Читать книгу Because a Husband Is Forever - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 9

Present Day

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

The voice, soft, unobtrusive, felt as if it had slipped into her consciousness via her mind rather than registering the regular way, by way of her ears.

Surprised, Dakota Delany glanced up from the see-through counter with its collection of estate jewelry and one-of-a-kind pieces to see a motherly woman, who watched her with eyes that were incredibly blue. And incredibly kind.

Dakota would have sworn that she was alone in the small showroom area of the upstate New York antique store, with its creaking floorboards and not quite airtight windows. When she’d entered fifteen minutes ago, there hadn’t been a salesperson to be seen. It took her a moment to process the sudden appearance of another person within the rather small area, without so much as a telltale squeak from the floorboards.

If she were being honest with herself, Dakota really didn’t know what she was even doing here. She’d never had much of a penchant for antiques nor a desire to haunt the small shops along the street that hosted them. But an unshakable restlessness had put her behind the wheel of her blazing-red BMW this morning. Dawn had seen her driving away from New York City, making her way upstate, her path marked by a parade of trees whose leaves were turning all the festive colors of fall.

She didn’t feel very festive.

Dakota wasn’t really sure why she kept on driving or where she was going. It wasn’t as if she could just allow herself to get lost for an unlimited amount of time. She had a live show to tape as of two o’clock this afternoon, the way she did every afternoon, Monday through Friday. That meant she had to return by noon or risk having her production assistant, who was, as well, her best friend, succumb to the heart attack MacKenzie Ryan always threatened her with if things weren’t progressing according to schedule.

Schedule.

Hell, if things had been progressing according to schedule, she and Dr. John Jackson would be standing side by side, maybe even here in this little, out-of-theway antique store, picking out their wedding rings. She’d thought her relationship with John was heading down the aisle. To a wedding. To the altar. For a brief, shining moment she’d actually believed that she’d finally found a man who didn’t want anything from her except her. She’d found a man with whom she could share forever, have the kind of life her parents had.

John Jackson didn’t need her name or her fame, not to mention her money, to try to get ahead. The good doctor was a celebrity of sorts in his own right. He was the head of a very lucrative private practice and was currently one of the most sought-after plastic surgeons on the East Coast.

Trouble was, on occasion the good doctor also liked to throw himself into his work—after the fact. Dakota had heard the rumors, but once her mind was made up that this was the man she was going to marry, she had refused to believe them. Having been raised in the entertainment business—thanks to a newscaster father and a mother and grandfather who between them had been in almost every B-grade movie ever written—and having spent the last four years as the star of her own daytime talk show, And Now a Word from Dakota, she knew very well how baseless rumors could be.

Except that these rumors had turned out to be not so baseless. These rumors had turned out to be true. She’d come home early from a taping one afternoon, seeking a respite after working with a particularly difficult starlet, and wound up catching John, also home early, trying on one of his remodeled patients for size.

Her heart and confidence had been shattered in one lightning-swift blow.

Now the engagement was off, John had moved out to some Park Avenue address, and she was single again.

And hating it.

But at twenty-nine, she had also become resigned to the fact that she was probably going to remain that way for a very long time, if not forever. Men just weren’t worth the trouble, she’d decided during her drive up this morning. Besides, she had a full life. Between work and the occasional visits to her family, she didn’t have time to focus on the fact that there were no one else’s dishes in the sink but hers, that the only clothes strewn around the apartment were hers.

“Would you like me to take the necklace out to show you?”

Even as the woman asked the question, she was removing the cameo that had caught Dakota’s eye.

It was a lovely piece, but not extraordinary by any stretch of the imagination. A small profile of a woman set against a field of Wedgwood blue and threaded onto a black velvet ribbon—new by the looks of it. There was nothing unusual about the small piece of jewelry to set it apart from the rest. And yet, as she’d walked through the store, browsing but not really seeing, Dakota found her eyes inexplicably drawn to the cameo.

Still, she wasn’t really here to buy anything, only to kill time. She shook her head. “No, I—”

The protest came a beat too late. The woman with the fluffy gray hair and compelling smile already had the cameo out. She held it up for Dakota’s approval.

For a moment the face of the woman in the cameo was trapped in a sunbeam.

“It has a legend behind it, you know,” the woman told Dakota softly.

“A legend?”

She was too much of her parents’ daughter not to be drawn in by the promise of a story, a history. Dakota could feel her interest being aroused as if it was a physical thing.

