"I'd think you'd be more in a hurry to get home. I mean Margie's been gone close to a month," Hoss said as he forked up fried potatoes from his plate. The thin slices were crisp on the outside, a nice toasted brown that dripped butter and yet were creamy and sweet on the inside. People didn't understand that potatoes could be sweet but Hoss, even though it appeared that he barely tasted the food he swallowed, could actually differentiate between the subtle flavors and nuances of food. He could also taste the sweetness of fried onions and cooked cabbage and the underlying fruitiness of good coffee beans. All except alcohol; that subtlety escaped him and backwoods moonshine tasted just as good to him as the finest Kentucky bourbon. "Besides," he once told Adam who belittled his indifference to select whiskeys and bourbon, "the purpose of drinkin' is to get drunk and it don't matter much how you get there."

"Well, the purpose of eating is to fill your belly, isn't it? So why so picky over what you eat?"

"I ain't picky—I can just tell good food from bad food and I know what I like. I'm a…what's that word? Oh, yeah…gourmand."

"The word is jackass," Adam said shaking his head. But he smiled; Hoss was far more complex than anyone else suspected.

It was Hoss' derision for trail food that made Adam wonder why he was being criticized for stopping in a little town for supper instead of continuing straight home. "So you're telling me you'd rather have fried beans and burnt coffee than steak and potatoes? You won't find apple cobbler on the trail either. You think your horse is going to shit peach pie?"

"No, no I don't—although your cookin' tastes like you stood behind the horses with a waitin' fry pan. I just don't understand why you ain't more eager to see that pretty little wife of yours." Hoss broke apart a crusty roll and slathered sweet butter on it. "You gonna eat the rest of them taters?"

"Help yourself," Adam said pushing his plate across the table. "Maybe with your mouth full you'll stop talking about things that aren't your business." Hoss' brows shot up but then he shrugged and went back to eating. There was no figuring Adam.

Adam sat back and sighed. He was through eating and now he just wanted to be alone with his thoughts. Hoss made him examine his motivations for stopping. He knew he should be eager to see his wife of less than two years but he wasn't; he was just tired. Oh, Marjorie was often delightful, brightening up his evenings, making him smile with her observations of people-she could do incisive imitations of others, poking light fun at them. And when Adam was in the mood to talk, they would discuss politics; she was knowledgeable on many topics and tried to keep up with the new laws. Adam wasn't averse to seeing her but he hadn't really missed her and the emotional turmoil that he had recently been through on her behalf. But then perhaps, he justified to himself, he hadn't missed her because he had been busy in Pasadena and hadn't found the time. That was probably it. Business always distracted him, something about which she had often complained, and this had been a most auspicious trip; the lumber contract with the railroad had been extended for five years and Adam had enjoyed the bargaining—it was like playing poker, trying to discern if the other "player' was bluffing, something at which he himself excelled.

And he had also met with the Burnside Construction Company. They contracted for good Ponderosa pine for their new buildings. Adam had looked at their plans and the old longing to design grand edifices gripped him again. But these plans were for simple homes, functional but simple and lacking in beauty or grace—two unassuming models to be repeated endlessly and sold cheaply to families who hoped to find a wonderful life out west now that a spirit of expansion had filled the populace after the divisive war. Adam was reluctant; he didn't want to be an accomplice to this blight on the open countryside but that worked in his favor. The contractors sensed his reluctance and assumed it was their offered price so they raised it. Adam was still going to decline but Hoss pulled him aside and convinced him that if they didn't benefit, the Burnside Construction Company would go elsewhere and probably purchase inferior wood so if Adam's conscience was bothering him now, what would he feel when the roofs and ceilings crashed down on the residents' heads?

So Adam sealed the deal and then the telegram came informing Adam that Marjorie was coming home early. Adam didn't smile as he read it; it must mean that things hadn't gone well. He knew Margie would be upset, distressed by the visit, would lean against his chest and weep and the onus to comfort her would be his. With her mother's recent death, if Margie was still estranged from her sister, she had no family left in the world except him and he felt the burden heavily. Who else could she turn to but him? No one else and the thought made him even wearier as his wife's emotional needs drained him—but she had no one else.

~ 0 ~

"I know I haven't talked much about my sister," Marjorie said as she lay in Adam's arms. "But...well, she ran away from the boarding school and we never heard from her except for one letter a few years ago. And when I came home from school, Daddy forbid mother and me to talk about her—you know how didactic he could be. We weren't even allowed to speak her name. I wish I could tell her about our parents though. It didn't seem so…necessary with Daddy's passing but now with both of them gone…and then there's the money. I want to share it with Madeline. I'm sure she needs it."

