When Miracles Come
by
Janice Sagraves

ONE

Soft white flakes drifted to earth like fragments of gossamer. The first snow of the season had started shortly before dawn and what little had accumulated melted in the sun’s first rays. It wasn’t much in the way of storms, but it did portend what was to come. Nevada winters, especially in this part of the state, began early and were, except on rare occasions, always harsh and mistakes were not forgiven lightly. Many had perished because not enough fire wood or food had been put in reserve or any other number of human missteps. Still, the hearty souls who made this their home, for the most part, survived. And those who failed to adapt and learn didn’t.

*******

So far it had been a long, dragging morning, but Maggie O’Shea wasn’t the kind to complain about her lot in life. Her parents and grandparents had been domestics, so she had more-or-less been raised into it. She knew no other way of life. It was as much a part of her as her eyes or her hair, and it would be far less easy to live without.

The Cartwright sons – now fifteen months old – had been put down for their usual nap so the house was quiet. Mr. Adam had gone out to start his daily routine, and Miss Angelica had gone off on one of her cleaning frenzies so Maggie was alone.

Maggie had just poked up the fire in the huge stone hearth when a crash rose up behind her. At first she wasn’t sure of its origin, but it didn’t take long to register that it had come from the study. Her nutmeg eyes ran to the door, and her breathing quickened. With a fling, the poker struck the fireplace with a clang, and she dashed across the parlor.

The instant she burst into the study, her breath almost strangled her, and her hearty Irish brogue cracked. “Saints preserve us. Miss Angelica!”

Angelica Cartwright lay on her back in the floor, and one of her feet still rested on the ladder that ran along a rod at the top of the floor-to-ceiling bookcase. Her eyes were closed, and she was still as stone. Several books were scattered about and one had even landed on top of the desk.

Maggie fell to her knees at the side of her mistress and began to try to rouse her. “Miss Angelica.” She took one of the cool hands and patted the back of it. “Miss Angelica, please wake up.”

What sounded like someone saying her name came at Angelica through a slowly dissipating fog. She groaned and tried to move, but her body didn’t want to comply. It was all she could do to force her eyelids to raise, and even that tried her. “Maggie.”

“I’m right here, mum. Don’t try to move.”

“Did I fall?”

“Yes, mum.” Maggie’s poisonous gaze darted to that wretched ladder.

“I’m sorry, Maggie, I…”

“I know, darlin’. Now I want you to lie perfectly quiet while I go for help.” She pushed a dark brown strand back from her girl’s wan face. “I want to catch Mr. Adam before he rides out. You lay as still as you can. I won’t be but two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” Then she shoved herself away from the floor and ran out in a fluster.

Adam Cartwright had just led his big black horse – saddled and ready to go – from the barn when a hubbub from the deep front porch caught his attention. He had no way to know what the problem was, but the expression on Maggie O’Shea’s face sent electric jolts through him.

Maggie shoes scuffed the ground as she shot across the yard. “Mr. Adam! Mr. Adam!”

“Maggie, what is it?”

“It’s Miss Angelica. She fell off that accursed ladder.”

Adam’s dark hazel eyes went onyx as they shot to the house. Angelica had been warned time after time to be careful around that ladder, especially since her current spate of dizzy spells, and now his worst nightmare had been realized. Without further questions, he dropped the reins and took off. Maggie again hitched her skirt and petticoats out of her way and rushed after him. A fast runner by nature and from being around children so much, she still had trouble keeping up with his long-legged stride, now driven by fear.

Adam had known fear in his life, even being who he was hadn’t made him immune to it. Panic, however, was a new creature altogether. It made the expansive parlor seem cavernous and it drove his heart like a steam hammer. It conjured up all kinds of dire images that he was powerless to stave off and only worsened matters.

The minute he saw her – lying there in the floor like a broken doll – he felt his body would explode as emotion ran wild. He dashed to her and her clammy cheek sent said panic right through the roof. Panic can kill just as surely as a bullet – he heard his father’s rich voice say in the back of his head. “Angelica. Please look at me, sweetheart.”

The deep violet eyes that opened to him were like windows to his soul. From the first time he had laid sight on them they had had the power to stir life and passion in him like nothing else. But now he saw fright overshadowed by pain in them, and it tore at him like menacing claws.

“Adam.” She raised a feeble hand, and he grasped her fingers in a grip of steel. “I’m sorry…. I should have listened…. But I thought…” Her chin began to quiver. “The baby.”

“Shhh, save your strength.”

Tears broke free of their confinement and ran down the sides of her face. “But the baby, Adam.”

“I’m sure you’re both gonna be just fine. Maggie, run outside and send one of the men into town for a doctor.”

“Yessir.” Then Maggie spun and was gone.

“Now let’s get you out of this hard floor and into some place more comfortable to wait for the doctor.”

As if she were a fine porcelain figurine that could smash at the merest touch, he gathered her into his arms. With a tiny moan, her head fell against his chest as he lifted her. He kissed her on the forehead and the sensation of her cool skin to his lips sent his fear into overdrive. He couldn’t lose his wife, not this way and not now.

Maggie rushed back inside just as Adam left the study. “Mr. Sweet had gone for the doctor, and he said he would ride like the wind.”

“Good. Now...”

Even before he could finish Maggie flew into immediate action and preceded him into their bedroom. She had the bedclothes turned down when he came in. As careful as he could, Adam placed Angelica on the bed, and she moaned. Then, once she had been assured that nothing further was needed of her, Maggie raced back out.

Adam sat on the edge of the mattress next to his wife and began to toy with the silken strands that had come loose from the chignon at the nape of her neck. “Angel hair. You have angel hair.” His hand began to shake. “You have my heart, and I can’t lose my heart.” He bent forward and placed a tender kiss between her closed eyes.

As he sat back, her lashes fluttered, and she looked at him. “Stay with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“The boys.”

“Maggie’s gone to see to them. But they’ve gotten to be just like their Uncle Hoss, and I think they could sleep through a twenty-one gun salute.”

“If they’re awake…,” A streak of pain striped across her face, and she clamped down on her lower lip until it passed. “If they’re awake I would like to have them with me.”

“We’ll see.” He continued to play with her hair. “Right now I just want you to be still and quiet.”

“Adam, if I am too badly hurt and the doctor can’t…”

“Hush, we won’t talk of such things. It was only a little fall.” His thumb began to trace over one of her fine eyebrows. “And when Graham or Elias gets here they’ll fix you up, and we’ll…”

She covered his lips with her fingers to stifle the words. “Promise that our sons won’t forget me.”

Adam’s insides were being shredded, and he thought he would bleed to death from the wounds. “Stop it, Angel. You are not going to die.” He made himself smile. “You won’t get away from me that easily. I have you, and I will not let go.”

“It isn’t always our choice.” She reached out to him with her other arm. “Hold me.”

Adam leaned down and rested his head against her breast, and he could here the rhythmic thump inside her. He enfolded her in his arms, careful not to move her any more than he already had. His soft weeping floated into the space around them as she stroked his heavy black hair, and neither noticed Maggie in the open doorway as her tears dripped to the floor.

TWO

The boys had lost interest in their blocks as their father stalked back-and-forth and didn’t know what to do with his hands. His fingers would run back through his hair or his fists would clench at his sides. Sometimes they would clasp behind his back, but they were never motionless for long.

“Dahdee.”

If he heard the small voice he showed no sign of it. His eyes – which more resembled those of a trapped wild animal – darted to the bedroom door as the pacing ceased for a second. He pushed away the horrid thought of losing his Angelica and tried to look into the future when she would be at his side. But his most valiant effort yielded nothing but failure. The pacing resumed.

A tiny hand touched his fist, and he looked down into small hazel eyes, not yet quite a dark as his. He got down to his knees and brought his youngest son into his arms. Not to be slighted, his brothers came for some of the same, and weren’t denied. My sons are my real riches in this life, he thought. He had he heard his father say that so many times His hold squeezed around his boys, and he wished his other family was there. If anyone could give him encouragement they could. Right now he sure could use some of Hoss’ homespun philosophy.

The report of a rifle could not have been any louder than the sound of the bedroom door as it opened. He released the children and stood, but he kept them close to his legs.

With each step that brought the doctor closer, Adam’s pulse throbbed. He wanted to hear what his friend had to tell him and at the same time didn’t.

“My wife, Graham.”

Graham Montgomery clamped a hand onto Adam’s shoulder. “Right now all I can tell you is that she’s sleeping.”

The man’s soft, southern accent worked as a tonic and some of the tension eased in Adam’s body. “Thank God.”

“I had to operate to stop the internal bleeding and repair the damage from the fall.”

“Was it rough on her?”

“I used chloroform, so she slept the whole time and didn’t feel a thing. You’re married to a fighter.” Graham reached down and patted a small, black-capped head. “But then she has a lot to fight for. It was a hard battle, and I have no way of knowing the outcome, so we’ll all wait together.”

Adam could see something else in Graham’s face, and his instinct told him that he hadn’t gotten it all. “What haven’t you told me?” His eyes went stark black. “The baby.”

“I’m sorry, Adam. To save Angelica I had to…” Graham’s acorn brown eyes momentarily dropped to the floor. “There was nothing else I could do. I always feel like I lose a piece of my soul whenever I have to do that. But if I hadn’t operated we would have lost both of them.”

“Was it a boy or a girl?”

