After the party Adam's head ached. Partly from the alcohol he had consumed, his rule of moderation slipping as the night wore on, and partly from the hairbrush Blythe had walloped him with when they had returned to their room and readied for bed.

"How dare you humiliate me," she had hissed at him.

"If you were humiliated you weren't the only one," he retorted.

"Are you saying I'm an embarrassment to you?" she demanded. "Need I remind you that I am of the Cincinnati Morrisons? I lend you frontiersmen an air of respectability, not the other way around."

"You could be the Queen of Sheba, it wouldn't excuse the way you treated Eula."

"To hell with Eula. And to hell with you!"

My dear, I am already there, he thought, but he said nothing.

He blew out the lantern and climbed into bed. Although Blythe was merely inches away they may as well have been separated by the Great Wall of China. At home they slept in separate rooms, and although Adam still felt the urges of a man and longed often for a warm body to receive him, he had long since ceased feeling the necessary level of affection for Blythe to find such activity with her appealing. He consoled himself with the fact that their brief marital conjugation had not resulted in any children, and now there would be none. He hated to think of a child enduring the fits of Blythe's temper or her absolute coldness. He himself had been better off with no mother than he would have been with a mother like his wife. This thought often gave him a pang of remorse, along with guilt and anger over his own foolishness in choosing such an unsuitable life mate.

By the morning Blythe had gone, returning home earlier than planned after making a show of hollow affection for her brothers-in-law, as she always did. This morning they were less inclined to play along and weren't sorry to see her leave.

Adam came down later than usual, Hoss and Joe had already finished breakfast and headed out to the barn. They figured their elder brother would know where to find them when he was ready to work.

Hop Sing appeared with fresh coffee and a plate of food: hotcakes, eggs, and bacon. Adam wasn't very hungry, but he thought he should make an attempt. He had drained one cup of coffee and made his way through one hotcake when the front door opened. He didn't look up, assuming it was one of his brothers or his father.

"Maybe tomorrow you can have breakfast in bed," Eula teased, referring to the hour, which was late for a rancher to be starting his day.

Adam looked up in surprise, belatedly rising from his chair.

"Eula, I didn't realize..." he gestured for her to sit down across from him. He looked her up and down, eyebrows raised in mild surprise. "In britches, I see. My, things really must be wild and uncivilized in that southern country."

"Your father and I are going out to look at some of your cattle this morning. Riding astride is no great comfort in a dress, Adam, you should try it sometime. I've quite taken to trousers, perhaps I'll even order up a suit."

He gave a genuine laugh, the first in a long time. She was just the same as she had always been.

He resumed his seat but kept his eyes on her. "We raise Herefords, Eula. I thought you were dedicated to your longhorns?"

"I am, but we've a lot of land in New Mexico and Pa would like to branch out. I told him if we were going to bring those ruddy red beasts in we would have the best, and the best reside on the Ponderosa."

Hop Sing appeared once again, asking Eula if she was hungry. He seemed quite hurt when she informed him that she'd already eaten her breakfast.

"Hop Sing, would you mind bringing Miss Eula some tea? She prefers it to coffee," Adam requested, before the cook disappeared into the kitchen.

"You remembered."

He looked at her intently. "There are many things I remember. When they're important to me."

The look that crossed her face was almost sorrowful, but any further conversation was interrupted by Ben coming through the door.

"Eula! Wonderful to see you again. Are you ready to examine the finest cattle west of the Mississippi?"

"Eula is just going to have a cup of tea, Pa," Adam said, eager suddenly for her to stay a while longer.

"Fine, fine. I'll have a cup as well. And then we'll set out."

"Perhaps Adam would like to come along. If I recall he has as fine an eye for stock as anyone."

"Of course," Ben agreed. Anything to postpone his eldest son's return to his unhappy house and wife.

Hop Sing delivered a cup of tea which Eula drank leisurely, feeling once again very much at home.

XxXxXxXxXx

Eula selected two fine bulls, forty cows and twenty heifers from the Ponderosa's Herefords. She and Ben had hammered out a deal on the ride back to the ranch with Adam listening in in amusement. His father, in characteristic fashion, argued that she should pay less while Eula stubbornly insisted on paying more, so as not to take advantage of their friendship. The result of this strange negotiation unlike any other Adam had been party to, was a figure somewhere in the middle.

"Alright, you win. But I'm making the shipping arrangements," the Cartwright patriarch said, raising his hands in surrender.

Although she herself had planned to travel back with the stock, she had let the Cartwrights persuade her into delaying her return to New Mexico. Ben also insisted that she stay at the ranch, giving up her hotel room in Virginia City.

Adam felt it would be best if he returned home, although he did not mention to Blythe that he had spent more time with Eula, knowing the fury it would stir within her. He also did not admit to himself that the time spent in Eula's company had brought him more joy than he had found in years with his wife.

XxXxXxXxXx

A chill wind had blown up in the afternoon, bringing in heavy clouds and grey skies. Everyone had retired early, but Eula sat up enjoying a cup of tea next to the crackling fire while Ben read the ranch's monthly ledgers by the light of the oil lamp.

"I wonder if I could ask you a question," Eula said at length.

"Of course," Ben said, looking up from his books.

"Forgive me if I'm being forward, it's been a long time and it may be none of my business, but I've noticed a change in Adam."

Ben's brow furrowed.

"He seems unhappy. When we were young he was the most confident man I'd known. He always had an eye to the future. Now he seems... cowed, somehow. Listless."

Ben paused, a pensive expression on his face. He laid the ledger books aside.

"In a way, I've been lucky," he began, tenting his fingers together thoughtfully. "Although I've lost the three women I loved most in this world, I had the opportunity to love them and to be loved in return. My marriages were happy, the only sorrow they brought me were when they ended. Not everyone is so fortunate. My son... Adam, may not be so fortunate. Do you understand?"

She looked as if she'd already known the answer he had provided. "Yes, I understand."

"And now, may I ask you a question?"

She nodded.

"What happened between the two of you?"

Eula sighed.

"Nothing really. There was no fight, no falling out. I had just begun to get the impression that Adam felt trapped. It had been a long time, I think he was beginning to feel pressured to marry me. But, with Adam... may I speak frankly?"

"You may."

"As long as I've known him, Adam has been so serious. He thinks things through, he's the most logical person I know. He has always kept his emotions in check, I think in a way he's afraid of them. If you could just get through those walls he's built around himself I know he has a heart bigger than the Ponderosa itself. But I couldn't do it. I would get so close, sometimes I really thought I had broken through. But in the end I failed. I didn't want Adam to propose out of obligation, I wanted him to marry me out of love. When I realized he couldn't I wanted to make it easier on him, on the both of us. I convinced Pa that we should move alongside uncle Stewart to New Mexico Territory and we parted as friends. We've never exchanged a cross word. I still love him. I have always loved him."

Ben sat in silence, absorbing all that she'd said.

"You must have been hurt when you heard he had married Blythe."

"Maybe a little, but more than anything I was surprised. I didn't believe then that she was the right woman for him, although really I hardly knew her, and I don't believe it now. If I thought he was happy, I would be happy for him. That's how it is when you love someone. But I don't believe it."

Ben rose and Eula took this as a sign that she should as well. He put his hands on her arms and squeezed gently, giving her an affectionate, fatherly look.

"I wish that you were wrong," he said.

She laid her hand softly alongside his cheek in the same way she often did with her own father.

"But I'm not."