"Why are you so sure?"

"Well, because she has an incomplete education, no trade—she must be struggling. And I never found out, never knew why Madeline left—just ran away from school. But I believe my parents knew; they just never told me. It must have been something shameful."

Adam waited for his wife to talk more if she was so inclined. She had been crying all day, first at the funeral, then at the burial site and then afterwards at the reception at the Ponderosa. Her lovely blue eyes were swollen along with her face and Adam hoped her tears were over. But her grief was sincere; she had stayed by her mother's beside the past week when her condition had become critical, Adam sitting with her whenever he could and bringing her meals which she barely tasted. He had been with Marjorie when the end came for her mother and she had cried in his arms for hours afterwards—just like tonight.

"Would you like to know why?" Margie was surprised Adam wasn't curious.

"It's not important. But I tell you what—tomorrow I'll go into Carson City and find a lawyer to track down your sister—Madeline, right?"

"Yes."

"You think she's still going by Purl?"

"I don't know. I don't know why she wouldn't be."

"Well, I'll give him the information and whatever he finds, if it's inflammatory or undesirable, no one here will know. How old is she?"

"As old as I am—we're twins."

Adam partially sat up to look down at his wife. "Does she look like you?"

"Yes. We're identical."

Adam chuckled. "Identical, huh? Then my guess is that she's married to some foreign count and probably living grander than you with diamond and emerald bracelets stacked up her arms and strings of pearls about her neck."

"Why do you say that?" Marjorie was puzzled by his response.

"Because that's what you deserve—to be coddled and spoiled and to own all the riches that befit you."

"Oh, Adam. I don't need all that to be happy—just you."

"I'm glad." He lay back down and pulled Marjorie back into his arms but the idea of two raven-haired, blue-eyed women stirred him and had it not been such a stressful day for Marjorie, he would have had his way with her. But instead, he closed his eyes and hoped sleep would soon come but envisioning two desirable women, one on either side of him, kept him awake far longer than he had expected.

~ 0 ~

The noise of the train depot made Marjorie nervous and Adam had misgivings about the trip.

"Margie, wait another month and a half-then I can go with you." After hearing the lawyer's report, Adam was in doubt as to what he should reveal to Marjorie about her sister but he told Marjorie that her sister was in Baltimore, that she lived in the Barnum's City Hotel, one of the most expensive and luxurious hotels in the large city. Adam had studied it in college, as least through renderings and floorplans, and it was noted for its fine Italianate architecture. He had reserved a room for her as she requested, but with trepidation. "With the two of you being identical, it might initially cause confusion. Let me find you a room in another hotel." But Margie had insisted so Adam capitulated.

"Now, Adam, I'm a big girl. I know you can't get away just now; we talked about it and I've decided to go alone. Besides, it'll work out better, I'm sure, if it's just the two of us. After all, Madeline and I have to get to know each other again. Besides, I came back from Europe all by myself—surely you can trust me to travel alone a few hundred miles to visit my sister."

"You listen to me—and don't close me out—I know when you give me that look…now listen. I still think we should send a wire telling her to expect you."

"No. I think that…what if she doesn't want to see me? Then she'd leave before I even arrived. This way, well, she has to at least see me to deny me!"

"All right but if she doesn't want to see you or she isn't there, turn around and come home. Don't do any further investigating. If you need more money—need anything, wire me, well, wire Pa. I leave for Pasadena in a few days. Now give me a kiss." Adam pulled his wife to him and gave her a quick kiss on her smooth cheek. He noted her smell of lemon verbena, the scent she used. He took a deep breath to keep it in his head for a bit longer. Since they were in public, it would be unseemly to kiss her mouth.

"Now you have your ticket, right?"

"Yes. I have my ticket right here. See?" She held it up.

The station master gave the "All Aboard" call and Marjorie looked at the train again and then back to Adam. Her heart was pounding with excitement—and a little trepidation that Adam noted. She now needed confidence and as usual, he was the one to provide it.

"Margie, she's your sister. Your twin. She'll be happy to see you. From what you've said, she left your parents and their upbringing—not you."

"I just…it's been so long—8, almost 9 years since I've seen her. Maybe we should have hired a Pinkerton man to find out more about her. The only thing that worries me is, what if she turns me away? She may never see me!"

"We've gone over this. If she turns you away, then she turns you away and you come home. Immediately. You made the effort and would have no reason to feel guilty. But I don't think she will. And if you want, and she agrees, you bring her home with you. I think, with enough sleep and coffee, I can handle the two of you." Adam smiled and was pleased when Marjorie rolled her eyes in disgust. But she smiled as well and gave Adam a playful slap on the arm. He had reduced her anxiety with one small joke. "Now get on the train or you'll miss it and have to stay home with Pa and Joe while I'm gone."