“It was too early to tell, and it’s just as well that we never know.”

“I suppose you’re right. Does Angelica know any of this?”

“No, and I don’t think we should tell her until she’s stronger.”

Adam’s stern gaze took in every aspect of the man before him. “Graham, I’ve known you long enough to know that there is something you still aren’t telling me. Just get it out and be done with it.”

“Let’s sit down first.”

“I don’t want to sit down.” Adam jerked free of his grasp. “I want to know what’s wrong with my wife.”

The boys sidled closer to their father’s legs, and their eyes rose to his face.

“I would just as soon be horsewhipped as to tell you this.… Angelica can never have another baby.”

Adam’s dark coloring drained away, and he staggered a couple steps backward. The boys hung onto his britches and went with him.

“You can’t be sure of that. Please tell me that you aren’t sure.”

“I wish I could.” Graham’s eyes seemed to want to be anywhere except on his friend’s ashen face. “When the war ended I went back home or what was left of it. Most of my family was gone, the house hadn’t endured well, and I saw no use in staying in Charleston. I got in touch with an old friend of mine who lives in Baltimore, and he said I could stay with him for a while.”

“How could that have anything to do with…?”

“His name is Edgar Stanhope, and he is a doctor, too. He’s made women and their special needs his sole field. While I was there I helped him, and I learned a lot. That’s how I knew what to do for Angelica.” He took hold of Adam’s arm. “And that is how I know that she will never bear another child.”

Adam felt as if someone had come along and hollowed him out with a spade. The only thing that remained was his lungs, and they worked feverishly. His wife had been left barren by this, and he had no idea how he could ever tell her. What he did know with all certainty was that she wouldn’t take it well.

Adam’s arms fell and closed around his sons. “This is going to kill her. She wanted… She knows that I wanted a lot of children, and now that she can’t give them to me I’m afraid she...” His eyes closed for less than a second. “Can I see her now?”

“She won’t know you’re there.”

“I will.”

“All right. I’ll stay with the boys.”

Adam started to pry himself away from the frightened children, and they clung to him like ivy. As soon as he would move one away another would come back, and they had begun to cry, but he couldn’t be angry with them. He got down in the floor and gathered them into the shelter of his arms. Adam didn’t give in to his sons’ inclination to tears, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t want to.

“I’ll go get Maggie.”

It took a good five minutes to get the boys calmed down enough so their father felt he could leave them. He wasn’t the kind to just go off and desert them, no matter how much he wanted to get to Angelica.

As soon as the bedroom door closed behind him, Adam felt isolated and cut off from the rest of the world. A vacuum seemed to have taken him in, and the only other person to share it with him was his Angelica. He swallowed the knot in his throat and moved with mounting trepidation closer to the bed.

With unsteady hand, he touched the treasured cheek, and the coolness of her skin caused an involuntary shiver. She was just the color of alabaster and it made the darkness of her hair stand out more than usual. Her soft, bare shoulders showed above the bedspread, and they were like velvet to his fingertips. His desire to sit next to her was unbearable, but his fear of harming her further impeded it. He brought the wingchair over and sat down then reached under the covers and found one of her hands. His grasp closed on it, but she was oblivious to it or anything else, for that matter.

With his free hand he began to gently stroke her hair as he leaned closer to her. He kissed the side of her head, but still she didn’t wake. If someone had told him that his wife was dead – even though he knew it not to be true – he would have found it difficult not to believe.

“I’m here, Angelica.” His voice threatened to break into a million tiny shards. “I’m right here, my Angel, and a herd of wild mustangs couldn’t drag me from your side. They would havta kill me first.” He laid his head on the pillow so that his face was hidden in the loose, silken tresses.

Here there was no one save for the Good Lord to see the collapse of Adam Cartwright, and his resignation was complete. Here the frightened man gave vent to the turbulent emotions that raged inside him like a firestorm. And here the husband, helpmate and tender comrade that this woman loved beyond all measure became as helpless as his young sons. He surrendered and only the return of his beloved Angelica would restore him.

*******

It was well past eleven o’clock when Maggie finally went back into the main bedroom. Her hands had been full with three very distressed little boys, and she had only just gotten them to sleep. How children understood when something was wrong wasn’t a mystery to her. Through the years she had learned that little ones were very keen observers and they picked up on everything. It could be the inflection in or timbre of a voice, the subtlety of body language, or just when things were different. And these youngsters were as sharp and astute as any she had ever seen, and for this she cited their father.

She left the door ajar so she could hear any sound in the outer part of the house. Her shoes barely tapped the floor as she wafted over to the bed, and the hint of a smile adorned her mouth.

Mr. Adam had gone to sleep leaned forward against the side of the bed. One of his hands was beneath the covers while his other arm wrapped around the one he loved the most on this earth. A hand went to her throat and squeezed around the cameo brooch pinned there. For such a large, powerfully built man, Adam Cartwright looked more like a lost child at this moment in time, and it pained her something fierce.

Maggie made the sign of the cross and blinked to clear her eyes. She herself had never been blessed to find such a love as this, but her girl had and it warmed the cockles of her Irish heart.

She looked around at the sound of faint footfalls. Graham Montgomery came to stand beside her, and they both looked down on the couple. Far-and-wide people talked of the close bond that Adam and Angelica shared, and how only a complete fool would come between them. Now, though, something more than another person could come between them, something that maybe even the healing powers of time couldn’t mend.

THREE

Adam blustered out of the kitchen with a fully loaded breakfast tray and headed for the bedroom. It had been four days since the surgery and three since his Angelica had awakened, and he was walking on bubbles. He hadn’t broached the subject of the baby, and he was relieved, if somewhat perplexed, that she hadn’t either.

“I hope you’re hungry.”

With a slight wince, Angelica eased herself up in bed. Her eyes went to the contents of the tray he balanced in one hand while he closed the door with the other. “Adam Cartwright, in two months I will never be able to eat all that.”

“I brought enough for both of us.” He took on a child-like demeanor as he stopped at the foot of the bed. “Unless you don’t want my company. I can always eat in the kitchen with the boys if…”

“Don’t be silly.” She patted the mattress beside her. “You come over here and sit down with me.”

The spring in his step resumed as he clipped over to take his place beside her. He put the tray in his lap and began to butter a biscuit. “Maggie sent milk instead of coffee. She thought it would be better for your sick stomach.”

She rubbed over her tummy, careful of the incision. “Dr. Montgomery told me that chloroform has that effect on some people, and it’s just my luck to be one of them.”

Adam could tell that her enthusiasm was every bit put on for his benefit, for it had a strained quality to it. He knew her almost as well as she knew him, and he had no doubt he knew where the problem lay. But that was no mean feat; after all, what woman wouldn’t blame herself for the loss of her baby.

“Do you prefer jam or honey? Maggie sent plenty of both.”

“Neither. I’m just not very hungry for anything really.” A smile crept upward and only just tipped her poignant eyes. “But I know that you won’t let me get away with not eating something, so only butter will be just fine.” She collected her hands in her lap, and her gaze lowered to them.

He watched her for a few seconds then reached out and took her hands into his. “We’ll get through this just like we have everything else that’s been thrown at us.”

“I know, but I can’t help but think of our baby. I can’t help wondering if it would have been a son or a daughter.” She frowned. “It’s a terrible thing to lose one before it even gets a chance at life, but I guess this one was just not meant to be.” She looked at him, and a lone tear had run down her cheek. “But there is the consolation that there will be others. We can try again.”

Adam squeezed Angelica’s hands until she thought they would break, and his eyes darted from her to the tray. She watched him as he started to fiddle with their breakfast again. “I said something. Please tell me what I said. Please tell me…” Then an overwhelming chill ran through her and attacked every fiber of her being. The horror that she knew what had provoked this reaction from him grew more and more tangible with every passing second. She didn’t want to believe what lurked at the back of her mind, but his behavior more-or-less confirmed what she dreaded. Now she only had to make one of them say it. “Adam, look at me.” Still he didn’t. “Look at me!”

When he did she saw that what the men called his poker face had been put into place. He looked as if she had said nothing disturbing at all, and that convinced her more than ever that she had. After what had happened, he looked way too composed.

“Which would you rather have, the fried eggs or the scrambled ones?”

“I don’t want anything until you tell me what is wrong.”

He took her chin in his fingers. “My wife got hurt, and I guess I’m just not over it yet.”

Her gaze explored his eyes and his mouth and every feature of that perfect visage, as well as his posture. Nothing appeared to be out of sorts, but she knew better. He was trying to hide something from her, and she determined herself that she would find out what. “I think it’s more than that. I want to know what you haven’t told me. Dr. Montgomery assured me that everything was going to be all right, and that I am getting better.”

“You are, and before long you’ll be right as rain again.”

All of the sudden she went just the color of ivory. “It’s something about the baby. It’s what I said about having another one.” She thought she caught a trace of sadness, or maybe anger, flick through his eyes to vanish as if it had never come. “Adam, I can have another one.” This came more as a statement than a question. Then she thought she saw the answer in him. Her voice raised an octave. “I can have another one.”

Adam could see her begin to crumble before him. In all his dealings with women, this was the one thing he had never had to say to any of them, and he wasn’t sure just how to handle it. He took a deep breath and regained her hands. The best way to do this would be all at once without any hemming and hawing and get it over with. The quicker they could move on with their lives, the better. “No.”

