Chapter Twenty-Six

Adam leaned against a post of the summer house he'd started just after he and Shiloh had moved into the house. He'd only finished it a few months before Abel was born. Now, he and Robert were enjoying a brandy while they waited for Shiloh to return from the stables.

As he watched her work with Cotton in the distance, Robert asked, "Adam, did you hear me?

Adam quickly looked back toward his guest. "Huh?"

"I asked what made you think about asbestos?"

"Oh. I remembered reading something about cloth that wouldn't burn when I was looking up Roman aquaducts for the sewer under the courthouse." He turned back toward the stable.

Joining him at the edge of the summer house, Robert watched for a moment before he said, "I've heard she's very good at what she does. Let's see," he said, tapping his chin with a finger. "Where did I hear that?"

Adam laughed mockingly. "She is. But sometimes she ignores her limits, especially physical ones."

At that moment, Shiloh stepped down out of the saddle and fell backwards. Adam suddenly straightened, moving both feet flat on the deck with both hands clenched at his side, his eyes fixed on his wife, and his mind racing because he was too far away to do anything. But Tom and Johnny were on either side of her, each man grasping one of her arms and breaking her fall.

Shiloh glanced up the hill and winced when she saw Adam watching from the structure at the back of the house. Then her eyes focused much closer where Etta was standing, looking her way with both hands over her mouth. Giving each hired hand a look of thanks, she patted their arms, then moved a hand to the small of her back and started slowly toward Etta.

Adam shook his head as he and Robert headed back into the house.

When Shiloh got to the blanket, Etta was still standing after watching her employer walk stiffly up the rise.

"It looks like you could use a soak in a hot tub," said Etta. "Abel is staring to get fussy. After he's fed, I'll draw a bath for you."

Squinting up toward the house, Shiloh looked for Adam at the summer house. When she didn't find him, she decided a delay was in order to give her back time to unknot. "I have a better idea. Why don't we go over to the bench while I feed Abel. I think you and Rachel will enjoy the view."

Rachel was now standing right up against her mother. As Shiloh reached down to touch the little girl's golden brown hair, she said, "She's been so still up here, a little exercise will do her good." Raising her eyes to Etta as she maintained her smile toward Rachel, she added, "But you'll have to watch her closely."

They gathered everything they had brought from the house, and once Shiloh and Abel were settled on the bench, Etta and Rachel explored the hillside.

Adam and Robert called it a day when Ming Lin advised dinner would be ready within the hour. Both men were enjoying a brandy in the living area, but Adam was getting more and more restless by the minute.

Finally, he downed the last of his aperitif. "She should have been here by now. Excuse me." Setting his cordial on the entry table, he walked purposefully out the front door and around the side of the house, stepping down off a low terraced rock wall he had built to level the ground for a flower garden. He searched down the hill first, and when he saw no sign of the blanket or the ladies, he stood straight, his body becoming rigid as he focused all his senses on the area in front of him. In the distance Tom and Johnny were moving the last of the horses into the stable, but between the stable and the house all was still. Then he heard the sound of a child's laughter floating on the light breeze blowing from the west. He couldn't help smiling, imagining the carefree sound was coming from his own children. Taking a deep breath, he remembered that it wasn't his child laughing.

Standing a short distance away, Adam looked on his wife, her hair pulled back into a pony tail with tiny wisps of ringlets glistening in the last of the late evening sunlight and blowing gently around her face. One side of her blouse was open, exposing her breast. It appeared Abel hadn't completely lost interest as his lips still occasionally sucked, but his eyelids only fluttered. Shiloh wasn't paying attention or she would have already brought him to her shoulder. She looked more happy than he'd seen her in a while as she watched Etta with Rachel, smiling at the little girl's laughter.

A smile slowly found its way to his lips again as he watched her, but just as slowly faded away. He knew she had seen him watching when she fell off the horse. He knew she was stalling. When he stopped behind the bench, she had been so enchanted in the happy scene in front of her, she hadn't heard him. When he leaned over her to smell her hair, his shadow fell over her, causing her to jump. She instinctively pulled Abel's small blanket over her and the baby.