The woman came around from behind the counter. Short, round, she had almost a cherubic appearance. If she were casting Mrs. Claus in a play, Dakota thought, the woman would have been perfect.

The woman’s blue eyes gleamed with vibrancy as she spoke. “Yes. It’s said to have once belonged to a Southern belle, given to her by her fiancé just before he rode off to war in 1861. Her name was Amanda Deveaux. His was William Slattery, a handsome young lieutenant in the Confederate Army. William put this around her neck and made her promise to wear the cameo until he could return to marry her.”

The sunbeam still held the woman in the cameo in its embrace. Dakota found she couldn’t draw her eyes away from it. Though injured by love, at bottom she was still a romantic. “And did he?”

Rather than answer directly, the older woman smiled enigmatically. Taking the cameo, she stood up on her toes and gently placed it around Dakota’s neck.

“Why don’t you try it on?” the woman coaxed softly as she tied the two ends of the velvet together at the nape of Dakota’s neck. Stepping back, she looked at Dakota and nodded her approval. “It suits you.”

The delicate oval dipped into the hollow of her throat. Dakota lightly slid her fingers over the necklace, touching it. “Does it?”

The woman nodded again, a wayward breeze that had sneaked in through the open casement playing with the ends of her hair. “They say that whoever wears it will have her own one true love come into her life. And once that happens, once she knows that this is the man she is to spend eternity with, she has to pass the cameo on to someone else so that the magic can continue.”

“Magic,” Dakota echoed. Did anyone still believe in magic? She certainly didn’t. The woman took out a small, sterling-silver-framed mirror and handed it to her. Dakota looked at herself. When she glanced back at the woman, her smile was ever-so-slightly self-deprecating. “I don’t feel any magic.”

The woman laughed to herself, shaking her head as if she’d just heard something very foolish uttered in innocence. “Magic doesn’t come riding on a bolt of lightning, my dear,” she assured Dakota gently as she stepped back behind the counter. “Real magic slips in without you noticing and unfolds its power very quietly. Before you know it, it’s taken a firm root inside your soul.”

Dakota sincerely had her doubts about that. She didn’t believe in magic or cameos that came equipped with magical powers. But there was no denying that the cameo was truly lovely.

And she deserved a pick-me-up, she decided.

Dakota handed the mirror back to the woman. “I’ll take it.”

The woman eyed her knowingly. If she didn’t know better, Dakota would have concluded that the woman’s smile was slowly seeping into her being. “I thought you might,” the woman was saying. “The moment I saw you walk into the store, I knew the cameo was meant for you.”

Dakota frowned slightly, puzzled. The shop didn’t look as if it was wired with a surveillance system. It looked barely able to support the wiring for the overhead lights. “I didn’t see you when I came in.”

The smile on the woman’s face did not falter. “But I saw you.”

About to ask where the woman could have hidden in the small, cluttered room in order to observe her without being noticed, Dakota heard the ancient grandfather clock in the corner begin to chime the hour.

Ten o’clock.

How was that possible? It hadn’t taken that long to drive up here, had it? And yet the hours seemed to have melted into oblivion. Had she been lost in her own thoughts that long?

Her eyes met the woman’s in surprise.

“You’d better start getting back, or you might miss your show,” the woman told her. Taking out a pad, she began to write up the sale. Surprised, Dakota opened her mouth to say something. Second-guessing her response, the woman’s smile widened another several watts. “You know, we do get all the major channels out here. Even have a computer or two around, although I don’t really like the annoying little things.”

The comment seemed appropriate. The area seemed so off the beaten path, Dakota would have been less surprised to have stumbled over Rip Van Winkle than to hear that the houses were wired for cable or had computers in their living rooms.

Dakota glanced at her watch. The woman was right. She had to be getting back before it was too late. She touched the cameo at her throat again, reluctant to part with her new acquisition.

“I think I’ll wear it.”

“Thought you might.” After ringing up the sale, the woman handed her a small pouch.

Taking out her checkbook, Dakota glanced at the dark-green velvet pouch. “What’s this?”

“It’s for the cameo. You can place it in here when it comes time for you to give it to the next person.”

Dakota tore off the check, a smile playing on her lips. “After I find true love.”

The woman nodded gravely. Her faith seemed unshakable. “After.”

Moving the check along the counter to the woman, Dakota shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll be needing the pouch.”

Picking up the velvet item, the woman pressed it into Dakota’s hand.

“You will,” she told her with certainty.