Angelica began to shake all over. Then the ghastly cold that filled her turned hot, and she flushed. Her vision blurred and everything danced before her, and she became lightheaded. She couldn’t believe what he had just said. He had never lied to her about anything before, and she couldn’t understand why he would now. But he wasn’t, and she knew it even though she didn’t want to. Her hands pulled away from him. For the only time ever for as long as she had known him, she didn’t want him to touch her. She didn’t want anyone to touch her. She had become one of the worst things that anyone could imagine, half a woman.

“It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. If I had stayed off of that ladder this wouldn’t have happened. We would still have our baby, and others to come.” A tiny whimper escaped her, and her hands bunched around wads of bedspread. “I murdered our children.”

Adam set the tray aside with a clatter and moved closer to her. He tried to take her into his arms, but she pushed them away.

“No, don’t touch me! Don’t’ touch what I’ve become!”

“Angelica, stop this before you hurt yourself.”

“I’ve already hurt myself, but I’ve hurt you worse!”

“What hurt me was to see you lying in the floor, and to watch your pain. But you haven’t hurt me.” He continued to struggle with her in an effort to calm her down. “Now I want you to settle. This isn’t going to help a thing. Angelica let me hold you against this.”

“No! I don’t deserve it! I don’t deserve you!”

Adam had never seen Angelica so hysterical before, and it frightened him beyond all rhyme or reason. Graham had warned him that something like this might be the case when she found out. “Angelica!” He swung his arms around her and forced her to him. She continued to fight him, but, even with her frenzied strength, she was no match for him. “Angelica, this doesn’t change or end the love I have for the best part of my life. I need you. Please, Angel, don’t push me away.”

With those words, he felt her go limp against him. She dissolved into sobs that flailed at him with merciless lashes. If someone had used a bullwhip on him it couldn’t have done any more damage.

“It’s all right, sweetheart.” He rested the side of his face against her head. “Maybe it can never be like it was, but it can be good again. And as long as we’re together and have our sons, we can make it. Please, Angelica, please don’t cry. It tears me to pieces when you cry.”

She clawed at his shirt, and her tears saturated the black cloth of it. Her breath came in ragged jerks, and it terrified him that she would suffocate. He began to rock with her while he shushed and soothed with that rich baritone, but nothing seemed to be able to pacify the grief that didn’t want to release its hold on her.

While she herself lost to the oblivion of her anguish, he eased the covers away. The sight that met him – though it came as no real surprise – drove his heart even harder. A growing red splotch stained the front of her white gown, and he knew that she had pulled the incision loose. He gathered her against his chest and went to the door and managed to get it open.

“Maggie! Maggie!”

Maggie appeared as a genie would from a bottle. She gasped, and her hands flew to her mouth as she saw her girl. “Mr. Adam, what…?” But she didn’t finish as she caught sight of the good-sized crimson spot on the gown. “Saint’s preserve us, that’s blood.”

“She pulled her stitches loose.” He shifted Angelica in his arms, and she continued to sob with hysterics. “Where are...?” He didn’t finish, though, as three small faces peered up at him from around Maggie’s skirt. “Bring the boys in here then go send somebody for Dr. Montgomery.”

“Yessir and I’ll bring some water and towels from the kitchen.”

Maggie got the children into the big wingchair while Adam put his distraught wife on the bed, then she ran back out. By the time she returned with the pan of water and towels, the boys were crying, and Angelica hadn’t quieted at all. Bedlam ruled.

Maggie put the things on the bed table then went to the boys while Adam attended to Angelica. She got down onto her knees before the chair and pulled the children to her. They sniveled and their small bodies shuddered with jerky breaths and petite fists rubbed at wet eyes. She patted and smoothed ruffled black hair and kissed damp cheeks. “It’s all right, me little lambs. Da’s takin’ care o’ your mummy and everything is goin’ ta be just fine.”

Maggie glanced back toward the bed and fought against the doubt that nibbled at her. She had never seen her girl in such a state before, and she hoped that she hadn’t just lied to these little boys.

*******

Ben Cartwright came down the stairs, but stopped on the landing. His wife stood near the bureau by the front door with her back to him. At first nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and he gave it small thought, but as he left the last step it appeared to him that her shoulders shook. He said her name, but she didn’t seem to hear him.

Verina Cartwright held a piece of paper in a death-like grip, and an envelope lay against the hem of her dress. Her dark, silver-streaked head bowed and tears escaped from her clamped eyelids.

“Verina.” He reached out and took her arm. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

As she looked at him he saw more sorrow in her pale gray eyes than he had ever seen or hoped to see there again.

“What on earth.”

When she couldn’t say anything she handed him the crumpled sheet of paper. As his coffee eyes took in each handwritten line, he went pallid as a ghost.

“Oh, Ben, our poor children.” She sniffled into a lace-edged handkerchief. “What they must be going through.”

Now Ben found that he couldn’t talk. So many thoughts crowded into his skull that he found it impossible to put any of them into words. He felt a light caress on his wrist, and he had to fight to tear his gaze from the paper, but he at last looked up.

“We have to go to them, Ben. They need us. If I know my Angelica, she isn’t taking this well at all.”

“I doubt Adam is either. He has wanted his own children for so long and now to have this happen. Thank goodness that they have the boys.” His hand knotted into a fist around the letter. “Yes, we’ll go to them, and we’ll leave right tomorrow.”

FOUR

Angelica sat on the wine colored settee, her hands clasped in her lap, and her gaze set on the flames in the large stone hearth. Her face had set into a lifeless mask as the firelight glittered in the wells of her empty eyes. A ragged breath gave her a shudder, but then she settled back into inertia.

Adam stood just inside the dining room while Maggie set the table for supper. He watched his wife for the slightest hint of movement or sensation but caught neither.

“It’s been five days, Maggie, five days since this stranger came into my life. I don’t know the person that shares my house, and it scares me to death.” He came to the table. “She just sits around. She won’t look at me, she hardly talks, she picks like a bird, she totally ignores the boys, and I would give money to hear her sing just two notes. Most times she’s worlds away, and I can only hope that it’s to a place where there’s no pain.” He ran his hand back over his hair, and his eyes flicked to the ceiling. “I’m at my wit’s end, Maggie. I’ve tried everything I can think of to pull her out of this shell she’s built around herself, and nothing has worked.” He shook his head. “I just don’t know what to do any more.” His chin began to tremble and his voice quavered in an unprecedented show of emotion. “What we need is a miracle. What we need is a lot of miracles.”

Maggie came to stand before him with a plate in her arms, and a warm smile. “They happen all the time. The Good Lord won’t abandon us, and it wouldn’t be right to just give up.”

He turned back toward the parlor. “I’ll never give up on my Angel.”

She knew in her heart that they wouldn’t be abandoned, and she did believe in miracles. Then she looked from him to her girl. Please let it come soon, she thought then she focused her attention back on the table.

Adam had started toward the settee when a commotion out in the front yard pulled his attention away. “That sounds like a buckboard and right at suppertime.” His brow creased. “I’m not in the mood for company.” He blew out a breath. “Well I might as well see who it is. Maybe they won’t stay long.”

His boots clomped across the floor as he went to learn the identity of his not especially desired guests. From the moment he opened the door, his whole attitude changed. Some of the defeat and sense of hopelessness from the past few days left him. “As always, you seem to know where and when you’re needed. And I can’t say that you aren’t all the most welcome sight in the world.” Adam gave his step mother a bearish hug and shook his father’s hand then ushered them into his house.

Ben grinned, and his eyes twinkled. “I usually pretty much know when my sons need me, but I’m afraid I can’t lay claim to intuition this time. We got Maggie’s letter.”

“Maggie’s letter.” Adam looked around just as the housekeeper dipped her head and ducked back into the kitchen.

“Yes,” Ben’s expression darkened, “and she didn’t paint a pretty picture, so we knew at once that we had to come.”

“Well it doesn’t matter how you found out, I’m just glad you’re here.” Then Adam’s eyes ran past his father. “Hoss. Just put those down anywhere. We can get you all settled in a few minutes. I suppose Joe is right behind you.”

“Joe didn’t come.”

Some of Adam’s alarm returned. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, but we have a deal pending for some lumber, and Joe said he would stay home and see it through. He insisted that we come to you and Angelica.” Ben shook his head, and a light of pride entered his eyes. “It’s amazing what men tragedy can forge.”

“I was gonna stay an’ help him,” Hoss sniggered, “but he said he thought you could use a good dose o’ me.”

“I sure can. Will he be coming later?”

“He said he would if he could.”

Verina took hold of Adam’s arm. “How’s our Angelica?”

Adam’s defeat came rushing back. “Take a look for yourself.”

All eyes went to the settee where Angelica still faced the fire. Her shoulders were drooped, and she hadn’t even noticed that someone had entered the house.

As Adam had guessed, Angelica had locked herself in a world of her own making, though not necessarily of her own choosing. But it wasn’t a place without pain as he had hoped. Here, in her seclusion of loss and grief and guilt, pain reigned over all. She had, in her mind, brought about the unconscionable. Plus, she had doomed him to live with a murderess, and she couldn’t forgive herself. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to.

Then, as gradual as the advent of dawn, she became aware of soft words followed by a warm sensation against the side of her face. She closed her eyes in the desire of quelling what she knew to only be in her head, but it persisted. Her eyelids raised as the voice became more tangible, and she recognized it. She looked around and blinked to make sure she really saw what she wanted to. “Mother?”

