Author's Note:
My apologies for the delay in getting this chapter posted. I recently moved and getting to my laptop again proved to be a pretty low priority with the rest of the chaos. I hope you all enjoy the update and that it helps to make up for my absence.
Eula had always been a light sleeper. On drives she'd often been given night watch over the cattle because she could drift off but be fully awake and alert instantly. That way, no one had to lose much sleep; which was why that night, when a stiff breeze dropped a few cones from the Ponderosa pines onto the roof, her already disturbed sleep came to an abrupt end.
She had been turning over the situation with Adam in her mind before she fell asleep. She went over it again and again, until she'd finally managed to slip into slumber, but she was not truly at rest and knew that now awakened she'd undoubtedly be welcoming in the sunrise.
Eula padded softly down the stairs and to the kitchen, hoping Hop Sing wouldn't mind if she made herself a cup of tea. As the kettle came to a boil, she swore she could hear the sound of hoofbeats outside. She listened more closely and heard it again, a horse at a walk had stopped a short distance from the house.
She pulled aside the curtain and glanced cautiously out of the kitchen window. Even in the dark, with only the moonlight to see by, she recognized the horse and rider immediately.
"Ben! Hoss! Little Joe! Come quickly, it's Adam!" she yelled, shattering the silence of the sleepy house.
She rushed outside just as Adam slipped from Sport's back and landed heavily on the ground. It took Eula only a moment to see that he was injured, half of his face darkened and sticky.
"Adam! My god, what's happened to you?" she cried, putting her hand to his bloodied forehead.
Hoss came up behind her, still in his nightshirt. Ben was close behind.
"Adam! Hoss, pick him up and bring him inside."
He turned to his youngest son, who had just emerged from the house buttoning his shirt.
"Little Joe, ride and fetch the doctor, quickly!"
"No, no, I'm alright," Adam protested, his voice quiet but firm. "Just take me inside."
Eula hurriedly filled a bowl with the hot water she'd been planning to use for tea and threw some of Hop Sing's clean, white kitchen towels over her shoulder.
Hoss had set Adam down on the settee and Eula dropped to her knees next to him. She dipped a towel in water and began to clean the blood from his head. She encountered several shards of glass which had to be removed. Her hands when she tried shook so badly that she found she was unable to get a grip on them. She sat back and let Hoss do it, his large fingers surprisingly nimble.
"Son, tell us what happened," Ben said, laying his hand over Adam's where it rested on his chest, his customary black shirt stained with the blood that had run down his face.
"I told Blythe I wanted her to go to San Francisco, that I wanted to end our marriage. She threw something at me. It must have been the decanter from over the fireplace."
He gingerly touched the gash above his eyebrow.
"That was a wedding present from Little Joe, if I remember correctly. Once again your poor taste comes back to haunt me," he said to his youngest brother.
"This is no laughing matter," Ben said, but there was affection in his voice, and relief that his son didn't seem to be harmed irreparably.
"Pa, I reckon he'd better not sleep just yet," Hoss said. He'd known men who had suffered head wounds who had grown incredibly sleepy, slipped into unconsciousness, and never woke again.
Eula once again rinsed the towel out and attempted to remove more blood from Adam's hair. No easy task when it had long since dried and become caked with dirt. Still, she figured it was a good sign that there was no fresh blood.
"I'll sit up with him," she said.
"Are you quite sure?" Ben asked.
"Yes, certainly. Let's move him upstairs to his room where he'll be more comfortable."
Adam made a grand effort to stand but still needed to lean heavily on Hoss to make it up the stairs.
"Brother, you would not believe the headache I've got," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose as Hoss helped him into bed.
"Oh I believe it alright. You know, I never wanted to say nothing before, but I plumb just never liked Blythe."
Eula appeared in the doorway with clean towels and a fresh pitcher of warm water. She lit the lantern next to Adam's bed but turned it down as low as it would go.
"I'll call you if I need you, Hoss," she said.
"Yes ma'am, I'll leave my door open."
When he'd left, Eula sat at the edge of Adam's bed and made a proper job of cleaning him up. She retrieved a clean night shirt from his armoire and removed the dirtied and bloodied shirt he was wearing. Her heart quickened at the sight of his muscled arms and bare chest, the dark hair there she'd always considered so attractively masculine.
"You really have gotten yourself into a mess Adam Cartwright," she said, settling him back against the freshly fluffed pillows and raising the quilt up over his lap.
He remained quiet, unsure of what to say. He felt terribly embarrassed by his situation, more so now that the extent of it had been witnessed by Eula. "You don't know the half of it," he admitted at length.
"So why don't you tell me?" Eula replied, dragging a chair next to the bed.
And so, he did. He told her how bereft he'd felt after she'd moved away. How he'd reconnected with Blythe through her father, who had moved the family from Boston to California and then to Nevada, which was where Eula had first met her all those years ago, before either of them could ever have seriously considered her a possibility for Adam.
The question that Eula had wanted to put forward for so long now sprang from her lips almost unbidden.
"Why did you marry her, Adam?"
The second half of the question, why Blythe and not her, she left unsaid.
Lord, how could he explain it to her. Somehow, "It seemed like a good idea at the time," felt a little too hollow, and not the truth that Eula deserved. So he attempted an honest answer.
Oddly enough, he'd been attracted to Blythe mainly because he'd perceived her as cold. As he fell in love with her, or thought he did, he felt safe in the fact that neither of them would be terribly expressive of their emotions. In fact, at that time it seemed to him that they both shunned them. He thought they could live a quiet life, enjoying a marriage in which they could keep each other at arm's length.
"That must be about the stupidest thing you've ever heard," Adam said sheepishly. "I've never admitted that to anyone before, not even myself."
Eula thought of how desperately she'd loved him, but how unable she was to show him for fear of scaring him away.
No, it didn't sound stupid. Only sad.
He carried on, explaining how quickly her demeanor had changed from coolness to viciousness. How shocked he was the first time she struck him, and how it had continued and escalated, until he could hardly get through one day in his own home without being assaulted. He'd thought often about raising his fists against her, and then felt an overpowering guilt and shame thinking of how his family and friends would see him if he did.
He'd all but given up on life. More than once he'd considered absconding in the night, ending up somewhere in the north, or far south into Mexico, or even Europe. But then he couldn't imagine his life without the Ponderosa and his family.
It was more than an hour by the time he'd finished. He turned his face away, not wanting to see what he assumed would be a disgusted look on Eula's face.
He felt her hand cover his, and when he worked up the nerve to look at her she swiped a tear from her cheek and then another.
"My dear, sweet man. My dear, sweet, kindhearted Adam," she said softly. "I'm so sorry for what you've been through. If only I'd known, I..."
Another tear slid down her cheek. This time Adam brushed it away.
Although they hardly spoke for the remainder of the night, each was comforted by the company of the other. It felt right, as though it always should have been so.