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An unwelcoming "Come in" was the response to Sam's knock on Adam's door. And so she entered the room and found Adam, in his bathrobe and slippers, sitting in a chair and reading a book of poetry. He looked up, surprised to see that there was a woman standing in his room. The "man" in him took over as he quickly assessed his visitor: Curly brunette hair with copper highlights, green eyes, a smattering of freckles across her small nose, full lips, taller than average, shapely body. Putting the book down, he rose to his feet and was met with a smile, revealing astonishingly white teeth.
"Hello, Adam," the visitor said. "I'm Doctor Samantha Nielsen." She extended her hand, and Adam found himself reflexively shaking it. His grip was firm; so was hers.
"So. I hear you've come to investigate my brain, Doctor Nielsen," Adam said sarcastically.
"I think the word 'investigate' is a poor choice of words," Sam countered. "I'd prefer to use the word 'nudge' instead."
"As you wish," Adam shrugged and sat back down.
"Do you mind if I sit down too?" asked Sam.
Adam shrugged again and pointed to a chair across the room. Sam's skirts rustled as she moved across the floor and sat down.
"Do you remember anything at all about yourself, your past, your family?"
Adam raised an eyebrow. "You don't beat around the bush, do you?"
"Nope," came the succinct answer.
"No. I don't remember anything," Adam said, a wistfulness in his voice.
"I'd be scared spitless if I had lost my memory," Sam mused. Deliberately.
Adam looked at her and sighed. "I'm not scared." He lied, of course.
"You're a better man than I am…" began Sam, falling back on a quote from a book she'd read.
Without thinking, Adam finished the quote, "…Gunga Din." Then he wondered why he had said that. How odd.
Sam said nothing. Her eyes and her demeanor gave no sign that Adam had remembered something.
"I don't know why you're here," Adam said brusquely. "I don't need a doctor."
"Maybe not. But I'm here anyway, for the sake of your father and brothers. They're very worried about you. They don't know how to act or what to do."
With sarcasm dripping from every word, Adam responded. "And you're gonna fix me and make me all better. Maybe you have some kind of magic potion for restoring memories?"
Sam's eyebrow shot up to her hairline. "Look, Adam. I don't care if you like me or not. I don't care if you call me 'Sam' which I prefer, or if you call me 'Doctor Sam' or 'Doctor Nielsen' or whatever makes you comfortable. But I worked extremely hard to become a doctor, and I'm a damn good one. I ask nothing from you but that you give me respect. I'll accept nothing less. And I'll do the same for you."
Surprised, Adam spoke. "You don't mince words, do you?"
"Nope."
The conversation was interrupted by a shout from Hoss. "Supper in thirty minutes!" Sam was hungry, and the aroma wafting from the kitchen made her mouth water.
"Ahhh," she sighed happily. "Food! Get dressed and let's go eat!"
"I'm not going downstairs. Somebody will bring my food up. You go ahead and go."
"Absolutely not!" said Sam firmly. "Get dressed and go eat with the rest of the family."
"Family? I don't know them!" Adam snorted.
"Well, I don't either!" stormed Sam. "I've had a very long trip. I'm tired. I'm hungry. I'm supposed to sit at a table with three men I met just a little while ago and make polite conversation all by myself? And, if my nose tells me correctly, there's a Chinese cook who insists on calling me 'Missie Doctor Sam' and who has tried to flambé a dessert and failed miserably.' She paused. "Are you gonna throw me to the lions?"
In spite of himself, Adam gave a lop-sided smile. "It wouldn't be very mannerly, would it?"
"Hardly. Now get dressed. And shave, for God's sake! You look like a bear!"
He couldn't help it. He actually liked this woman.
"You gonna watch me shave and get dressed?" he asked, a gleam in his eyes.
"Shave, yes. Get dressed, no. I'll turn my back. I'm not leaving this room without you!"
"Don't you trust me?
"No!" Sam was emphatic.
And while Adam shaved, Sam took her time perusing this man: Dark, curly hair, tanned skin, hazel eyes, cupid's-bow mouth, broad chest and shoulders, long fingers. He was an attractive man, but she wondered if he was aware of it. She watched as Adam pulled a shirt and trousers from the armoire.
"Uh," he said, with another slight grin, "you're supposed to turn your back while I get dressed."
"I did say that, didn't I?"
"Yep."
Dutifully turning her back as she listened to the sounds of clothing coming off, Sam looked at the bookshelves. "What a wonderful collection of books!" She ran her fingers over the spines of several of them. Offhandedly, she asked, "Did you read them all?"
