Author's Note:

Thank you all so much for your kind comments/reviews. They really do encourage me to keep coming back to this story and to keep writing. I'm so glad that you're enjoying this little fic.

XxXxXxXxXxX

"I'm here to see Adam."

Ben stood in the doorway, feeling his face darken with rage as he looked down at his daughter-in-law. To her credit, she appeared meeker than he had ever seen her, but he was in no mood to be forgiving.

"You will not set one foot in this house."

"But, Mr. Cartwright, surely I have a right to see my husband."

She offered up her most convincing face; eyes large and doleful, glittering with tears. Full red lips turned down in what might be called a pout in a younger and more innocent woman. Oh, she was a clever little actress, a master manipulator to be sure. But Ben saw right through her act and gave no quarter.

"Your husband has a right to be left in peace, something I see he cannot possibly have with you."

"Pa, maybe you'd best let her go on up. Adam can decide for hisself," Hoss said from behind him. He'd finally admitted to not liking his brother's wife, but in the end he knew it was up to Adam whether she remained a part of their family or not, and if she was to be forgiven.

His magnanimity came partly from his confidence in the fact that Adam would never go back to this harpie. Even a blind man could see that the feelings Adam and Eula had for each other were growing, and Hoss figured that, given the chance, they would bloom into something powerful and lasting. But not even that was going to ultimately determine the end of this marriage. Somewhere deep down, his younger brother was certain, Adam still had his pride. And no man's pride would suffer such an injury without consequence.

Blythe pushed past her father-in-law and headed for the stairs. She was greeted at the top by Eula, who stood in her way. She glared at Blythe, stopping her in her tracks.

"Blythe is going up to talk to Adam," Little Joe said icily, both his tone and the look in his eyes saying just precisely what he thought of his sister-in-law and her presence here in his home. Adam's home.

"Is she? Well then," Eula stepped aside, but didn't take her eyes from Adam's wife. "I shall keep an eye on things."

"I hardly need a chaperone," Blythe said pettily outside Adam's door.

"We'll see," Eula said, folding her arms over her chest. Her voice was quiet but there was a hard edge to it. She allowed Blythe to enter the room and turned down the hall to give them the privacy she believed Adam would want, but she wouldn't go far. She had a gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach that the woman was up to no good.

"Blythe, what on earth are you doing here?" Adam exclaimed, attempting to sit more upright.

"I came to see if you were alright, darling. When I woke up and you were gone I was terribly worried about you."

"Worried about me? You were worried about me?" There was a barely controlled rage in his voice.

Blythe took the seat that only minutes before had held Eula. She attempted to take his hand, as Eula had done, but he pulled it away.

"Oh come, don't be that way darling. I'm here to apologize, I'm ready to make a fresh start."

"Are you? Well I'm not, thank god."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean I'm finished with you. I'm through, our marriage is at its end."

Blythe put her hand up over her mouth. Her eyes darted around the room in a panic, reminding him of a rabbit caught in a snare.

"No, you can't mean that. We love each other, don't we? I love you!"

He thought back to their wedding day. Had he loved her? He'd thought he had, but now he wasn't so sure. She had been beautiful, he'd allow her that. Her long blonde tresses and blue eyes, the soft, white skin. Her trim waist and full breasts - yes, she was a beauty. If only the heart had matched the exterior. Yes, he'd once looked forward to the life they would build together.

But that time had passed.

"We may have been in love once, but clearly no longer. Blythe, you must see that we can't possibly stay together. When would it end? When one of us has killed the other? No, I refuse to carry on this way."

"Don't say that, please don't say that. I can make you happy, I know I can. Here, let me show you."

She slipped her hand under the blankets of the bed, laying it along his manhood for the first time in as long as he could remember. There was a time he would have welcomed her embrace, joyfully. But instead, lying there in his father's house, his head split open, the many blows she had rained upon him fresh in his memory, he felt nothing but anger and disgust.

He pushed her hand away forcefully.

"I want you to leave. Now."

"No! I won't!"

"Blythe, I will pay you whatever sum you demand. I will give you anything you want or require, you can claim I was adulterous or neglectful. You can be the one to petition for divorce. I'll tell your father myself that I'm unworthy of you if you like, it doesn't matter to me. Whatever it takes to end this union must be done and done at once."

"No!" Blythe wailed.

She jumped up, knocking the chair over backwards. She lunged for the corner of the room, where on a small occasional table was a bronze sculpture of a sailing ship. It was poised very convincingly, alloy sails unfurled in imitation of a stiff breeze, over a carved slab of marble which looked remarkably like a roiling sea.

Adam had brought it back on a trip from Boston, many years past, when his grandfather had still been alive.

It wasn't large, but it still took Blythe both hands to lift it, which she did.