“Yes, sweetheart, Mother is here.”

Angelica looked at the faces gathered behind the well loved figure. If this were all a figment of her imagination she didn’t want it to end. With an unsteady hand, she touched what she feared would only turn out to be her mind’s creation. “You’re real…. You’re all real.”

“Yes, dear, we are quite real. And we have come to stay with you and Adam and the boys for as long as you will have us.”

With the suddenness of a cloudburst, Angelica dissolved into tears and fell forward against her mother. Her arms wrapped around the plump body, and she held tight to this lifeline of sanity. If it were left up to her, she would never leave the sanctity of her mother’s embrace, for she knew that when she did she must go back to Adam, and the reproach she saw every time she looked at him. She knew that he blamed her for his baby’s death. How could he not? She certainly did.

*******

After supper – which again Angelica had barely picked at – the family had retreated to the parlor to gather before the fire. The boys had been doled out to their uncle and grandparents who got to see them so seldom. The children had become the center of everyone’s attention – except for their mother’s – and they loved every second of it.

“I can’t git over how much they’ve grown in just four months,” Hoss said, as he bounced Addy on his knee, to the boy’s gleeful delight.

“I can,” Ben said, and tousled Benjy’s hair. “After having raised three sons myself, I’m well aware of how quickly they can sprout up like weeds in deep soil.”

Verina cuddled Hiram, the quietest of the three, and he snuggled his small head against her ample bosom. “Boys grow in spurts while girls do it with a more settled pace.”

Angelica couldn’t endure all this endless prattle any longer. With stiffened movements, like those of a woman thrice her age, she started to raise herself up from the settee. When Adam tried to help her, she pulled loose from him without a word or looking at him then left them and disappeared into the bedroom. No one spoke until the door had closed.

“Adam, why didn’t you go with her?”

“Believe me, Pa, she didn’t want me to.” Adam sighed and turned back to his family. “Since she found out that she can no longer bear children she has become a stranger to me. She talks only when she absolutely can’t escape it, she keeps her distance from the boys, and I, for some reason that I can’t figure out, seem to be repugnant to look at and just be around. And tonight you saw how she eats, or maybe I should say doesn’t.”

Ben pressed Benjy back against his broad chest. “Have you tried to talk to her about it?”

Adam sat down in his favorite tall-backed blue chair. “Tried and failed. She refuses to tell me anything.”

Verina’s hold tightened around her grandson. “What I can’t understand is a mother not wanting anything to do with her own children, especially one that is so crazy about hers as Angelica is.”

“Maybe she’s afraid o’ hurtin’ them too.”

Now Hoss found himself the object of intense scrutiny.

Adam sprang out of his chair like a jack-in-the-box. “Hoss, you’re brilliant, simply brilliant. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

“Maybe you’ve been too close to it, son.”

“But could it be as simple as that?”

“Nothing is ever simple where a mother and her children are concerned.” Verina got up from the settee and handed Hiram over to his father. “I think I need to go talk to her.”

Adam nestled his son into the crook of his arm. “Shouldn’t I be the one to?”

“There are times when a girl just needs to talk to her mother, and I think this is one of those times for Angelica.”

Angelica heard the knock at the door, but she chose not to acknowledge it. She wanted to be alone, and she wasn’t in the mood to answer a lot of pointless questions. Maybe if she just sat there in silence they would get the message and go away. The knock came again, and she knew that wasn’t going to be the case, yet she still didn’t answer.

“Angelica, it’s Mother. Let me come in.”

Angelica sat there for a few seconds longer, then drug herself over to the door.

Verina had never seen her daughter look so haggard and defeat etched itself in every new line in her young face. “Angelica.” She pushed the long, dark brown locks back over her girl’s shoulders. “I think we should talk.”

“Mother, I…”

“Let me reword that. We need to talk, and I will not take no as an answer.”

Angelica only nodded.

Verina steered her to the bed and they sat down. “Angelica, I know that this is hard on you, but you aren’t the only one. Adam lost a child, too, but now you have taken his wife away from him, and I know the boys miss their mother. I know it hurts like nothing else, but this isn’t the answer.”

“But it’s my fault, and… Adam hates me for it.”

“Oh, no, sweetheart, you’re wrong. Adam loves you so much.”

“He did once, but now he hates me.” Angelica looked around at her mother and tears floated over the surface of her eyes. “I can see it every time I look at him.”

“You only see what your mind thinks you should, and it is so very wrong. Adam loves you even more now than he did when you were married. Why I think that man would die without you. You and the boys are the largest part of his life, and he has told me as much.” Verina took her daughter’s hand and squeezed it. “You are loved beyond words. That’s what I see when I look at Adam. And it’s not Adam that blames you for what happened… it’s you.”

That destroyed Angelica’s thin facade of composure, and she broke down. “But it is my fault. I was warned time and again about that ladder, but I didn’t listen, and our baby died because of it.”

“Adam told us that you hadn’t had one of your dizzy spells in a while. You thought you could safely…”

“You still don’t understand. I was careless, and our baby and all our future babies paid for that carelessness.”

“Oh, my dear, don’t think that you are the only woman ever to do that.” Verina just grunted. “Why when I was carrying you and your brothers and sisters I did things that sacred your father to death. When you are young you tend not to be aware of your own mortality. I remember once – I was with Lucinda – standing on a wobbly chair to hang some curtains.” She snickered. “Your father went white as milk when he found me. He made me get down and finished the job for me. Then came the scolding. It didn’t change a thing, though I think it did make him feel better. And now that I look back on it I can see that it was a miracle that I didn’t get hurt.”

“Where was my miracle? Why did…?” Angelica fell weeping into her mother’s lap.

Verina began to play in her daughter’s hair. “There was a reason that this happened. Maybe you will never figure it out, but there is a reason. God doesn’t make mistakes. I remember what my grandmother Dale always told me when something went wrong. When God closes one door, He opens another. And when that door opens you and Adam will walk through it together.”

*******

Adam stood in the glow of the big porch lamps and watched as the moon and stars skittered through ragged holes in the dense clouds. He rubbed his arms against the cold and inhaled of the crisp winter-laced air. As he stood there, his mind miles off, a hand rested on his back, and he looked over at his father. “I didn’t hear you come out.”

Ben gave a nod toward the sky. “Were you up there somewhere?”

“Sometimes I wish I could be, but then I come to my senses, and I’m glad I’m right where I am. Even with the hard times, I wouldn’t trade my life here with my Angel and my sons for anything else.”

“I know what you mean. I’ve always felt the same way about the Ponderosa. When I thought I couldn’t bear any more I’d do exactly what you are right now and just think. Sometimes it was silly thoughts like what it would be like to walk on the moon or ride my horse among the stars, and others it was remembering people and places and times. But whatever it was, it always helped me to put things into their proper perspective.” He gave his son a smack between his shoulder blades. “She’ll be all right. Angelica is a strong girl, and with Verina here to help her over the rough spots, I’m sure it will all work itself out.”

Adam shook his head and turned his face back to the sky. “I’ve tried to help her, but I just never said or did the right thing. It was like everything I tried only worked to push her further away from me. A few times I’ve even felt as if she would be better off if I simply left.”

“Now that’s complete nonsense, and you know it, or at least you should. Back in May, when we thought we might lose you, I was as worried about her as I was you. I know what it’s like to love and be loved by a good woman, but sometimes I almost envy what you and Angelica have for each other. I can’t see one of you without the other, and I really don’t like to think about it.”

“Neither do I, and that’s only one of the reasons I’ve been so concerned about her.” He heaved an onerous sigh and the escape of his breath formed a vaporous plume. “If it were a wound or an illness, that I could fight, but this I feel so utterly helpless against.”

“She’s not Ross, son. She lost a baby, and I don’t know of any woman that ever lived that wouldn’t be struck in a hard way by it. I don’t think men can really know what it’s like for them to live through something like that.”

“No, I guess not.”

Ben grinned and gave him another slap. “I don’t know about you, but I’m about to freeze to death. If I didn’t know better I’d think this was December and not September. Why don’t we finish this conversation inside and get some of Maggie’s good coffee?”

“You go on I’ll be in in a little bit, but go ahead and pour two cups.”

“All right.” Ben gave him a nudge in the ribs. “And I might even find some brandy to slip into it.”

“Sounds good, Pa.”

Not until the door had closed behind his father, did the dark hazel eyes return to the sky. “If Maggie’s miracle is coming, I hope it gets here soon.”

FIVE

Adam sat at the big mahogany desk in his study. Since Angelica’s accident his mind had been mainly on her with little to no time for other pursuits. But after the arrival of their parents and Hoss three days earlier, he felt he could leave her in their care, but he still never strayed very far.

He cursed and grabbed the eraser from the corner of the blotter. The books had lain untouched far too long, and he had decided that he needed to get at them. His mind wasn’t truly on it, and he made more mistakes than usual. A grin turned his finely sculpted mouth as the minute piece of rubber obliterated his gaff. He had heard tales of his father doing the same thing from his brothers and Hop Sing. A few times he had even witnessed it for himself.

He put the eraser aside and once more took up the pencil. “Now let’s try this again.” Lead had just touched paper when someone knocked, and his head dropped with a groan. “Yes.”

