FOUR

oooooooooo

Adam Cartwright stirred. He glanced at the open window before placing the book he held on the chair-side table and rising. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and let out a sigh. It was almost morning. He'd gotten, maybe, three hours of sleep – in the chair by the table, with the book in his hand. The black-haired man rose and walked to the window and looked out on the near-deserted street before turning on his heel and heading for the corridor outside of his room.

The hallway of the hotel was quiet. It was early enough that the majority of its occupants were still sleeping. Adam grinned. One in particular, for sure. He paused outside his brother Hoss' room and listened to the big man snore. 'Sawing logs', some people called it. Since they were in the timber business he thought that quite apropos.

It had been close to midnight before they took possession of their rooms. Pa already had one, but he'd rented two more for him and Hoss to bed down in. Adam snorted. Two, because Pa knew he'd never get any sleep if he was in the same room with Hoss! Thank God, the big man was doing all right. He was battered and bruised, but had come out of the fight – all things considered – pretty much intact. Middle brother and John C. Regan were just about equal in size and strength, but Hoss lacked the sheer inhumanity of the other man. He shuddered still to think of what might have happened to their pa if the older man had taken the brute on.

What might have happened. Adam puffed out a breath and shook his head. He didn't have to imagine it – he'd seen it lying in his Pa's bed.

Joe had made it through the night. They hadn't been sure he would.

There were so many variables to the beating he'd experienced. According to Doctor Fields. John C. Regan had thrown just about every dirty punch known to man.

It was clear his intention had been to kill Little Joe.

That was another thing that had taken a toll on middle brother. Hoss was a gentle soul wrapped in a solid core of strength. He cared deeply. He loved deeply. And most of all, middle brother wanted to believe that everyone cared and loved as deeply as he did. What Regan did to Little Joe shook him to the core. Hoss' body would heal within a matter of days.

That gentle soul was another matter.

As for him, there'd been only one thing about what happened that really surprised him. It wasn't Regan. Oh, no. He'd seen evil in all its incarnations and understood well the base nature of man. No one who took the road west ended it in innocence. No, what surprised him was Adah Menken. The savvy, smart, sophisticated and intelligent woman, whom their Pa loved enough to ask to marry him, had chosen the beast over beauty. She actually loved Regan. John C. Regan, the man who had beaten her down until she believed she deserved only 'half' a life.

'Frailty, thy name is woman.'

It still bothered him, what his Pa had said after Adah came to Regan's rescue. 'There are many kinds of love. As many as there are women.' He was one of the fortunate ones. He'd known love in a great variety. A Father's love. A mother's, in Inger and Marie. Brotherly love. There was the love of his land, of his country; of God.

But the kind of a love that drove a woman back to man who had nearly killed a seventeen-year-old boy, and done it out of spite?

That kind of love wasn't love – it was a sickness.

Adam looked up and found he was standing outside the door to his father's room. He raised his hand to knock, but before he could, a soft voice spoke.

"Come in, son."

The black-haired man shook his head.

How did Pa do it?

oooooooooo

Ben Cartwright glanced at his youngest son before placing the bloody rag he held on the bedside table and rising to greet his eldest. Adam looked as he imagined he did – exhausted, anxious…troubled. They'd all been in attendance the night before for the doctor's prognosis. Joseph's eye would heal – thank God! – but it would be days if not longer before they knew if the boy himself would be all right. There were bruises around Joe's waist, dark as any cavernous hollow and tight as a fist that could be a sign of internal bleeding. The blow Regan struck to the back of the boy's head – known a 'rabbit punch' – could have injured his spinal cord or shaken his brain from side to side so violently Joseph would be left partially paralyzed. Doctor Fields remarked that, had the blow been any harder, it was likely the brain stem would have been completely severed from the spine. In that case, it would not have been a bruised and battered Little Joe his brother found in that alley.

But a dead one.

The rancher ran a hand over his eyes, curtailing the tears.

"How's Joe doing?" Adam asked from the doorway.

Ben went to meet him. "Your brother is holding his own. Joseph was in a lot of pain this morning. The doctor's been by. He gave him a dose of morphine."

Adam's gaze moved from Little Joe to him. "Was that wise with the head injury?"

He'd asked that as well. The doctor had shrugged and admitted it was a toss-up.

He really missed Paul.

"I felt it best to let the boy sleep," Ben answered. In truth, it had been more than he could bear to listen to his almost grown son whimper like a child whose soul as well as body had been wounded almost beyond comprehension.

Adam nodded. "I just checked on Hoss. He's sleeping too. Did the Doc give him something?"

The rancher nodded. "A mild sedative for the pain."

His eldest was watching him. "What about your pain, Pa? I'm…sorry about Adah."

Ben raised one eyebrow. "Are you?"

"Pa…."

"Be honest."

Adam drew in a breath and let it out slowly as he considered his answer. "Why…how could you love a woman like…that…enough to marry her?"

He knew his son was not being disrespectful. Adam didn't care that Adah was an actress or that she had been married before, or even that she'd shown her body off to the entire city. What his eldest meant was – how could he love a woman who did not love herself?

Ben thought a moment. "You remember the trip out west?"

The boy snorted. "I remember it well."

"Then you remember the face of desperation." Ben gestured with his head and the two of them stepped into the hall where their conversation would not disturb Joseph. "Women…men…anyone can be driven to desperation by circumstances."

