Mission: Irresistible (36 page)

“Excellent idea.” Tish flagged down their waiter and asked for the check.

A dark sinking feeling settled inside Delaney. Blabbing about her fears may have drawn her closer to her friends, but she couldn’t help thinking that in the midst of their plans, she’d once again lost sight of herself and what it was that she really wanted.

And apparently she was now off to buy sex toys.

Five minutes later Delaney found herself being hustled across the busy thoroughfare. By the time they reached the shopping center, all four of them were breathless and laughing from dodging traffic. The sex toy place was located in the far corner of the strip mall, its neon sign flashing out a vibrant red—Ooh-La-La.

They trooped past a jewelry store with engagement rings prominently positioned in the showcase. Delaney glanced down at her own four-carat marquis-cut diamond set in an elegant platinum band. Funny, try as she might, she couldn’t remember how she’d felt the day Evan had slipped it on her finger. She must have been happy. Why wouldn’t she be happy? She just couldn’t remember being happy.

There was a party supply warehouse, then a discount shoe barn and a lingerie shop. Inset in the small space between the lingerie shop and Ooh-La-La was a consignment store specializing in wedding attire.

Delaney shouldn’t even have glanced in the window. Her mother was such a snob she’d have a hissy fit if Delaney dared to buy anything from a consignment store, but an enigmatic force she could not explain whispered,
Go on, take a peek.

Cupping her hands around her eyes, she pressed her face against the glass for a better look inside the darkened store. And then, just like that, she found what she hadn’t even known she was searching for.

The wedding veil to end all wedding veils.

It was encased in glass and mounted on the wall over the checkout counter. For reasons she could not comprehend, Delaney felt as if she were standing on the threshold of something monumental.

She could not say what compelled her. She already had a perfectly beautiful wedding veil from Bergdorf Goodman’s that her mother had picked out for her on their last foray into Manhattan, but she felt compelled. There was simply no other word for it.

Her friends kept walking, but Delaney stayed anchored to the spot. Transfixed. Unable to take her eyes off the veil. It was a white, floor-length mantilla style, and so delicate it looked as if it had been created for a fairy princess.

I’m the answer you’ve been searching after,
the veil seemed to whisper.
The magic that’s missing.

For the first time since she’d agreed to marry Evan, something involving the approaching nuptials truly excited her.

The veil was absolutely perfect.

Delaney’s fingers itched to stroke the intricate lace, but the store looked closed. The lights were dimmed. She couldn’t see anyone inside, yet her hand was already pushing against the door handle.

Drawn by the sight of the wedding veil waiting just a few feet away, she stepped over the threshold.

“Delaney? Where did you go?”

Distantly, she heard her friends calling to her, but she did not turn around. She just kept moving, pulled inexplicably toward the veil. She reached out a finger and stroked the glass case.

Up close it was even more compelling. The delicate lace pattern formed a myriad of butterflies sewn with thread so fine it was almost invisible.

“May I help you?”

Startled, Delaney jumped and tore her gaze from the veil to meet the eyes of a soft-voiced, black-haired woman in her early forties. The shopkeeper wore a gauzy, purple crinkle skirt and a lavender sleeveless knit blouse. She studied her quietly.

Delaney felt a subtle but distinct atmospheric change. The room grew slightly cooler, damper, and she experienced a strange but familiar sense of connection. “Have we met?”

“Claire Kelley,” the woman said with the faint hint of an Irish brogue. Her handshake was firm, self-assured.

“Delaney Cartwright.”

Claire raised an eyebrow. Delaney knew that look. The woman recognized the Cartwright name, but to her surprise, Claire did not ask her if she was one of those oil money Cartwrights the way most people did.

“Tell me about the veil,” Delaney said.

“You have a very discerning eye. It’s a floor-length mantilla style made of rose point lace, created with a very fine needle. Rose point is considered the most delicate and precious of all laces.”

“May I see it?”

The woman hesitated and then said firmly, “I’m afraid it’s not for sale, Ms. Cartwright.”

Delaney’s father, the consummate oilman, had taught her that everything was for sale for the right price. “If I may just examine the design up close, I’d like to have one just like it commissioned for my wedding.”