The door opened, and Ben stepped inside. “I hope I am not interrupting something.”

“You are, but it has waited this long so I think it can wait a while longer, and I can’t honestly say that I don’t welcome the interruption.” His pupils encroached on the hazel. “Angelica.”

“Angelica’s fine. She’s in the kitchen with Verina, Maggie and the boys. They’re baking pies.” Ben chortled. “You haven’t lived until you’ve seen flour covered boys. They even have it in their hair. A few times I thought Angelica might even laugh.” He went more serious as he closed the door. “My reason for coming in here is to talk to you about you.”

“That isn’t necessary. I’m okay. And since you all came I have seen a change in Angelica. She’s still not the same bright, exuberant girl I married, but she isn’t as sullen. I know being with her mother has helped.”

Ben sat down in the burgundy leather chair at the corner of his son’s desk. “We came not only for Angelica. According to Maggie you haven’t been away from this house in nearly two weeks.”

Adam leaned forward on his elbows and tented his hands in front of him. “I haven’t wanted to leave Angelica. It’s not that I don’t trust Maggie, but Angel has needed both of us. And don’t tell me that you wouldn’t have done the same. I am, after all, my father’s son, and the one that is the most like him, so I have been told.”

Ben laughed. “A fact of which I am constantly reminded, but don’t change the subject. I think you should get out in the open air for a while.”

“And just where do you suggest I go?”

“I’m sure there is plenty of ranch work you have neglected that you could get into, or maybe you could go into town. But whatever you put yourself to; I think you just need to get away from here for a bit. And you could take Hoss with you. You don’t get to see each other as much as I know you both would like, and this will be a good way to catch up.”

Adam rested his chin in his right hand, and one could almost see his father’s suggestion track through his mind. “I must admit that I have let things go, but I couldn’t be helped.” He paused for a second, and maybe he smiled a wee bit. “I’ll do it, but only if you’re sure that you don’t need me here, and only if Angelica is all right with it.”

“Then you had better go saddle up Dusty, because she thinks it is a wonderful idea.”

*******

Hoss hated to dig postholes. In fact, if the truth be told, he would rather be slapped about the head with a live rattlesnake, biting end first. You would’ve thought that leaving the Ponderosa would’ve gotten him out of the drudgery of ranch work, and if you had you would’ve been wrong.

“You’re coming right along.”

The shovel bit into the dirt again, and Hoss drove it deeper with his foot as he glanced around at his brother. “You wouldn’t care to take over, would you?”

“Nahh, you’re doing just fine. And besides, these posts are heavy. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt on my account.”

Hoss’ nose wrinkled, and the pale sunlight caught in his clear blue eyes. “That’s very thoughty of you, brother. But they really ain’t so heavy, I mean, I have hoisted a few in my day.”

“I wouldn’t hear of it.” Adam dropped the post to the snow dusted ground with a thump and slapped his hands together. “You’re a guest, remember.”

Hoss lowered his gaze to his work and grumbled. “I’m tryin’ to.”

“Well, I took care of the two on the other end,” Alphonse Sweet said, as he sauntered over to stand next to Adam. “At this rate we should be done before too awful much longer.”

“You’d think,” Hoss griped, as he continued to work.

“So where do we go from here, Boss?”

“Back to the house. It’ll soon be time for dinner, and if I know my brother here, he could eat an elephant.”

“Make that two elephants. I’m so danged hungry I feel like my backbone’s rubbin’ blisters on my belly.”

The suddenness of the crash, and the pierce of the woman’s scream cut off any talk, and the men’s eyes ran in the direction from which it had come. They stood transfixed until the sounds had died away.

“It sounded like it come from Blue Cut,” Fonse said, and his focus remained fixed on the distance.

Hoss let the shovel drop. “Well, let’s break outta here an’ go find out.”

“Hoss and I’ll go in on horseback while you bring up the wagon. If somebody’s hurt we’re gonna need it.”

“That’s wishful thinking, Boss. If somebody come down the cut too fast, most likely a doctor won’t do no good.”

Adam’s eyes grew keen. “Just bring up the wagon.”

“Right, Boss.”

Adam and Hoss ran to their horses and were mounted in a blink. A thunder of hooves signaled their departure while Fonse climbed onto the wagon seat and whipped the team into a run.

By the time Adam and Hoss rode a small clearing, the dust had pretty much settled. A wagon, or what remained of it, lay broken in the rocks near a clump of poplars – the top of one which had been freshly torn out. Trunks and crates – some open and their contents strewn – littered the ground. There wasn’t a sign of the horses.

“Adam.”

Adam followed his brother’s pointing finger, and he went cold as death inside. A girl, who looked to be around five, lay on her stomach near a splintered wheel, her arms and legs all akimbo. He bounded from the saddle and ran to the child. With tender hands, he turned her over, but he didn’t need his education to tell that she was beyond any help he could render.

“There’s two more over here, a woman an’ a boy. He don’t look to be any older ‘n the girl.”

“Dead?”

“Yeah.”

As Adam stood, his sight caught a pair of boots at the back of the wreckage. With dulled steps, he crossed to check it out. He looked down on another dust-covered body, and it forced a rush of breath into him. “Here’s a man…, probably the father …. He’s dead, too.” His eyes rose to the sky as if to cleanse them of the death they had come upon. “Keep looking, maybe somebody managed to survive.”

“I doubt it.” Hoss’ gaze rose to where the wagon had careened off the steep road above. “The way it musta come down off there, I’d say a gnat couldn’t o’ lived when the thing hit.”

“Well we can still look.”

They must have been there six or so minutes when Fonse rumbled in and pulled the team to a halt. He whistled through his teeth and climbed down. Then he saw the girl, and some of the tan faded from his weathered cheeks. “They musta been movin’ pretty fast on that snow slicked road.”

“Fonse, I want you to…” Adam’s voice died off, and he cocked his head to one side. “I heard something.”

“I didn’t hear…”

Adam’s hand went up. “Shhh.”

Motionless they listened, and this time they all heard something. It started out low-pitched but quickly grew into a shrill wail that carried and bounced off the steep wall which made it impossible to tell just where it came from.

“I’ll be durn, Adam, that sounds like a baby.”

“Spread out!”

As they put distance between them, they poked under and around brush, through the wreckage and anywhere else a baby could be.

“Over here!”

Adam and Hoss took off. When they tore through a cluster of brush they came upon Fonse. He stood as if chiseled from stone, and his attention was set at an angel down. As they came around him they saw what he stared at. Before him a baby lay in the top of a bush. It kicked and flailed its tiny arms in intense fury and screamed until Adam thought its lungs would burst.

“It don’t look to be hurt,” Hoss said, as he came closer.

“It’s what you can’t see that you really need to worry about.”

“How old would you say it is?”

Fonse shot Hoss a dirty look. “I don’t know. I ain’t no expert on those things.”

Adam gave him a quick, cutting glare. “It’s a baby, Fonse, and I’d guess that he or she is about three months old.”

Fonse’s brow wrinkled. “Well, he or she sure can bawl.” He glanced up to the road. “She just come sailin’ right down.” He clicked his teeth. “It looks like the Lord’s hands placed her right there for us to find.”

Hoss nodded. “So whadda we do now, Adam? We sure can’t leave the little thing here.”

Adam scooped the baby into his arms and held it close for warmth. “I’ll take it home since we’re closer to the house than we are to town.” He began to jostle, but the infant was not about to be placated. “You two load the bodies into the wagon then take them into Bantree and send a doctor out.” A sick look cast over his face, and he pulled one hand away and shook it to the air.

“What is it, brother?”

“I’m gonna need your bandanas.”

SIX

The fire snapped and crackled to make the only sound in the parlor. Verina sat in the tall-backed blue chair with a book open in her lap, though her full concentration wasn’t devoted to it. She would read a paragraph or two then her eyes would go to where her daughter sat on the settee. Angelica appeared to be asleep, but a slight movement now and then let her mother know that she wasn’t. The big wire-haired dog had curled himself up before the hearth with his back to the heat. On occasion he would interrupt his dozing to turn his chocolate brown eyes on his mistress, but he never moved.

Verina had just completed another paragraph when a rush of cool air made her look up. The dog now sat up and looked past Angelica. She followed his line of sight, and a quizzical expression took shape. She laid the book on the small table beside the chair and rose.

“Adam, what have you got there?”

Adam said nothing as he pushed the door together.

Gingerly, Verina pulled the dusty blanket away, and her puzzlement turned to shock and then the mother in her came forth. “Ooh, a baby. Where on earth did you find a baby?”

“A wagon went off the steep road not far from where we were working…. Her family was killed, and we found her lying in the top of a bush, mad as a wet cat.”

“She’s quiet enough now.”

“She cried herself out about halfway here and fell asleep, for which I was grateful. I hate it when they get so upset and there’s nothing I can do for them.”

“Bless her tender heart.” Then a hint of orneriness touched Verina’s face. “How are you so certain it is a girl?”

One corner of Adam’s mouth quirked, and his eyes flicked away. “I had to change her before I started out. She’s wearing Hoss and Fonse’s bandanas.” Then his gaze went sideways.

Verina looked over as her daughter came to stand beside her, the dog close to her legs.

With nary a word, Angelica reached out, and Adam let her take the baby. She cuddled the blanket swaddled bundle close and placed an angel’s kiss on the petite forehead. Then she pushed the blanket from the small head, and awe sparkled in her deep violet eyes. “She has red hair.”

