“What about you, aren’t you coming, Tucker?”
“No, I’m not very good on crutches, yet. Pokey and I will stay here and try to talk the cook into making something we’ve heard of for dinner.”
Chelsea rolled her eyes at Dakota. “Hope you like macaroni and cheese with Twinkies snacks for dessert.”
“Maybe we’ll eat dinner out,” Dakota said, getting up. “Don’t wait for us.”
“Then you’re going?” Chelsea asked, surprised he was agreeing to her plan so easily.
“I’ve learned arguing with you is a waste of energy. Besides, I really would like to know if you two are going to be permanent houseguests.”
“Whatever happened to Southern hospitality?” Chelsea teased.
“We save it for invited guests.”
The psychic fair was held in a park near the center of Nashville. A large crowd milled about the colorful tents and the sweet scent of apple fritters drifted on the breeze.
“Are you sure about this?” Dakota asked a bit nervously as they slipped on dark sunglasses in an effort to disguise their faces.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Dakota, lighten up. They aren’t going to put a curse on you.”
“No, you already did that.”
“Well, then, maybe we can find someone who knows how to break the evil spell I’ve put on you, okay? Now which one do you want to try first?”
“First?”
“Sure, we’ll keep going until we get a fortune we can live with.”
“You’re a piece of work, Chelsea Stone,” he said, shaking his head.
“I think that one over there looks pretty interesting.” She tugged on his arm and they made their way through the crowd until they reached the tent where a woman sat with a Paisley shawl draped over her table.
“How much?” Chelsea asked the woman who studied them with shrewd dark eyes.
“For both of you?”
“No, just him. I know my future.”
“Twenty-five dollars,” the woman quoted.
Dakota reached for his wallet, but Chelsea stopped him. “My treat.”
The woman motioned for the two of them to be seated in the folding chairs set in front of the table.
“Past, present or future?” she asked, looking at Dakota as she warmed the crystal ball before her with her beringed hands.
“Whatever,” Dakota replied with a shrug, not bothering to hide the fact that he wasn’t a believer in the supernatural.
The fortune-teller waited for him to choose anyway.
“Past,” he said finally.
“There’s no future in the past,” Chelsea objected. “Tell us the present.”
The woman looked at Dakota, and he nodded.
She peered into the crystal ball, waiting for the cloudiness to clear and present her with a picture she could read. Finally she was ready. “Yes, I see it. There is a young woman. She will cling to you. It will be very difficult for you to get away from her.”
“Tell me about it,” he muttered, laughing at the look on Chelsea’s face. “Can you give me some sort of potion to get rid of her?”
“It won’t be necessary. She will leave you for the man who is right for her.”
Dakota frowned.
“What about his future?” Chelsea quickly asked.
The woman looked at the ball intently. “Yes, yes, it is very good.”
“It is?” Dakota sounded surprised.
“I see many, many women falling in love with you.”
“You know this fortune-telling stuff ain’t so bad,” he said, turning to smile at Chelsea.
“Ah, but I see there is only one woman who loves you,” the woman added.
“What about his career? What do you see in store for his career?”
The woman shook her head. “It is not going to go on….I see it stopping,” she said to Dakota, who swore.
“No, wait….” The woman wasn’t finished with her prediction.
“Your career is going to change. And when it does, I see a great fortune.”
“I’ve heard enough,” Dakota said, getting up. “I have no intention of going back home to join the family banking business.”
“There is one more thing—” the woman began, but Dakota cut her off.
“I don’t want to know,” he said, and waited impatiently while Chelsea paid the fee.
“Why would you not want to know that today is your lucky day?” the woman asked Dakota as she handed Chelsea her change.
“What do you want to do now?” Chelsea asked as Dakota led her away from the tent.
“Anything but have my fortune told, thank you,” he grumbled.
“Oh, let’s get an apple fritter,” she said, as they approached the line waiting for the hot delicacy.
“Okay, you wait in line here. I’ll get us something to drink over there,” he agreed. Chelsea watched him head for the other line and wondered about the wisdom of coming to the psychic fair.
She believed in fortune-tellers just enough to be concerned about what the woman had said about Dakota’s career ending.
She finally reached the front of the line and purchased two apple fritters, then turned to look for Dakota. He wasn’t in the drink line any longer, and she didn’t see him at first. Then she spotted him.
The fortune-teller’s prediction was already coming true: A golden-haired toddler had fastened her arms around Dakota’s leg.
Chelsea laughed out loud at Dakota’s predicament.
“It’s not funny,” he said, when she joined him.
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know. I can’t get her to talk to me. And she is holding on for dear life. I keep waiting for the police to come and arrest me,” he said nervously.
Chelsea went down on one knee to talk to the little girl.
“Hi, what’s your name, sugar?”
Blue eyes round as saucers stared at Chelsea, but the child wouldn’t say a word.
“Would you like a bite?” Chelsea asked, offering her the apple fritter in her hand.
The toddler turned her face away.
“Where did she come from?” Chelsea asked, looking up at Dakota.
“I don’t know. I was in line and next thing I knew, I felt someone hanging on to my leg.”
