Charmed

by Catherine Hart

  “Fine, but my bank account isn’t going to allow for all that, I’m sure,” Nikki reminded her. “And I certainly don’t want to go into debt by putting everything on credit.”

  Sheree smiled. “You don’t have to. Haven’t you ever heard of garage sales? First, you have one of your own and unload everything you don’t really want or need. Then, you watch the newspaper for the items you’d like. You can find some great bargains, and not all of that stuff is junk, either. Especially when someone is moving and has to get rid of a lot of their furniture.”

  “Also, if you can’t find the curtains you want on sale, we can always buy some material and sew them ourselves,” Paula contributed. “The same with the lampshades. It’s not all that difficult to recover them if you can’t find what you’re looking for.”

  It took some doing, and three weeks of solid browsing by all three women, but they finally pulled it together. By the time they were done, the living room and master bedroom had been overhauled, and on a shoestring budget.

  The formerly mauve walls in the living room were now a neutral sand color, which blended wonderfully with Nikki’s brown-and-cream-shaded carpet and the splashes of brighter colors throughout the room. Nikki had found a teal-green couch and a recliner and rocker to compliment it, all with thick puffy cushions. Sturdy oak-block end-stands and cocktail table, another moving-sale find, flanked them.

  The new drapes she and Paula had sewn were ivory with flecks of pale sage. Sheree had scarfed up a set of ceramic table lamps with a western-Indian motif in soft, swirling hues of aqua and copper that echoed the colors in the diamond-designed wallpaper border banding the top of the walls. The shades were of wheat-colored linen, with nary a ruffle in sight. Nikki had even found a trio of inexpensive framed prints to highlight the walls, one picturing a collection of colorful Indian pottery, another a misty forest waterfall scene that reminded her of the small cascade at the caves, and one depicting an Indian maiden and her brave standing by a river.

  The bedroom had been less of a challenge. There, they had only to change the color scheme, the curtains, and the bedding. They’d gone with indigo-blue walls, with coordinating shades of blue in the geometric designs of the bedspread and curtains. Chunky jar lamps had replaced the flower-bedecked globes on the nightstands on either side of Nikki’s queen-size waterbed.

  They were all sublimely pleased with the final result of their labors.

  “Comfy, cozy, restful, easy on the eye,” Nikki commented approvingly.

  “Basically childproof, or as near as you’re going to get,” Paula added.

  “And an overall Native American theme. Thorn should feel right at home,” Sheree offered. “Just don’t let him put up a totem pole or drag in those awful stuffed animals hunters are always carting in from the taxidermist.”

  Nikki heaved a long-suffering sigh. “He can bring live animals inside if he wants or build a firepit in the middle of the living room floor. If he’ll only come to me, as long as he arrives safe and sound, I won’t care. I just want him here with me as soon as possible. Tomorrow is the first of October. If he hasn’t convinced Tecumseh in the next few days, history will play itself out as written.”

  “And then he’ll come,” Sheree assured her with a fierce hug. “You’ll see.”

  A chattering at the window drew Sheree’s attention. With a frown, she pointed to the squirrel perched outside Nikki’s windowsill. “Speaking of animals, I hope Thorn has some way to chase off that pesky little varmint that’s been hanging around the house. If that thing ever gets inside, even in the attic, it will make a mess. I’ve heard of squirrels and chipmunks chewing through wiring and setting homes on fire. And this little pest definitely looks like he wants indoors.”

  Nikki’s smile was misty. “That’s Aneekwah, my spirit guide. He showed up about a month ago. He’s here to protect me, I think.”

  “That wee beastie?” Paula scoffed. “He couldn’t frighten off a flea—which I’m sure he’s infested with, by the way.”

  Nikki shrugged, her grin growing. “Maybe not, but he’s sure scared some of the sass out of Her Nibs. I found the prissy feline quivering under the chair the other day, looking for all the world like a gigantic Angora dustball! I was truly tempted to spray her with Endust and use her for a feather duster! I might yet, just to put her to some good use.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The anniversary of Tecumseh’s demise had come and gone, and still there was no word from Silver Thorn. Nikki was as jittery as a bug on a hot rock. Her concentration was next to nil. She hoped her students would not suffer because of it, but it was so hard to keep her mind focused on her classes these days. It had been two months since she’d last seen Thorn, and she was totally miserable. She couldn’t sleep, and she had to force herself to eat, for the baby’s sake.

