One Magic Night

One Magic Night

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious.  Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Text copyright c 2016

Originally printed as A Night to Remember

Revised and edited by the author

All rights reserved

Cover art by Jessie Costin of Cover Me Design

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

Published by Shirley Larson

The sound of Allison’s voice, sweet, clear, and absolutely untouched by tension always made Leigh Carlow think that there was, after all, a God.  The music room in the old schoolhouse, now beginning to fill with shadows from the sun’s late afternoon path toward setting, echoed with the perfection of the teenager’s singing.  She had memorized Mozart’s “Voi Che Sapete” in one week and now she executed the runs easily.  Leigh was sorry when Eve appeared at her music room door, the signal that her time with Allison should end.  Otherwise, Leigh had a tendency to keep the girl singing beyond her hour lesson.

“Allison, that was beautiful.”  Leigh let her hands drop from the piano keyboard.  She couldn’t remember when she’d ever had a student with so much natural talent.  “We’ll work more in depth on your Italian pronunciations now that you have it memorized.”

“My mom says to thank you so much.  She will bring your supper tomorrow night.  Roasted chicken, yams, and blueberry pie.”

Leigh smiled.  “I always look forward to your mother’s Friday night suppers.”

When Allison gathered up her music and left the room, Eve came to lean on the piano where Leigh was straightening out her pile of music. 

“I thought country doctors were the only ones that got paid in chickens.”

“You know her parents don’t have much money.  But they do have farm produce.  I don’t mind eating a decent meal once a week that I didn’t have to cook.”  Leigh slanted a look at Eve.  In the shadowy late afternoon, Eve looked even more beautiful.  She was the opposite of Leigh with her black hair and her almost six foot height.  Leigh often wished her honey blond hair had Eve’s glossy beauty.

“I know you find it difficult to drag yourself away from this place.  But if you don’t get out of here soon, it will be dark.  And you’ve got to get into that ridiculous costume,” Eve nodded toward the fox hunt outfit of a black velvet jacket and jodhpurs hanging over a chair, “before we can leave.”

Leigh sighed.  “It’s nice of you to wait for me, but you should go on home, Eve.  I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.  If you’re sure.  Be careful on the hill.”

“I’m always careful.” 

Eve gave her a salute and went out the door.  With a sigh, Leigh began to unfasten her skirt and pull on the ridiculous pants. 

His lean face dark with impatience, Ty Rundell drove with a careless hand, his gloved fingertips just touching the steering wheel of the car. Rather than taking in the October beauty of the Upstate New York with its maple leaves turning a flaming crimson and a brilliant gold, he looked out at the autumnal scene and thought, “They’re dying.  Just like my career.”

The scene in Norman’s office still resonated in his brain.  “Where have you had your head, in a barrel?  Nobody wants to see a movie about a celebrity child overcoming her crazy upbringing.  Everything is action heroes these days, you know that.  Smash, bash, blow it up, fight it out, kill the evil guy and right that wrong.  That’s what people want to see.” He paused, gave Ty a sharp look.  You gotta give the public what it wants.”

“Maybe it doesn’t know what it wants until you give it to them.”

Norman shook his head.  “If you make this movie, it will meet a quick but merciful death on the cutting room floor.  Trust me on this one.”

Trust Norman?  Ty wasn’t that stupid.

The setting sun was no problem for Ty’s Hollywood correct aviator sunglasses.  The late afternoon light glistened in the coal-black strands of his hair, highlighted the bones and dark teak color of his correctly Hollywood-tanned cheeks.  Below those cheeks, his jaw was taut, hard edged. Tension had him strung tight as a bowstring. He was getting very close.

Was Norman right?  Was this a complete waste of Ty’s time, and more importantly, his money?  That thought had plagued him all the way on the flight from the west coast. 

He was something of an anomaly in Tinsel Town, he knew that.  He’d produced a couple of gritty, hard-hitting crime series on TV that were hits and had given him a nice little nest egg.  He’d watched over it himself instead of turning it over to a crooked manager and he’d managed to double it in four years.  Now, he was able to go along with the glitz and glory of movie land, wearing the right clothes, sporting the correctly expensive watch, escorting a beautiful model to the Academy awards.  But he’d always kept a part of himself inviolate.  He wanted to make this movie.  But to do it, he needed permission from Leigh Carlow to poke into her life.  Another man would have plunged in, held her life up to a microscope and let the chips fall where they may.  Ty wanted truth, and for truth, he needed Leigh Carlow to buy in.