"Yep." Again, Adam answered without thinking. He wondered how he knew that he had read the books when the titles weren't familiar to him. He waited to see if the woman would make a comment, but she didn't. He didn't know that she had taken mental notes of what he said when he wasn't forcing himself to concentrate.
"Okay. I'm decent. You can turn around now."
Sam wasn't expecting what she saw. This man, this Adam Cartwright, wasn't just attractive. He was downright handsome!
They walked downstairs together.
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As Adam and Sam began to cross the floor, nearing the dining room table, Ben whispered, "Just act natural. Let's have a pleasant conversation without pushing Adam to remember anything."
Always the gentleman, whether it was from memory or not, Adam pulled out an empty chair for Sam. He took the seat to her right; Ben was seated to her left. The vegetables were already on the table, and now Hop Sing scurried out bearing a huge platter of expertly-cooked rack of lamb.
As Ben carved the meat, complimenting the cook on a job well done, Adam actually smiled. "Lamb! One of my favorites!"
Hoss, astounded, began, "How did….?" What he had meant to say was, "How did ya know that it's one of yer favorites?"
He felt a kick to the shins under the table, saw Sam bite her tongue slightly, and never finished the sentence.
Sam finished it for him. "How did Hop Sing know that lamb is one of my favorites? One of you must've told him. How thoughtful!"
Conversation was not as tense as Ben had thought it would be. Although Adam had little to say, he seemed to be listening intently to things that pertained to the ranch. He paid special attention when the conversation turned to questions about Sam, her parents (who were now dead), her life as a child and adult, her education, her likes and dislikes, how she worked hard to become a doctor. She had a way with words, turning dreary subjects into funny ones – often making everybody at the table laugh out loud.
The main meal being finished, Hop Sing brought in a somewhat seared dessert. He apologized and said to scrape off the burned parts – the rest would be tasty. He was right. Sam cut her eyes at Adam and they shared a conspiratorial grin.
"Hop Sing," began Sam, speaking in Chinese, "the first time I ever tried to flambé a dessert, I caught my hair on fire. My father threw a bucket of water on my head while my mother ran in circles, shrieking like a banshee. The water filled the dessert tin, and it tipped over, fell on the floor and the whole mushy mess floated across the kitchen. I've never tried to flambé anything since." Hop Sing laughed heartily. Then Sam realized she had been speaking in Chinese and had to re-tell the story in English. Sam laughed at herself easily, and Adam liked the way her freckled nose wrinkled.
And soon, after eating for the first time with the family he didn't remember, Adam realized the experience hadn't been bad at all. The group retired to the great room to sit in front of the fireplace. Ben offered a glass of brandy.
"Do I like brandy?" Adam asked. This was the first time he had asked a question about himself in many days.
Ben handled it well. "Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't."
"I guess this is a time that I do."
And everybody had a snifter whether they really wanted to or not. The evening was growing late, and Sam felt bone-weary.
"Please excuse me," she said. "I guess all that good food plus the brandy has made me sleepy. I think I'll just troddle off to bed."
As she stood up, all four Cartwrights rose to their feet. And Hop Sing was at the door to the guest room downstairs.
"This Missie Doctor Sam's room," he said proudly. He had taken great pains to make it as aesthetically-pleasing as possible when he discovered that "the doctor" was a nice lady who spoke Chinese.
"Sleep well," called Ben as Sam made her way into the bedroom. When her door was closed, Ben said softly, "She's quite a woman."
Adam, swirling the last of his brandy in its snifter, answered, "Yes, she is."
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Adam rose early the next morning just as the sun was beginning to rise. He felt rested and physically stronger. Looking at his reflection in the mirror as he shaved, he considered the fact that he just knew how to perform this task. Vaguely he wondered if this was a memory or just something that he had done so long that his body remembered all by itself.
He turned his attention to the books on the shelves, running his fingers along the spines and reading the titles and the authors. The complete works of Shakespeare, lots of books of poetry, a book written by Milton… To his surprise, he remembered not only the books and authors' names – he remembered the contents of the books and when he had read them for the first time. With each book he touched, he heard an almost audible click in his mind as a door seemed to open in his memory.
All of a sudden, he was ravenously hungry. It would be too early yet for Hop Sing to be serving click, but he dressed in a hurry and headed downstairs. He planned to go outside and just walk around a bit.
The house was quiet except for the muted sounds of voices in the kitchen. There he found Sam and Hop Sing in deep conversation. Speaking in Chinese. Hop Sing was just beginning to make coffee, and Sam was cracking eggs and adding their contents to a big bowl.