“That’s impossible. It’s one of a kind.”

She couldn’t say why this was suddenly so important, but need settled like a lead weight in her stomach. She curled her fingernails into her palms. “Please, I must see it.”

Outside on the street she could still hear her friends calling to her, but they sounded so very far away—on another planet, in another dimension, far outside her realm of concern.

Reluctantly, Claire took a key from her skirt pocket and ticked the lock open. She removed the veil from the case and arranged it with great care on the counter in front of them.

The majesty of it hit Delaney like a softly exploding eggshell. For one incredible instant she felt as if she were floating. She forgot to breathe. She could not breathe. Did not want or need to breathe. Terrified that if she dared inhale, the veil would evaporate.

A second passed, then two, then three.

At last, she was forced to draw in a deep, shuddering sigh of oxygen.

“Butterfly wings,” she whispered.

The design was constructed of tiny roses grouped to form the butterflies. The veil was so white, so beautiful—almost phosphorescent. At any moment she expected it to fly right out the door.

Isn’t it amazing,
she thought,
to live in a world where there is such a work of artistic beauty.

Delaney blinked, blinded by the dazzle and the image of herself wearing the veil as she walked down the aisle to meet her groom. The image swept in and out before her eyes as if she were in a slow, dreamy faint. She stared at the veil, seeing her future wedding, seeing the man she was about to marry.

But it wasn’t Evan.

In his place stood a hard-jawed man with piercing dark eyes and a world-weary expression. He looked like a guardian, a soldier, a warrior. He exuded a strong, masculine quality. For the first time in her life, she had an overwhelming urge to kiss a man she knew absolutely nothing about. And she sensed, without doubt, he would taste like caffeine—strong, brisk, and intense.

A hard shiver ran through her.

She hitched in another breath. Her vision cleared and she was aware that while only an instant had passed, a vast expanse of time had swayed before her. A chasm into an unknowable dimension.

Claire was watching her, concern reflected in her pale blue eyes, yet there was also warmth and a steady quietness that reassured Delaney.

Whatever you see, it’s okay.

The shopkeeper did not speak the words, but Delaney heard them as clearly as if she’d shouted.

Like a magnet to metal, the veil tugged at something deep within her. Her body pulsed with buoyancy and desire. She shut her eyes and found the alluring pattern burned into the back of her eyelids.

“This veil is very special.” Claire’s voice grew sentimental and her mouth softened. “It’s over three hundred years old.”

An illicit thrill shot through her at the possibility. Delaney’s eyes flew open. “Impossible. It’s snow white. A veil that old would yellow with age.”

A slight, knowing smile lifted the corners of Claire’s mouth. “It’s rumored to be magic.”

“Magic?”

“There’s a legend.”

Delaney adored history and ancient lore and had a secret longing to believe in magic, to have faith in something beyond the five senses. She leaned in closer, her eyes swallowing the veil.

“A legend?” she whispered.

“Here you are!” Tish barged through the door, Jillian and Rachael following in her wake.

The interruption, like a knuckle scraped against a cheese grater, irritated her, but she loved her friends, so Delaney tamped down her annoyance and forced a smile.

“What’s up?” Tish asked, coming to stand at her elbow.

“Shh,” Delaney said. “Claire was about to tell me the story of the veil.”

“Oh.” Tish blinked, seeing it for the first time. Delaney heard her sharp intake of breath. “Wow, that’s some veil.”

Jillian peered over Tish’s shoulder. “It’s brilliant.”

“Strangely mesmerizing.” Rachael tilted her head to study it in the muted lighting.

“Go on with the story,” Delaney pleaded.

Claire paused.

“We want to hear it too,” Tish said.

The shopkeeper eyed them all, and then she cleared her throat. “Once upon a time, in long-ago Ireland, there lived a beautiful young witch named Morag who possessed a great talent for tatting lace.” Claire’s lyrical voice held them spellbound. “People came from far and wide to buy the lovely wedding veils she created.”

“I can see why,” Delaney murmured, lightly fingering the veil.

“But there were other women in the community who were envious of Morag’s beauty and talent. These women made up a lie and told the magistrate that Morag was casting spells on the men of the village.”