"I'll kill you first," she said, her voice no longer the high pitched shriek Adam was used to in her bouts of temper, but rather soft and quiet. Her eyes glittered with what could only be described as hatred, but Adam wondered if there wasn't also a spark of madness there.

Coming to the bedside she raised the ship up over her head. Adam flung off the covers, but knew he wouldn't be out of the way in time. He threw up his arm to block the blow, knowing that at the very least his arm would be broken but that it might give him enough time to disarm or overpower her. It occurred to him that she was serious, that she did intend to kill him this time.

And then, from the doorway came the unmistakable sound of a lever action rifle being cocked.

"I wouldn't."

Both Adam and Blythe, still with the sculpture raised above her head, turned to look.

Eula had a rifle resting almost casually in her hands. But the look in her eyes was anything but casual. Shining out from those normally warm, dark eyes there was an unadulterated hate.

"Oh, I do so wish you would try," she said. "But I wouldn't, if I were you."

Blythe looked as though she were very seriously weighing her options, then she turned and let the ship on its marble base fall to the floor, where it landed with a heavy thud.

"I think it's time you left."

Eula stepped aside and let Blythe walk out the door and down the stairs, but she followed her closely, not allowing the rifle to drop.

From the corner of her eye she saw Hoss, Little Joe and Ben looking on in shock. Ben was frozen with a cup of coffee halfway to his mouth, Hoss held a piece of firewood outstretched and ready to be added to the fireplace, the hair on his hand beginning to singe. Little Joe's mouth was wide open.

"Surely you won't allow this," Blythe said indignantly to the three men.

"They have no say in the matter," Eula said, pausing as Blythe opened the door.

She followed her outside to her buggy; she could hear all three Cartwrights crowding into the doorway behind her, watching as Blythe climbed up into her seat and took the reins.

"When it comes time for the divorce, you won't make things difficult. You'll take whatever you feel is fair, whatever Adam is prepared to offer, and you will leave. You will never see Adam again, and you will never, ever lay a hand on him again so long as I draw breath. Do you understand?"

"You have no right to order me to do anything."

"Perhaps you think this is just for show?" Eula said, her expression steely as she raised the rifle to shoulder height, laying a finger alongside the trigger. "How's your nose feeling these days, Blythe?"

With a huff of indignation, which no doubt contained more than a little fear as well, Blythe slapped the reins across the bay's rump and took off out of the yard at top speed.

Eula lowered the rifle and found that her hands were shaking. She put a hand to her head and drew a few calming breaths before turning back to the house. She released the hammer on the gun and handed it to Ben.

"Forgive me, that was foolish."

"What happened up there?" Little Joe asked incredulously.

Although she couldn't say for sure what had transpired in the room up until the point Blythe knocked the chair over, having been far enough down the hall not to eavesdrop, she could say that when she opened the door she knew that Blythe would have beaten Adam to death if she hadn't intervened.

"Where did you get the gun?" Ben asked, believing that all of their rifles were lined up in their cabinet on the main floor.

"It was leaning against the wall just inside Hoss's door. I saw it there when we brought Adam upstairs but didn't think anything of it."

Hoss's cheeks turned red. "I was shooting them gophers that was gettin' into the feed yesterday," he said sheepishly. "Hop Sing called us in for supper and I went upstairs to change my shirt. Reckon I must have forgotten it there."

Ben gave his middle son a long suffering look and shook his head.

"Eula, would you really have shot her?" Little Joe queried as she climbed the stairs.

She paused, thinking. Would she?

"I'm not certain. But yes, I think I would have. If she'd hurt Adam again I should think pulling the trigger would have been easy."

Upstairs, she picked up the sculpture and dusted it off. She turned it lovingly in her hands, knowing that it held sentimental value for Adam. Finding it miraculously unbroken, although there was a small chip in the marble near the stern of the ship, she returned it to the table where it belonged. Then she righted the chair and smoothed the quilt on the bed absently, as if her mind were on something else.

Adam didn't know what to say; how hollow would words of thanks be? He still felt acutely embarrassed, as much of his own inaction as of Blythe's behaviour. Why had he let this continue all this time?

He supposed it was because he'd given up hope of anything better. But when Eula had admitted to Blythe that she was still in love with him he had finally seen the opportunity of a future, one with years of happiness instead of years of misery. Without thinking, he reached up and pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

Eula caught his hand as he laid it gently on her cheek. She turned her face into it and softly kissed his rough palm. There was also little that she could say or wanted to say. An understanding had passed between them and they each knew how the other felt. They also understood the situation that they found themselves in without expounding on its difficulties.

Adam took her wrist in his hand and drew her down to him. He placed a soft kiss on her forehead and then wrapped her in his arms. Eula drew a deep breath, feeling his skin against hers, the weight of his arms, even the faint beating of his heart from beneath the quilt.

She hoped never to be without him again.