“Her mother has red hair, and so do her brother and sister.”

“And now they’re dead, and she is all alone, poor little one.” Angelica’s eyes rose to her husband. “What are you going to do with her?”

Adam glanced at his mother-in-law. “For now she’ll stay here. I told Hoss and Fonse to send one of the doctor’s out just to make sure she’s all right. We can decide what to do later.”

Angelica ran a finger over a soft pink cheek. “She could sleep in the boy’s first cradle. It would be plenty big enough for such a tiny girl. It would be so much trouble to take her all the way into town when she is already at a perfectly good place. And it has turned so chilly she could take sick from being exposed to it again.”

Adam moved closer to her. “I think that is a splendid idea. She needs lots of love and attention right now, and I think you’re just the one to give it to her.”

Angelica smiled and looked down at the baby asleep so peacefully in her arms. “Such a sweet little angel.” She kissed the baby again then started for the fireplace, Buddy right behind her.

Verina began to tear. “It’s a miracle.”

“Yes, it is.” He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer.

They watched Angelica as she sat in the blue chair and started to rock. Buddy lay down by her feet and rested his head on his huge front paws.

*******

Ben had decided that while there, he would help his son as much as he could. He had gone out with some of the men to see to the herd of cattle in the east pasture, and from there they had restocked the line shacks. It felt good to be able to give back some of what Adam had done for him on the Ponderosa for all those years.

He stepped down from the fine strawberry roan he had ridden that day and looped a rein around the hitch rail in front of the barn. His brisk stride across the yard lurched, however, when Graham Montgomery came out of the house with his medical bag. With a quick breath, Ben’s legs churned him forward, and he met the doctor just as the man left the porch. “Graham, what’s wrong?”

“Take it easy, Ben, everything’s all right. I just needed to pay a call on a little patient.”

Ben’s eyes went pure black. “One of the boys. Graham, what…?”

“Take it easy, the boys are just fine and just as rambunctious as always, though they were rather subdued when I came out. Now you go on in, and see for yourself. Adam can explain.” He patted Ben on the arm then went to get his horse.

As Ben burst into the house the sight that met him was calmer than he had expected. Angelica sat in the blue chair and Adam, Verina, Hoss, Maggie and the boys were gathered around her. Buddy had positioned himself close to the Angelica’s feet and was the only one to notice his entrance.

“What’s going on here?” Ben boomed.

Adam looked around and held a finger to his pursed lips then motioned his father over.

Ben hung his hat on one of the pegs by the door then acknowledged his son’s invitation. As he drew closer he saw that everyone’s attention was set not on Angelica but more downward. Then he noticed Hoss’ face. His middle child had a certain look he wore when around baby things. Then Ben saw what slept in his daughter-in-law’s lap, and he hadn’t been that startled in a long time. “A baby.” Loving violet eyes rose to greet him.

“Isn’t she beautiful, Father?” Angelica rubbed her hand over the feathery red curls.

“Yes, daughter, very beautiful, but where on earth did she come from?”

“Hoss, Fonse and me found her out by Blue Cut.”

Ben knew the infamous reputation of that hazardous stretch of road, and no one really had to tell him what had happened. “Her parents?”

Some of Adam’s lightness died. “Killed, along with an older brother and sister. But I’ll fill you in on the rest later. Right now let’s just enjoy our little miracle.”

As everyone watched the diminutive visitor in rapt silence, she started to stir. She stretched her arms and kicked her legs straight out beneath the folds of the clean blanket. With a teeny grunt, her eyes came open, and she set them on the face of the one who held her. Her petite mouth puckered and it looked as if she would start to cry again, but Angelica’s quiet voice brushed away any evidence of upset. Then Angelica held up the small, delicate hands and kissed the tiny fingers, and the baby’s gaze never left her.

“What are you going to do with her?” Ben asked, as he began to shuck out of his coat.

Adam’s arms closed around the boys. “She’s going to stay with us for a while, or at least until I find out if she has any family left.”

Angelica looked to her husband, and Ben knew what he saw in those beseeching eyes. “You don’t have to do that right away.”

Adam stooped beside the chair where his wife sat and began to rub the top of the baby’s head, and the alert blue eyes turned in his direction. “It’s getting late so I won’t do anything about it today, but tomorrow I’ll go out to the wreck and see if I can find something to tell us who she is and where she comes from.”

Angelica bit down on her lower lip. “And if you can’t?”

One of Adam’s large hands closed over Angelica’s and the baby’s. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. But for now she has a place to stay and people to look after her, and I see no reason to change that. For now we’ll be her family.”

*********

Everyone had turned in for the night or was in the process of it, but Adam decided that he just had to have one more cup of coffee. Maggie always left the pot on the back of the stove for just that reason, and Adam almost always availed himself of it. He had just filled his cup when he realized he wasn’t alone.

“I see you’re all ready for bed.” He held the pot up. “Coffee?”

“No thank you. I never drink it this late.” Verina stopped at the corner of the small table and gave her robe sash a tug. “But now that I finally have you alone I do want to talk to you.”

Adam sat the pot down on the stove harder than he meant to. “Let’s sit down first.”

He pulled out a chair at the table for his mother-in-law then took the one across from her.

“I’ll let you start.” He took a sip.

“Then I won’t waste any time.” She clasped her hands together and rested them on the tabletop. “We both know that Angelica is becoming attached to this baby.”

“I know.” He took a good swig. “I’d havta be blind to miss it.”

“And did you know that while the child is here she wants to call her Elizabeth?”

He paled.

“I see that you didn’t.”

“No, but it doesn’t really surprise me. We had decided that we would name our first girl that.”

“The longer this baby stays here the more she will love it, and it frightens me to think what will happen if someone comes and takes her away.”

“I’ve thought of that, too, but what else could I have done. It was closer to the house, and I wanted to keep the ride as short as I could in case she was hurt.”

“Of course, you did the right thing, and I’m still glad you brought her here. It has made such a wonderful difference in my daughter. All I am saying is that, with Angelica in such a fragile state right now, we are going to have to watch how we handle this. She has already lost one baby, and I don’t know if she can take losing another one, especially so soon.”

“I think you’re underestimating her.”

“Being a man, I can’t expect you to understand what losing a child is like for a woman.”

“Pa said pretty much the same thing to me the other night.”

“Now I am not saying that it doesn’t hurt the father, far from it. I remember what it did to Hiram when we lost our two. But for nine months mother and child are never parted, and it builds a bond that only death can sever, and even then the love remains. I’m simply saying that we have to be so very careful, and the best thing we can do is to use every bit of love and compassion we have within us to cushion Angelica from any further anguish.”

He sat his cup down and reached across to pat the backs of her hands. “We will. And we need to remind her of what she still has; three fine little boys.”

“Not to mention a husband that most women would kill to possess.”

Verina thought she caught a blush tint his cheeks as he dropped his gaze and returned to his coffee. Her lips curved. With this man, who loved her madly, and her sons, deep in a mother’s soul, she knew that Angelica would be fine. They would see to that. And this time she patted the back of his hand.

SEVEN

Snow sifted down like fine flour as Adam poked through the wreckage that had been the wagon that had brought Elizabeth to them. He couldn’t help the fact that – for Angelica’s sake – he hoped he didn’t find anything to identify the child or point to any family. For that he felt a certain tinge of guilt, but for his Angel, he would do what it required to make and keep her happy and right at the moment that was this baby girl. Unfortunately, however, he couldn’t let his devotion to his wife cloud what he knew to be right.

“I haven’t found nothin’.”

Adam glanced up at his brother as the big man tromped toward him.

“So far, I haven’t either.” Adam flung aside a quilt. “But we havta keep looking, though I can’t say that I hope we find anything.”

Hoss shivered and pulled his collar up around his neck. “This feels kinda like disturbin’ a grave.”

“I know.” Adam crouched and began to dig under a pile of debris. “But if she has family left somewhere, it wouldn’t be right not to let them know what’s happened. For Angelica it’s tempting to be selfish, but my conscience won’t let me not at least try.” He stood up and tried to massage some of the kinks from his back. “I keep thinking about Pa, you and Joe when you thought I was dead. Somebody knew that man wasn’t me, but he didn’t tell anybody and you just went right on believing it. I can’t – even with as much as I love my Angelica – do that to somebody else.”

“We do what we gotta do, brother. I’m gonna look over here by this clump o’ poplars.”

“All right. I’ll keep poking around here.”

Hoss headed off, and Adam moved toward what had been the front of the wagon.

As they continued to rummage the snow picked up, and the air grew sharper. The few leaves that still clung to wizened branches rustled in the breeze, and the sound alone could chill a man to the bone. Gloves, which had been removed to make the scrounging easier, were put on and hats pulled down around ears.

“Adam! I found somethin’!”

Adam jerked up so fast that a nerve pinched in his back. In his haste to get to his brother, he caught his leg on the spoke of a broken wheel and almost fell. With a scramble, he managed to keep his feet under him just as Hoss came out through the trees. He held a small wooden chest with brass findings, and the sight of it made Adam’s throat close.

“Did you look inside it?”

“Nope, I thought I’d leave that to you.”

Adam’s face skewed and that eyebrow rose. “Thanks.” He took the chest and sat it on top of a large, flat rock. Then he went stock-still and just stared at it.