“Jealous bitches,” Jillian said.

Claire arrowed Jillian a chiding glance.

“The magistrate,” she continued after Jillian got the hint and shut up, “was engaged to a woman that he admired, but did not love. He arrested Morag, but found himself falling madly in love with her. Convinced that she must have cast a spell upon him as well, he moved to have her tried for practicing witchcraft. If found guilty, she would be burned at the stake.”

“Oh, no.” Rachael brought her fingers to her lips.

“It’s just a myth,” Tish said, but Delaney could tell that her friend, who pretended to have tough skin to hide a tender heart, was as enraptured with the story as the rest of them.

“But in the end, the magistrate could not resist the power of true love. On the eve before Morag was to stand trial, he kidnapped her from the jail in the dead of night and spirited her away to America, giving up everything for her love. To prove that she had not cast a spell over him, Morag promised never to use magic again. As her final act of witchcraft, she made one last wedding veil, investing it with the power to grant the deepest wish of the wearer’s soul. She wore the veil on her own wedding day, wishing for true and lasting love. Morag and the magistrate were blessed with many children and much happiness. They lived to be a ripe old age and died in each other’s arms.”

“Ah.” Rachael sighed. “That’s so sweet. I was afraid they were going to burn her at the stake.”

Tish snorted and rolled her eyes.

“Humph,” Jillian said. “I don’t think it’s fair that she had to give up the very thing that defined her just for the love of a man.”

“The magistrate gave up his job for her,” Delaney pointed out. “And he was exiled from his homeland.”

“Morag was exiled too.” Tish narrowed her eyes at the veil as if she didn’t trust it.

“You must remember,” Claire said, “this was three hundred years ago. Things were much different then. And the magistrate wasn’t just any man, but her soul mate. There’s a very big difference. You can love all manner of people, in all manner of ways, but we each have only one soul mate who not only completes us, but challenges us to grow beyond our fears.”

Was it true? Delaney wondered. Was there really such a thing as a soul mate?

Whether it’s true or not,
muttered a saucy voice in the back of her head that sounded a whole lot like her sister, Skylar,
one thing’s for sure. Evan Van Zandt is definitely not your soul mate. You’re too much alike. Peas in a pod. No challenge. No emotional growth going on in that relationship.

Delaney nibbled her bottom lip, disturbed by the thought. Maybe Evan wasn’t her soul mate, but he was kind and good and honest. As children they’d played in the sandbox together.

Evan was the one person who had told her she was pretty when she was chubby and bucktoothed and nearsighted and had a hump in her nose. Both of their families heartily approved of the marriage, and she did love him. Maybe not with a magic-wedding-veil-soul-mate-for-all-eternity kind of love, but she did love him. So what if there was no red-hot chemistry? In Delaney’s estimation sex was way overrated anyway.

Too bad you don’t have a magistrate to kidnap you and take you away with him.

It’s my fault,
Delaney thought,
not Evan’s
. She hadn’t tried hard enough to make their sex life something special and then she’d gone and agreed to the celibacy thing and now he was going off to Guatemala to heal crippled children.

She pushed the troubling thoughts away and leaned down to examine the veil more closely. Poetry in lace. It spoke to her in a singsong of the ages. It might not be rational or practical or even sane, but she could feel an enchanted force flowing through the air.

Goose bumps spread over her arms. What if there was some truth to the legend? What if she wore the veil on her wedding day and wished that her sexual feelings for Evan would grow stronger, richer, deeper, and truer? Would it happen?

A compulsion quite unlike anything she had ever felt before gripped her. The feeling was much greater than an itch or a whim. It gnawed at her. No matter how much it might cost, she had to have this veil. Weird as it sounded, Delaney just knew that if she had the veil she would get the happily-ever-after she so desperately desired.

But what about her mother? How could Delaney begin to explain this to Honey and convince her to let her wear this veil on her wedding day?

You can figure out how to deal with her later. Just get your hands on it.

There it was again. The undisciplined voice that sounded like Skylar. A voice boldly inciting her to do things she wouldn’t ordinarily dare.