"It's just me," said Adam with a smile as he sat on the bench next to her. "I heard the laughter...thought it was a nice sound." Tilting his head, his smile reached his eyes as he gazed upon her. "Are you all right?"

"Why wouldn't I be all right?" she asked as she continued to watch Etta play with Rachel.

Adam chuckled and bent to pull a weed, sticking the stiff end in his mouth. "Because, ah, you fell off a horse."

"Oh, spsh! I didn't fall off a horse."

Wagging his head playfully, he answered, "Well, I wouldn't have believed it if someone else had told me, but I saw it with my own two eyes."

"I didn't fall off the horse," she said indignantly. "I was already half way down when my foot got stuck in the stirrup."

Nodding his head emphatically, he stuck his tongue in his cheek, and decided it would be safer if he said nothing more about the horse. "Seriously, you seemed pretty stiff when you were walking up the hill. Are you all right?"

Barely turning her head, she sheepishly moved her eyes up to his, then cast her eyes down. "My back is a little sore."

Adam peeked underneath the blanket to find Abel sound asleep with a line of milk glistening on his cheek. Taking the cloth Shiloh kept on her shoulder when she nursed him, he gently wiped his son's face and lifted him out of his mother's arms. "Ming Lin said supper would be ready soon. We should get cleaned up."

Nodding and smiling, Shiloh buttoned her blouse while Adam gathered Etta and Rachel.

"You look like you're about to fall over," he said, looking down at Rachel with a smile.

She moved in close to his leg and looked straight up at him, nodding and rubbing her eyes.

Grinning at the cuteness now leaning against his leg, he passed the baby to Etta and lifted Rachel up, settling her on one arm.

She laid her head on his shoulder, and by the time they all walked in through the kitchen door, she was sound asleep.

"I'll take her upstairs," whispered Adam. "If she wakes up later, we'll find something in the kitchen for her."

Etta nodded and turned to Shiloh. "I'll put Abel to bed as well, Ma'am."

Watching as everyone ascended the stairs, Shiloh stood where she was feeling useless. Still, she wasn't going to complain. She wasn't looking forward to tackling those stairs the way she was hurting. She smiled, remembering Hop Sing and Ming Lin's teas, and turned toward the kitchen.

xxxxxxxx

Dinner was quiet with no children to tend, though Robert and Adam didn't seem to have a shortage of topics, mostly having to do with buildings. Occasionally, Shiloh and Etta would have a brief conversation, but both women were tired from their afternoon. After dinner, they both excused themselves to their bedrooms for the evening.

When Adam came into the bedroom, he expected to see his wife in the bed. When he didn't find her there, he looked around the dim room, then looked in on Abel, pulling his blanket up over him before he walked through the bedroom to the washroom. Slowly pushing open the door, he watched for a moment as she relaxed in the bath with her eyes closed, her head laying back against a folded towel she'd laid against the side of the metal tub.

"I thought you'd be asleep by now," he said, smiling down at her at the side of the tub.

She sucked in a startled breath and opened her eyes, then smiled and closed them again. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Get this close without me hearing you? You're a man. I've never known any men who were very light on their feet other than those who were danseurs."

"Well, now you do, and I don't dance ballet," he said, squatting down next to the tub. "Do you feel like talking?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"The topic."

Chuckling, he said, "I don't think I have to explain the topic."

"Then no, I don't want to talk. At least not about that anyway. Not tonight."

"Then when?"

"When I can."

"Shiloh..." When she turned her head and opened her eyes, he could now see the bright blue of her irises prominent against the red around them.

"I just don't think I can right now. I don't even know what to say."

Reaching into the bath water, he found her hand and brought it out of the tub and to his lips. After kissing it long and tenderly, he held it in both of his hands and ran his thumb over it. "You've been in the tub too long. You're skin is starting to wrinkle." He stood and stepped away to retrieve a towel which he brought back to the side of the tub. "Come on. Let's get you in bed."

