Mariette paced back and forth in her parlor. I sat and tried to calm her but she was almost hysterical again. Pa had been worried about her, she had been so sad, so on his suggestion, I had driven the closed buggy into town in order to bring Mariette to stay with us for a while. Pa asked me to talk her into coming out "since she trusts you so much."

"But, Adam," she said, close to panic, "what am I going to do. How am I going to live?"

"Mariette," I said as calmly as I could, "sit and drink your tea. You have us and nothing bad will happen to you—we'll see to it. If you like, you can move in with us. We'd all love to have you back at the Ponderosa." But Mariette's financial worries weren't imagined. She and I had earlier been to the bank and found out that Jason was going to turn over his shares of the silver mine to Mrs. Charity Freestone. I had asked if Mrs. Freestone's husband's name was to be on the share certificate as well but it wasn't. That fact made me decide that Mrs. Freestone wasn't married despite the title; she was either a widow or had never been married and assumed the title for respectability.

"But, Adam, why would Jason do this? Why would he give that woman everything we own?" Mariette was coming apart before my eyes.

I stood and held Mariette by the arms. "Calm down and get a hold of yourself. I'll get to the bottom of this. I'm meeting Mrs. Freestone for dinner tonight; I'll find out all the details and I'll let you know. Now sit down and drink your tea." I led her to a chair and gently pushed her down to it. She picked up her teacup and saucer and the cup rattled. She was still upset. "Mariette, think. Did Jason ever mention anyone named Charity? Are you sure he never mentioned the name Freestone?"

She sat and thought, her brows drawn. Then she shook her head. "No, Adam. Jason never mentioned another woman—I just found out about her, like I told you, from following him. I waited for him to say something, hoped he would but he never did. Oh, Adam" she said glancing up at me piteously. "Do you think Jason was in love with her? Maybe he was planning to run away with her."

"Now don't be foolish," I said trying to sound convincing. After all, I had sat in the same room with Mrs. Freestone, had seen how elegantly she moved and how enticing she was; she did set a man's imagination running wild and I would think she had the same effect on Jason. I wouldn't blame him too much if he had been in love with her. "With you as his wife, Jason would have no need to even look at another woman; he'd have no reason to." I smiled, leaned down and kissed her brow. "Now I have business to take care of before I meet with Mrs. Freestone at 8:00. You just relax and don't worry about anything. If you like, I can pick you up before I head back to the Ponderosa; you can spend a few days with us. We would all love it. How about it?"

"Oh, that would be so nice, Adam. It would be like when I was a girl. I always felt so safe and loved on the Ponderosa."

"That's because you were and still are. Now I've got to go."

"All right." Mariette put down her teacup and walked me to the door. "What time tonight should I expect you?"

"About 10:00. Plan to stay with us for at least a week—hopefully longer-maybe permanently." I kissed her on the cheek. She smiled that endearing smile but I knew that if it came to choosing between someone like Mariette or Charity Freestone, it'd be Charity's bed I'd wallow in. It wouldn't even be close. Jason thought so as well, I'm sure. In that way, we men are all alike. Offer us a faithful, kind woman and we'll take the sexually attractive one over the other. It's our primal instincts rising to the surface and there's no getting away from it.

~ 0 ~

Since I was wearing my suede jacket and everyday work clothes, I felt sorely underdressed once I walked into the hotel's dining room and saw her; Mrs. Freestone was stunning in green. I can't tell you what the fabric was or the type of lace on the bodice but I can tell you that she was the most beautiful woman in the room. The pearls she wore dangling from her ears glowed in the candle light and her skin was as flawless and lustrous as the pearls. I was at a loss as to what to say until she smiled at me and then I felt a warmth toward her that was unrelated to desire—not that I didn't feel lust as well, but I felt a certain affinity with her. I can't really explain it any other way but there was suddenly no awkwardness between us.

I ordered our dinner but for the life of me, I can't remember what I ate—all I can remember from that night is that Charity was beautiful and delightful and enchanting-and I fell in love with her. I don't know exactly when, what she said or did that made my heart her slave but by the end of the evening, I was completely enthralled. Everything else is a blur about the evening except for her and what she said in her melodious voice.

As we sat in the candlelight, other patrons eating and talking and leaving and arriving—well, I'm assuming life went on about us but others faded into the background as Charity told me of her past. I wanted to hear and yet I didn't as I felt our life together started that night. Yes, she had been Murdoch's mistress, she confessed and had never been married. No, she hadn't known about Murdoch's night riders and the killings and the terror he and his gang inflicted on the others with the help of Jason Blaine and another assayer until much later.

One night Jason visited her in her suite and he was terrified. He was panicked; the law was catching up with Murdoch and his vigilantes and Jason wanted out, he wanted to go straight and needed to get away. So he had sat in her rooms at the hotel in which she lived and informed Charity of all that had been going on. She had been appalled. Jason begged her for a loan—said he would pay it back—he swore it. Jason knew Charity had a few thousand dollars in an account in the First Bank of San Francisco. Charity asked Jason how he knew all this information as she didn't really trust him. In her earlier dealings with Jason, he had made advances toward her even though he knew about her alliance with Murdoch and Charity had considered Jason the man to save her from Murdoch who wasn't the man she had originally thought he was. Murdoch showed no inclination to marry her as he had initially promised. Then Charity discovered Murdoch was already married but she knew no way to extricate herself from the situation—except perhaps for Jason. But when Murdoch threatened to castrate Jason if he even looked at Charity again, Jason ignored her from then on.

Anyway, after she questioned Jason about his knowledge of her money as she herself was basically ignorant of the amount, he laughed and replied that there were quite a few things he knew about her and how she was being used by Murdoch in more ways than one. It was only later when she had time to consider all things that she wondered if she was being used to hide Murdoch's blood money