“Ain’t ya gonna open it?”

“In a minute, in a minute.”

Adam could feel his hands begin to sweat inside his gloves and small beads – in spite of the cold – formed on his forehead. He feared he knew what he would find inside, and the thought of building a fire and putting the chest on it, complete with contents, flirted with his brain. That couldn’t do, though, and he guessed that Angelica wouldn’t want him to either.

“I might as well do this and get it over with.”

“I s’pose.”

Adam had to make himself raise the latch, but when he tried it wouldn’t budge. “It’s locked.”

“Oh, that’s easy enough to remedy.”

Hoss took his pistol from its holster, held it so that the business end of the barrel almost touched the clasp and pulled the trigger. The resultant explosion shattered the stillness and solved the problem.

Hoss returned the revolver to his hip. “There you go, brother.”

“Thanks.” Adam’s eyes darted to his face. “I think.”

After a hesitant start, Adam threw back the lid. He had no idea what all was inside for he only saw the small packet of envelopes – tied together with twine – that sat on top.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“I do hope not, but I’m afraid so.”

Adam picked them up and read the handwriting on the top one around the string, and his mouth went dry. He recognized the name in the return address, and it didn’t exactly have a calming effect on him.

“Come on, Hoss,” he stuffed the letters inside his coat, “let’s go home before we finish freezing to death.”

“Ain’t you gonna read ‘em?”

“I will in the privacy and warmth of my study.” He gave Hoss a swat on the back. “Now let’s go.”

*******

Adam had just finished reading the fourth letter when someone knocked at the study door, and he bade them enter.

Verina stepped in with a tray. “I thought you might like to have a cup of hot tea to warm you and some of Maggie’s fresh gingersnaps. She baked them just this morning.”

He had to fight not to grin. His comfort and stomach were only handy excuses, but he couldn’t and didn’t fault her for her feminine curiosity. This did, after all, concern her daughter, and he would have been more amazed if she hadn’t come in.

“That’s fine. Close the door and sit them on the desk. I need to talk to you.”

Verina blanched some but did what he told her. He asked her to sit down, and she took a place in the chair at the corner of his desk. She took in every aspect of him, and she didn’t like what she saw. His expression only aroused her unease, and she dreaded for him to go on.

He slammed his hand down on the four envelopes set apart from the one. “I’ve been reading these, and I’ve found out some very interesting things. Some we needed to know, and some we’d rather not.” He sat silent for a long second then his sober eyes rose to her. He took the bottom envelope from the stack. “This one hadn’t even been mailed yet. It announces our little girl’s birth. Her name is Cassandra.”

Verina’s nose wrinkled. “I must say that I like Elizabeth much better.”

“So do I.”

She could tell by his tentativeness that the rest of what he had to tell her wouldn’t be so pleasant. “Go on, dear.”

He leaned back in his chair. “I know who her grandmother is.” He exhaled. “She’s one of the Salem Randolph’s.”

Verina’s spine stiffened as the cold hand of reality slapped her hard. “Oh, Adam. That is one of the wealthiest, most influential families in Massachusetts.”

“I know. Their doings even make it to the Virginia City and Bantree papers.”

“As well as the ones in Bangor. A pair of sisters married brothers. Which one is our little girl’s grandmother?”

Again he hesitated. “Genevieve.”

“The oldest and, from all I have heard, a very hard woman, especially when it comes to what she wants and expects of others. If I recall correctly, she has four daughters but one son, her youngest. Hosea, named after his father, who died, I believe, about six years ago.”

He nodded. “And now I havta write to her and tell her that he’s been killed along with most of his family. Not something I look forward to.”

“I could do it, as one mother to another who has lost a child.”

“I appreciate the offer, Verina, but it’s my place. I was, after all, there when he got killed, and I have her granddaughter. But I still don’t look forward to it. I have never liked to hurt anyone, and I know that this for sure is going to. I only wish there was an easier way.”

“There is never an easy way to tell someone something like this. You simply do it the gentlest way you can.”

“Well at least it’s better than a cold, impersonal telegram.”

“Infinitely and I know she will appreciate it.”

He leaned his elbows on the desk and rested his forehead in one hand. “And I havta Angelica. The child hasn’t even been here two days and already she’s formed an attachment, just like we feared she would. I heard her singing a lullaby this morning, the first time she had sung anything since before…” He heaved a heavy sigh and it swelled his broad back. “When we havta send Elizabeth away it’s gonna kill her, and I shudder to think about it.”

She stood and lightly touched his arm, and he looked at her. “We will handle it just like we always do. Now drink your tea while it is still hot and eat your snaps. And if you want me there when you tell her, just let me know.”

“Thank you, Verina, but this is something I need to do on my own.” He took hold of her hand. “I’m so glad you and my father came.”

“So am I. Now eat, dear.” She pulled her hand away and pushed the characteristic black wisp away from his forehead then went out.

Adam just stared at the tray. He didn’t think he had ever been less hungry in his life. His eyes closed, and he rested his head in his hand again. “What do I do now?”

*******

“Angelica, there’s nothing else we can do.” He finished with the last button of his nightshirt then sat on the side of the bed next to her. He took her face in his hands and raised it to him. He never liked to see tears in those wonderful eyes, and they were there now. “Elizabeth is this woman’s granddaughter, and it would be wrong and selfish of us to keep them apart. Imagine how you would feel in her place.”

“I know this is right, but that doesn’t make me like it.” She pulled free of him and looked toward the large cradle that sat near the chair. “I didn’t think I could love her so much after such a short time…,” she looked back to him, “but, Adam, I do, and I want to keep her. I know I can’t, but that doesn’t change how I feel. I have her, and I don’t want to let her go.” Her chin began to quiver. “Do you think any less of me?”

“Of course I don’t. You should be ashamed of yourself for even asking such a thing.”

“I’m sorry, but after what I did I have been so afraid that you would stop loving me.”

“Stop loving you? Angelica Cadence Cartwright, there is no power on this earth that could ever make me stop loving you. You are my sustenance, and my joy, and the reason I continue to go on, so don’t you ever say or even think such a thing again.”

“But I can’t give you the houseful of children that you did so want.”

“Is that what this has all been about?” He took her shoulders in a firm grip and turned her straight to him. “I am going to tell you something right now that I never planned to.” His eyes lowered for a second. “I’m glad it’s over. When you had the boys, and I had to wait to see that it would be all right… all I kept thinking about was how my father had lost my mother. How he had to go on without the woman he loved so terribly.” He wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “Every time you had a baby it would have been the same. And if the time had ever come when I did lose you that way… I don’t think I could have… I don’t…” His head dropped, and his eyelids clamped tight.

Angelica just watched him then she felt a tear wet her gown through to her leg then another. He was crying. This big, strong, magnificent man was crying and all because he loved her. This time she raised his face to her. He looked at her and what she saw in the recesses of that dark hazel caused actual pain in her breast.

“I didn’t know you felt this way…. Oh, Adam, I do love you.”

Without a word or a whimper he clutched her to him, and she thought she would shatter like a piece of glass. But how could she care when she was in the arms of the man that she worshiped beyond all she ever thought possible.

She pressed her lips close to his ear. “We’ll be all right now, sweetheart. Whatever comes, we will face it together, and we will be all right.”

EIGHT

It had been just over two weeks since Adam had sent the letter to Salem, Massachusetts, and still they had gotten no reply. But life moved forward as it always did. His father and brother had returned to the Ponderosa. “I wish we could stay until all of this is resolved,” Ben had said the night before they left. “But we’ve been away too long as it is, and Joe can’t shoulder it alone forever.” Verina, though, had stayed with her husband’s blessing, and Adam was glad for it. And baby Elizabeth – Angelica refused to call her by her real name – had become even more a part of the family.

Adam had just buckled on his gun belt when someone knocked at the front door. When he opened it his foreman stood before him, hat in hand. “Yes, Chris what is it?”

“Company, Boss. There’s a buggy headed this way along the road. Should be here any minute.”

“All right, Chris. I’ll take care of it.”

With a polite nod, the caramel-haired young man stuck his hat on and went off the side of the deep porch.

Adam grabbed his hat and coat and stepped outside as he pulled the door together. The chilled morning air nibbled at him, and he couldn’t get the warm woolen garment on fast enough. He plucked his gloves from a pocket and began to put them on as his boots thumped the plank floor.

He turned the collar up around his neck and had just stepped into the pale light when the aforementioned buggy came in past the barn. It came from the livery in town, he knew for he had used it a few times himself. As he stood there, it continued forward and came to a stop several feet before him.

Sam Parley, the driver, he recognized, but the man that sat beside him he didn’t. As he got closer he noticed a woman in the shadows of the rear seat. He couldn’t make out much of her, but that could come later.

Adam rested an arm on the rump of one of the team. “Good morning, Sam.”

“Mornin’, Adam. I brought you some company. Come all the way from Massachusetts.”

As Adam’s eyes darted to the woman, he felt as if someone had blown a hole through him with a shotgun.

“Then I would assume that you are Mr. Cartwright,” the other man said, and got down.

“That’s right.”

The portly man with graying, thin ebony hair came around the front of the horses with right hand extended. Adam pumped it, and its moistness of it only augmented his already disconcerted feelings.

“I am David Barron. I am attorney for the Randolph family of Salem, Massachusetts, and I am here to represent Mrs. Randolph.”