  She was showing now, her pregnancy obvious to anyone who cared to notice. In a few days, a week at most, Nikki figured she’d be halfway through her term, four-and-a-half months along. The previous weekend she’d broken down and gone shopping for maternity clothes. Not that she’d gained much weight as yet, but what she had gained was going straight to her tummy, creating this round little bulge that everyone seemed to take great pleasure in poking fun at.

  “You resemble a twig with a volleyball glued to it,” Sheree told her. “All stick arms and legs, and this lump in the middle.”

  “Hey, sis, you’d better lay off the sauce,” Sam had teased. “You’re getting a nice little beer belly there.”

  Her dad joked that she could play Santa this coming Christmas. Her mom just frowned and fretted. But her obstetrician seemed satisfied that all was well. Nikki was just glad the bouts of morning sickness were a thing of the past.

  It was Tuesday, the eighth of October. Third-period classes had just begun, and Nikki was looking forward to her only free period of the day. She was headed for the teachers’ lounge when the oddest feeling swept over her. If she’d had to describe it, she’d have said it was like a wave of—not really dizziness or disorientation, but something akin to awareness or precognition, maybe. A funny, fuzzy sort of sensation that enveloped her and sent her emotions in a tailspin. Suddenly she had to get out of there. Out of the hall. Out of school. Immediately, if not sooner.

  Nikki didn’t stop to notify the office that she was leaving. She grabbed the first kid she saw and sent him to the principal with a message that Mrs. Silver was ill and had gone home for the day. She didn’t care what they thought or if they grumbled at having to find someone to substitute for her on such short notice. She simply raced for the parking lot, and her car.

  Her fingers were shaking, and she had to aim for the ignition three times before the key went into the slot. Then she almost flooded the engine trying to get it started. Finally, she was out on the road and heading west, toward her mom and dad’s farm. It wasn’t a totally conscious decision. Rather it was as if she were being drawn there, called there by some heretofore untapped intuition. The only thing she knew for sure was that it was imperative that she go to the tree. Now.

  By the time Nikki pulled the car to the side of the road near the tractor lane next to the river, she couldn’t have said if she’d run six stop signs, passed a dozen burning properties, or hit a herd of cows. She recalled very little of the drive into the countryside other than her need to get there quickly.

  She abandoned the car, scarcely remembering to kill the engine. In her haste, she left the keys in the ignition, her purse on the passenger seat, and the door wide open. It had rained the night before, and the heels of her pumps sank into mud. She hardly noticed. Nor did it slow her headlong dash for the fallen tree. Once there, she flung herself into the hole where the roots of the oak had once been buried, and began clawing at the wet dirt, disregarding any damage to her clothing or her nails. Anyone who chanced to see her would have thought her mad, but Nikki knew, beyond a doubt, what had impelled her there.

  Within minutes, her fingers found what she sought. Half sobbing
, she pulled the rawhide packet from the earth. “Yes! Yes! Oh, God, let it be! Please let it be!”

  Quickly, she unwrapped it, and for a moment was stunned to find nothing inside. Then she saw the writing on the soft inner side of the skin and nearly wilted with gratitude. “Of course,” she told herself. “What was I thinking? He wouldn’t have ready access to paper.” Swiftly, her heart thudding a mile a minute, she scanned the brief note. Then, when she’d determined the contents, she reread it more slowly, lingering over every precious word. It was brief, and to the point, and it looked as if Silver Thorn had printed it with his paints in lieu of pencil or ink. It read:

  Neeake. Mission failed. Brother walks with the Spirits. Must go to mother now. I come soon. One or two moons. Wait. I will come. Your Silver Thorn.

