When the dark wood fell before me
And all the paths were overgrown
When the priests of pride say there is no other way
I tilled the sorrows of stone.
 

I did not believe because I could not see
Though you came to me in the night
When the dawn seemed forever lost
You showed me your love in the light of the stars.

Cast your eyes to the ocean;
Cast your eyes to the sea;
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me ………….

(from "Dante's Prayer" by Loreena McKennitt)

    The smile she gave him when the door opened made the mighty Ben Cartwright feel a bit like a schoolboy again. Her wide blue eyes danced in her elfin face as she looked up at him. Quickly he stepped into the house, the door closing behind him and shutting out the rest of the world.

    "You're a little late," she chastised gently but willingly went into his arms and raised her face expectantly.

    Ben didn't have to be told. Laying his hat aside with the flowers and the wrapped parcel, he let his restraint go and kissed her. Not the demure peck on the cheek that he reserved for other women. No, this kiss was one he gave so seldom nowadays. It was a demanding kiss he pressed on her, forcing her own lips to part, welcoming his further advances. His hands first cradled her face then one slipped to the back of her neck, holding her while the other dipped to her waist and pulled her body into his. Again and again, he plundered the velvet soft and warm inner sanctum of her mouth, delighting in the feel of her beneath his hands, beneath his mouth, as she trembled then gave herself over to him completely.

    When he felt the moment was ripe, he pulled back from her enticements. He loved the look on her face right then. He always had. It spoke of pure contentment, the little laugh lines at the corners of her closed eyes smoothed away, her lips, reddened by the rush of blood to them, parted and the color high across her cheeks. He could feel her pulse, racing still beneath the hand at her neck as he flexed his fingers into her hair, pulling it free from the confines of her coiffure. He so loved to see it falling free down her straight back. When she would move, it would float and sway like a living being all on its own. The silken feel of it on his fingers brought another sensation to him: he wanted her. Right there and then he wanted her. He didn't want to wait until after they had shared dinner.

    "How long before dinner is ready?" he asked, his voice husky with longing as he bent and caressed her face with little kisses. He knew she could feel his need for she leaned into him, pressing her full breasts to his jacket front, letting him feel the same need from her.

    "Well I got started on it late," was all she got out before he took her hand in his and, raising his eyebrows in the direction of the closed door to his left, silently asked her permission.

    She tugged at his hand but he went willingly into the bedroom. The room held only a large bed and a small dresser with a pitcher and bowl on top of its marble lid. The fire burning in the fireplace at the foot of the bed easily warmed the room. When she went to turn up the low wick on the bedside lamp, he stopped her.

    "No," he whispered, his normally deep voice made deeper by the yearning he felt. "In the firelight, you're more beautiful. I want to see you like that."

    Bemused, she cocked her head to one side then turned so that the fire's golden red glow caught her side. There she stood, half in shadow and half in the flames' embrace, looking at him. Slowly, ever so slowly, his blunt finger traced the path of light around her low neckline. Then, his heart pounding furiously in his chest, he undid the tiny pearl buttons one at a time, letting the thin cotton blouse fall open alluringly. With a sweep of his hand, it fell from her shoulders and to the floor and lay like a beacon for her dark skirt to follow.  She started to undo her chemise's ribbons but he stopped her, saying that was his job. With expertise, he untied the ribbons that held the chemise and her breasts to her body closely. Ben let his hand slide inside the cotton restraint, feeling the warmth and seeing the fire's glow turn the ivory flesh golden, the nipple there hardening quickly, telling of her passion.

    "What is there about a woman's flesh?" he asked rhetorically then bent his head to kiss the top of the breast he held to the light. His lips did not linger but sought out the impertinent rosebud of her nipple, arousing her further as he gently suckled it then turned to its mate and did the same, eliciting a moan from her. Her body arched into his and he let his hand slip further around her, holding her to him.

    She could feel his arousal and wondered why they had spent so long apart. As his mouth devoured her breasts, she ran her hands through his silvered hair and gave herself over to the rising tide of passion just being with him brought at times. The animal within her wanted to tear the clothes from her own body and his as well and attack him with pure lustful desire.

    His experienced hands loosened the drawstring and her lower undergarment fell to her feet, leaving her completely naked to his touch, his lips, his eyes. Lifting his kiss back to her waiting mouth, he cupped his hands beneath her buttocks, pulling her up and to his chest. Ben nearly lost his composure when she wrapped her legs around his waist and clung to him with wild abandonment. He chuckled as he pulled his mouth from hers and saw her smiling at him.

    "Want to wait until I take my coat off?" Ben queried.

    "Don't know. How long is it going to take?" was her reply.

    In response he took the two steps and dropped her onto the soft mattress. There she stretched out, reminding Ben of a sensuous and sinuous cat, so languid were her movements. He deliberately took his time shedding his coat even to the point of folding it and placing it on the vanity behind him. Then he took off his vest and hung it with great care on the bedpost. By that time, she was nearly beside herself and launching herself onto her knees, sidled up to him. Kneeling on the mattress, she was at the right height to slip her hands, eager now for the feel of his flesh, into his shirt as he slowly unbuttoned it. Her hands panned out over the broad plain of his chest, the hair there silken to her palms.

    "Are you sure you don't want supper first?" he teased her, lacing his hands through her hair.

    "Why? Are you hungry?" she taunted, rubbing her cheek against his warm chest as her hands pushed his shirt from his shoulders.

    "Only for you," he groaned and delighted in the feel of her small hands as they swept over him then gave his belt an impetuous tug.

    "Then get your boots off and get in here with me," she giggled, flopping back onto the bed, her whole body an invitation to his.

    "Just my boots, huh?"

    Much later, she curled next to him as they both lay in the soft bed, their immediate desires for the other's body spent. He had wrapped an arm about her ivory shoulders and held her to him, his cheek resting on the soft crown of her hair. The fire in the fireplace at their feet had ebbed down to glowing coals and in the dim light he could barely make out shapes about the room.

    "Ben," she murmured, her warm breath whispering its own desire across his bare chest. "I think I need to go tend to dinner, if there is anything left."

    "No," he answered and encircled her with both arms, trapping her against him. "Truth to be told, my dear lady, dinner isn't why I came tonight. But you know that already."

    He could feel her smiling, then was delighted when she not only laughed lightly but also snuggled a little closer to him. If this wasn’t paradise, right then, Ben Cartwright couldn't have named what it was. He let his hand track down her flank, smoothing and soothing as it went. Again he marveled how a woman's flesh felt so different than a man's: warmer, softer, silkier to the touch, even to his callused hands.

    "Do you need to go home tonight?" she hesitantly asked and felt his body shift under her hand. She had asked the wrong question, she knew it.

    "You want me to stay tonight?" The boys weren't home and as far as Hop Sing knew, Ben had been going into town for a meeting of the Cattleman's Association and then dinner with a friend. If he didn't go home that night, no one would be the wiser where he stayed. With a mental huff, he thought to himself that where he spent his time wasn't anyone's business but his own. "I'll need to go put Buck up. He wouldn't appreciate being tied to your front porch all night long."

    "Well then, you go put your horse in the barn and I will see what I can rustle up for dinner. I am sure the pot roast is extremely well-done by now but I think I can find something to fix. Go on," and she playfully shoved at him but he remained where he was.

    "Maybe I should find us something to eat while you put my horse up," he suggested, grinning at the thought of the pint-sized woman unsaddling and caring for his horse. She wasn't tall enough to see over the horse's back much less strong enough to handle the heavy saddle. Something of his thoughts must have telegraphed themselves to her.

    "What? Think I can't handle that horse of yours?" Artfully, she rolled away from him, a saucy wink over her shoulder.

    "I think you can handle anything you want. But you had best get some clothes on first," he chuckled and like her, sat on the side of the bed.

    "Why? Think your horse would tell someone if I went out there naked and put him in the barn?" She had rounded the foot of the bed and stood there, bold and beautiful in the fire's dying glow, her hands now diminutive fists on her hips and naked as the day she had been born.

    He reached for her, his hands encircling her waist and pulling her to him. With his silvered head nestled between her breasts she held him.

    No," Ben murmured and for a moment she thought he had grown serious. "But if I find out that you do your chores naked, I may have to drop by more often."