From the other side of the car Deke Slayton gave him a sidelong glance and pressed his Western boots against the floor of the car in a vain effort to relieve his cramped thigh muscles. In contrast to Ty's expensive leather car coat and soft wool pants, Deke's jeans and matching denim jacket were a well-worn shade of blue.  At a height of six foot, four inches, he was not comfortable in Ty’s Porsche.  “I have a very strong feeling you’re not concentrating on your driving.  I hate to be the bratty kid here, but how much longer do I have to sit in this contorted position?”

Ty slanted a black eyebrow upward, and a slight smile curved his well-shaped lips. "Think you can stand it another fifteen miles?"

"I don't have much choice," Deke said wryly, "unless we pass a place with some good-looking horseflesh and I get out and steal the critter."

"They'll hang you for the horse thief you are," Ty drawled.

Deke smiled, unconcerned. "Better than being cooped up in this little box on wheels."

"I told you to stay home this trip," Ty said easily, unperturbed.

"Yeah." Deke spun the word out.

"It's probably a wild-goose chase." Ty hesitated scowled. "Maybe her stepfather gave us the wrong information. She might not even be here." He thought about that, his black brows drawn together, the slashing lines around his mouth deepening. "But if she is, it'll sure be worth the trip to see her."

Ty frowned, turned the wheel to guide the small car around a sharp curve.  "Maybe not."

Deke made a sound in the depth of his throat. "Claire Foster’s daughter? She ought to be a knockout."

"There's no 'ought' when it comes to heredity. Nature has tricks up her sleeve we haven't even begun to fathom."

“Are you saying she won't be good-looking?"

Ty moved his shoulders under the oxblood-colored leather. "I'm not saying anything of the kind. I'm just trying to approach this project with an open mind.  Personal prejudices can send you down the wrong track."

"Too bad we couldn't get any recent pictures. In the ones we saw, she was a little girl or a too-thin teenager with a long face. She still didn't look plain, though. The bone structure was there."  Deke took a small tobacco pouch out of his pocket. With deft, practiced movements, he rolled a cigarette, lit it with a wooden match, and tossed the match in the ashtray, a satisfied look smoothing the lines in his face. "Can't remember you being so fussy," a stream of blue smoke wafted into the air, "about prejudices on your last project."

The sweet smell of Deke's cigarette drifted to Ty's nose. “Do you have to torture me with the smell of that excellent tobacco?”  He quit smoking over three years ago, but every once in a while Deke's cigarettes made him feel the old need. Irritated, he said shortly, "Each project is different, you know that.”

Deke tapped his cigarette against the ashtray and half turned to face him. Ty had been snappish since they'd gone through those old pictures of Claire Foster and her daughter a week ago. "You're too close to this side of the road," he grumbled. "This isn't Watkins Glen, you know. There's a ravine down there."

Ty smiled. "Nervous?"

The road dipped sharply and then climbed up again. Deke was silent, but his disapproval lingered in the car like the smoke of his cigarette.

"Afraid I've lost my touch?" Ty taunted lazily.

"If God meant men to race in cars, He wouldn't have given them legs," Deke muttered. "Holy hell. What's that?"

"It looks like a yellow banner telling us it's downhill all the way for a mile and a quarter."

Deke had been a Hollywood stunt man for years, one of the best, doing stunts that other men refused to do, falls from horses or high buildings. He was as brave as any man Ty knew, but unlike most Hollywood stunt men, he had this peculiar phobia about cars. He told Ty once that he'd had a dream, and in the dream he'd been killed in a car accident. Ty had laughed and told him he was crazy.

