One Magic Night Read online

  ONE MAGIC NIGHT

  Cheryl Pierson

  One Magic Night by Cheryl Pierson

  Copyright © 2011 Cheryl Pierson

  Cover Design by Livia Reasoner

  Licensing Notes

  All rights reserved under U.S. and International copyright law. This story may not be copied, scanned, digitally reproduced, or printed for re-sale, may not be uploaded on shareware or free sites, or used in any other manner without the express written permission of the author and/or publisher. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  One Magic Night is a work of fiction.

  Though actual locations may be mentioned, they are used in a fictitious manner and the events and occurrences were invented in the mind and imagination of the author except for the inclusion of actual historical facts. Similarities of characters or names used within to any person – past, present, or future – are coincidental except where actual historical characters are purposely interwoven.

  “They say he’s an Indian.” Delcie Lightman gave a small sniff.

  Katrina Whitworth turned to glance at her best friend, but couldn’t take her eyes off of the tall stranger for long. He’d just come through the door and stood for a moment on the church porch before walking across the lawn with Delcie’s fiancée, Tom Pruitt.

  “What’s his name?” Katrina’s voice sounded breathless, but she was helpless to control it, as she knew a well-bred lady should.

  Delcie gave her a sharp look, tensing beside her. “Oh, Trina, you—you—” She gave a long sigh. “You mustn’t look at him like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like…you might quite possibly do things you shouldn’t do—feel things you shouldn’t feel—with any man—but certainly not with…that one.”

  Katrina’s heart raced as the man, evidently feeling her unwavering gaze, looked up at her from across the lawn, straight into her eyes.

  Oh, what beautiful eyes he had! Dark brown, expressive…and so lonely. As if he’d read her thoughts, he looked way, and when his gaze returned to hers once more, it was veiled, emotionless.

  In the next moment, his sensuous lips quirked, and Katrina felt the heat rise immediately to her cheeks. Delcie was right! This was a community gathering for Independence Day—a social function that everyone for miles around the small settlement of Talihina would be attending. She mustn’t stand here, mooning over this newcomer who, by her friend’s account, was totally unacceptable. If he was truly…an Indian.

  From somewhere behind her, she became vaguely aware of a group of men tuning up their fiddles and guitars. She snapped her fan open, and fanned herself quickly, the heat of this late afternoon seeming oppressive.

  “What kind of Indian?” she asked softly, tearing her open stare away from him to look at Delcie.

  “I don’t know. Nothing so fierce as Comanche or Apache, I don’t think.”

  “How do you know so much about him?” Katrina felt herself looking back in his general direction. The white shirt he wore lay stark against his dark skin. Her hungry gaze traveled over him. Fortunately, he was engaged in conversation with Tom.

  Katrina took in the long, muscular legs as the stranger leaned negligently against the hitching rail at the front of the church. A swarm of children ran across the front lawn, a mother calling to the smallest one, who turned and, unbalanced, fell into the grass.

  “I heard Papa talking last night,” Delcie said, her voice lowered in a hushed tone. “He told Mama that Mr. Logan had come back.”

  “Come back from where?”

  “He’s been away these last few years. They say he went to Missouri to go to college and medical school.”

  “Medical school!”

  “Shh! Someone will hear you!”

  “He’s a doctor?” This time, Katrina whispered too, but not before she saw Mr. Logan look her way, puzzlement in his dark features.

  Oh, dear Lord. He had to have heard her! Now he’d know she and Delcie were discussing him like a couple of old biddies.

  Delcie gave her a stern look. “Yes, he is. He attended The George Washington School of Medicine and graduated with honors. Now, he’s come back here to set up his practice.”

  Mr. Logan was engaged in conversation with a group of men who had drifted over to where he stood with Tom. His gaze unerringly found its way back to Katrina, and his smile told her she was caught staring again. She looked away, forcing herself to smile at Jack Thompson, the young attorney who had been courting her for the last month. Oddly, Jack’s smile had never caused the flutter in her stomach that Mr. Logan’s…Doctor Logan’s had. And she didn’t even know his first name.