    She pulled back so that she could see the expression on his face. Her hands absently ran through his hair, finally coming to rest at the nape of his neck. "To help?" she asked coyly.

    "To watch," he replied, a smile breaking out on his face. She shrieked and pushed at him but he held her easily.

    Late that evening, his horse finally settled in her barn and a quick meal of stew and cornbread eaten, they found themselves again within the circle of one another's arms, her head resting on his shoulder. Again, he rubbed his cheek over the top of her head and smiled to himself. Why had he denied himself such pleasure over the years, he asked himself, pulling her closer to him. True, the death of his wife Marie had left him little more than a shell of a man but over the years he thought he had put that behind him and gotten on with his life. He had. But one part of it had been left behind. He'd had his share of romantic encounters for he was still a handsome and virile man, a commanding presence. But in each and every case, he had stepped back from committing himself totally. Until she had turned up.

It had started out just to be a stage ride home from a business deal in Placerville……….
 
 
 

"Oh, excuse me, madam," Ben had said. Getting into the already crowded stage, he had inadvertently stepped on her foot. She had made a strange little sound in her throat but had not been able to reach down for it. The matron beside her, every bit of three hundred pounds, Ben thought wryly, had just glared at her when her elbow was jostled.

"That's all right," she answered and catching his eye again rolled hers at the woman beside her. "I've had worse things happen." Unspoken except by her facial expressions was that the 'worse things' had probably happened on that stage as well.

Wedging himself into the corner across from her, his knees bumped hers and before he could apologize again, she waved it off. The stage lurched forward suddenly and she put out a hand to keep from falling forward. Gallantly, Ben caught it and kept her from losing her seat all together.

"I will be so glad when I get to Virginia City," she exclaimed brightly but no one on the crowded stage seemed to hear her except Ben.

"That's your final destination?" he asked, more determined to hear her voice again. It was soft, a woman's cultured voice. Looking at her, Ben caught the little smile that she used just before she spoke again.

"Yes, I'm looking into buying some property there."

Ben blinked rapidly and wondered why his heart had started beating a little faster. "Well, please forgive me but you don't look like the sort of person to own a mine."

She laughed and it had the delightful sound of a child in it. "No, I've always wanted a little farm. You know a few cows, a pig, some chickens. That sort of thing. When my husband died, I found myself in a big old house in San Francisco with a bunch of servants and I didn't know what to do with any of it. So I sold it all and decided to come to Nevada."

When she had said her husband had died, it was on Ben's lips to give her his condolences. The way she had gone on with her story made Ben decide against such blatantly pat words. Was she frivolous in the way she had spoken? Perhaps to other listeners but having gone through the same situation himself, Ben knew that there came a time when you simply had to go on living. Something she was saying snagged Ben's thoughts back.

"Do you live near there?" she asked and leaning forward, made it plain that perhaps she was more interested in information than passing the time.

"I have a ranch just outside of town. I'd be glad to show you around," he offered then wanted to kick himself as it sounded so school-boyish.

"Thank you but I have an agent who has picked out several places for me to see. John Wheatland. Do you know him?"

"I do," Ben tried his best to sound neutral. Wheatland was known as one of the biggest swindlers in the state of Nevada. The only thing that kept him out of jail seemed to be that his victims were usually women, like this one perhaps, and ashamed to say they had been taken.

"Oh, excuse me, my name is Sara Brittingham," and she extended her hand as though Ben would shake it as he would a man's. To her utter surprise, he leaned over and kissed it.

"Ben Cartwright, at your service, Mrs. Brittingham." She wasn't sure but what he hadn't winked at her.

And that had started it all. A crowded coach on a rainy spring day. By the time the ride was over, she was Sara and he was Ben and he had asked her to have dinner with him the next evening. She had agreed with little reticence. It wasn't until they were disembarking that Ben saw her face clearly for the first time. He caught his breath when he did and swallowed hard. His first wife Elizabeth had been beautiful. Inger his second wife, while not the classic beauty of Elizabeth, was a handsome blonde. And his last wife Marie had been a most stunning woman. But this woman, this Sara Brittingham, went beyond beautiful and beyond stunning. Her skin was so ivory it reminded Ben of a sculpture he had seen once, cool white marble that caught and held the gold of the sun. Her hair, from what he could see under her bonnet, was soft brown but her eyes held him fast. Lively blue, they seemed to dance upon what they saw, lighting up her face, echoing her smile. For that single moment, he saw her as a young woman of twenty but then looking again, he could see the crinkles at the corners of her eyes and knew she was older than that. At that moment, he didn't care how old she was or wasn't. When her soft voice thanked him for helping her down from the stage and she tugged on her hand to get it back, Ben had to shake himself.

Dinner was not at the elegant International House. Nor was it in the plush Washoe Club. When he called for her at her hotel room, he was dressed in rather plain clothes.

"Should I change?" she asked, seeing him so dressed while she was in an expensive watered silk that matched the color of her eyes.

"You might want to," Ben's voice struggled.

"Well then, I took a lot of time to get these blasted buttons done up the back! You can undo them!" She turned gracefully and presented a long row of tiny pearl buttons.

Ben swallowed hard. His hands shook at he tried to get them undone and not touch the woman underneath them at the same time. "They are awfully small, Sara," he tried explaining then realized he was half closing his eyes.

"Yes, and they are really small when you can't see them!" teased the woman and Ben knew she had caught him trying hard to not look. Finally he gave up and did the job properly, telling himself that touching her warmth was not wrong. Once they were all undone, a tiny bit of sadness hit him. Now she would waltz away from his hands and he would have to go back to being the perfect gentlemen.

She slipped behind a folding panel. "Where are we going?" she asked and as Ben watched, the blue silk dress arched over the top and hung there.

"I thought I would take you some place special," answered Ben, fighting the urge to turn his back.

A frilly petticoat followed the dress. "Okay," she drew the word out, "but I need more information than that." Another petticoat flew out the side and landed on the bed, only to slip to the floor.

"Out to Lake Tahoe." Ben picked up the petticoat with two fingers and laid it back on the bed.

"At night?" and yet another petticoat flew from behind the screen, landing at Ben's feet.

"It's really quite lovely of an evening." Ben swallowed hard and picked up the wayward undergarment.

"There's a restaurant up there?" A corset shot across his vision and Ben took a step back, his legs bumping into the side of the bed.

"No, I had my cook fix us up a picnic basket of sorts. I hope that is all right with you." Was the room getting too warm? Ben pulled at his shirt collar, wishing he hadn't put on his string tie.

"That's quite a lovely idea, Ben! Say," she poked her head from behind the screen, "Would you hand me that blue and white striped dress over there? The one hanging. No, that's green. The next one. That's it! And it won't bite you," she teased and reached for the garment.

"Does this have a bunch of those little buttons up the back too?" Ben smiled as he held up the dress for his own inspection. A slim hand reached over the top and snagging it back to hold against her, Sara stuck her tongue out at him.

"No," She disappeared behind the screen, "they're in front."

A huge part of the man that was Ben Cartwright cursed silently. When she stepped back into the room proper, Ben nearly laughed aloud. Her elegant coiffure was askew, having been subjected he thought to the passing of one too many petticoats. Sara caught sight of herself in the mirror beside Ben. Her mouth flew open and just before she could utter a word, she smacked her hand over her mouth.

"Excuse me, Ben. This is really not the way to start a first date, is it?" She plopped herself down in front of the mirror and tried to correct the damage done. The more she tried, it seemed to her the worse it got. On the verge of tears now, she finally pulled all the pins out.

"Sara," his voice was soft behind her, "leave it down. Your hair--please--leave it down."

"But I-" she started to complain but then realized it didn't matter what she looked like to this man.

"You might want to get a shawl. Nights are rather cool up here in the mountains."
 

He helped her into the surrey and with a click of the tongue, had the horse moving smartly along the streets of Virginia City. For a while they talked of the places she had been shown by Wheatland. Some were too rundown for her likes. Others, much too grandiose. A simple little place was what she wanted. She didn't want to farm it, lord no! But she did want a plot for a garden. The barn had to be in good shape and on and on she talked until abruptly she stopped.

"I'm sorry," said Sara, her voice dropping into a whisper. "I just get so carried away talking about my dream."

To her surprise, Ben laughed aloud. It was the first time she had heard him really break loose and laugh and it both startled her and pleased her at the same time.

