and Jeff had made love. Three and a half weeks. Just before Dakota’s autumn wedding.
Damn it, how could this have happened? Science had advanced so far, you’d think there could be a hundred-percent guarantee for things like birth control pills. But there wasn’t because she had used birth-control and still she found herself unexpectedly carrying a new life within her. A baby who by all rights shouldn’t have been there.
But it was, she thought, placing her hand over what was an absolutely flat stomach.
It was there. Six stupid sticks, all pointing to the same thing, couldn’t be wrong no matter how much she wanted them to be.
Six, that was how many kits she’d brought home, buying each one at a different drugstore so that if for some reason one batch had emerged from the manufacturer with some kind of malfunction, she could turn to another for the true results.
She’d turned six times.
Not a single one of them had given her a smattering of hope. Each one had pointed to the same results: She was pregnant.
Dragging herself out of her shower this morning after allowing the hot water to wash over her for longer than usual, MacKenzie knew she was going to have to make an appointment with her gynecologist for a true confirmation. Not that she held any real hope that the six sticks had lied to her.
Friday, she thought, drying herself off and then discarding the towel. She’d make the appointment for Friday. Or maybe even sometime next week. Right now, she was too busy with the show.
The show. Oh God, she was going to have to hustle, she thought without glancing at either one of the clocks in her bedroom. She could feel the minutes slipping away.
MacKenzie hurried into her clothes, putting on a straight forest-green skirt and a pale green sweater. Both felt loose. How much longer was that going to last, she wondered. Indefinitely, if the first ten minutes of her day were any indication. She’d spent them throwing up, entering that state while she was still half-asleep. She’d spent the next ten trying to get her bearings, succeeding only marginally.
About to dash out of her apartment, MacKenzie realized that she’d left the cameo behind. She was tempted to keep walking, but she knew that would hurt Dakota’s feelings and she didn’t want to do that. Besides, she certainly didn’t believe in the legend, but the small oval piece of jewelry really was lovely.
Securing the ends together at the nape of her neck, she stood for a moment looking at it.
Nothing.
“Magic, huh?” she scoffed. Lightning certainly wasn’t striking. It wasn’t even tingling. Still, the cameo did look as if it belonged exactly where it was.
Patting it, she left the room, muttering under her breath about superstitions. Sure, she’d been all for it when Dakota had first appeared on the set wearing it. And, admittedly, she’d been charmed by the idea that a Southern belle had once worn it. But that had been when it had hung around Dakota’s neck.
Having it now around her own made her uneasy. Uneasy because she was afraid that despite everything she said to the contrary, she might allow herself to buy into the story. To hope when every logical fiber in her body told her that there was nothing to hope on. That hope itself was only a fabrication.
She wasn’t the type that had legends come true.
Crossing the kitchen, MacKenzie glanced at her watch and then bit back an exasperated oath.
How had the time managed to melt away like that? She had less than half an hour to get to the studio and traffic was a bear. It was one of the givens living in New York City. Night or day, traffic was always a force to be reckoned with. A force that usually won.
Why was it that time only seem to lengthen itself when she was alone in bed at night, wondering about the direction of her life? Acutely aware of the fact that the place next to her was empty and would undoubtedly remain that way?
Philosophy later. Hurry now, she counseled herself as she headed for the door. There was no time for breakfast. Just as well. She wasn’t sure if her stomach could hold it down. Putting on her shoes and grabbing her oversize purse that held half her life in it, MacKenzie flew out of her Queens garden apartment and to her carport.
Where she came to an abrupt, grinding halt. She wasn’t going anywhere.
There was one of those self-rental moving trucks blocking her car, its nose protruding so that it was in the way of the car next to hers, as well. The truck’s back doors were both hanging open, displaying its contents for any passersby to see. Normally a curious person, MacKenzie had no interest in the truck’s contents. What interested her was the person who belonged to said possessions and said truck.
And he or she was nowhere in sight.
Exasperated, feeling the minutes physically ticking by, MacKenzie fisted her hands on her hips, the loop of her purse slung over her wrist.
She looked back and forth down the length of the carports. “Damn it,” she exclaimed audibly.
“Something wrong?”
The deep voice behind her sounded like something that had to be raised by bucket out of the depths of a fifty-foot well. Startled, MacKenzie jumped and swung around, her wide purse swinging an eighth of a beat behind her. Coming around like an afterthought, it hit the person belonging to the baritone voice squarely in the groin.
MacKenzie managed to turn in time to see a giant of a man—he was at least a foot taller than her five-foot-three stature—doubling over, his handsome, rugged face turning from tan to something akin to ash-gray. His deep green eyes were watering.
The horror of what she’d just done and the way he had to be feeling slammed into her. “Oh, my God, I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?” MacKenzie cried.
“You can back off,” Quade Preston ground out the words as he tried to regain both his breath and his composure. Both seemed to be just a step out of reach at the moment. He struggled to overtake them.
“Oh, right, sure.” MacKenzie moved back, her eyes wide as she stared at him.
She felt like David the moment after he had brought Goliath down to his knees, except that in this case it had been purely unintentional. If there was anyone she would have wanted to take aim at in this fashion, it was Jeff, even though she knew that wasn’t exactly fair. Jeff had never promised her the moon—or tomorrow. She had just assumed…
Lately, her emotions felt as if they were strapped to a roller-coaster ride. This tiny seed inside of her had had terrible repercussions on her emotional state. Right now, she felt like laughing and crying, knowing that neither was acceptable.
Especially laughing.
“I can get ice,” she offered, thinking back to when she’d been a kid and her brother Donald had had something similar happen to him. Her father had immediately applied ice to the injured area.
“Back away,” he told her again, this time with a shade less agony throbbing around the order.
Chapter Two
Okay, if he didn’t want her to help him, then she was absolved of her guilt and free to go, MacKenzie thought.