  “What’s his name, Delcie?” It was suddenly so very important. Her breath hitched on the question.

  “I told you.”

  “No. I mean his given name.”

  “Shay. Shay Logan.” Delcie’s voice sounded far away.

  Katrina’s lips curved. “Doctor Shay Logan.” It sounded magnificent.

  ****

  Shay couldn’t help it. Though he knew he shouldn’t, he couldn’t keep his gaze from returning time and again to the beautiful young woman who stood at the front corner of the church, blatantly watching him.

  Her hair was the most unusual color of brown, with red highlights. Her eyes were wide green pools, like the deepest forest glen. Her lips curved upward in the most welcoming greeting he had been given since his return four days ago. But, she was young. And from the look Jack Thompson gave her, she was already spoken for.

  Regretfully, he pulled his attention back to what Tom Pruitt was saying. Glad to have a real doctor in the area. Been too long without one. Pruitt’s voice droned on, until finally he stopped talking altogether. “Shay?”

  It took Shay a belated moment to realize that Tom had fallen silent and the other men had made their way to the food tables that were being erected. He was jerked out of his musings by the sound of his name.

  Tom’s gaze followed where Shay’s had traveled. A grin lit his face. “Ah, that’s Miss Whitworth and my fiancée, Delcie Lightner. Have you met Miss Whitworth yet?”

  Shay swallowed hard. “No. No I haven’t.”

  “Well, come along, then! Let me introduce you.”

  To refuse would seem rude. And, Shay had to admit, if he decided to settle here, he didn’t want to make anyone any more uncomfortable with his presence than they were already. There weren’t many folks left who had been here when he’d been brought here the first time as a ten-year-old “savage.” He smiled faintly at the path his thoughts traveled. He was quite civilized now. A doctor. But he would never be white.

  He’d seen the looks. Not just open curiosity, but pure disdain, in some cases. Disdain for his Indian blood that might eventually be overcome by the townspeople’s need for a doctor. It was a gamble, anywhere he chose to live.

  He and Tom crossed the few feet of the churchyard to where Katrina and Delcie stood.

  “Hello, Delcie,” Tom said in a low voice. “I brought Dr. Logan over to meet the two most beautiful women in Indian Territory. My fiancée, Miss Delcie Lightner, and her good friend and confidante, Miss Katrina Whitworth. May I introduce you young ladies to Dr. Shay Logan, recently arrived from George Washington Medical School near Kansas City, Missouri?”

  Shay gave Miss Lightner a nod as she reached to shake his hand.

  “We are so glad to have you here, Dr. Logan.”

  “Thank you, Miss Lightner. I appreciate that.” He turned to Miss Whitworth. Katrina. Katrina, who hadn’t been able to keep her eyes off of him since he had first walked out of the church to stand by the familiar hitching rail.

  He took Katrina’s hand, and a jolt of excitement rippled through him. She jerked slightly, as if she felt it,
too, and it startled both of them. But after that initial split second, Shay’s fingers closed around hers, his big, darker hand engulfing her pale one. He smiled at her obvious uncertainty. It was always like this. He should be used to it by now, but…it still hurt.

  “Hello, Miss Whitworth. You’re looking quite beautiful tonight, the both of you. As Tom says, the two most beautiful women in Indian Territory. It’s very nice to meet you.”

  Katrina’s fingers relaxed in Shay’s grip, and he felt her return his hold.

  “It’s…very nice to meet you, too.” She looked up at him in silence for a moment, then blurted, “Are you really a doctor?”

  Shay’s blood ran cold. How to answer such an obvious snub? His first reaction was to cut her to ribbons with a well-placed remark or two of his own. But he couldn’t do it. She was looking up at him with those beautiful eyes, and her expression was one of hesitant expectation, as if she truly thought he’d answer the question and not take offense. It made Shay realize that there was more to her question than the obvious. But he could see from the frozen stares of shock on Tom’s and Delcie’s faces that they had jumped to the same conclusion he had.

