Little Black Dress with Bonus Material (6 page)

Hello?
Wasn't that why she'd left this small town in the first place, so she could bet on a dream she had of making something of herself apart from the family winery? And hadn't she taken a huge leap of faith the previous night when she'd shown up at I Fratellini, all giddy and vulnerable and so certain her boyfriend would propose? And what had it gotten her?
Bubkis,
that's what.

“I may plan weddings for a living but it doesn't mean I believe in fairy tales. I'm a realist,” she answered soberly.

“I'm sorry to hear that.” Hunter shoved his hands into his pockets, withdrawing his gloves and yanking them on. “Would you tell Miss Evie when you see her that I won't quit on her, even if her daughter doesn't like me much. Let her know I've got the crew ready for Sunday night. I know it's late, but it's the first real hard freeze so we can do the harvest we'd been waiting on.”

Toni laughed. “You're not serious?”

He frowned, looking serious indeed.

She got up from the chair and walked toward him, hugging her arms around her middle, so discombobulated at this point she wanted to march back upstairs and crawl beneath the covers. “Whatever you're thinking of doing, call it off.”

“What?”

“I said, whatever you're planning, cancel it or at least postpone it until Evie's better.” An ache tweaked Toni's temples, and she winced, the pressure of everything weighing heavily upon her. “I can only take in so much at once, and I can't worry about my mom and whatever you're doing at the winery, too.” Tears sprang to her eyes, and her voice got all choked up in that awful weak-girl way. “Wait until Evie's out of the hospital and I'm gone, then you can have your crazy ice harvest.”

“I can't do that,” he insisted, staring at her like she'd gone mad.

“You have no choice,” she said and sniffed, wiping a sleeve beneath her runny nose. “Now if you'll excuse me, I need to dry my hair and get to the hospital.”

“Wait!” Hunter reached for her, grabbing hold of her arm and as quickly letting go. “You can't expect me to sit on my hands until your mom is well. It'll be too late, everything will be ruined, and we'll both be out a bunch of—”

“Stop it.” Toni had heard enough. Her emotional seams felt near to bursting. “Please, stop. I can't do this right now. I have to go sit with my mother. She's lying flat on her back in the ICU with tubes sticking out of her and machines that help her breathe.” She gulped. “She needs me.”

“All right, I get the picture.” He stood stock-still for a moment, clearly at a loss for what to say. “I didn't come here to cause you more pain.”

“Too late for that,” Toni said and tugged at her sweater as she brushed past him, heading toward the foyer. She waited with one hand on the brass door latch as he ambled up behind her. He took his time zipping up his coat and, when she opened the door to the cold, he touched her arm as he passed.

“It really has nothing to do with us.”

Toni squinted at him. “What are you talking about?”

“The past,” he remarked. “I'm not my father, and you're not Anna.”

“Good to know.” She closed the door and bolted it, sniffing as she rubbed her sleeve beneath her runny nose. Where was the Kleenex when you needed it?

“So how'd it go?” Bridget asked, appearing out of nowhere.

Toni sighed and leaned her brow against the painted wood, wishing her pulse would settle down. She felt riled up, and she wasn't sure if it had more to do with Hunter Cummings knowing more about the state of her mother's business than she did, or the fact that Evie had trusted him more than she'd trusted her own daughter.

“Did you tell him to take a hike?”

Toni had a feeling Bridget knew exactly what she'd told Hunter, had likely overheard every word. But she nodded as she swiveled around, letting the door support her spine. “He knows where I stand.”

“That's my girl.” Bridget patted her arm, the strangest look on her face, like she knew something Toni didn't; something that pleased her immensely.

“I'm glad one of us is happy,” Toni said under her breath and put a hand on the railing as she climbed the steps, taking in a deep breath as she headed up to get ready for another trip to see her mom.

I
had to do it, Evie. I wasn't meant to marry Davis. The dress showed me everything so clearly. How could I ignore my destiny?

