over the years, discussing the dating wasteland they’d encountered in the big city. And the dangers, she thought as a little band of pain tightened around her heart.
Loud cheers and whistles drew their attention to a raised platform at the far end of the dance floor where the groom was removing the garter from the bride’s leg.
“You’ve got to be wrong, Chels,” Kate said starting to rise from the table. “The bouquet comes right after the garter.”
Chelsea grabbed her arm. “But it’s not the bouquet she’s going to toss. It’s the skirt.”
Her two friends stared at her, comprehension, surprise and finally amusement flickering across their faces.
“Not the man-magnet skirt?” Gwen asked.
“The one she picked up on that island during her cruise?”
“You got it,” Chelsea said. They’d all listened countless times to the story of how Torrie’s cruise ship, blown off course by a storm, had dropped anchor at a small out-of-the-way island, and how she’d found this little shop where an elderly seamstress had sold her a special skirt. According to the woman, each spring, the old ladies of the island gathered on a moonlit beach to spin the fibers of the lunua plant into thread. Any woman who wore a garment woven out of this thread that had been supposedly “kissed by moonlight” would draw men like a magnet. And one of those men would be her soul mate.
Privately, Chelsea had always wondered if those island women had been sitting on that beach smoking the fibers and spinning stories instead of thread. While the skirt was a great basic black that fit Torrie perfectly, none of them had ever been able to see anything special about the “fibers” or the “thread.” Still, Torrie swore by it, crediting the skirt with attracting men every time she put it on. And now she claimed it had brought her new husband to her.
“You’re putting us on,” Gwen said, glancing at the bride and groom. “She’s not going to toss the skirt. She doesn’t even have it up there with her.”
“She’s wearing it,” Chelsea said. As if on cue, Torrie began to hike up the yards of satin cascading from her waist. “She told me she wasn’t going to take it off until he said, ‘I do.’”
When the three of them pushed back their chairs and rose as one, Kate said, “This is not a very good testimonial to being single in the city. We’ve all got to be desperate to believe in a moon-kissed skirt!”
“I want to catch it,” Chelsea said.
Gwen and Kate turned to stare at her.
“You? We thought you’d sworn off men after Boyd the bum.”
Kate’s elbow cut Gwen short. “We’re not going to mention his name ever again. Remember? A low-life cad like that does not deserve one more minute of our time. And I think it’s great that you’re going to throw yourself back into the dating jungle, Chels. At least one of us should be out there.”
“Oh, but I’m not…I mean…,” Chelsea paused, touched by the concern she saw in her friends’ eyes. Truthfully, she didn’t want the skirt to attract men. She had entirely different plans for Torrie’s man-magnet skirt. But Kate and Gwen looked so happy for her…
“You go, girl.” Gwen said. “If she tosses it our way, we’ll swat it to you.”
“Love you,” Chelsea said, throwing her arms around them for a quick, three-way hug.
By the time they’d elbowed their way in front of the other single women who’d crowded onto the dance floor, Torrie’s wedding dress was back in place and she’d begun to swing the skirt over her head like a lasso.
As Chelsea watched it move in a circle, she thought she saw a silvery flash of light like the glitter of the moon on the rippling surface of the sea. Then suddenly, the skirt was sailing through the air. Leaping high, she snagged just the edge of the fabric between her fingers.
A cheer went up around her and a funny little tingle shot through her as she clutched the skirt close to her chest.
A special plant and the kiss of moonlight? Ridiculous. However, a skirt that supposedly acted like a magnet on men was just the kind of gimmick she needed to sell her next article to Metropolitan magazine.
Glancing down at it, she thought she caught just a glint of silver again, and an image filled her mind—she was sitting behind an editor’s desk at Metropolitan, pen in hand, writing a regular column.
That was her dream.
It was just her imagination that for a split second she’d seen a man in that chair with her.
1
“TAKE IT OFF. Take it all off!” Leaning over the top of the bar, Daryl shot Chelsea one of his five hundred-megawatt smiles.
She stared at her roommate as she pulled her coat more tightly around her. “Right here? In the middle of the restaurant?” She waved a hand toward the wall of windows separating them from a steady stream of pedestrian traffic. “With half of Manhattan looking on?”
“Sweetie, you said it couldn’t wait until I got off work.”
“It can’t,” Chelsea said. “I wouldn’t have bothered you here if it wasn’t an emergency. Couldn’t you take a break and we could go into one of the private dining rooms?”
Daryl rolled his eyes as he swiped a cloth over the top of the gleaming bar. His long dark hair was pulled back and fastened at the nape of his neck and small gold hoops hung from his ears. “Christmas is exactly a week away. And while I know that it’s not your favorite holiday, the rest of the world goes all out for it. The private dining rooms are booked solid. If you want my help with that skirt, you’re going to have to unveil it right here, right now, before the place gets really busy.”
Tearing her gaze away from Daryl, Chelsea glanced quickly around the trendy eating spot. At eleven-forty-five in the morning, the bar was still empty. In the main dining room, a few of the tables were already filled, and the maître d’ was seating a couple at a nearby table.
“Chels,” Daryl prompted. “It’s not like I’m asking you to strip. Just take off your coat. Isn’t it time that you gave that man-magnet skirt a little test drive?”
Still, Chelsea didn’t remove her coat. As ridiculous as it might be, the whole idea of wearing the skirt in public made her a little nervous. It had hung in her closet for three weeks, ever since she’d gotten home from the wedding. She hadn’t even tried it on until this morning when she’d gotten the phone call from Metropolitan magazine. The editor had asked her to wear the skirt when she came in to sign the contract.
Could a “lucky” skirt help a single girl attract men in Manhattan?
That was the question that had sold not one, but three articles. Now it had a bubble of panic growing in her stomach. She wasn’t quite sure what bothered her most—the slim possibility that the skirt might actually work or the more certain probability that it wouldn’t.
“What’s up, Chels?” Ramón asked, wiping his hands meticulously on a towel as he hurried toward them. “I’m in the middle of creating a soufflé, but