“Well, she has to belong to someone….” She tapped the little girl on her shoulder. “Where’s your mommy, sugar? Is she lost?”
The child turned back to stare at her, but said nothing.
Chelsea set her plate of apple fritter down and tried to lift the little girl, but she wouldn’t let go of Dakota’s leg. “Well, looks like the fortune-teller was right. It’s going to be very difficult for you to get away from her.” Chelsea laughed.
“It’s not funny,” Dakota repeated.
“Oh, come on, Dakota. Relax. The fortune-teller said she’ll leave you for the man who’s right for her,” Chelsea teased.
“So why do I have the feeling that will be when I’m giving her away at her wedding?” he asked, taking a gulp of soda.
“Emily… Em-ily… Where are you… ?”
They spotted the long-legged man in jeans at the same time. “Over here!” Chelsea called out, signaling to the man. “I think we have her.”
The man strode toward them and a smile lit up his face when he saw the toddler. “Emily, baby, what are you doing?”
The little girl let go of Dakota’s leg and reached up her hands, saying, “Da-da… Da.”
Her father laughed. “We were talking to friends and I let go of her. I guess she thought she had my leg.”
“Well, she’s safe and that’s all that matters,” Chelsea said. She waved as the pixie and her father moved off to find the child’s mother.
“So, you want to try another psychic?” Chelsea asked, breaking off a piece of apple fritter and feeding it to Dakota.
“Why not? It’s my lucky day, right?”
“I’ll l
et you pick this time,” Chelsea said, ignoring his sarcasm.
“How about none of the above,” he said, leaning forward to brush a speck of powdered sugar from her nose.
“One more?” she coaxed.
“Tucker’s right about you, you know that? All right, one more.”
They tossed their trash in a metal drum and headed back to the grouping of tents.
“Let’s try a palm reader this time,” she suggested.
They strolled over to a tent hung with a banner advertising Madame Marie. Inside the tent was a young woman reading a textbook.
“Can I help you?” she asked, looking up from the book.
“He wants his palm read.”
“I don’t want my palm read, I’m having my palm read,” Dakota whispered as he sat down.
“Let me see both hands, please,” Madame Marie said.
Dakota put them on the table and the young woman ran her fingers over them, nodding and observing.
“Is there anything special you’d like to know?” she asked, before she began.
“Yeah, what course are you taking?” he asked, indicating the textbook.
“Journalism,” she answered good-naturedly. “I want to be a writer.”
“So do I,” Dakota muttered under his breath.
The young woman was busy studying his hands and didn’t hear him, but Chelsea glared at him.
“You’re artistic,” she said, not looking up for confirmation. “You have a strong lifeline.” She paused then, studying his palm. “Your career—now it looks like there’s a…”
“Problem?” Dakota filled in the word, resigned.
“A change. There’s a fork in your career path, but it runs very close and parallel…. That’s odd. I’ve not seen that before.”
“What does it mean?” Chelsea asked.
“I’d say that whatever the career change, it won’t be far afield from what he’s doing now.”
“And it’s my lucky day, right?” Dakota said sardonically.
“I don’t know, is it?”
“Not so far.”
“It’s early,” Chelsea said defensively.
“How about you? Would you like your palm read?” the woman asked.
“No. No, thanks. I’m supersensitive.”
After Dakota had paid the woman and they’d left the tent, he asked. “Supersensitive?”
“Well, I am.”
“What does that make me, a clod?”
“No, not sensitive like that. I meant I’m suggestible. If someone tells me I’m going to win the lottery, fall in love, and get a hangnail, all I remember is I’m going to get a hangnail. So I don’t like to let anyone suggest bad things to me.”
“But I’m fair game.”
“You’re a tough guy,” she said evasively.
“Yeah, a tough guy with no future, if you’ve been paying attention.”
“Oh, Dakota, you don’t really believe all this stuff, do you?”
“Wait a minute, if you don’t believe in it, then why did you drag me here?”
“For fun. Fun, Dakota. It’s an interesting concept. Haven’t you heard of it?” This wasn’t working at all, she thought, miserable that she was failing in her plan to draw Dakota out. She was only making him feel worse.
“I think you have fun and torture confused,” he said, confirming her worst suspicions. “And believe me, I know what torture is. Torture is when you drag an artist with writer’s block to a psychic who tells him his career is over. Torture is when you wear jean shorts with holes in scandalous places and a white eyelet bra and call it an outfit. Torture is…”
That did it. She tugged his arm. “You want fun, flat-out fun, then come with me.”
“What? Where are we going?” he demanded as she led him from the park to the car.
“Don’t worry, it’s your lucky day, remember?”
Ten minutes later she directed him to pull into the parking lot of a convenience store.
“Give me all your money,” she said, turning to him.
“Aren’t you supposed to put the stocking cap on first and then go inside the store before you say that?”
“Cute. Come on, empty your wallet.”
“You’re serious.”
“No, I’m having fun,” she said, holding out her hand for the money. “Come on, let the moths out, open your wallet and give me all your bills. No holding out, either. I want every single one.”
“Are you practicing for divorce court?”