  Nikki sank back on her heels and clasped the letter to ler breast. Tears of joy streamed down her face, unheeded. “Silver Thorn!” she whispered. “Oh, my darling! Thank you. Thank you. You can’t know how much I needed this sign from you. Or perhaps you did. Hurry, my love. I’ll be waiting. Your son will be waiting.”

  As if stirred by her words, the baby moved slightly, a mere fluttering deep inside. Her hand flew to her stomach, her eyes round with surprise. This was the first she’d felt the baby move since that time with Thorn at the cave, when the blue arrow had appeared on her belly. The mark was still there, something Nikki hadn’t bother to explain to her curious obstetrician.

  As if her words could carry across the years and the miles from her heart to his, Nikki said softly, “Your son lives, Thorn. I felt him move just now, for the first time in all these months. Perhaps he felt your presence somehow and was responding to it or to the joy that has leapt into my heart just by reading your letter. I prefer to believe that he knows you, that he senses you reaching out to us. Join us soon, dear heart. Join us soon.”

  Ohio—1813

  The tie between them was strong, perhaps made stronger by their separation and the fact that it was their only link now. Silver Thorn knew the exact moment when Neeake retrieved the message he’d buried at the oak tree. He felt her urgency, her elation—and he felt their baby stir within her. How this was so, he did not know. Nor did he question it. He simply knew that the quivering flutter in his heart was his son moving within Neeake’s womb.

  His own joy at sharing this miracle of life pierced the veil of sorrow which had enveloped him since Tecumseh’s death. His brother had fallen in the Battle of the Thames just as Neeake had said he would. He’d died instantly. But before the battle, Tecumseh had spoken to his followers and to Silver Thorn, with prophetic words of parting.

  “Do not grieve when I leave you to walk with the Spirits, for I shall return another day. There will come another time when my people need me to lead them. Then I will come again to show them the way.”

  Knowing he would die that day, and proud to do so as a Shawnee warrior, Tecumseh had rejected his British general’s red uniform-coat in favor of the traditional buckskin garb of his brethren. Because he’d gone into combat dressed no differently than any of the other warriors, perhaps even less elaborately than some, the American soldiers had not been able to identify Tecumseh’s body on the battlefield. Had they done so, they would surely have mutilated it, taken his clothes and his flesh for souvenirs. But except for the wound which had killed him, Tecumseh’s body was unmarred when Silver Thorn and several others stole back to retrieve it. Honoring his pledge, Silver Thorn had borne his brother’s remains to a secret location far from the site of the battle, to a place Tecumseh had always treasured deep in his heart, and there had lain him to rest.

  Now, Silver Thorn had another mission, one he prayed would be more successful. He was leaving immediately to join his mother and other relatives at the Cherokee village far to the south in hopes of convincing them to remove themselves safely to Mexico, where they would escape the trials to come, most particularly the dreaded Trail of Tears of which Neeake had spoken with such sadness. He would take his family there, if they would agree, and then, finally, he would be free to join his love . . . the woman who held the other half of his heart in her small white palm.

  Ohio—1996

  “Denny! Denny, I need your help!” Nikki rushed into her brother’s private office in a rare panic.

  “What is it? What’s happened?” Denny was out of his chair and rounding his desk in a flash. He’d seldom seen his sister so flustered. Her wide violet eyes held a frightened look, and her face was as pale as death except for two bright spots over her cheekbones. He ushered her toward a chair. “Sit down. Calm down. Do you want some water? Tea?”

  “No. I can’t sit. I’m too upset. And I don’t want any thing to drink. What I want is for you to find a way to make Brian Sanders leave me alone and stop prying into my private affairs.”

  “Brian Sanders?” Denny echoed. “The reporter you once dated?”

  Nikki gave a jerky nod. “The same. Three dates, and the dumb son-of-a-sewer-rat thinks he has some sort of claim on me. Can you believe it? I’ve all but told him to take a running leap off a short pier, but he keeps coming around, bugging me, asking me out, sending me flowers.

  “What is it with some men?” she exclaimed in exasperation, slicing her fingers through her hair and mussing it. “Scott called me awhile back, too, wanting to get together for old time’s sake. Don’t they understand the meaning of fidelity at all? You’d think it was a completely foreign concept that someone would wish to honor her marriage vows.”