"Sara," he finally said and shifting the reins to his other hand, took her hand in his. "You just go right ahead and tell me all about this place you've dreamed of!"

"You think I'm being a foolish old woman, don't you?"

He pulled the horse to stop right there in the middle of the vacant road and wrapped the reins around the brake. "Sara," he said her name again and to her it sounded beautiful for the first time in her life, "It is never foolish to have a dream and to follow it." He had turned slightly sideways and he let himself touch her shoulders.

She looked down, then back up again into the velvet brown eyes. Just to hear his voice made her sure she was doing the right thing. If he had faith in her dreams, it was okay for her to as well. Reaching up, she kissed his cheek and thanked him.

He almost said something else then seemed to decide against it. Ben picked up the reins and again sent the horse on its way.

"What? What were you about to say?" she pushed.

"Nothing," claimed Ben and flicked the reins over the horse's back again.

She playfully shoved his arm and demanded again "What were you going to say?"

He shook his head and kept his eyes straight ahead, but a smile kept quirking the corners of his mouth.

"Tell me!"

"I'm not sure it is proper for me to say," Ben sighed but smiled broadly.

Truly perplexed, Sara leaned her whole body against his, sending the first shivers of delight through them both. To blunt the force building in her, she playfully pounded on his shoulder with one tiny fist.

"I don't think I should, Sara, but if you insist, there is a piece of information I have that you might want. But it is going to cost you to get it."

She sat back and thought for a short while as they rode further up the dark road, the moon now rising full behind them. "Okay," she finally breathed, "what's it going to cost me?"

Ben, having a hard time that evening being the gentleman he demanded of his sons, leaned towards her. He took his eyes from the shiny silver road ahead of them now and wished he hadn't. She was beautiful in the pale light the moon shed.

"A kiss," he responded, trying for a playful banter but it fell somewhere closer to romantic passion.

For a heartbeat, Sara pulled away from him and Ben wanted the demand, the bold words back, unspoken. "Stop the horse," she requested and he did as she asked.

He was turning to apologize when she kissed him, catching him off guard. Not a delicate little peck on the cheek but a full lip caress. He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her to him, giving her back just what she had given him. How long they would have continued would have been a toss up but the surrey moved, the horse confused by the stop and go demanded of him that night.

"Do you always kiss like that?" Ben asked, retrieving the reins before they could become as hopelessly lost as his senses were as of that moment.

Sara grimaced then wrinkled her nose, making the slightly befuddled man beside her smile when he saw her. "No, I don't." She waited for several clip-clops of the horse's hooves before she continued. "Sometimes I am even better."

Again they laughed together.

The picnic supper Hop Sing had filled the basket with was beyond anything Sara had ever experienced. With an almost child-like glee she tasted and tried everything in the basket. Ben had been delighted just to watch her. Finally she had settled on polishing off the leg of fried chicken and piece of apple pie. Ben poured them both a little bit of brandy from his flask and together they sat on the boulders overlooking Tahoe.

"You were right! This is a great place for dinner! The food here is tremendous. Please give my compliments to your cook. And the atmosphere, most enjoyable, Mr. Cartwright. But, it is a little chilly." She snuggled into her shawl a little deeper to emphasize it. "And don't go offering me your jacket! You would be cold and I would feel guilty about it!"

"Here then," Ben pulled their blanket-tablecloth from under the remains of the dinner, shaking crumbs off as he did. Sara slipped over to sit close beside him and let him drape the cover over them. For the longest time, they simply sat silent, enjoying the splendor of the lake and the warmth of another human being.

"What was it?" Sara asked again, her head against his chest. "The piece of information you thought I should have."

Ben smiled and replied,  "You misbuttoned your dress."

She looked down quickly. Sure enough, the top of the lace edge didn't line up. "And for that I gave you a kiss?" Sara sounded incredulous but Ben reached out and held her tight to him so she couldn't get away. The fight disappeared like smoke before a strong breeze.

"Want me to fix it for you?" he offered, innocently.
 
 

For the next few days, he tried his best to simply let the lovely Sara Brittingham linger in the back of his mind. Ben wasn't sure how successful he was. He couldn't decide whether to let his sons know about her or not. It wasn't as though he sought their permission!

"Pa," Adam called for a third time and saw his father come back from wherever it was he had been mentally for a few moments. Leaning over the edge of the desk, the map of the land owned by the family spread over the mahogany, they had been discussing where to start the summer grazing of the largest of the Ponderosa herds. Something had snagged at his father's attention and while Adam had spoken on, Ben had seemed to drift away. "Something wrong?"

"No," Ben shook his head but pointed at a small pie shaped parcel on the edge of the map. "That's the old Harrison place isn't it?"

"Yeah, we need to go ahead and tear down that house and the outbuildings. That little valley there won't support more than a few head but the water there is sweet and we can -" Adam gestured with his pencil at the small stream sketched onto the map.

Ben shook his head. "No, let's not do that! In fact, I may have a buyer for that land. What sort of shape is the house in?"

Adam shrugged. Even though the old homestead was within an hour's ride of the main Ponderosa ranch house, it was in a direction rarely traveled. "Don't know."

"Well, whatever you want to do about the herd is fine. I think I am going for a ride." Before Adam could blink twice, his father was headed out the door.
 

He kicked open the door. Inside, the bareness of the place made it seem even colder than it was that spring afternoon. Slowly Ben walked into the room, conscious of how loud his steps were on the wide plank floor. From the corner of his eye, he saw the small motion in one corner that said the only inhabitants were of the wild, and unwanted, variety. Bending swiftly, he looked up the chimney and saw no sunlight. It was surely blocked and would have to be unclogged before it could be used. Ben rounded the corner and studied what was supposed to be the kitchen but there was no cookstove present, just a narrow counter and some shelves. That would have to change too, he thought. He stepped back into the main room and spied the room off to one side, the door leading to it only hanging by a single hinge. The remaining hinge groaned and squealed as he pushed it open. Spiderwebs hung dusty in the corners of the room. As Ben entered the empty room, the sunlight caught motes of dust and made them golden in its light. Ben chastised himself softly. What this place needs is a good cleaning! There is so much work to be done here. I couldn't convince her…not until it was fixed up some. And there is just too much work to be done at home to send someone…the boys are busy with the ranch work. We barely have enough hands to do what needs doing now! If I hired someone in town to fix it up, it would be all over Virginia City and I don't want... Ben swallowed hard, wondering just why he needed to keep this a secret from anyone.

He stood for a while longer, finally making a mental list of all that needed fixing and what it would take to make the place at least look habitable. The longer he stayed inside, the more he saw that needed attention. Finally he shook his head. It had been a good idea but Adam had been right: the place needed tearing down. Ben left the small house and went to stand beside Buck in the weed-infested yard. With a judgmental eye, he looked over the outbuildings. One place on the roof of the barn sagged. Ruin any hay in the loft. The smaller outbuilding beside the barn was missing a door completely. Can't keep chickens that way.  The small corral fence had broken rails and one section was gone. It would simply take too much work. Shaking his head sadly, he untied Buck and swung easily into the saddle. No, Adam was right and he, Ben, a man of reasoning and many years experience, had only been fooling himself when he had thought that he could get Sara Brittingham to buy this little pie-shaped paradise. Sighing deeply and scowling at his own foolishness, he pulled Buck's head around, preparing to leave.

He saw her then.

There she sat, upright in the thick grass by the well. The mother rabbit, a score of young hopping around her, chewed thoughtfully on the lush grass. Her ears twitched, hearing the man-sounds again then she spied him but he wasn't moving so she merely watched him as he watched her. Finally, blinking her bright little eyes, she dropped back to all fours and continued to browse.

Ben smiled at the rabbit, all her young like little brown balls of fur around her. Another motion caught his attention and looking towards the broken down corral, saw a doe and fawn. Gracefully and delicately, they moved from shadow to shadow then began to nibble at the grass beside the downed railings. The spots on the fawn rippled as it nudged its mother's flank, seeking to nurse. Not paying the least bit of attention to anything other than her own nibbling, she moved that rear leg back and allowed the youngster access to her teat.

For a while, Ben sat motionless, watching the pair of mothers, entranced by the sight. Finally, he pulled himself erect and as he did, the rabbits and the deer disappeared in the blink of an eye. Again chastising himself for such a waste of time, he started to nudge Buck towards home. Buck had taken a several quick steps when again Ben pulled him up and the horse snorted once.