“Quit stalling, tough guy, and hand it over.”
He opened his wallet, withdrew all the bills and handed them over.
She arranged them in numerical order, and counted up sixty-two dollars.
“Be back in a flash,” she said with a wicked wink. “Don’t get any bright ideas about leaving.” “Why? Am I driving the getaway car? Is trouble your idea of fun?” he asked, as she slammed the door.
She leaned in the window, well aware of the generous view she flashed him. “Haven’t you read the tabloids? I’m trouble on the hoof. Y’all just sit tight and I’ll be right back with a sackful of fun.”
“What in the world?” he demanded when she returned with a paper bag filled with scratch-off lottery tickets, pulled them out, divided them and handed him a coin.
“It’s your lucky day, remember?”
“What are you going to do with the money we win, assuming we win any?”
“I’m sure you’ll want to donate it to the Flood-Aid concert.”
Sixty-two tickets, plus seven free tickets later, they had scratched off a total of five hundred and two dollars.
“You’re right, that was fun,” Dakota agreed, handing over the money for her to gjve to Tucker. “Now what?”
“Now let’s have some wild fun.”
“I shudder to ask….”
“I thought we’d go rollerblading.”
“Yeah, right. I’m going rollerblading with a charm-school dropout. I’ve already got a wounded foot that feels like you poured a gallon of peroxide on it.”
“Shut up and drive, tough guy. I’m going to make you have fun if it kills you.”
And it nearly did.
“Remind me to take you snipe hunting when I can walk again,” he grumbled a couple of hours later, as he limped ahead of her into the house.
“What’s snipe hunting?” she asked. She took a tray of ice out of the refrigerator to make an ice pack for the lump on his forehead.
“It’s a quaint regional custom,” he answered, groaning when she applied the makeshift ice pack to the bump on his head.
“You wouldn’t have gotten all banged up if you’d worn kneepads, wrist guards and a helmet like me. They have all the rollerblading gear for a reason.”
“Yes, to make you look ridiculous. Do you realize I felt like Mad Max?”
“Oh, right, and you didn’t look ridiculous when you pirouetted over that Dalmatian and landed headfirst in the trash receptacle with your roller blade wheels still spinning?”
Chelsea shook her head as she looked at him. Okay, so maybe he didn’t feel vulnerable—she hadn’t succeeded in getting him to let go completely—but he looked vulnerable. Wasn’t that half the battle?
9
CHELSEA TURNED OFF the shower with a flick of her wrist, then grabbed the thick terry towel as she stepped from the shower stall into the steamy bathroom. Leisurely dabbing the moisture from her body, she let her mind wander over the day she’d spent with Dakota.
The first image to flash into her mind was that of the little girl who’d clung to Dakota’s leg. Dakota had truly looked panicked. The toddler had scared him because he hadn’t known how to relate to her.
Just as he didn’t know how to relate to her. Chelsea knew that she scared him because she was constantly challenging him. She wouldn’t let him withdraw and run from his feelings, feelings she knew he was going to have to explore in order to be able to write the so
ng for her.
She understood Dakota, she really did. He mirrored her own fear of failure. They both feared losing because their careers were all either of them really had.
She tossed aside the damp towel, pulled on a pair of white cotton panties and slipped into a short, silky navy-and-white print dress. She put her hair up in a loose French twist and smiled at her reflection in the mirror as she recalled how awkward Dakota had looked at first on the rollerblades. Unfortunately, just as he’d become confident enough to try turning on them, the Dalmatian had darted into his path.
Chelsea felt she’d made progress in her efforts to draw Dakota out emotionally, but she was afraid if she didn’t act quickly he’d retreat again behind his wall of well-mannered aloofness.
Reaching for a hairpin, she accidentally knocked her bottle of red nail polish to the floor. As she bent to retrieve it, she got an idea about what to do next in her campaign to loosen up Dakota.
“DAMN!” DAKOTA ROLLED up yet another piece of paper and tossed it aside. He’d been sitting in bed trying to write a song since he’d showered, but his aches and scrapes from rollerblading kept distracting him.
No, that wasn’t true. They were a minor distraction compared to Chelsea Stone. She was making him nuts. He couldn’t even put her out of his mind for the length of time it took to write a song. While he was trying to write about the romance of an imaginary woman, she loitered in his mind, wearing not much of anything as she always did.
It amazed him that Tucker allowed her to dress the way she did. Didn’t she realize the effect she had—or was that why she did it?
It was odd. Her sexy way of dressing wasn’t really seductive. It was more a dare, more a statement of the fact that she was in charge; that she would wear what she wanted and didn’t care who didn’t like it.
The problem was he liked it. He liked it all too much.
And it made him crazy because he didn’t approve of her. Didn’t approve of her teasing him when she was involved with Tucker.
He rolled up another piece of paper he’d scribbled on and tossed it on the floor in frustration.
Concentrate. He had to concentrate. One song would get her out of his life.
The only article of clothing he had on was a pair of old jeans. He’d thought they’d be comfortable, but the soft material rubbed the scrape on his knee and it throbbed, distracting him.
Love, Me Page 9
