatin' the company. Ain't nothing wrong with a lil'preciation, and the looks of him, he used to some appreciation, ain't you? Yo' fine self, that grin on yo'face. Dee-Dee, me and you gone have to talk later on. You gone have to share some things. Don't mind me you all, come on in. Hey Crystal, we met, and Ms Angela, come on so I can clear the door. Come on in pretty boys, love me some lil'pretty boys to play with." Charlie winked and flirted shamelessly. "Did you all know I was a bodyguard?" She asked Mundo and Ben, "I sure am, and for the life of me, can't decide whose body I wanna look after the most. 'Cause both of you look good, young and no doubt full of energy."

"Charlene Carlton!" Deidre blasted her, blushing beet red, even though Jeremiah stood grinning.

For once, Shawn stood blushing as well, unable to stop him from grinning even more, however, not for long because he didn't see his wife as Charlie carried on, "I'm just having some fun Dee-Dee, lighten up! Don't mind me, Charlie won't hurt you." She walked up behind and between Mundo and Ben, slapping them both gently on the butt. They were both shocked as Deidre gasped, "Charlie!" Charlie winked at Mundo and Benjamin, who were both surprised and grinning, not at all offended.

Charlie kept stepping making her way back to where she'd come from, leaving them all to mingle when she noted Samuel standing in the hall with a harsh look on his face, directed at her. She walked past him unfazed by it and murmured for his ears only, "Gonna have to get Dee-Dee to buy more cars for you to polish." Glancing back at the company that arrived and then Deidre and Jeremiah, his greeting was a simple nod as he withdrew, his intent was to catch up to Charlie. She was taken by surprise when the bodyguard-driver rushed angrily up behind her, taking her by the arm and pulling her into the cloak room and slamming the door, followed by her, up against the wall.

"Oh hell no! I know you've lost your mind, let me go!" Charlie blasted trying to shove him away from her and take her arm from his tight squeezing grip.

He wasn't moving, he wasn't letting go and in fact, as she knew, he was the one person that her tough persona didn't phase one bit and with his face boldly in hers he ground out, "You are going to push me too far one day!"

"Let - me - go!" She bit out in her most intimidating voice, breathing hard.

"Make me - let you go!" He bit back equally intimidating.

As much as Charlie knew she would like too, she couldn't. Breathing hard, trying to calm down, she adjusted her tone, "Okay, you got me, all right - big man, feel better? Dominated the woman, proud of yourself?" Even when she tried to humble down a bit, it was grudgingly.

"When are you gonna give in to me? How long you gonna keep this up?" His grip loosened, he moved in to try and kiss her, she ducked to the side and then pushed past him.

She stopped at the door, before opening it to exist she reminded him, "You had your chance, you chose her ... over me. You broke my heart, and you know it. Let's just put it out there, okay? Now ... you can kiss my ass."

"Come on Charlie, that was another time, in the past, I was a different man then."

"And I was a different woman. Young, dumb and all I ever wanted, was you. You knew it ... you knew it. Don't touch me, ever again ... I mean it." She left him standing there feeling small and alone.

Meanwhile, in the foyer, "If its okay with you, I'm going to leave you all to do introductions, where's my wife?" Shawn asked looking at Deidre.

"I saw her head up those stairs." She returned, a bit thankful that he would be making himself scarce, that way she could relax, speak with her daughter, get to know the others and introduce everyone to Jeremiah. Following the introductions, she invited all to relax in her favorite room. With preliminaries out of the way along with her surprise at meeting Benjamin; she left Jeremiah speaking with them and turned her attention to her daughter.

"Well, what do you think?" She asked, taking her by the hand.

Angela felt uncomfortable, weary, "It's okay."

"Wait until I show you around, you're going to love it, especially your room."

"My room?" She returned, a bit startled about that.

"Well yes, when you come home to visit - you'll have your own room of course." Deidre tweaked her daughter's cheek, "I've missed you so much, have you missed me, at least some?"

"Yeah." Angela returned, even though the one word lacked what it took to convince her mother of that.

Deidre sighed, realizing the battle that stood before her. "Angela, I just wanna say, that I know that our time before was not fair for you, and I've been doing nothing but thinking of all the ways I'd like it to be different. While you're here, I thought you might want to phone all your friends if you haven't all ready and invite them here for a sleepover, wouldn't that be fun?"

"Yeah." Again, that same reluctant tone.

"Oh Angela, please give me a chance, please?"

"Long as you understand its just a visit, I live with my dad and Sylvia." She informed her softly.

Deidre didn't know what to say, and realized right then, just how tough the next coming week was going to be. "Let's just have a good time right now, we won't worry about anything else, okay? What do you think about Jeremiah?"

Angela shrugged.

Shawn walked down the long hallway looking from one room to the next, calling out as he went, "All right Mrs McPherson, where are you? Sylvia?" He kept searching, waiting for a reply and then came to a very brightly lit room, looking within, he came to the end of his search. She was standing across the room peering out of a huge picture window.

"This is such a lovely room, this view over the gardens, breathtaking - she's lucky." She spoke softly aware of his presence coming up behind her. Shawn sucked in a long and deep breath and let it out. "Will our entire marriage be rife with you disappearing on me?"

"I didn't disappear, I went for a walk." She defended.

"You didn't tell anyone where you were going."