What had made Ben pause for one more time also made him change his mind about the ramshackle cabin and the tumbled-down buildings. He didn't have to fix the place up. That was someone else's job. All he had to do was bring Sara out there at this same time of an afternoon and let her sit in the sunshine and watch. After all, it was said that doves kept to the same schedule day in and day out and with his years of being out of doors, Ben knew it to be true. He had seen it much too often to dismiss it as an old wives' tale. The doves, now cooing on the ridgepole of the roof, would be there at the same time every day.

With a shake of a gloved finger towards them, Ben warned, "If you aren't here tomorrow afternoon, I'll know the reason why. Come on Buck, we need to get home. I have some finagling with to do."
 
 

So the double life for Ben Cartwright began the next morning. Once breakfast was over and his sons out the door, he was in the kitchen with Hop Sing.

"Yes, I said some cleaning things, like a broom, a bucket, some soap. That sort of thing! And while you are at it, pack a lunch for two up, would you?" Ben demanded, trying to figure out what was so difficult for the little oriental to comprehend. He went into his study and took care of a few problems that couldn't be put off. Hearing Hop Sing's petulant singsong and the clatter of a bucket, he decided his requests had been fulfilled. Two quick steps into the main room and Ben had to shake his head.

There Hop Sing stood, buttoning his jacket and obviously preparing to go and do whatever cleaning Mr. Cartwright wanted done although the reasoning escaped him completely.

"Hop Sing all leady," he smiled as he spoke, figuring that his employer had dropped a marble somewhere but he wasn't about to say a word about this strange request!

"That's quite all right, Hop Sing. I'll be the one doing the cleaning," Ben lied, trying to pull the mop from Hop Sing's hand.

His face thrust upward and almond eyes blinking rapidly, Hop Sing thought about arguing. Wasn't it his job?  Was Mr. Ben not happy with him for some reason? Just in case, he kept a tight grasp on the mop handle.

Ben wasn't blind to the cook's hurt expression. He hoped to alleviate it and patted the drooping shoulder before him. "This is something I just have to do on my own, is all. You are too busy here so I'm going to take care of it. And I will bring everything back, I swear I will." He finally wrestled the mop from the cook's iron grip. "I have lots of experience too, remember?"

Muttering aloud in his own tongue, Hop Sing relented and headed back into his kitchen, shrugging out of his jacket as he went. Ben merely raised a dark brow and was glad that he couldn't understand what the eastern majordomo was saying that morning.

He loaded the cleaning supplies into the back of the surrey and covered them over with a piece on canvas. Prying eyes wouldn't be able to tell what was there he hoped. Next he saddled Buck and tied him behind the surrey.  He gathered up the lunches Hop Sing had prepared and added a bottle of wine to it. A quick and furtive glance around and he was off. His first stop would be Virginia City.
 

"It's…it's.." Sara's voice stumbled, looking for the right adjective. Ben lifted her from the seat of the surrey as she looked over the dilapidated buildings. While the location was breath taking, the buildings were definitely not and she tried some way to find the right word to signal her dismay and yet not hurt Ben's feelings. He had been so boyishly jubilant that morning when he had appeared at her hotel room door, telling her he had found just the place for her. His enthusiasm was hard to put aside and willingly, she had gone with him. Now she was wishing she had not.

"I know it needs some work, but the house is basically sturdy." He pushed open the door to the house as Sara carefully skirted the broken board in the porch.

With his hand in the small of her back, Sara felt she had no option but to step into the house.

"A little fixing up and the place would be perfect for you, Sara."

She peeked into the small side room timidly as he pushed open the lopsided door for her.

"And look here at the beautiful stonework of the fireplace!" He patted the broad pine mantle, kicking up enough dust that she sneezed. "Now, granted it needs a cook stove but that's a small thing."

She put her gloved hands to her lips to stop from blurting out that it needed more than a cook stove!

He was nearly bouncing as he asked her, "So? What do you think?"

 Sara cleared her throat, her hands now to her cheeks as she slowly turned completely around in the tiny cabin. "I'm not sure, Ben. It needs so much that I can't do myself. I mean, the door, the broken windows…Don't get me wrong, please. I am not afraid of hard work but I don't know how…"

"What if you got a commitment from the owner to help you fix the place?" He had not told her who owned the property, just that it was for sale at a good price. Ben watched the wild despair running through her eyes and longed to stop its mad dash.

"I imagine that would help. Who would my neighbors be? I mean I didn't see any houses or roads. "

Ben took her elbow and escorted her to the front porch, now awash with bright noonday sunlight. He pointed to a faint track that wound through tall pines. "You follow that trail through the woods, there's a notch, a passage, through the hills, then out into a broad meadow where there's a well traveled road. Takes you right to your neighbors and they are good people." He held back that their names were Cartwright.

Sara hesitated, her heart and her mind arguing with one another as she looked out over the tiny valley just beyond the yard.

"Oh?" Her eyebrows lifted as she tried to sound noncommittally interested.

Ben reached out and turned her to face him. He wanted to look into her eyes when he told her. "Sara, I won't try to force you into a decision but I think you need to know something." He tilted his head in the direction of her 'neighbors'. "I would be your neighbor, Sara. Right over that hill. On a good horse, maybe forty-five minutes. Far enough that -"

"How much?' she cautiously asked, feeling a comfortable warmth flowing from her heart. "How much does the owner want?"

 "The price is right," Ben encouraged gently, his own trepidation growing that she would say no.

"How much?" she asked again, this time with a little more strength, spacing her words carefully.

To answer her, he leaned down and kissed her gently at first but when she responded, he let himself be carried away. It was only when her hands pressed against his chest that he pulled back, afraid he had read her intentions wrong. Looking down into her sunlit face, he saw her eyes were bright, the color on her cheeks high and her lips were slightly parted. He felt her breath coming in trembling little gasps as he held her tight.

"That should about pay for it," he murmured, sure he couldn't have spoken louder.

"You own it?" she whispered, her heart afraid of his answer. When he said he did, she swallowed hard. "Then it's a deal?" she whispered and moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.

"I'd say so."

"And you'll help me fix it up? You'll have to, you know." Her voice trembled slightly.

"Wild horses couldn't stop me from -" he began but Sara rose up on her toes, her body now pressed fully against his and she kissed him. Hard, her hands lacing behind his neck to pull herself tall enough, she kissed him. He was about to deepen the kiss when she dropped away. With a swish of her skirt, she turned her back and headed for the barn.

"What? What was that? Sara?" he shouted after her then followed her.

"Your change!" she shouted over her shoulder.

Ben smiled broadly. "Does that mean you'll take it?"

With a saucy smile, she stopped and turned to face him, her little hands planted firmly on her hips. "I paid for it, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did." Ben nodded, tipping his hat back as he gazed down at the woman before him. "And I have a nice lunch and a bottle of wine to seal the deal, so-"

Sara pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. Slowly she shook her head from side to side. "Nope! We got work to do, so get with it, Cartwright!"

Sara Brittingham and Captain Abel Stoddard had a lot in common, Ben decided late that evening as he lay in his bed staring at the ceiling. The woman had pushed and prodded with the same single-mindedness of the ship's captain hunting down missed specks of dirt on his deck. By the end of that first day, she was making progress on the cleaning of the house and made sure that Ben knew that he was expected back the next day. She had paced the floor and made a list aloud of things she would need, stopping every few steps to look at him leaning against the doorframe. It was abundantly clear that he was to uphold his end of the bargain as far as she was concerned. He chuckled softly to himself as he pressed his sore back and shoulders into the softness of his mattress. He let his memory return the feel of her as they had kissed on the porch. Who would have imagined that those same soft curves were underlined by iron determination?
 
 

By the third day, Ben wasn't sure if he could keep up. That morning, a glance at his desk showed mail that needed attention. Adam mentioned the new mill needed some parts but he was short handed and wondered if perhaps Ben couldn't take the time to go into Virginia City and get them. Hoss, between mouthfuls of flapjacks, had bluntly informed Ben that he was needed up to one of the line camps to put a halt to a brewing problem with the men. Hop Sing slapped a list down beside his hand at the table and let him know he was out of certain supplies needed to clean. The only one not making a demand on his time was Joe and with a scowl and a growl, Ben asked if there wasn't something he wanted as well.