  Denny frowned. “How far has Sanders actually gone Nik? Is he stalking you?”

  She stopped pacing. “No, not precisely, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it came to that. He’s pissed, Denny. Truly pissed that I would prefer another man over him. I think with Silver Thorn nowhere around, Brian half convinced himself that there was no other man, that I’d simply made him up for some reason. But now, with my pregnancy so apparent, he’s more irate than ever. Since this wasn’t the second Immaculate Conception, it’s driving him nuts that another man got into my bed, succeeding where he’d tried and failed.”

  “Okay, so he’s jealous,” Denny conceded. “As long as you don’t go home to find a dead bunny boiling on the stove, I don’t think we’re dealing with any real crisis, sis. I’ll talk to him, if you want. Tell him to back off. Maybe he’ll take the hint if it comes from a man. In fact, I’ll even imply that he could meet with bodily harm if he persists. Does that meet with your approval?”

  “This might not seem like a crisis to you, but it certainly is to me,” she informed him tersely. “And there’s more, Denny. Brian now seems obsessed with trying to prove, at least to himself if not the entire world, that I had a vacation fling, got pregnant, and invented a fake husband just to cover my rear with the school board. He admitted to me that he’s been nosing around and that he can’t find any physical evidence that a man by the name of Thorn Silver even exists. He’s already checked public records and computer listings for a social security number, driver’s license, and God knows what else and come up empty. Denny, we’ve got to do something! We’ve got to create some sort of background, some records to prove Thorn is real or Brian will just keep digging. He’s like a damned dog with a bone!”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Understatement, brother dearest.”

  Denny waved his hands in front of him. “Okay. Okay. Just calm down and let me think a minute.”

  He was silent for so long that Nikki was ready to shake the words out of him. At last he said, “Your idea of making Thorn an archaeologist, particularly one who works exclusively in foreign countries, is going to come in very handy. If he’s never worked or claimed a permanent address in the U.S., that would explain why there is no record of his ever filing an income tax return or having a social security number or a driver’s license. He could even be a citizen of a foreign country, for that matter.”

  “No. That would necessitate even more legal paperwork and red tape, wouldn’t it?”

  “You’re right. It wou
ld be much better if he were a native-born U.S. citizen—which he is, of course. Unfortunately he’s from the wrong century. Okay, let’s see. When and where was he born?”

  She did some fast mental calculations and announced, “March 9, 1768, in Xenia, Ohio.”

  The words were scarcely out of her mouth when Denny burst out laughing. “If you’d tried for aeons, you couldn’t have come up with a better place for him to have been born! He’s what, forty or forty-five years old?”

  “Forty-five, but we could shave a few years off his age if we have to. Hell, I’ve already changed the poor man’s name, why stop at that?”

  “It’s perfect!” Denny declared delightedly. “Do you remember that tornado that swept through Xenia back in 1974?”

  Nikki shook her head. “I’d only have been about eight years old then,” she reminded him.

  “Well, it’s one of the worst ever recorded, and it destroyed at least half the town, including the downtown business district. I think it tore the roof off the courthouse, if I remember correctly, but I can’t be sure. They claimed that none of their records got lost or ruined, but who’s to say there weren’t a few that got sucked up and carried off or lost in the shuffle of renovation? Like Thorn’s birth records, for instance? And remember that computers back then weren’t nearly as sophisticated as they are now. Cut the power lines, and zap! Scads of valuable information could have disappeared into the netherworld, never to be found again.”

  Nikki’s eyes widened appreciatively. “Thorn’s records, his parents’, all literally wiped out. That would account for a missing birth certificate and other local data, but what about a passport?” Nikki asked. “Surely he’d have one of those if he worked in all those different places. Also, there’s the small matter of our nonexistent marriage certificate. Anyone who really wants to dig deep enough— Brian Sanders for instance—would expect to run across something of that sort sooner or later. If he doesn’t, it’s only going to make him all the more suspicious, don’t you think?”