Dakota was still thinking about the unusual little woman and her shop as she parked her car in the underground garage beneath the TV studio’s building. Although her life of late had been a little bleak, Dakota found that she couldn’t suppress or erase the smile that had taken possession of her lips.

Maybe she could go back sometime and have the woman—whose name she hadn’t even gotten—as a guest on the show, she thought as she entered the elevator. It was lovely finding unusual and interesting people. Most of the time, she was in contact with people who were hurrying through life much too quickly to enjoy what was around them or even what they’d earned for themselves along the way.

“Physician, heal thyself,” Dakota muttered under her breath as she sailed into her dressing room. Definitely the wrong metaphor, she thought. Physicians were the last group she wanted contact with. But even that slip didn’t take the edge off her upbeat mood.

She fingered her cameo, as if for luck, even as she silently scoffed at herself. The only thing the cameo was going to bring her was compliments. True love existed in fairy tales and, on rare occasions, in other people’s lives. People like her parents who were part of another generation. Somehow true love had gotten lost in this hurry-up world through which she and others found themselves navigating.

As she gained her dressing room, Dakota nodded at the makeup girl who was in there ahead of her. Alicia’s face lit up and she went to work, although there wasn’t much to do. “You’ve got perfect skin tones.” It was the first thing the young woman had said to her when they met. “If everyone was like you, I’d be out of a job.”

“Hi, Alicia, sorry I’m running late.” Not bothering to sit, she presented herself to the makeup artist, her face upturned.

Alicia wasn’t alone in the room. There, biting her nails in typical nervous fashion, was MacKenzie. The second Dakota entered the brightly lit room, MacKenzie sighed audibly.

“Oh, thank God you’ve finally shown up. Do you realize what time it is?” With one gnawed fingertip, she pointed to her wristwatch. “I was going to call out the National Guard to find you.”

Dakota was accustomed to MacKenzie’s dramatic moments. They’d been roommates in college in California. Dakota, the blond, statuesque native, took it upon herself to show around the petite, dark-haired transplanted Bostonian. They’d come out to New York together to take the town by storm. Thanks to a few words Dakota’s father had put in for them with the head of the studio, they pretty much had.

Dakota tilted her head toward the light as Alicia put on the final strokes. “They have more important things to do than look for me, Zee.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, so do I.” Without preamble, she took Dakota’s purse from her and flipped open the section where her cell phone was usually housed. “So, it is here.” To underscore her point, MacKenzie took the small silver cell out and held it up. Her tone and frown were both accusing. “The object of having a cell phone, Dakota, is so that people can call you when they’re in the middle of having a heart attack.”

Dakota took her cell back and tucked it into her purse before depositing the latter in the bottom drawer of the vanity table. “I wanted to be alone.”

MacKenzie pressed her lips together. Her eyes searched Dakota’s face, looking for a telltale sign that she was about to break. It wasn’t like her just to take off like that without leaving some kind of word. “I was afraid you’d do something drastic.”

Close as they were, Dakota didn’t like to expose her feelings. Especially not when there was a third party present. Her voice lowered. “Over John? Please, I’m not some teenager.”

They’d known each other too long for pretenses. MacKenzie had never thought she’d see her gregarious friend give her heart to any man. When it happened, she held her breath, waiting for a shoe to drop, praying it wouldn’t. But it had. With a resounding thud.

“No,” MacKenzie said quietly in a tone that matched Dakota’s, “you’re a grown woman whose heart was stomped on by a big ape in combat boots.”

Dakota waved a dismissive hand at the words. “Past history.”

Glancing at her makeup artist, Dakota held out her hand for the lipstick she favored. Alicia dug the tube out of her makeup caddy and placed it in Dakota’s palm. Without benefit of mirror, Dakota did the honors quickly. Finished, she handed the tube back to Alicia and squared her shoulders.

She was going to wear what she had on, she decided. “Now let’s move on to our present history.”

But as she began to walk out of her dressing room, MacKenzie placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. “Small problem.”

Dakota narrowed her eyes. “What kind of small problem?”

“That animal trainer who was scheduled to be on the show—”

Dakota nodded. It was Monday. She’d gone over the week’s guest-star list, skimming over their biographies and trying to get to know a little about them before she faced them on her program. “Fearless Frederick. What about him?”

“Seems that Fearless was taken to the emergency room last night. One of his animals decided to challenge his title and took off the tip of one of his fingers. I hear Fearless turned the E.R. blue.”

