But I wouldn't allow it. Completely out of the question. I'd have to content myself with platonically enjoying his company and that was that. It didn't help that Aaron Neville's soft, sexy tenor spilled from the Jeep's radio. "You mentioned a family of voodoo practitioners. Did that begin with Mimi's maid?"

"That's what Sophie tells me. The story has been handed down by oral tradition, so who can really say for sure." Ben steered the Jeep to the right, passing a sign that read "Canal Street". "On her return to New Orleans, the maid renewed her training with a priestess known to be a follower of Marie Laveau's, the great Voodoo Queen. The dress still has a little gris-gris bundle of Mimi's hair clippings sewn into the hem. And there's a spell attached, you see."

"Gris-gris and a spell! This is getting better all the time!"

"You believe then?"

"Not really, but I'm fascinated all the same."

"So it came to pass that the maid wore it the night she met her future husband. That gave her the idea that the dress had caused enough sorrow in one woman's life, and that, to honor its original owner, it should hold the power to bring joy from then on. So from Adelaide Benoit's wedding day and all the days thereafter, any future owner of the dress would be granted the love of her life, but it would be up to that person to keep the love once she'd found it. That's it. That's the spell."

"Do you believe in it?"

"Up until a little while ago, I wanted to. Normally, I'm a rational man, but I really did. But now ... I don't know. Maybe I'm just an easy mark for an old lady's story."

Now the words he'd whispered earlier into my ear made sense. "You were hoping I'd be the one, the one the dress would help you find?" Part of me wanted him to confirm it; the other part hoped I was wrong.

He kept his eyes trained on the street ahead. "While researching the painting, I found a picture of you on your museum's website. You were at some fundraiser, dressed in white, a flower in your hair. But it was your face ... Something about your face spoke to me like nothing I've ever ... I couldn't get enough of the laughter in those green eyes, those ruby lips, that sweet angel face. I felt you might be the one. I wanted you to have the dress, but I also wanted ... you."

He wanted me, simply from having viewed my picture? What depth of need or loneliness would lead a man to want to place so much importance on one photo, or to believe an old woman's folktale for that matter? And yet, when looking back on all that had transpired that day, it was clear he had every hope in the century-old spell.

My heart rose in my throat, realizing how much he wanted to find the one. Sometimes I want to rant and rail at the universe for its haphazard fumblings. When it comes to love, so many of us wander around, wondering if the next one might be The One, hoping for love, but without a clue as to how to find one another.