Wild Abandon

He feared that if he blinked his eyes she would go away. That was how magical it seemed to be with her, actually seeing her, of actually talking with her.

His thoughts went quickly to Boyd again. “Your father,” he said. “Tell me. Is he strong? Or is he weak? Is pneumonia the cause again for his hospital stay?”

“How could you know it was pneumonia?” Lauralee asked, taken aback by just how knowledgeable he was about her father.

“Many times I have sat with your father while he battled the lung disease that has wasted him away too often into skin and bone,” Dancing Cloud said, again looking past her, almost afraid to see Boyd this time. It had not been all that long since his friend had been deathly ill with the same disease. Dancing Cloud had thought that his end was near then, much less to be battling the disease again, so soon.

“He came to you when he was ill?” Lauralee asked, her eyes widening.

“If he was within riding distance of my village.” Dancing Cloud nodded. “He found much peace and comfort among my people. He became as one with the Cherokee.”

“You are Cherokee?”

“Ii, yes, Cherokee.”

“You fought alongside my father in the Civil War?”

“Ii, yes, his sorrows were my own.”

“Joe, I . . .”

Joe placed a gentle finger to her lips, momentarily silencing her words. “The name Joe came from your father when he was an agent to my people all those many moons ago,” he said. “The name I prefer spoken by anyone but your father is Dancing Cloud. I am called Dancing Cloud among my people. It is a name given to me at birth. Joe? It is accepted only in the presence of your father because he gave me the name when we first met to keep him from stumbling over the Cherokee way of saying Dancing Cloud.”

“I’m sorry,” Lauralee said as he drew his finger from her lips. “I didn’t know. When Father spoke of having sent for a man named Joe, that is all he told me. I shall call you Dancing Cloud. I would not want to make you uncomfortable.”

Their eyes locked and held for a moment as the magical web became more intricately weaved between them. Lauralee’s knees were strangely weak. Her heart raced out of control and her face felt flushed from something deliciously sweet washing slowly and warmly through her veins.

When Dancing Cloud gazed down at Lauralee he could not help but recall his father’s words—that it was time to take a wife. His father had said that one day soon Dancing Cloud would find that perfect woman to bring laughter into his lodge.

His heart, his very soul, told him that Lauralee was that woman. Everything about her seemed absolutely perfect. That she was Boyd’s daughter made it even more wonderful.

“Lauralee, who is that standing in the corridor?” Boyd asked, only able to make out the shadow of a man as he peered intensely past his daughter. He leaned shakily up on an elbow and squinted his eyes. “Lauralee, who is that? Is it . . . ?”

Boyd’s voice broke and his heart leapt with joy. “Joe? Is that you, Joe?” he said, his voice weak, yet filled with excitement.

Lauralee stepped aside. She smiled at Dancing Cloud, then nodded toward her father. “Go to him,” she murmured. “Dancing Cloud, I swear to you that you are the sole reason my father is still alive.”

Dancing Cloud gave her a lingering look that made her melt inside, then he went to Boyd. He leaned over the bed and swept Boyd’s frail body within the muscled comfort of his arms.

“My o-gi-na-li-i, friend,” Dancing Cloud said thickly, torn apart inside by how thin and bony Boyd was. He closed his eyes and remembered the days when Boyd was muscled and active, his eyes always dancing with laughter. Now he was only a skeleton of that man.

“Joe,” Boyd said, his voice breaking as he clung to Dancing Cloud. “I knew you’d come.”

Dancing Cloud held Boyd for a moment longer, then eased away from him and sat down in a chair beside the bed. “I regret having taken this long to reach Saint Louis,” he said thickly. “I slept only half the nights of my journey. I felt your need deep inside my soul. I could hear you calling to me as though you were there with me.”

“Did you see her, Joe?” Boyd asked, his eyes anxious as he peered up at Dancing Cloud. “Did you see my Lauralee?”

Dancing Cloud looked up at Lauralee as she now stood on the other side of the bed. Again their eyes locked and held. “Ii, yes,” he said, everything within him aware of her presence. “I have made acquaintance with your Lauralee.”

“Isn’t she as pretty as I said she’d be?” Boyd asked, reaching a shaky hand over to Lauralee, grabbing one of her hands with his bony fingers.

“Prettier,” Dancing Cloud said before he could stop the word from rushing across his lips.

Boyd managed a chuckle between his raspy breaths. “I knew that you two would hit it off just fine,” he said, looking slowly from Dancing Cloud to Lauralee, then back at Dancing Cloud. “That makes what I am going to ask of you much simpler, Joe.”

“You summoned me here for what purpose other than to be with you again during your time of illness?” Dancing Cloud said, his voice having turned solemn. “Was it for me to make acquaintance with Lauralee? Or is it something else?”

“Yes, I wanted you to meet my lovely daughter,” Boyd said, his voice becoming weaker with each word. “But I want something more, Joe. Something way more.”