Dakota stifled a shiver, trying not to envision the gruesome sight. “Is he okay?”

“They sewed it back on, but needless to say, you won’t be holding on to one of his trained snakes today.”

“Can’t say I’m really disappointed.” Though she was game for anything, there were definitely things that went to the bottom of her list. Holding wriggling snakes and animals that viewed her as a substitute for lunch sank right down to that level.

MacKenzie resumed walking toward the set. Dakota fell into step beside her. “Fortunately, I had a backup plan.”

Dakota laughed under her breath. Her best friend had always been an overachiever. Had she been on the Titanic, the diminutive woman would have found a way to float the ship to safety.

“Never doubted it for a second. So, who am I interviewing?”

“No!”

The deep male voice rang out with dark authority that made the stagehand in the distance jump. MacKenzie rolled her eyes. “Him.”

Making a half turn, Dakota temporarily abandoned her path to the stage and instead followed the single word to its source. Nothing like meeting the guest just before the show, she thought.

She looked to her right at MacKenzie. “And ‘him’ being?”

MacKenzie, shorter than her boss and friend by some three inches, clutched her clipboard to her chest as she lengthened her stride and hurried to keep up. “Ian Russell. Of Russell and Taylor, bodyguards to the rich and famous,” she added when Dakota looked at her quizzically.

Dakota remembered the names. They were the former homicide detectives. The two men were scheduled for the end of the week. She decided that the bodyguard business must be slow to be able to get them on such short notice.

“You come near me with that powder brush, and you’re going to find yourself walking a whole lot stiffer,” the man in the guest-star chair warned Albert, their head makeup artist, just as Dakota rounded the corner and came on the scene.

Highly frustrated, the makeup artist rolled his small dark eyes and looked helplessly at Dakota. “Dakota…?”

A wealth of emotions and entreaties were locked into the single intonation. Dakota rose to the occasion. Smile in place, she took the brush from Albert with one hand while placing the other on the annoyed guest’s chest. Dakota gently but firmly pushed the tall, dark, brooding man back into the chair he was attempting to vacate.

Apparently caught off guard, the man gave little resistance. There was no doubt in Dakota’s mind that, had her guest star resisted, she could have jumped up and down on his chest with her full body weight and made no impression whatsoever. Unless he wore armor, her hand had come in contact with rock in human form. Splaying her fingers wider, Dakota wasn’t sure she even detected a heartbeat.

“Hi,” she murmured, “I’m Dakota Delany, and you really don’t want to come off looking like Casper the Friendly Ghost.”

Staring at her, realizing introductions were necessary, he began saying, “I’m Ian Russell and—” The rest was swallowed up as Dakota began to deftly apply powder to the rugged planes and angles of a face that could have easily belonged to Hollywood’s newest action star. Damn, but he was attractive. She could see women lining up six deep to avail themselves of his services. Some of which might even have had something remotely to do with bodyguard work.

As she applied the brush in short strokes that seemed to vibrate down her arm into her own soul, her eyes held his for a very long moment. The magic she’d laughingly told the woman in the antique store she was waiting for felt as if it had just arrived.

She found herself struggling, just for a single heartbeat, to remove the brush from the man’s face. But for that moment she felt as if the brush was an extension of her fingers. Very odd.

“There,” she finally murmured, hardly aware of forming the word. “Done.”

A deep laugh from the next chair brought Dakota back to her surroundings. Tilting her head, she spared a glance at the other man in the area. Dakota assumed the brown-haired, green-eyed man to be Randy Taylor, Ian’s partner.

“I’m afraid there’s little chance that anyone’s going to mistake Ian for a friendly anything. That scowl was chiseled in when he was three days old. Been there ever since,” Randy said, grinning broadly. He crossed the room to her and offered his hand. “Hi, I’m Randy Taylor. I’m the reasonable one. And you’ve already met Ian Russell, my not-so-silent partner.”

Ian’s scowl deepened as he rose to his feet and yanked off the makeup apron. He towered over the woman who’d just dusted him with something. “Look, you’ll be better off talking to Randy on your show. I don’t know about the ‘more reasonable’ part, but he’s the more talkative one.”

Randy laughed, shaking his head. “He’s right. He’s as talkative as a tree when he gets into a mood.”

Dakota smiled, remembering an old Broadway song she’d heard in a recent revival. It was from Paint Your Wagon and entitled, “I Talk to the Trees.” Suddenly she found herself wanting to talk to the trees.