The downward pull of gravity increased their speed. Ty controlled the car easily, turning around a curve.  Deke wasn’t the only stunt man in the car.  He tapped the brakes once experimentally, toyed with the idea of shifting into a lower gear, and decided against it. "Don't get your hopes up," Ty said lazily, more to divert Deke from the swiftly moving scenery outside their window than anything else. "Claire's daughter is a schoolteacher. She probably wears black health shoes and her hair in a bun.  I really don’t care what she looks like.  I just want to get the straight story about her relationship with her mother." He put his foot on the brake, smiling at Deke’s apprehension, until he heard that sudden little ping, and his foot slapped the floorboard. The smile vanished.

He sat up and gripped the wheel, moving his foot up and down, easily at first, then quicker, harder. The brake pedal sank to the floor-and the car careened on.

His worst fears confirmed, the blood drained away from his face. He rammed his foot down on the clutch and shifted to third, praying the gears would mesh. They did. The car jerked, slowing.

Deke was thrown forward into his seat belt. "What the hell are you trying to do, get us killed?" He scowled and turned to Ty.

"Just hang on," Ty growled. His hands gripped the wheel, knuckles white with the strength and energy he was using to guide the car. He could drive out of it as long as there were no unsuspecting pedestrians at the bottom of the hill. The thought made perspiration bead on his brow, drip down his back under his cotton shirt.

Deke growled, "We're going too fast. What the hell is wrong?"

"No brakes," Ty said tersely. When Deke half roused as if he were going to jump out, Ty grated, "Don't be a fool. Sit still. Our best bet is to ride this out. I've still got the emergency." He pulled back on the lever, but their speed barely slackened.

“That's great," Deke muttered, his voice heavy with irony. “Really brought us up short."

The road followed another sharp curve, and he could hear the grind of the motor as it worked to stay in the lower gear. "Just hang on."

They flew through a village, a wide place in the road called Webster's Crossing. He caught a brief glimpse of a woman's face, her features a mixture of horror and dread. They were obviously not the first car to go flying past her down that hill.

Another swoop of the car, another curve brought them to the last final sharp drop. He'd given up using the emergency, thinking he'd save it for use toward the end. He could see Springwater now, drowsy in the sun, unaware of the juggernaut bearing toward it. He cursed, wondering why this should be happening to him. He'd had the car inspected a couple of months ago, and the brakes were fine then.

He gripped the wheel tighter and steeled himself for the final plummet down the hill. Out of the comer of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Deke's white face. Ty cursed again and wondered if Deke's dream would come true for both of them. Then he saw it, the caution light strung over the street and a crossroad that intersected his road. Heading in a right angle on a direct collision course with him was a small blue car.

Desperate, he flattened his palm against the horn. It gave out a bleep, a small, pathetic sound, but it was all he had, and he kept it going.

Gears grinding, the car flew into the town. He had a vague impression of white buildings, the glass front of an antique shop. But ahead of him the road continued straight and angled upward. Out of the corner of his eye, Ty saw a blue car on the intersecting road coming toward him. He slammed the clutch to the floor, shifted into a higher gear and accelerated past the intersection at an even faster rate of speed. They slid by the other car with inches to spare and climbed up the steep side of another hill.

Already feeling the loss of speed on the incline, he rammed the clutch in again and shifted into second. The pull of gravity made the car lose speed. Ty yanked back on the emergency brake. The car stopped.

He turned off the motor and slumped in his seat, too shaken to move. Deke sat beside him, and in the little car he could hear the rasp of Deke's breathing. He turned to look at him. The older man was white around the mouth, his eyes blank.  "You all right?"

Deke's drawl was forced.  "Not sure.  Ask me in an hour."

Running feet pounded against the asphalt, and the door on Ty's side flew open. A young woman bent down to peer at him, and all he could think of was that she had the most gorgeous mane of honey-blond hair he had ever seen. From under a ridiculous bowler hat, the spun gold tresses swung forward over her shoulder and trapped the sun in a thousand little shimmering lights.

"Are you all right?" Her voice was slightly husky, like the rasp of velvet on velvet.

He didn't think he was. He thought he must be seeing things. She was a sparkling portrait of color and contrast, vivid iridescent gray eyes set in an ivory skin, gleaming brown lashes, a wide, generous, and utterly lovely mouth moistened with a soft rose gloss.