So explained the note that Anna had written me, slipped beneath my door sometime before morning on the day that would have been her wedding. It was all I had left of her, and I couldn't bear to think that a silly black dress bought on a whim in Ste. Gen had messed up her life—
all
of our lives—so completely. I wasn't sure what the dress had done to Anna, or what she'd
thought
it had done; but as I read her note again and again, an overwhelming need seeped through my veins.

What was it that the Gypsy had said?

The dress will make happen what is meant to be. Once you see your fate, you can never go back
.

I had never been superstitious, but something about the dress unnerved me. I had to expel the Gypsy's voodoo from our house so it wouldn't touch anyone else. It had done enough damage already.

Leaving my bed unmade, I went to my closet and grabbed at my clothes, my eyes so blurred by tears I couldn't even tell the colors. I barely paused to draw a brush through my hair before I slipped out of the room.

I found the black dress reverently draped over the bench at the foot of Anna's bed. Snatching it up, I rolled it into a ball, certain only that I needed to do whatever it took to be rid of it.

“You are cursed,” I whispered to it, and the silk crackled loudly in my hands, but I didn't care. I was too furious to listen.

Despite the cloudless blue sky, the morning air chilled my flesh to the bone, so I shrugged on my peacoat and took my car to Ste. Genevieve, driving back to the same street corner where we'd found the odd shop with the Gypsy. But when I parked and scrambled out, I noticed the storefront was empty. No purple curtains filled the windows. Instead, a
FOR RENT
sign leaned against the plate glass.

That wasn't possible.

My heart fit to bursting, I rushed across the sidewalk and pressed my nose to the window. Despite the glint of morning sun that forced me to squint, I could tell the room was bare of furnishings, the wooden floor dusty and littered with trash. My gaze fell upon a single peacock feather—like the ones from the old fan I'd picked up and discarded—lying on the planks. It was enough to reassure me that I hadn't made up the whole thing.

“How can this be?” I said aloud, because it made no sense. I felt as though someone had played a terrible trick. I ran next door, pounding on the glass at the confectioner's where I could see the matron behind the counter, even though the store was not yet open.

“What is it?” she asked as she rushed me inside. “Are you hurt? Are you ill?”

“Where is the Gypsy?” I got out, practically wheezing. “Did she move her goods to another place? I have something to return.”

“What on earth are you rattling on about?” The woman stared at me and picked up a nearby broomstick, as if arming herself against attack. “What Gypsy is this?”

“The one with the black hair woven through with ribbons,” I replied and swallowed hard. “She had the shop on the corner that sold hats and what-not from Paris.”

Her eyes narrowed upon my face the same way Mother's did when I couldn't give her the answer she was seeking. “Is this some kind of game? A dare from your friends?”

“No, I swear, it's not,” I said and fought the urge to cry. Ostensibly, I was a grown woman, but I felt as vulnerable as a child. I had come on an errand to right a wrong. If I could return the dress, I believed that somehow it would bring Anna back. Only nothing was as it should have been. I had never felt so helpless in my life. “Please,” I begged, “you must know where she went. I have to find her.”

If there was a way to undo the curse, I needed to hear it.

“How could I know someone who doesn't exist?” The woman scowled and waved the broom at me, chastising, “You young people have no respect! That space on the corner's been vacant for a year, and I should know. I'm the landlord. So I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to pull—”

“I'm not lying,” I said without apology. I hadn't made the Gypsy up. The woman was wrong—she had to be—and I had the dress in my hand to prove it!

“Out,” she responded, sweeping me toward the door.

I backed up until I bumped into the hard brass handle. Without hesitation, I spun about and pushed my way outside. My legs kept moving until I was a safe distance apart; only then did I pause on the sidewalk, clutching the dress against my chest and gulping in the raw air as I made up my mind what I should do next. If I couldn't give the dress back to the Gypsy then I should destroy it. I couldn't take the chance that another vulnerable girl might fall prey to it as Anna had. Luckily, I recalled the Gypsy's story about how the previous owner had tried to burn it without avail. So if fire couldn't do the deed, what else was there?