Joe flinched, scooting to the far edge of his chair. Adam raised an eyebrow that went nearly into his hairline. Hoss paused with a forkful half way to his mouth. The three sons traded confused looks.

"You know, on second thought, Pa," Hoss spoke up quickly, "I can fire that trouble maker and that'll be the end of that."

"And I can get that stuff for Adam and Hop Sing when I get the mail," Joe chimed in with forced cheer. There was something else he needed to do that day but it would wait, he decided.

"No, I need the buckboard to take up some things over to our new neighbors. I'll get Adam's things this afternoon." Ben swallowed hard and prayed his sons would just go on about their business without questioning.

That wasn't to be.

"New neighbors?" Adam asked, his head and his tone shooting up in wonder.

Ben was sorry that he had opened his mouth but the deed was done. He hoped he could blunt their curiosity- at least for a while. "I sold the Harrison place."

Innocently, Adam asked if he got a good price for it.

Clearing his throat, Ben replied, "I got what it was worth."

His sons hadn't grown up under his thumb and not learned when his tone became defensive like it just had, that the best course of action was to shut up and get out of reach. Usually the cause was as plain as the nose on your face. But then there were times like that morning when it came out of the blue.

"What sort of stuff does the new family need?" Adam asked tentatively, trying his best to pry information out without the appearance of being nosy. "Need help loading and unloading?"

"Nothing I can't handle." The bluntness Ben spoke with did two things. First, his sons quit talking, finished eating and left for their day. Secondly, it fueled their curiosity; dangerously, it fueled their curiosity about the new neighbors and why their father was acting so strangely. If they had been around when Ben loaded the buckboard, they might have even dared to follow him since the wagon was filled with a bed frame and mattress.
 

Ben heard the surrey pull up out front of the small house just as the last board dropped into place on the bed frame. He still needed to run the ropes through what would support the thick mattress but at least he had gotten that far along that she would see just what it was instead of just a pile of wood. He didn't bother to get off his knees when she swept into the house, calling for him.

"In here," he returned her call, his heart in his throat for some reason.

She stood in the doorway to the bedroom, a number of paper wrapped parcels falling from her grasp. Her eyes went round as she saw him and what he was doing.  For a few heartbreaking moments, Sara struggled just to breathe. Finally unable to make a sound and her emotions in turmoil, she turned and ran from the house. Wild, unfocused, she ran, ending up in the small barn against the far wall, crying and beating at it for just being there.

Ben followed her, calling her name again and again, begging her to stop. When she did and began to beat at the barn wall, he pulled up just short of her. Not understanding what had caused her reaction, he did only what his heart told him to do. He eased over to stand just behind her and, closing his hands over hers, stopped her from shredding them on the rough wood.

"Sara," he whispered, "I am sorry. Sara, please, forgive me."

She tried to pull her hands from his but then slowly collapsed against the wall, unable to stop her crying. She didn't resist when he pulled her into his arms and held her against him. Distantly, she heard his words of apology and she tried to say she was sorry as well but couldn't form the words. Finally, her crying stopped but she still clung to him, her fingers blindly grasping his vest, her cheek against his chest.

"No, I'm sorry," she finally got out and tilted her head back to look into his deep brown eyes. "I've misled you, apparently. I'm sorry, Ben. I'll go. I'll leave Virginia City. You can have -"

Ben silenced her with a finger across her lips and a gentle "Shhh."

For many moments, they stood there, held by something neither could have described.

"I think we need to talk some things out between us, Sara."

Hand in hand, they returned to sit on the edge of the porch side by side in the morning light.

"Like I said, I'll leave," Sara spoke firmly but Ben could see her chin quivering.

"Why? I was just getting used to the idea of you as a neighbor!" he teased, putting his arm behind her and letting her lean against it.

"You don't understand, Ben," she said evenly despite the fact that her whole body was close to shaking. "I am not looking for another husband. You've been so kind but -"

"And you think I am looking at you as wife material?"

She could feel him looking at her. There was something about the way he spoke, the honesty filling every syllable that made her long for him. "Why else would you do this?" Her hands spread, encompassing her tiny yard and the house behind them. "And now a bed?"

Ben chuckled and took her hands in his. "Well, this is to be your home and I couldn't very well see you sleeping on the floor, could I? The bed doesn't mean anything, Sara. Why am I doing this? Maybe because I like you, Sara Brittingham. You have something I want." He paused and waited for her to look at him before he continued. "I want your friendship, Sara."

The simple words hit her with the force of a runaway train and took her breath away. The way he had said 'friendship' left her afraid.

"Maybe I misled you," Ben went on, now looking out over the valley beyond the corral. "I got so caught up in being with you, enjoying you as a woman that I forgot that you are a person as well. I'm sorry, Sara, I guess I was a fool to even think that someone like you-" He floundered to a stop.

"Ben, look at me!" she urged and when he did, all he could see were the tear tracks down her face. "I had a husband once and I didn't care for the limitations he put on my life. When he left me, I told myself I would never again lose my freedom.  Maybe that was where the dream of this place came from. I want this, Ben, I want it badly but at the same time, I don't want some one, some man, telling me what I have to do. Can you understand that?" Her voice was shaking as she spoke, fear making her quiver as she thought of how close she was to getting just what she wanted but also so far from it as well.

He thumbed one tear from her cheek as it trickled down across that ivory softness. She covered his hand with hers and, turning her face, kissed the palm of his hand. The act was oddly sensual.

"I can't -" he began but her finger pressed his lips closed.

"That doesn't mean I want to do without the company of a man. It just means that I may not want it all the time. Can you understand that? That I don't want a husband, Ben?"

Again when he opened his mouth to speak, she silenced him, this time with her own kiss.

"Tell me what you want, Sara, and it is yours just as long as you promise to stay here. Tell me," he whispered into her ear once their lips parted.

"I want whatever you want to give me, but understand that I will never marry you, Ben Cartwright. I will live my own life here on this little piece of heaven you have given me, but it is mine. I want my freedom, freedom to do as I choose. And that includes taking you to my bed if you are willing. But there are no strings attached, no promises, just a man and a woman sharing one another's passion. Can you understand that?"

"That isn't right-" he began, a portion of him appalled at her apparent wantonness. "What would people think? No, Sara, I can't do that."

"What if people didn't know? Take away everyone and leave just you and I on this earth. What then, Ben? Would you deny you and me both the pleasure of being together? We don't live for other people. We live for ourselves. I can't tell you what someone else feels when they kiss. I can tell you what I feel when you kiss me. I lose myself in you. You make my head spin. You make my knees tremble and my heart pound furiously. I feel like I have caught a sunbeam in my belly: warm and golden. But at the same time, I feel strong. Can you understand that?"

"Sara, what you are suggesting, it isn't right! A man and a woman -" He stopped when she whirled away from him.

"Not a man and a woman, Ben, you and me!" She shook her head angrily. "I am sorry. I can't stay here without wanting you. You say you want my friendship and I would give it to you but I want more than nice words. I want more than a visit with tea and cookies." She paused then gathered her courage before she finished. "I want your heart."

"But if I offered it, you wouldn't take my name, right?" He couldn't look at her back, her hair hanging loose. It called to his hands, begging them to touch it, to stroke it.

"I've been in Virginia City less than a week and know so much about you that you haven't said! The title 'cattle baron' floated passed my ear more than a time or two. I know you are the wealthiest rancher in these parts. You have three grown sons and a huge house. I know that you are a widower three times over. If I married you, people would think I did it probably because of your money. No, Ben, I would not take your name if only because of that!"

Ben could sit still no longer. Slowly he stood behind her and let his hands drop gently to her shoulders. His hands ran down her arms, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath the whisper-soft cotton. Surprisingly, she was pliant. He had expected from the last words she had spoken that she would be rigid with anger but she wasn't and stepped back easily into his embrace, leaning her head against his chest.

"Sara, I want you. God help me but I want you," he whispered into her ear, his cheek pressed against her silken hair.

"I want you too but not if it is going to be a problem between us. I would rather leave now and never know you that way than stay and yearn for it for the rest of my life."