The porter had already taken her valise onboard and Adam handed Margie up the steps to her semi-private compartment. Despite his desire to secure a private compartment for Marjorie, she insisted that she didn't want to ride all the way to Baltimore alone so Adam capitulated.

"I suppose," he had said when they had discussed it, "that you just don't want to miss the chance to proselytize and convert other people to your vision of the perfect world. And having a captive audience…."

Margie was ready to take offense, to chastise Adam for belittling her beliefs and efforts but he was smiling and so she let her anger subside; he could be frustrating but he did love her—that she knew so she would allow the snide remark about how she "preached" the objectives of socialism and how those who had much should help out those who didn't. And although Adam supported her by giving his time and money to support the educational fund for building a school for the Paiutes and a clinic with a visiting doctor, often she was an embarrassment to the Cartwrights as Marjorie never missed a chance to point out the inequities of life. Adam had once made a comment that no one could clear a room faster than Marjorie. After that remark, she hadn't spoken to him for two days, carefully nursing her injured feelings but he had never apologized and had made no effort to reconcile—actually behaved as if all was normal so Marjorie just gave up her anger and continued as if he had said nothing. But she tucked it away in case she needed to pull out his comment later in a future argument.

The compartment door was now closed and Marjorie looked out the window. Adam moved alongside the train as it pulled away so that she could see him and he smiled and waved. He walked alongside the train for a few more steps but the train quickly picked up steam and moved faster. He stopped and felt a sudden loss. His wife frustrated him; she was eager to argue but almost always as eager to please. Adam sighed. He had to get back home and prepare for the trip to Pasadena, he and Hoss. And soon she would return and she may return with her sister. Again, Adam felt the warmth surge through his blood at the thought of two women, both equal in beauty. Or would they be? Would time and their separate experiences distinguish them by a subtle difference? And then a thought struck him and he stood still. Would he be attracted to Madeline, Marjorie' sister? Would he find himself desiring her?

"Stop it, boy," Adam told himself." You're just making trouble where there isn't any-yet. You're not Joe."

Joe's debacle with a set of sisters three years ago was still referred to in their family. It seems that Joe fell head over heels for a young woman in church—Anissa Johansson whose father had arrived a month earlier to open his bakery shop in Virginia City. Anissa had almost white-blond hair and always held a flowered parasol over herself due to her fair skin. On the way home from church the day he had met her, Joe had declared to his father and brothers that he had found the girl he was going to marry.

Hoss and Adam had looked at each other knowingly—Joe and his loves, many and varied. But their father had listened seriously. So far, his three sons were still bachelors and often he bemoaned the fact that he was closing in on 70 and as of yet had no grandchildren.

"You best be careful what you ask for," Hoss had once said, "or you may get it but not how you want. You might have some cock-eyed bastard come to the door one day and call you Gramps and want a share of your money."

"Now why are you two looking at me?" Joe had asked his brothers, feeling slighted. "You two could just as easily have a cock-eyed child."

"No we couldn't," Hoss had said, " 'cause the only woman who would have you in her bed is one who couldn't see clear!"

And they had all laughed except for Joe who had accused them of thinking they were funny—and they were the only ones who did—and of being envious of his ability to charm any female.

But unbeknownst to Joe, Anissa Johansson had an older sister at home and when Joe went to call the first night, Signe answered the door. If Anissa was pretty, Signe was stunning. Joe smiled and said that he was there to see Anissa. She said her sister wasn't home, grabbed Joe by the arm and pulled him into the swing on the front porch. Joe was happy to oblige and within a few minutes, Signe was cuddling up next to him. And just when he was about to kiss her, having decided that Signe would be his bride, the front door flew open and Anissa stormed out. The two sisters began to argue over the handsome gentleman caller and Joe tried to intervene, to help resolve the issue and feeling very flattered until he realized that the argument wasn't really about him but more about rivalry between the two blonde sisters. But before they could come to blows, their father came out, ordered them to stop fighting over the visitor as he himself would be the one to decide who they would marry and when. Then Mr. Johansson proceeded to kick Joe out. Joe protested, that is until Mr. Johansson stepped in the house, took down his shotgun and pointed it at Joe. Joe politely and quickly left the premises and when he told his family what happened, expecting their sympathy at his lost love and their envy that two beautiful sisters fought over him, all he received was laughter and jibes for the next few weeks.