As if in answer, a tugboat whistled from the Mississippi, and I said aloud, “Water.”

I would drown it.

Anxious to be rid of the thing, I hurried toward the river, cutting through knee-high weeds toward the rocky shore. The passing tug and barge awakened the Mississippi, and its muddy waters angrily slapped against the bank. I tried not to think of all the times that Anna and I had come to the river's edge, sitting on the rocks and watching the barges and tugboats roll past. “Maybe I'll leave on a steamboat,” my sister had once suggested, staring dreamily downstream. “Or I could make a raft and drift along the current like Huck and Jim.”

She might as well have sailed off on a raft, I mused as hot tears ran down my cheeks. And it was all because of this wretched dress. Whether its magic was real or not didn't matter, only that Anna had believed it.

I reached my arm back, ready to fling the balled material into the murky water.

I willed that the river would take it and carry it far from here, just as the dress had taken Anna away from me.

“Hey!”

A voice called out, and I hesitated.

“You, there,” the husky baritone cried again. “Watch your step! Those rocks are slick!”

I turned my head to see the fellow striding toward me, a fishing pole in hand. At precisely that moment, the dress sent a shock up my arm and into my head, and a brilliant flash filled my mind, revealing a vision as perfectly clear as a movie reel: of this young man who walked toward me holding me close, kissing me quite thoroughly, and neither of us wearing a stitch of clothing.

I gasped loudly and lost my balance, the dress suddenly weighty as a bowling ball. The soles of my ballet flats skidded on the rocks, and I fell, my bottom hitting the stone with a jolt as I began sliding toward the brown water.

“Help!” I got out before the chop hit my face like a slap, and the cold sucked me down. My sodden coat seemed a hundred pounds as it dragged me under faster than my legs could kick. Within seconds, water filled my nose and the blood froze in my veins. A single thought flashed through my mind at that instant, of what bad luck the dress was, making Anna run away and killing me in such an unfortunate manner.

But before I had a chance to die, strong hands reached beneath my arms, dragging me up and pushing me toward the surface until my head popped above the water. I gagged mercilessly, coughing as my rescuer pulled me toward the shore. When he deposited me safely on the rocky bank, shivering and breathing hard, I looked into his dripping face and saw a pair of pale blue eyes watching me.

“Are you all right?” he asked as sodden dark hair clung to his skull.

Sniffling, I dragged a soggy sleeve beneath my runny nose and nodded, gaze downcast, gagging a little still and feeling the fool.

“You need to see a doctor or anything?”

“No,” I croaked and wrapped my arms around my knees, hardly able to look at him as the shocking image I'd seen flashed in my mind's eye again. The dress had caused this, I realized. There was something truly odd about it, something unnatural. When Anna had worn it the night before, had she glimpsed herself with someone other than Davis? Is that what had made her do what she'd done?

The dress showed me everything so clearly. How could I ignore my destiny?

What if the Gypsy hadn't been lying when she'd told Anna that the dress would make happen what was meant to be?

“I'm sorry if I caused you to fall,” the young man said, as I remained quiet on the outside while, inside, my mind ran rampant. “I didn't mean to startle you, but you were pretty close to the bank and those rocks are slick, especially when you're wearing impractical shoes.”

Under normal circumstances, I might've argued that my ballet flats were completely practical, but this didn't seem the time to do it.

“It wasn't your fault,” I assured him and gazed down at my feet, surprised I hadn't lost my shoes to the river. Their soft pink had turned dingy, and they squished when I pushed the soles against the ground.

“You saved my life,” I said, because I surely would've drowned without him there and then Mother and Daddy would be arranging for my funeral at the same time they attempted to return all of Anna's wedding gifts. “Thank you.”