"I didn't feel like telling anyone. I'm a grown woman, I can come and go as I please."

"Oookaaay, here we go again." He murmured resigned.

"Yeah, here we go again." She parroted feeling a bit snappy.

Shawn moved to stand in front of her, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at her, "Let's come to an agreement in that, due to this not being the place for it, we're not gonna get into a long one, okay?"

"Suits me fine, I'm not in the mood for either, a long or a short one."

"Emmm, even so, know this, grown woman or not, you cannot, come and go as you please. Whether it appeals to you right now or not, you're attached, not - unattached. To make the picture bigger, you're attached to me. Therefore, by all means, come and go as you please, however, before you go, let me know where you're going, let someone know. Is that fair?"

Sylvia's lip rolled out petulantly, refusing to answer him. "Honey, listen..." He softened and pulled her into his arms, "...you are surrounded by people who love you - me - our children. While no one wishes to crowd you, I am at no time willing to let you just go and not know where, for safety reasons. You know me by now, my stunning, spoiled little wife and so whether you comment or not, you know this time, in this case, you're the one in the wrong - and I'm such a nice guy, I'm not gonna insist you admit it."

One dirty look hit him full force, making him laugh and brace himself.

"Don't talk down to me Shawn and don't talk to me like I'm one of your children." She griped.

"Then - wife, don't act like one of my children. You're not going to turn this around and make me the bad guy here, plain and simple, you left and told no one. I can't even do that and I'm the man in this family. The few times I did so, drove you crazy, true or false?"

"So much for this not going to be a long one."

Growling with irritation, Shawn leaned down scowling into her face, "Ugggh, there are times when you are sooo wanting me to smack you right on the ass!"

"Look! I needed to go for a walk! I didn't do it to irritate, or scare anyone, I'm sorry okay? I just - I just did it. So next time I'm feeling like shit, I'll make sure to let you know before I take off, okay papah-Shawn? I have been duly chastised, feel better now?"

Exhaling, Shawn stood straight, pulled her to his chest hugging her, thinking. He knew what was wrong, Crystal had explained what she thought sent her mother off, now he knew that was exactly it. "I'm sorry." He murmured kissing her brow, "Put your arms around me, even if you don't think I deserve it, do it anyway."

Slowly at first, Sylvia complied, and then once she felt him solid against her, she wrapped her arms around the powerful trunk of him and squeezed, so needing him to restore her back to sanity.

"I can't help the way I love you, all I know, is that - you are my life. I lose my life and I die." He murmured leaning down angling her head back with his own, searching out her mouth, finding it and latching on. Right away his heart took off, beating fast and furious in his chest to have her returning his amorous devouring of every breath she took, her tongue entered his mouth and the kiss grew in heat. "I love you so much - so much Shawn, I do, I didn't mean to upset you, I just-..." His mouth cut her off, preferring that to what he felt was over and done with. Another moment went by before he reluctantly pulled away. "Let's just, pause this until later, go back downstairs - as the happy couple that we are and enjoy ourselves, okay?"

"Okay."

He hugged her again for good measure.

Downstairs when they arrived everyone was laughing and talking at once. The boys, Darren and Isaac were asking a ton of questions to anyone paying attention enough to answer them. Because Ben had grown so close to them, he watched them and paid attention to how others responded to their questions, feeling a bit ruffled if someone spoke over them, inadvertently ignoring them. While he knew it wasn't purposely done, it still bothered him. He called them to him and asked Deidre if she would mind him talking them out into her garden to walk the grounds.

"No, go right ahead." She smiled brightly.

Lifting Darren to his hip, he took Isaac by the hand and made his way towards the next room, stopping in the large wide arched doorway to turn back and find Crystal. She was watching him, he did a head gesture equal to saying, 'You coming?' - Crystal came instantly to her feet and followed them into the breakfast room which had French doors leading to a long and bright conservatory and then onto the grounds. They both disappeared from sight, Crystal refused to take notice of Shawn, Sylvia or Mundo and the look they gave each other and then her.

Shawn sucked in a deep breath, turned to look at Sylvia, staring at him, she lipped, "They're grown." - he didn't care if they were, he still worried about this development, however there was little he could do about it for the moment, turning away from his wife, he caught sight of his daughter. Angela had a monstrous size smile on her face caused by the sight of Ben and Crystal going off together with the boys. His brows drew in perplexed, making a mental note to ask her about that later. For the time being, he was watching Jeremiah try to engage his daughter in conversation and also, trying to decide if he liked the idea. While he knew that Deidre was no longer his wife or his responsibility, his daughter was another story. She had a father and was in no need of another one, period.

Deidre tried not to look at Shawn, but having lived with a man like him for so long she knew what he was thinking, her peripheral was clear on him and she could see him giving Jeremiah close inspection.

"So tell me Angela, if you don't mind my asking, how are you enjoying living in Wisconsin?" Jeremiah asked.

"I love it, I have friends there now too."

"Don't forget the ones you have here, I know they can't wait to hear from you." Deidre reminded her.

"We've been busy so I haven't had time to call them." She informed them.

"Who knows, maybe you'd like to stay here tonight, call them while you're here?" Deidre hinted, unable to resist looking to Shawn. "What do you think Shawn?"

"I think that's up to Angela."

"I didn't bring anything with me to stay the night." Angela returned.