  “Trina…” Delcie breathed in disbelief.

  “Well, it’s just—we’ve been so long without a real doctor around here, and I—” Katrina’s face colored as Delcie’s meaning sank in. “Oh—you thought—but I didn’t mean—”

  Shay squeezed her hand gently. “It’s all right Miss Whitworth. I took no offense.”

  But tears of humiliation shimmered brightly in her eyes, and she bit her lip to still its trembling.

  “Excuse me.” Katrina withdrew her hand quickly from his and turned to hurry away before anyone could say anything else.

  “Trina!” Delcie called after her. “Oh, dear!” She started to follow, but Shay stopped her with a quick touch.

  “Ma’am, that was my fault,” he said smoothly.

  “But—”

  “No, I caused that. Let me go set things right.” Not waiting for a reply, he loped after Katrina as she disappeared into the edge of the woods behind the church. At twenty-five, he’d dealt with every kind of situation that could have arisen over his heritage, he’d thought. This was a first. They’d all misunderstood the meaning behind Katrina’s question.

  He entered the woods, leaving the laughing voices behind, letting the stillness encompass him. How many times had he come to these woods as a young boy, seeking the solace and peace of nature? It had always soothed his soul, no matter how low or angry he felt. He slowed his steps, breathing deep and closing his eyes for a moment.

  He was a boy once more in that instant. Past the fear, past the uncertainty—but never past the anger or the longing. They might make him fit into the Anglo world, but he would never be truly white. He would always be one of the People. His own People—the Choctaw. Here, he was Doctor Shay Logan, but in his heart, he was Nashoba, the wolf—the name he’d been given at birth. He’d reminded himself of that time and again in these woods, when his heart was broken and sore.

  “Katrina?” He called softly. She didn’t answer, but he had not expected that she would. He stopped, looking around for any sign of her. The light slippers she had worn would leave little sign in her wake. But he was Choctaw. And a tracker. Or, at least, he had been when he was young. Before he’d been separated from his family, his home, all he’d ever known.

  He took another step forward, and a soft sob was borne on the wind, from somewhere to his right. He started toward the sound in the dappled sunlight and shadows of the late afternoon. He didn’t call to her again. He knew where she was. It was a place he’d frequented often—a small clearing hidden within the towering shelter of the forest of oaks and elms.

  Silently, he moved, calling on the skills he’d learned as a young boy. No twig snapped beneath his foot; no branch rustled in his wake. There was no breath of a breeze in the sultry afternoon, but inside the glen of the forest, the air was cooler, bringing the blessed relief of the dappled shade.

  Katrina sat across the clearing from where he stood. A large old oak tree had fallen, making a welcoming bench at the far edge of the woods. She sat at one end, her back resting against part of the twisted trunk. The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the trees across her face and hair, showing streaks of wetness on her cheeks. Her dress billowed out around her on the ground, and Shay suppressed a smile. How on earth had she managed to get through the crowded copse of trees so quickly? She must be as accustomed to fleeing to this solitude as he had been in his younger days.

  He started out of the trees toward her, and she glanced at him, then hastily turned her face away and tried to wipe her tears unobtrusively.

  “Miss Whitworth…Katrina—” Belatedly, he swept his hat from his head and held it in his left hand. “Do you mind if I sit down here?” He half expected her to not answer him at all, or else give him a haughty reply meant to scald him and send him on his way, but she surprised him.

  “Oh, yes, please—Dr. Logan.”

  “Shay,” he corrected quietly. He closed the small distance between them and sat a few feet from her on the fallen log.

  “I must apologize,” she began in a low voice, unable to meet his eyes. “I’m forever blurting things out that I shouldn’t. Things that are improper, or, as Papa says, ‘unseemly.’”

  Shay’s lips quirked at her contrite phrasing, but before he could speak, she went on.

  “I truly didn’t mean…what it sounded like. It’s just that we haven’t had a real doctor here for a long, long time and—” she broke off, as if catching herself before she made another conversational error.