She didn't argue. She stood and waited for him to wrap the towel around her and lift her out of the tub, taking her to the bed where he set her feet on the floor and dried her. Pulling the covers down, he waited for her to lie down, then covered her.

"Aren't you coming to bed?" she asked.

"Mm hm," he answered, still smiling as he unfastened his belt and began to unbutton his shirt. "I won't be long," he said as he disappeared into the washroom. When he returned, she was already sound asleep. Blowing out the lamp on either side of the bed, he slipped in next to her and pulled her against him without waking her, he assumed because she was exhausted between work and worry.

It was a quiet night, he thought as he lay listening. Though the doors to the balcony were open, the air was still. It seemed that all God's creatures had turned in for the night. It wasn't long before he was sleeping right along with them.

xxxxxxxx

Opening her eyes, she looked at the shadows that danced across the ceiling in the moonlight and tried to judge the time. Looking over at Adam sound asleep, she feigned turning over and then backing up to him, a sure way to get him to do the same as he slept.

She slowly sat up and looked over him at his alarm clock. Though it was dark, there was just enough moonlight to see the time...just after midnight.

Slipping out of the bed, she found her robe and tiptoed out onto the balcony. The wind had picked up just enough to cause her to tightly rap her robe around her and tie the sash. She was wide awake with everything on her mind pushing to the surface. At the moment, the one thing that wore on her most was Adam's extrication from the Ponderosa and his father. She couldn't help but think it was her doing.

She was so lost in her thoughts of how to get the two men back together that she didn't hear Adam steal out onto the balcony. He was so quiet, she had no idea he was behind her, watching her, until he moved his good hand to her shoulder, bending his head and kissing her neck.

"You're muscles are tight. What's keeping you up?" he asked softly. When she turned around, he made sure she couldn't escape his arms. "You said we'd talk after dinner. Dinner was hours ago."

She dropped her forehead onto his chest. "I can't help but feel responsible for your argument with your father. I kept pushing you to give something up. I never meant it to be your father."

Raising an eyebrow, he asked, "Is that what's been bothering you?"

Still with her head on his chest, she groaned and sniffled.

"First of all, I haven't given up my father. And second, this has been a long time coming. Pa and I have argued about this many times...even before you came home."

"Then what's changed?"

"Progress has finally caught up to us." He lifted her face to his. "Shiloh, we have a child. Hoss and Annie want to start a family, and Hoss wants to build a house, which means they'll be moving out of Pa's house. That leaves Joe. Don't you think that one day, Joe will find someone and move out, too?"

She twisted her mouth, but didn't answer.

"I have other interests in Slater and Cartwright. Hoss has other interests now in your horses, and his wife is a doctor. What if her work takes them somewhere else?" he asked with raised brows. Lifting her chin with his finger, he finished, "Pa has to realize that his sons are grown men with their own desires that might not be exclusive to Ponderosa."

"You're talking about leaving it to your father to run. I don't know that he's up to that. Besides that, he's very hurt. I just can't bear to see him like that."

"No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that we need to work smarter to keep up and still be able to do the things we want to do. And spend time with our families. And make sure we spend time with Pa."

He was afraid he hadn't convinced her of anything because she looked away out over the pastures with a long sigh.

"Come back to bed."

She snorted. "Why? I can't sleep."

Kissing her forehead, he said, "Oh, I think I can help you with that."

She sank somewhat in his arms. "I'm afraid you won't get much out of it."

"I'm not talking about that," he said with a slight glare. "Do you think that's all I think about?"

Twisting her mouth to hide a smile caused a dimple in her cheek. "In your own words, Mr. Cartwright, and I can certainly vouch for them, you are a man," she said, moving her eyes up to his.

He laughed. "I thought maybe I'd give you a back rub...," he said, pushing his bottom lip up and slightly shrugging one shoulder, "...maybe a shoulder rub...and lull you to sleep."

Perking up, she smiled. "Oh. Well. That's an entirely different prospect then, isn't it? But how are you going to do that with one hand?"

He pulled a puzzled face as he looked away and thought. "Maybe we should just try the other."