"So you're saying Adah chose Regan over you out of desperation? I don't see that, Pa."

"Did you see any resemblance between Adah and your stepmother?"

His son looked uncomfortable.

"Women like Adah, like Marie, are delicate creatures. All it takes is one man using or abusing them – and telling them that it is their fault – for them to believe it. They take on the belief that they are unworthy."

"But why choose Regan over you? You would have loved her and made her feel that she was worth something. You would have given her everything."

Ben pursed his lips. "Ah, there's the 'rub' as your Shakespeare is wont to say. Such women don't believe they deserve anything. They long for a good man, a man they can trust, but they are afraid to trust him. They fear that, if they trust him he will betray them and break their heart. And that, Adam, they cannot survive."

"So it's safer to choose a man they can't trust?"

He nodded.

Adam was silent a moment. "Marie trusted you."

"Yes, by God's grace. Your stepmother chose to take my hand and pull herself out of a hellish existence. But it was hard, Adam. Marie never felt she was good enough. Though, when Joseph came along, I believe she almost forgot her fear." He clapped a hand on his son's shoulder. "I should get back to your brother."

Adam's troubled gaze shot to the partially open door. "If you think Joe is going to be…okay…I'll head out to the spread. The ranch won't run itself."

"You do that, son." He understood. Adam needed solitude to deal with his own grief and rage. "Hoss and I will stay here with your brother until he is well enough to travel."

"When did Doctor Fields think that would be?"

Ben's aspect darkened. "It depends on your brother and how he heals. There's some…concern…about the bruising around his hips."

Adam nodded. He, like any educated man, knew what that meant.

His son covered is hand with his own. "Joe's a tough kid, Pa. He'll be okay."

It flashed before his eyes again – the vision of Marie's slight, slender, curly-haired, bright and beautiful boy facing death at the hands of a monster nearly three times his size.

He nodded.

It was the West.

They all had to be tough.

oooooooooo

"Pa?"

Ben Cartwright hurried up the hotel staircase. His fear mounted with each step he took toward his middle son, who was standing at the top. Hoss had insisted on sitting with Joseph while he went downstairs to get something to eat. He had no appetite, but hunger paid no attention to a man's desire to wallow in rage and grief. He'd stood up and nearly swooned and known he had to go.

It was odd, sitting in the hotel dining room with the chaos of normal life swirling about him. There was a couple sitting at one of the tables, and a family of six who were obviously heading out as soon as they finished eating. They were in their travel clothes and had several valises on the floor by their chairs. Behind him three businessmen were holding a meeting. He knew them, though not well. They'd greeted him as they passed by and asked how he was doing.

He hadn't know what to say.

To say nothing seemed...wrong…somehow. To say anything seemed…wrong…somehow.

So he simply nodded.

Just after the waitress delivered his plate, the hotel manager came over to inquire about Joseph. His answer was pat. 'He's holding his own and the doctor hopes for the best.' To say more would have been to open a floodgate that he had neither the will to handle, the energy to cope with, or the capability to close. The man seemed to understand. Though a stranger, the manager briefly rested a hand on his shoulder before moving on to the next table.

After that he sat there, lost in thought; picking at his food and pushing it around on the china plate – until he heard a familiar voice. It was evocative, arousing in him both desire and disgust.

Adah.

Ben's jaw grew tight and his fingers gripped the edge of the table as he continued to listen. He heard Adah speak to the concierge, inquiring about the stage and asking that her trunks be taken to the station. Those who occupied the tables around him had no notion of the war that was being waged in their presence. His first impulse had been to rise to his feet and march into the lobby and confront her. What kind of father would he be if he allowed her to climb onto the stage and disappear without so much a word, free of consequences? Adah would tell him he was making a scene and he would tell her that it was nothing compared to the scene of the night before – to the tragedy of a beautiful young man who had been beaten to within an inch of his life and left in a filthy alley to die! People would stare. Tongues would wag. But that wasn't what stopped him.

What stopped him was the fear that John C. Regan could be with her and he would kill him.

And he would have killed the bastard.

So he'd sat there, unsure of what to do, for a full minute before tossing his napkin onto the table and rising to his feet. He crossed deliberately over to the doorway and stepped to the side, where he would have a view of the lobby but no one would have a view of him. Adah was just leaving the desk.

She was alone.

Ben watched the actress move, noting the elegant turn of her foot, her slender figure and girlish waist; unable to miss how the dawn light spilled in through the open door to strike her rust brown-walking suit and brunette hair, turning both to bronze. She was breathtaking. Beautiful. Adah held herself like a queen.

Few knew of the wretched pauper inside.

He'd had a lot of time to think as he sat throughout the night watching over his wounded child. Time to figure out just why he'd thought he loved this women enough to propose. The answer came to him just before dawn as he changed the bandage on his son's head for the second time. Adah was a wounded creature, just as Marie had been. A woman as battered and bruised by life as his son had been by John C. Regan. There was something within him that drove him to bind up such women's wounds and to set them free to live the lives God intended. He'd loved Marie and that love had freed her to love herself.

He only wished he could have done the same for Adah.

As she stepped out the door, the actress turned back to give an instruction to the concierge who was near the dining room and their eyes met. Adah's lips parted. She took a step forward.

And then fled out the door.

'Magnificent'. That was what people called her. Magnificent she might have been, but – for him – her effervescence had waned and the limelight gone out.

oooooooooo