    "Can we compromise?" he asked softly, folding his arms around her. When she looked over her shoulder and up into his face, he saw the raised eyebrows over the sparkling eyes. "That at some point in the far distant future, you and I will talk again about this?"

    "What do I get between now and then?" she murmured.

    "Everything you want and nothing you don't."

    Her bright smile and infectious laugh made his heart sing. She pulled away but held his hand, dragging him back towards the house. "Come on, then! You best get that bed fixed 'cause the barn needs work on it too!"
 
 

    "Well?" Adam hissed. Hoss had just pulled the buckboard team into the barn and started to unharness them. Joe joined his oldest brother, leaving his own horse still saddled.

    Hoss scowled, his face pulling to one side angrily. "She's a little bitty woman, " he finally said, faking his concentration on the harness.

    "And?" Joe pushed Hoss to one side and started to help with the team.

    "The way they acted, no. We're wrong. They's just friends, I tell you." Hoss' hands danced in the air before him.

    Adam's eyebrows went into the shadow cast by his hat. "Just tell us what you saw, Hoss."

    "Like I said, they's just friends. She was so tickled over the cook stove, she was jumping up and down. Most I saw her do was kiss Pa's cheek but then she kissed mine too! She called him 'Mister Cartwright' and he called her 'Miz Brittingham'. Now if you two want to make somethin' of it, she called me 'Hoss' and offered to cook me dinner some time on her new stove. What you got to say to that?"

    "Depends," came Joe's quick response. "What's she like?"

    "Like I said she's a little thing. Got mousy brown hair but a real nice figure in a womanly sort of way." Joe and Adam traded confused looks but didn't interrupt. "She weren't nervous ner nothin'."

    "How old would you guess she is?" Adam queried, thinking perhaps he should go pay a visit to the neighbor they'd had for six weeks.

    "She's too old for you," Hoss hastily replied but he couldn't put a figure to her age.

    "So she is the right age for Pa?" Joe was nearly cackling with delight. But it was short-lived since Hoss turned on him abruptly.

    "I don't know why the two of you got it into your heads that there is somethin' goin' on with Pa and that woman!" he seethed.

    "Simple," Adam spoke up and helped Joe pull the harness from the first horse. "Not two months ago, Pa was as difficult to live with as a grouchy ol' bear coming out of hibernation. Then, all of a sudden, he's, I don't think the word 'perky' would actually fit but he was close to it!"

    "And, he started suggesting that we spend more time in Virginia City. Does that sound remotely like our father of this past spring?" Joe, his lips pouting, shook his head in answer to his own question.

    "And have you noticed that when he goes to Virginia City, he often doesn't get home until way late? Then he says he ate in town?" Adam put in, stretching the last word way out into more than a single syllable.

    "I just can't believe our pa would-" Hoss contested hotly.

    "That I wouldn't what?" Ben asked as he pulled Buck into his stall and began to unsaddle the horse. He saw the looks his sons tried to hide. He knew what the discussion had been about since he had been listening at the barn door. It was all he could do to keep from laughing right out loud. Maybe he needed to be a little more circumspect where his comings and goings were concerned if his sons had picked up on the possibility of he and Sara.

    "That you wouldn't want to join us on the round up," Adam shot back cleanly and with his back turned to his father, hoped Ben hadn't caught the grimace he gave Hoss and Joe.

    "We've been over that. This year will be like every other year. You boys are all old enough that I don't need to be there! You can run things just fine!"

    "Well, we don't want you to get lonesome. I mean you told Hop Sing that he could go to San Francisco to visit family while we were gone-" Joe chirped up.

    "It just seems ridiculous to make him stay here just to take care of me when I can care for myself for a while! He deserves the time off."

    "We ain't doubtin' that one bit, Pa," Hoss would try a different angle of attack.. "Maybe you should ask Miz Brittingham to cook you up some vittles if you get hungry. I mean, she looked like a real nice lady and all." Hoss caught Joe's bugged out eyes and shoved him behind the closest post so their father couldn't see him.

    "I just might do that. Adam, how about you take care of Buck for me? I am tired tonight for some reason." Ben had to beat a hasty retreat or risk letting his sons in on his real plans for while they were gone.
 
 

The house was quiet that morning. Ben had gone about the routine simple things that started his day with a lighter step that dawn. He had seen Hop Sing off just as the sun broke over the eastern hills. Yesterday, his sons had departed for at least two weeks of gathering strays in the high country and driving them down. Any other time and Ben might have indulged in a short bit of melancholia but not this time. There were too many things to do!

    From the back paddock, he brought up the copper-red mare with the flowing pale mane and tail. He brushed her until the sun glistened on her. "Penny," he muttered as he bent and cleaned out her hooves. "You shine just like a new penny so that ought to be your name!" He slipped into the barn and from its hiding place, pulled a new saddle. With the new saddle blanket cushioning it, he placed it on the mare's back and tightened the cinch. The new hackamore slipped over her nose and the mare nudged Ben's chest expectantly.

    "No, not just yet," he chuckled and petted her neck. He had watched Joe earlier in the spring gentle this particular horse and was taken with her. There was a steadiness about her but also an eagerness to please. When Joe had gone on to other animals to work and train, Ben had begun working the mare for an hour or so each day. She responded well to training and had an affinity for petting. And apples, Ben discovered when she stole one from his hand as he had been eating it. There was just something about her that told Ben she belonged to the woman just on the other side of the mountain. That morning, he would deliver the mare.

    With Buck quickly saddled, Ben double-checked things in the house. After Hop Sing had left, he had changed the everyday linen tablecloth on the dining room table to the damask party one. He had laid out two place settings of the best china, crystal and silverware. In the center, he placed the silver candelabra with its pristine white candles. On a trip back through the kitchen he checked on the meal preparations. It would be a simple meal and one he was sure he could manage but he worried over it anyway!

    As he swung up into his saddle, he gave the house one more nervous look. No, everything would be perfect. It had to be! In his mind's eye he could see it all happening: after a day of riding her new horse, he would bring Sara here and introduce her to his world, his home. Granted, he decided that he was cheating a little by not having his sons there but that would come later. And tonight he would ask her to marry him.
 

    Patiently, Ben taught her. It never had dawned on him that she didn't know how to ride but, in hindsight, he realized he had never seen her on a horse, always in the surrey he had loaned her. Although she was a bold woman on the ground, she was considerably less so when looking at that same ground from the saddle. But he stayed close and, at her insistence, kept a lead rein on the mare. More than once he had to pull her hands off the saddle horn when the mare began to trot.

    "Sara, relax, will you?" he crooned, seeing her face and knuckles grow white yet again.

    "How can I relax? I am five feet off the ground on the back of a half-wild beast that weighs more than my stove!" she protested and the mare, sensing her distress, danced a little to one side. With a panicked gasp, Sara again caught hold of the saddle horn, her eyes wide.

    "Here, come on, let go of the horn, Sara. It can't help you." Ben leaned towards her again but the little mare sidestepped a little more as the bigger buckskin again came beside her. The motion frightened Sara even more and she let out a small scream. That set the mare off so suddenly Ben lost his grip on the lead rein. The horse took off at a full gallop. Determined to not let harm come to Sara, Ben slammed his heels viciously into Buck's sides and sent him hell-bent after them. When he saw they were headed for the trees, he started shouting instructions but was certain Sara couldn't hear him.

    For some reason, the mare stopped her headlong flight. She came to a slow and gentle halt then proceeded to simply stand there, awaiting the next command. The sound of thundering hooves made her turn and look back but nothing more.

    Ben pulled Buck up sharply, afraid the motion would frighten the mare again. Seeing Sara's back heaving so rapidly, he dismounted and went to stand beside her. Anxiously, he gazed up into her white face and frightened eyes. Wordlessly, he pulled her down and held her until she quit shaking in fear, slowly stroking her back and whispering over and over again that it was all right. Ultimately, she pushed away, dashing a hand across her face to wipe away her tears. Her mouth trembled as she tried to speak. She gave up and with slumped shoulders, started walking back towards the house.

    "No you don't, Sara," Ben said brusquely.

    Confused, she turned back to face him.

    "Come here and let me help you back up."

    "Ben, can't you accept that I was just not meant to ride a horse?" she blustered.

    "That is preposterous, woman! Admit it! You are afraid! That we can overcome!" he explained, dealing with her as though she were a son, not his lady.