  “And?” Shay prompted.

  She moistened her lips. “Dr. Logan, my younger brother is seriously ill. No one seems to know what ails him.”

  Instant concern knotted in Shay’s chest. “Is he here this evening?”

  She shook her head and looked down. “No. Though he wanted to come, badly. He gets tired, you see, just from walking a few steps. His breathing becomes labored.”

  “I’d be glad to have a look at him.” In his mind, Shay couldn’t help but begin to form a diagnosis from what Katrina had told him.

  “Oh—” The excitement that had shone briefly in her eyes guttered out quickly. “What would you charge?”

  “No fee. Not this time.” Well, that was just dandy. He’d just offered to see his first patient here in Talihina. For a fine sum of zero.

  Katrina shook her head. “We can’t take charity, Dr. Logan.” Her voice had become formal, bordering on the verge of frosty.

  Shay tossed his hat on the ground in frustration. “Katrina—” He broke off when he met her eyes. Her express was a mixture of hopelessness and desperation. “Please, let me help. I’m new at this. Yes, I’m a doctor, but how will I be able to see new patients if they won’t come? No one has a lot of cash money, but I’m willing to barter.”

  Still, she looked doubtful. “I’ll—I’ll ask Papa. Oh, how I hope he will agree! He’s proud—”

  Anger washed over him. “Too proud to seek help for his son? Surely not.”

  Katrina looked down. “Mama died when Jeremy was born. He came early and they didn’t hold out much hope that he’d live. He did, but he’s been sickly his entire life.”

  “And you’ve taken care of him.” He knew it by the hopeful light in her eyes, as if everything depended on him helping her brother.

  “I have,” she was quick to answer, “because I was the eldest. There are three of us. I was ten when Jeremy was born, and Renee was only five.”

  She raised her eyes to his and gave him a tentative smile. “As you can see, Dr. Logan, my conversational habits leave much to be desired in the area of manners.” She lifted a hand toward him. “Please, tell me about yourself. I’m sure your life is much more entertaining than mine has been.”

  Shay was hard put to force down the questions that bombarded him concerning her brother’s condition and symptoms. Her attempt to turn the c
onversation back to him, as ladies were generally taught to do, had been guileless; almost awkward.

  “I’ve been away for many years.”

  “You must have missed Talihina. This was your home, wasn’t it?” She asked the question with genuine curiosity.

  She must not have heard the sordid details of just how it had become his home.

  Memories assailed him. The cavalry officers’ brass buttons gleaming in the sunlight on a day much like this one. They’d ridden into the Choctaw village and began to round up all the children. With no explanation but the barrels of their guns, the cavalry men had taken Shay, his brother, and eighteen other boys between the ages of five and twelve and parceled them out to white families in part of Andrew Jackson’s grand scheme to assimilate young Indian male children into the Anglo way of life. Participating white families would receive an ongoing government stipend. “Participating” Indian families received no explanation, no apology and the loss of their children.

  “Yes,” he finally answered. “This was where I lived for a while.”

  “Delcie said that your father was a Presbyterian minister.”

  Shay couldn’t help but laugh at that. Katrina looked at him questioningly.

  “No. Look at me, Katrina. My father was—” He broke off. No need to go into all that now. Why would she even care? He let out a deep breath. “No. Reverend Logan, the Presbyterian minister, raised me from the time I was ten. But he was not my father.”

  “Oh. That was kind of him.” She said it uncertainly, and Shay didn’t bother to correct her or to explain. Maybe someday he would, if it mattered. For now, it could wait.

  “Come on,” he said, standing. “We better get back. People will talk.” He offered her his hand and pulled her to her feet.

  “Would it be wrong of me to say, ‘let them’?” Her eyes met his briefly. “It seems that’s a favorite pastime around here.”

  Shay shook his head. “My hide’s a lot thicker than yours, Katrina. I can take it, but—it could be hard on you.”

  “People can be cruel,” she agreed. “And vicious.”