but she couldn’t. She could only grieve. “We’re not together. He’s together with his wife.”
Dakota’s mouth dropped open. This was new. “His wife?”
MacKenzie laughed dryly. The sound rang hollow in the small dressing room. “Yeah, a little detail he forgot to mention.”
Dakota could only shake her head, clearly stunned. “He’s married?”
“Separated at the time, so he said. But yes, married.” Afraid she would see pity in Dakota’s eyes, she squared her shoulders the way she’d often seen her friend do and raised her chin. It was purely a defensive move. “And out of my life.”
For a moment, their eyes met and held. In short order, Dakota made up her mind. Leaning her head forward just slightly in order to get her hair off her neck, she located the small knot that held the two velvet ends of her necklace together and undid it.
Watching, MacKenzie frowned. “Dakota, what are you doing?”
Removing her necklace, Dakota held it up in front of her friend. On the end of the velvet ribbon was the cameo she had purchased at an antique shop in upstate New York. The cameo she firmly believed with all her heart had brought her and Ian Russell together in the first place. The cameo came along with a legend.
“I’m taking the cameo off so that I can give it to you.”
“Dakota—” MacKenzie began to protest, shaking her head.
She was about to step back, but Dakota was faster. The latter took her hand and turned it so that her palm was facing up. Dakota laid the cameo across it. She vividly remembered that the woman who had sold her the necklace had said that once she’d felt its magic, once true love had entered her life, she was charged with passing the necklace on to someone else who was in need of its magic. Someone like her best friend.
“I’ve felt the effects of its magic. Now it’s your turn.”
MacKenzie stared at her, dumbfounded. Dakota had been valedictorian in their graduating class. “You don’t really believe—”
“Oh, yes, I do,” Dakota cut in adamantly. “I’m not much on legends and magic, but this worked just the way I was told it would.” Seeing the skepticism in MacKenzie’s eyes, Dakota pressed on. She had once been a disbeliever herself. “The woman in the antique store told me that the legend went that whoever wore the cameo would have their true love enter their life.”
“Dakota, we’re New Yorkers now. We’re too sophisticated for that.” Although part of her wished she could believe in magic. In happily-ever-afters and men who loved to their last dying breath. But she was too old to hang onto illusions. There came a time to grow up. “That’s hype and you know it.”
“No,” Dakota contradicted firmly, “I don’t. What I know is that when I put it on, I met Ian that same afternoon. Maybe it’s crazy,” she allowed, “but there is no other explanation for it than magic. When I went back to talk to that old woman in the antique shop, the owner said no one matching her description worked there. Except that I did talk to her. I did see her.
“And she looked exactly like the photograph he had hanging on his wall of his great-great-aunt—the same great-aunt whose funeral was taking place the day I bought the cameo from her.” It sounded fantastic and she would have been the first to doubt the story if she hadn’t lived through it herself. “Now, if that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.”
MacKenzie looked at the necklace. The cameo was a woman’s profile, carved in ivory and delicately set against a Wedgwood blue background. It was a beautiful piece, but only jewelry, not a cure for a broken heart. “I don’t believe in magic.”
Dakota placed her hand over MacKenzie’s in mute comfort. “You did, once.”
MacKenzie drew her hand away, determined to brazen it out. “I also believed in Santa Claus, once. But I grew up.”
The woman in the shop hadn’t said that belief was an integral part of the experience. “Okay, you don’t have to believe, you just have to wear it.” She looked at MacKenzie, mutely supplicating. “What do you have to lose?”
MacKenzie laughed shortly. “The cameo, for one.” She looked down at the cameo and shook her head. “You know how bad I am about things like that. I’d feel awful if I lost it.” She attempted to push the piece back into Dakota’s hand.
But Dakota merely pushed it back toward her instead. “Then don’t lose it,” she advised. “Wear it. As a favor to me, Zee,” she added, her eyes locking with MacKenzie’s again.
MacKenzie could feel herself wearing down. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the cameo. It was beautiful and she would have loved to wear it. But she also knew that there was no magic in it. Magic was for the very young and the very old to believe in. And the very superstitious. That wasn’t her. “Waste of time.”
The argument was unacceptable. Dakota shrugged it off. “Time goes by anyway.”
Outflanked, MacKenzie surrendered. “God, but you are chipper, even for you.”
“I know.” Her smile fairly lit up the entire room, with light to spare. “I feel like I’m floating.”
It had to be wonderful to feel that way, MacKenzie thought. “Try not to levitate until after the show, okay?”
“Deal.” Dakota looked down at the cameo pointedly. “If you—”
“Wear the necklace—yes, I know. Way ahead of you on that one.” She sighed, capitulating. “Okay, I’ll wear it.”
Dakota kept looking at her expectantly. Waiting. “Now.”
MacKenzie glanced at her watch. It was almost time to go on. “Dakota—”
Dakota rose from her seat, moving around to stand behind MacKenzie. She reached around her, her hand out for the cameo that was nestled in MacKenzie’s hand. “Now,” she repeated.
With a sigh, MacKenzie relinquished the cameo she’d meant to stash in her tiny jewelry box, and placed the piece and its velvet ribbon in her friend’s hand. “It’s not going to do any good.”
“Humor me.”
MacKenzie suppressed another sigh. “Okay, you’re the star.”
“No,” Dakota corrected, securing the ribbon and then coming around to take a look at her handiwork. “I’m the friend.”
MacKenzie knew that Dakota meant well. That the woman who had come up the ranks right along with her only had her best interests at heart. But at this point in the game, her own interests were going to have to take a time-out and slip into the back seat.
At least her romantic interests.
She had a career to worry about, granted, but more important than that, she had a brand new life to worry about. The brand new life she’d just discovered yesterday morning existed within her.
Apparently, Jeff was never going to be permanently out of her life.
Or at least a part of him wasn’t going to be.