    Her eyes went round but this time with anger at his tone. "I'll show you!" she ripped back and stalked back to stand in front of him, tossing a long strand of hair over her shoulder. Rolling her shoulders just once to summon up every last ounce of courage she could find, she turned and slipped a foot into Buck's stirrup. But she was too short to reach up and grab the saddle horn as Ben had shown her. She heard his deep-chested chuckle then felt his hand on her rear end, boosting her up. She looked down into his amused face.

    "Now what?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

    She scooted as far forward as she could get in the deep saddle and smiled down at him.

    "You are on the wrong horse, my love," he intoned, his voice gently teasing.

    "You ride this horse, right?" She jerked her head over her shoulder then looked pointedly behind her, eyebrows lifted.

    He pulled her foot from the stirrup and swung up behind her. Granted the saddle was full but he didn't truly mind her being this close.

    "Now, how do I hold the reins?" she asked and he wrapped his arms around her and showed her.

    An hour later and Ben had her pull Buck to a halt and he dismounted. He gathered up the reins to the mare and mounted her. Again, he and Sara went though the same lessons, she on Buck without him behind her. He could tell she was nervous and half- frightened but this time, she hung  on gamely. When he finally coaxed her into trying a a trot,  he knew she would be all right in the saddle. Even though she braced herself with one hand on the saddle horn, Ben knew why: the saddle on Buck was made for someone his size, not hers. If he could get her back onto her gift mare, he knew the saddle horn would be ignored. But it seemed that getting his horse back might be a problem.

    Another short gallop up to the front porch of her house and she was laughing. She waited for Ben to help her down and when her feet hit the ground, she nearly fell.

    "Are you okay?" Ben asked anxiously, feeling her sag in his arms unexpectedly.

    "I am but I don't think my legs are!"

    "Another reason for you to ride Penny over here. There is less of her to wrap your legs around. But you need to take a break before…" and he let his voice trail off. He helped her to sit on the steps then went back to tend to the horses.

    "Before what?" she asked, shading her eyes as she looked at him haloed by the afternoon light.

    "I have something planned for you tonight, young lady." He loosened Buck's cinch.

    "Do I need to get dressed for it?" she asked, recalling their first evening together and how overdressed she had been.

    "I keep telling you that nights are cold up here, so yes, clothes would be advisable."

    She longed to reach out and playfully smack him but he was too far away and her legs still felt rubbery. "That's not what I meant!"

    "What you have on is fine. I thought we would have dinner at the Ponderosa tonight."

    Sara cocked her head to one side, her mouth making a tiny 'o' and with an eye half squinted shut, appraised him curiously. This was perhaps the last thing she had expected of him.

    "Your sons-"

    "Aren't there. I thought it would be a way for you to kind of ease into that part of my life. See where I am when I am not with you. That sort of thing. Later, I would like my sons to meet you, get to know you. I think you would find them --well-- interesting, but then I am biased." The nervous schoolboy feeling returned to Ben and he had trouble looking at her just then.

    "I would like that. Let me get a shawl. Are we going to ride over?" She pulled herself to her feet slowly.

    "Of course! But this time, you ride Miss Penny here. Buck is my horse."
 

    She didn't want to admit it but Miss Penny, as Ben had christened the mare, was easier to stay astride than Buck. They rode slowly through the towering trees and shared the blissful silence that came with them. The sun began to drop as they gained the main road to the house. A bit of Ben's excitement dropped as well since he figured by the time they gained the yard, it would be too dark for her to see the house of which he was so proud. The house would be dark and since he hadn't built and banked a fire, cold as well. He huffed out his disappointment and just decided to let fate handle things.

    When they rounded the barn, Ben's disappointment exploded into fear. There was a light burning on the porch. And he could smell the pine smoke in the air that told him someone was home, with a fire going in the great stone fireplace. Yet the house was dark, except for a single light in the kitchen. Ben tried to put aside his panic and breathe normally since he felt no danger present. He helped Sara down and laughed a little at her wobbly legs. He told her that he had to care for the horses and she could either wait for him on the porch or go on into the house.

    "I need to know how to care for my horse, don't I?" she challenged and still walking funny, pulled up Miss Penny beside Ben and Buck.

    Ben breathed a sigh of relief silently when the barn showed no tall chestnut, broad black or flashy pinto. He wasn't sure who had lit the lantern on the porch or the fire in the hearth but at least it wasn't a son.

    Once they had cared for their mounts, and Sara had lavished a little extra attention on Buck, Ben wrapped an arm around her and walked her into the house. Inside the door, he turned her loose as he removed his hat and gunbelt.  There seemed to be light coming from the kitchen and with his heart in his throat, Ben knew without a doubt who was home: Hop Sing!  As he excused himself and headed for the kitchen, he kept telling himself it could be worse but he wasn't really sure how!

    "Hop Sing! I thought you were headed to your cousin's!" Bluff, bluff, bluff, Ben thought.

    "Hop Sing go visit Le Chan. Stay too long and miss stage. No stage out again until Friday. Two day tomorrow! So Hop Sing come home," he explained then stepped closer and lowered his voice and asked "What with dining room?"

    "I brought a --a friend home for dinner," Ben stuttered uncharacteristically.

    "Lady friend?" Hop Sing asked, all cunning innocence. "Must be! Good dishes, good table cloth!" A sly smile lit up the little man's face. "Hop Sing fix good dinner for Mistah Ben and his secret lady."

    Ben swallowed hard. "That would nice of Hop Sing."

    "Then Hop Sing do dishes, clean up and go to sleep. Have long hard day."

    "Yes," the word slowly slipped from Ben. "That also would be so good of Hop Sing."

    "Then tomorrow morning, Hop Sing make good breakfast. Maybe bring coffee up to Mistah Ben and secret lady so they not have to get out of bed so early!" Hop Sing's face was positively ablaze.

    "Yes," Ben started to nod and agree then realized what Hop Sing meant. "No, you don't need to do that! The lady will go home tonight."

    Hop Sing's face fell a country mile. "It plenty dark out. How lady see to get home? Maybe Hop Sing fix guest room for secret lady?"

    "Excellent idea, Hop Sing! Yes, a guestroom for her would be just the thing. Then a big breakfast tomorrow morning!" Ben's hand, fingers gathered into a point, punctuated his approval.

    "All that make extra work for Hop Sing and he on vacation now."

    Ben had been about to leave when Hop Sing said that. He turned back to face the little man who now stood, arms crossed and face unreadable. Ben arched one eyebrow as far as he could make it go. "An extra week."

    "Make it two weeks and Hop Sing forget to mention to sons about lady."

    "A week and a half," Ben counter-proposed, his eyes narrowing.

    "Two weeks and Hop Sing fix bed in guestroom next to Mista Ben's."

    "And forget that she was here?"

    Hop Sing, sensing he had just gotten all he was liable to wrench from the situation, nodded and smiled brightly.

    "Two weeks," Ben sighed.

    Dinner was magnificent and Sara insisted on thanking Hop Sing personally. The little man glowed with her praise. It did not surprise Ben that Hop Sing, insisting they take their coffee before the fire, brought out another bottle of wine instead. Sara settled back into the sofa at Ben's side and raised her glass to study the flames through the deep red of the wine.

    "I think your cook is trying to get me drunk, Ben," she mused and sounded serious.

    "You may be right. It isn't often someone praises him like you did tonight." Ben took a sip of the heady wine.

    "He deserved it! That meal was beyond comparisons! Do you eat like that all the time?"

    "Hop Sing is a very good cook but mostly we do with plainer fare." Ben set his glass down on the table before him and pulled the woman closer to him.

    "And this house, Ben, it is incredible! Not at all what I expected!" She leaned into his side and took another sip of her wine.

    "What did you expect a cattle baron to live in?" he teased.

    "I wasn't sure, you know, but not this certainly."

    For the next fifteen minutes or so, they didn't speak, at ease with just being together. Instead they watched the flames dancing before them. For Ben, he felt as though he had died and gone to heaven. Sara felt so right tucked into his side, with her feet freed of her boots up under her, resting her head on his chest lightly. With a small movement, he could brush his jaw over it and feel the silky warmth of her hair.