“Please help me down, Mr. Barron.”

Adam watched as Barron assisted a stately woman was from the back of the buggy. Not what he had pictured. Taller than his Angelica, she stood erect and trim in her finely tailored traveling suit. Her silver-streaked, walnut brown hair was piled to the back of her head, and she wore a hat adorned with what looked like more feathers than most birds had. She tugged the tail of her skirt loose from the running board, and Adam found himself the object of shrewd lignite eyes.

“Mr. Cartwright.” She held out a slim, lace-gloved hand in a fashion that said it should be kissed, not shaken. “I am Genevieve Randolph.”

Adam took her fingers, but he would get shot before his lips went near her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Randolph. I’m only sorry that it has to be under such circumstances.”

“Let us get one thing straight, Mr. Cartwright, before we go inside. My son died for me a long time ago. My being here is simply a formality, and I would like to expedite the matter so I can return to the hotel in town. It has been a long, tedious and tiring trip, and I wish to rest up from it.”

Now Adam was certain of it. He didn’t like this woman, and he wasn’t so sure he wanted her around Angelica. But he really had no choice. He gestured toward the front of the house. “Then, by-all-means let us go inside.”

If the immense log house impressed Genevieve Randolph at all it wasn’t exhibited in her manner. Barron took her cape from her shoulders, and she moved, cool and aloof, into the room.

“I’m sorry you weren’t met in town.” Adam took the cape and the lawyer’s coat and hung them up along with his own. “If we had known you were coming somebody sure would have.”

“Then I take it that you never received my correspondence.”

Adam frowned. “No, but with the mail service being what it can sometimes be, it comes as no big shock. It’ll probably get here after you leave.” His attempt to lighten the atmosphere fell dismally flat. “Maybe would you like some refreshment or something to eat.”

“No thank you, I only want to get this over with. Now I wish to see the child before we go any further.”

“She’s in the kitchen with my wife. I’ll go get her.” He excused himself and left them.

Barron went to stand before the huge stone fireplace and turned his back to the warming flames. “This is a very impressive house. It is certainly more than I expected way out here.”

“If you like this sort of thing.” She adjusted her skirt at around her legs as she sat on the end of the settee. “It is simply too rustic for my taste. It lacks the refinement that would make it acceptable in Salem.”

No sooner had she finished when Adam returned with Angelica. In her arms she held a small blanket wrapped bundle, and she held it close as if she feared someone would take it from her. He made the introductions, and was cordial enough but stayed close at his wife’s side, his arm pressed against her.

Mrs. Randolph rose majestically and, joined by Barron, came to inspect her granddaughter. “Please uncover her.”

Angelica made no attempt to move, so Adam pulled the blanket away from the child’s face.

Genevieve Randolph paled, and some of her frosty veneer seemed to fall away. For what felt like an eternity, she stood and looked down at the baby, whose direct eyes had turned to her. She forcibly regained her icy composure and threw her head back. “Uncover her head.”

Adam could feel Angelica’s trembling increase, and he wished this would just hurry and be over. He gently pulled the covering from the little girl’s head and it ruffled the soft red curls into a wispy froth.

The fine features of the woman’s face set into granite-like hardness. She fanned them away with a cursory wave of her hand. “Please take her away.”

“Don’t you even want to hold her?” Angelica said, a hint of awe tinting her words. “She is your granddaughter.”

“That is a fact that I do not wish to be reminded of. Imagine my shock when I found out that she even existed. Now please,” the woman turned her back to them, “take her away.”

Fire rose in Angelica’s face, and purple sparks danced in her eyes. “How could you…?” But the tightening of Adam’s fingers on her arm stopped her.

“Just go back into the kitchen, Angelica. I’ll handle things from here.”

Anyone who took the time to notice couldn’t miss the anger that seethed inside the petite young woman. She gave this insensitive witch one last arctic glare then went through the dining room. When the kitchen door had closed securely behind her, Adam’s attention returned to this unannounced and unwanted guest.

“I suppose, Mr. Cartwright, that you think I am a hardhearted ogress.”

“I don’t suppose anything.”

Mrs. Randolph whirled on him, and her hands clenched before her. “I don’t feel that I owe you anything in the way of explanation, but I will give you one so you will see that I do have a reason.”

What valid reason could you possibly have for shunning your own son’s child, he thought. “You don’t owe me anything in the way of explanation, Mrs. Randolph.”

“Nonetheless, I will tell you that my son broke our hearts, mine and his father’s. And my husband’s couldn’t stand it. He passed away very shortly afterward, and in some small way I envy him his peace.” She stalked past Barron to the fireplace and lowered her gaze to the crackling logs. “Hosea Jr. was always a very willful boy, as are his sisters, but they have always known that I have had their best interest at heart.” She hesitated and held her hands out to the flames. “He insisted on marrying a girl that we both knew wasn’t right for him. She was lovely and bewitching to be assured, and my credulous son always had a weakness for the turn of a pretty head.”

“By wrong, I imagine that you mean poor.”

She turned back to Adam with a flourish, and her eyes flashed. “Her father was a fish monger, and her mother an Irish washer woman, for the love of Heaven.” She shook her hands as if to ward off some stigma. “And then there was the disgrace of our son marrying beneath our station. Why it got so that we didn’t dare to show our faces in church.”

Hypocrites, if it was one thing Adam couldn’t stand, it was a hypocrite. “Did you attend the wedding?”

“I should say not. His sisters wanted to, but we solidly forbade it.” She turned back to the fire. “I remember the night before he left to come west with her, he came to the house for one last time. He had a terrible fight with his father. There was shouting that I know our neighbors and anyone who passed on the street had to hear.” She cringed. “Such an embarrassment. An hour later he stormed out, and we never saw him again. Oh, we did correspond a few times after he left. It was announce the birth of the children and to inform him of his father’s death, but I never failed to let him know of my displeasure. I also made it clear that neither he nor his wife nor his progeny from their union would ever be welcomed into the fold.” Her shoulders slumped but quickly squared. “But, in a moment of weakness, I had thought to take the child back with me… until I saw that hideously red hair and I knew it would be kinder to both of us if I didn’t. Her mother destroyed my family, Mr. Cartwright, and directly brought about the death of my husband, and I could never be happy knowing that her child was in his house. She was a gold-digger, and she simply saw my son as a quick way out of poverty. But she needn’t have bothered, since we disowned him.”

“I don’t suppose she could have loved him.”

“Only a dreamer or a very naïve person could ever believe that. But that is neither here-nor-there nor the reason I have come.” She returned to the fire. “Mr. Barron, please present him with the papers.”

The attorney picked up his leather folder from where he had laid it on the table before the settee. From it he took a sheath of papers and approached Adam with them. “If you will please sign these.”

“I’m not putting my name to anything until I know what I’m signing.”

“Adoption papers, Mr. Cartwright, to make your custody of the child legal and binding.” Barron hesitated. “That is assuming that you do indeed want the child.”

Adam flared. “This is unbelievable. You come all the way out here from Massachusetts just to give away your own grandchild to people you know nothing about.”

Mrs. Randolph didn’t turn around. “The Cartwright’s and the Stoddard’s have long been known in Boston. Your father is one of the wealthiest, most powerful ranch owners in this state and you are following in his footsteps. And your wife comes from a fine old Maine family.” She finally looked at him. “Oh, yes, Mr. Cartwright, I know about you both. I am not totally devoid of concern for the child. And I do feel that she will fare better with you and your wife. Of course, if you don’t want the child I am sure that someone could be found that…”

“Give me those papers, Mr. Barron.”

Angelica sat in one of the kitchen chairs, the baby bundled close, and her head bowed. Her mother stood behind her with a comforting hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Maggie had corralled the boys over by the stove with cookies and milk, and Buddy wasn’t far away.

The sound of the door gave Angelica a chill of dread. She tried not to tremble so hard, but it couldn’t be helped. The thought of handing this sweet, innocent child over to someone like that gave her paroxysms of anger and revulsion, not to mention downright terror. She couldn’t look up – she simply couldn’t make herself look up. Then a light hand rested on her knee. She made herself do it, and she couldn’t read his face. This wasn’t the time for his inscrutability and it piqued her, but she said nothing about it.

He reached out and touched the sleeping baby’s cheek, and his smile shook Angelica to action.

“Adam, I can’t stand the thought of Elizabeth being with that odious woman. What would her life be like, always exposed to such a cold, heartless being? She would never know the meaning of truly being loved and cherished with that icicle.” She shook her head. “No, I can’t give her up, and I won’t.”

His smile broadened and became toothier. “Well I dare say you don’t need worry your pretty head about it.” He produced some folded papers from behind his back.

“I’m not sure I even want to know what that is.”

“These are the legal papers that say that Elizabeth is ours.” He laid them in her lap. “Mrs. Randolph and her attorney have returned to Bantree and will leave in the morning. You need never worry about seeing her again.” Then he held out his arms. “Now I would like to hold our daughter.”

Angelica fought to control her weeping as she handed over Elizabeth to him. He cradled the baby in one arm and put the other around his wife. Verina had taken her handkerchief from its usual place in her sleeve and daubed at the corners of her eyes while Maggie’s lids batted furiously. Then Adam looked around at his sons.

“Boys, come over here and say hello to your new little sister, Elizabeth Verina Cassandra Cartwright.”

THE END

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