“It's okay.” He shrugged as he wrung out the front of his T-shirt, twisting it in his hands. Then he stopped what he was doing and faced me. “Shoot, I'm forgetting my manners, aren't I?” He rubbed a damp hand on soggy pants before extending it. “My name's Jonathan Ashton, though everyone calls me Jon. I hope it's not too forward of me to say that you're the prettiest fish I've caught all morning.”

“I'm Evie Evans,” I said softly and reached out, only to see my thin hand engulfed in his calloused palm. I felt a brilliant warmth press through me, and I blushed despite how cold and wet I was. “And I'm about as pretty as a drowned rat,” I remarked as I withdrew my hand and tucked my arms around myself again.

“Oh, no, I've seen drowned rats, and you're heads above them, really,” he teased and brushed dripping hair from his brow.

He had a very nice face with even features that bordered on handsome and a ruddy, sun-kissed complexion. Usually I was shy with strange boys—Daddy liked to say I was a very accomplished wallflower—but I wasn't afraid of Jonathan. I had the odd sense that I knew him already, that I could trust him implicitly.

“If it's not too nosy of me, what were you throwing out?” he asked and offered a hand to draw me up.

“Bad luck,” I told him.

Only Jon disagreed. Once he drew me to my feet, he spotted the black dress, washed onto the rocks by the current. Before I could protest, he began picking his way down the bank toward it.

“Leave it!” I implored him because I wanted him to toss it back, not retrieve it.

“It's cursed,” I said without thinking how silly that sounded.

Jon smiled and shook his head. He walked toward me, wringing it out. “I'd say it's just the opposite, Miss Evans, seeing as how this dress is why we met. Without it, our paths never would have crossed, now would they?”

Although I tried, there wasn't anything I could do to make him change his mind. Jon even took the dress home and had his mother carefully launder it. The next day, he brought it to the house with a bouquet of tulips and asked me if I'd please consider wearing it out to dinner with him, if I would be so kind as to grant him my company on Friday night of the next week.

With my stomach still in knots over Anna's disappearance, I realized I should politely decline. It would be very bad form, wouldn't it? How could I go on a date with a man I'd just met—through quite an odd circumstance—when my family was going through such gut-wrenching turmoil?

Only much as I tried to form the words “I'm sorry, but no,” I couldn't do it. Even with the dress bundled carefully within a layer of tissue, as I held it, I could sense its energy washing through my skin. Though it seemed illogical to say so, I knew the dress wanted me to go. And, to be honest, so did I.

In the end, I told him, “All right, yes, I'll have dinner with you. If you'll please call me Evie,” and the prickling sensation ceased.

“How about I pick you up at seven o'clock, Evie?” he suggested, and I told him seven o'clock would do very well.

I didn't dare tell Mother and Daddy about Jonathan and the unusual way that we'd met, although I did let it slip that I was soon going out to supper with a new acquaintance, “To help get my mind off Anna.” And that much was true.

Not surprisingly, they appeared to only half-listen. They were too busy fretting over the destruction left in my sister's wake to worry about what I was doing. They'd begun to fight about Anna in front of me, once at the breakfast table where my mother had burst into tears.

“It's your fault!” she had accused my father. “You drove her off!”

Daddy had turned red down to his collar. “The girl is vain and self-absorbed, do you blame me for that, too?”

Sadly, I'd noticed they'd started sleeping in separate rooms. It was no wonder when I was home, I'd begun hiding out in mine, the door closed and my record player on to drown out their voices.

The only time I could escape was when I left the house to teach, so I was honestly glad when the evening of my date with Jonathan rolled around.

As I prepared for our dinner, I debated whether or not to actually don the black dress, as he'd requested. Not only was I wary because of its unnatural qualities, but I was sure it wouldn't fit, considering how snugly it had hugged Anna's petite though shapely frame. Since I was taller than my sister by a fist, not to mention lanky and angular as a boy, I expected it to fall far short of my knees and hang like a deflated tent.

But Jon wanted me in it, and I was curious. So I took the chance and slipped the dress over my head, tugging it down past my hips.