Today, Sam was dressed in jeans and a shirt rolled up to her elbows. And she was barefoot. Adam gave her body an appreciative once-over. He liked what he saw. He had underestimated her yesterday – she definitely had a well-sculptured body with graceful curves and dips in all the right places! Her brunette hair was fastened by a clasp behind her neck. Yesterday it had been piled on top of her head. The morning's light reflected off the copper highlights; errant waves and curls straggled around her face.
"Good morning," chirped Sam, in English. "I hope we didn't wake you. I was hungry and came looking for something to eat. I think I woke Hop Sing, but he denies it." She paused and then laughed. "Put your eyes back in your head, Mister! If my backside could blush, it would!
Caught, Adam looked away. But he wasn't embarrassed in the least. "And good morning to you two. And I'll have you know that I'm just appreciating the beauty of the morning."
Sam snorted and reached for a whisk.
Hop Sing cackled happily as he put the coffee on the stove. "Missie Doctor Sam got eggs for breakfast."
Sam snorted. "I got attacked by the chickens for my trouble, too." She held up her hands showing little red marks from the chicken beaks. "A murderous lot, those creatures. I was lucky to get away with my life!"
"Hop Sing is the only person who can collect eggs without physical harm, "Adam began. click. His mouth turned up at the corners. "You were lucky to be successful," he added as he reached into the correct cabinet for a cup. click. The cabinets and shelves were very familiar.
Looking at Sam now. "Where did you learn to speak Chinese?" he asked as he leaned against the doorjamb.
"In San Francisco. I have some friends there who taught me the language. It was almost in self-defense. So many doctors there speak Chinese that I felt like an outsider. I had one strike against me for being a female doctor so I decided that I needed to broaden my language skills to make myself fit in a little better. I speak a little Spanish, a little Italian, some French, and some very bad Chinese."
"She speaky velly good Chinee," interjected Hop Sing.
"Not really," Sam giggled. "Hop Sing asked me how old I was and I told him 'one hundred and twenty seven'."
Hop Sing cackled as he poured fresh coffee into Adam's cup. "She just make small mistake."
Adam laughed. "He asked you your age?" He shook his finger at Hop Sing, who deliberately turned his back and began to slice bacon. "What a rude question."
Then with a devilish grin, he asked, "Well, how old are you?"
"I was only off by one hundred years, Mr. Nosy!" came the retort. "And why are you up at this hour?"
"Kipling. Rudyard Kipling." Adam looked smug. "I remember reading the book. That's why I could finish your quote from yesterday, Gunga Din."
Sam clapped her hands with glee. "That's wonderful, Adam! What a positive sign!"
"That's not all," Adam continued, sipping his coffee. "I remembered every book on the shelves. Titles, authors, contents. I can remember where I was when I was reading each book for the first time, too."
Sam looked at Adam. He had the happy face of a young boy who has just performed a great miracle.
"This is just the beginning," Sam said. "The less you obsess on remembering, the more you will remember. Take last night's supper, for instance. You remembered that lamb is one of your favorite meats. You weren't trying to decide if you liked it or not – you just knew. Your memory will come back slowly at times and in a big rush at times. Just relax and don't obsess if things don't progress as quickly as you'd like."
Adam nodded and smiled. "I think I'll go look around the house and see if anything else comes to mind."
"Well, I'm staying in the kitchen. I want to see how much food it takes to feed four big Cartwrights, one starving female, and one Chinese cook." Sam turned her attention to whisking the eggs.
Adam strolled through the great room and ended up behind a large desk which, he assumed correctly, belonged to the man who was his father. On the desk was a trio of pictures of three beautiful women. One, he already had been told, was his mother. The other two he didn't recognize. He'd ask about them later.
"Later" turned out to be over breakfast. He couldn't wait. And when Ben got through with the condensed version of the women, Adam could fit some parts of the missing puzzle together. Hoss and Little Joe were his half-brothers. Hoss's mother, Inger, the blond woman in the picture, was Swedish, and had died before reaching Nevada. Little Joe's mother, the other woman in the trio of pictures, was from New Orleans and had been responsible for calling her son "Little Joe." But Adam had no memory of either woman, and his face reflected his concern over the lack of remembering.
"Stop trying to force memories, Adam," scolded Sam quietly while Ben was talking about the Spring round-up to his other sons.
Adam sighed. He had been so hopeful that his memory would return in a rush…