    "Sara," he called her name softly, almost sure she had fallen asleep. She stirred and gave him a muddled "huh?" He took a deep breath and finished his glass of wine before he spoke again. "A while ago, we said we would talk about something in the future. Is now that future?" He felt her stiffen slightly beside him. "Sara, I want to marry you. What we have between us right now, it isn't enough for me. I want you with me always! I don't want to have to look over my shoulder before I kiss you to see who's watching. When we are together like we are tonight, my whole body aches for you. But to just take you into my bed and make love to you goes against the grain for me. I feel like I am cheating you out of something. I want you to be my wife."

    He could feel her stiffen even more. Although he longed to keep her there beside him, when she pulled away, he let her go. She stood and with her arms crossed, went towards the fire. There she remained motionless, her back to him.

    "Do I need to get down on one knee and ask you?" Ben teasingly pleaded. "I'll do it in a heartbeat if you'll just say 'yes'."

    Her shoulders rose just once then dropped back down and Ben had his answer without her saying a word. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see her there before him. He heard the rustle of her clothes as she came back to him. Her hands, soft and warm, cradled his face and he opened his eyes to see hers not a few inches from his, glistening with unshed tears.

    "I meant what I said the other day, Ben. I don't want to marry ever again. Why can't we just go on like we are?" she whispered, the words heartbreakingly sincere.

    "Because I want to make love to you, Sara and I can't do that in good conscience without having made a commitment to you. Do you understand that?"

    "Okay, then, stand up," and she tugged at his hands, making him rise before her. Insistent, she pulled him to stand before the fire's warm glow beside her. "I, Sara Brittingham, take thee, Ben Cartwright, to be my lifelong friend and lover until death do us part! Your turn," she prodded.

    Ben gave his head a half-shake. "This isn't what I meant-" he began but she laid a finger across his lips, interrupting.

    "Just say what I did, Ben!"

    "It isn't what I -", he began anew when her finger let him. "I meant a real ceremony! With a preacher, all the trimmings! A real wedding, Sara!"

    "All those things are just for show, Ben, and you know it. Does it make a man and woman something different by it? No. It only means that there were witnesses to the promise, the commitment. Does it make it any harder to break the promise just because some preacher said the words? No. Make a commitment to me, here, tonight, Ben and it means more than some ceremony. Promise me that you will be my friend for the rest of our lives. Promise me that you will be a kind and patient lover and I will promise the same. But don't make it into something we would both regret. Call it holding back, if you want. Call it being selfish too if you want, but I cannot, and will not, ever give control of my life over to anyone else as long as I live. A marriage does that."

    "It doesn't have to do that, Sara. A marriage can be made up of equal partners."

    "A marriage starts out that way but rarely finishes that way and you know this, Ben Cartwright. What I am proposing here, tonight, right now, is something infinitely more than a marriage. I am talking about a friendship based on respect. Respect for each other's wishes, each other's freedom and each other's way of life."

    Ben could no longer meet her eye, seeing the passion written plainly on her face. Instead he looked into the flames. She stepped closer to him and pressed her body against his and out of simple habit, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her there to him.

    "All the reasons for marriage don't apply to us, Ben. I am past the age of childbearing so you can't claim that it would give legitimacy to any offspring. I live on land that was once yours but now is mine, the deed now signed, sealed and delivered. And if you and I spend some time together, who would know and care all the way out here? I don't know about you, but I don't care for what the harpies in town say about me because I don't listen to them. If you are worried about your reputation-"

    "I am more worried about yours," Ben interjected.

    "Don't be! As far as I know, I have no reputation because I have little contact with any one besides you. But if it would ease your sense of righteousness, I promise that you and I will be the only ones who know of it. I mean, my god, Ben! We live, both of us, so far from prying eyes!"

    Ben's brows rose high on his forehead and looking up at him, Sara almost giggled when she saw them.

    "Okay, well I do, at least! And tell me something- why else did you sell me that property if not to -"

    "Sara! I wanted you-"

    "Ben, if you wanted me for your wife, why sell me the valley next door to you for a kiss? Why didn't you propose before then and save yourself the trouble of having to help me fix the place up? Why? I'll tell you why. Because deep inside you, you are afraid-"

    "Afraid?! Afraid of what?" he protested, raring back to be able to see her expression.

    "Like I told you, I've heard talk in town. Widower three times over. Any sane man would be leery of ever tying a knot again! Now are you a sane man?"

    "If I were, would I be having this argument with a beautiful and desirable woman?"

    It started as a giggle from her and grew until the two of them could hardly stand upright for laughing so hard. Ben finally got himself under control and held her up while Sara fought for a semblance of the same. That, the laughter, the release, the warmth of the fire beside them, it all washed over him and he found himself wanting the woman he held. Not the gentle, placid, whispered-of-softly desire of an hour ago but that of which she had spoken: that of a man and a woman coming together to satisfy a primal urge older than time. He tried to set the need aside but held against him, she felt it rise as well. Instead of stepping away, she pressed herself to him.

    "Now," she whispered fiercely, "take me now. Here."
 
 

    The rooster stood on his favorite post and crowed loudly in the dim morning light. He could see the sun rising over his domain and wanted the rest of the world to experience it with him so he crowed again but louder and more insistently. When all stayed quiet, he ruffled his feathers back into place and hopped down to the ground. There were other things that demanded his attention.

    Ben stirred from his light slumber. The memories of what had transpired in the night left him feeling lazy and satiated. Beside him, her head resting on his shoulder, Sara still slept, a gentle smile on her lips. He pulled the quilt up to cover her bare shoulder and heard her mumble something in her sleep as she moved closer to him. He smiled and just for those few moments, let himself think nothing at all except how good it felt to wake up with a woman in his arms. He let her body lay pressed to his and allowed her warm breath to wash across his chest but then she began to stir and awaken. He didn't want her to awaken but knew she must.

    She drew a deep breath and moved away from him before she opened her eyes. She blinked several times then rolled back onto her side and into his arms again.

    "Good morning," he greeted softly, pressing his lips to her forehead. To his delight, she yawned and wiggled happily beside him then blinked her wide blue eyes again. "Did you sleep well?"

    Sara groaned aloud and placed one palm against his chest. "Sleep? Did we sleep?" she teased. "I don't recall even dropping off. Please forgive me but I am not as young as I once was."

    He hugged her to him, again delighting in the feel of her naked body next to his. "We must have slept since we both just woke up. Although," he gave her a mock grimace, "I don't think my body has been through such rigors in a long time!"

    "You aren't the only one out of practice, Ben. Shall we practice some more?" She looked up into his face with an air of coy daring. "Or shall we have our coffee first?"

    "Coffee?" Ben blurted out then realized he could smell coffee. Just like he did every morning. He swallowed hard. Hop Sing always brought him up a hot cup of coffee every morning while he was shaving. This morning, Hop Sing must have brought up -- oh no-- Ben groaned for real, knowing now Hop Sing had to have seen Sara there beside him. He felt the pit of his stomach drop and his mouth suddenly went dry.

    "Is something wrong?" she queried, seeing Ben's obvious distress.

    "I didn't intend Hop Sing to know that we had -um-you know-um," Ben stammered uncharacteristically, putting one arm across his forehead, trying to think of a way out of the situation he found himself in at the moment. "I didn't want him to think that we had .." Finally embarrassed, Ben stumbled to a halt.

    Sara laughed brightly and sat up, the blanket falling away and exposing her breasts to the morning's golden light. "Well, he knew. He brought up two cups after all!" She started to whisk the blankets away but then decided it wasn't such a good idea seeing how it was still a little chilly. "And if you think he didn't hear us last night, you must be mistaken."

    Ben watched her for a moment as she struggled to get back to the warmth beside him.

    Okay, I'll give him three weeks off, he thought, pulling the willing woman back to him again.
 
 

The two weeks his sons were gone flew by for Ben. It was with a jolt he realized one night while having dinner with Sara at her place that his sons would be home the next day. The expression on his face gave away his thoughts to her as she cleared the dishes from the table.

    "I guess this is your last night of freedom, huh?" she asked lightly.

    Ben settled his cup back on its saucer then stood to help her clear things away. Without further discussion, he helped her wash the dishes and put them away when dried. They didn't speak to one another, fearing that words would break the spell about to be broken any way. They took their coffee cups and the pot and went to sit on the steps to her little house. From there they watched the moonrise and the stars come out, Sara finally leaning back into his embrace.

    "Sara," he spoke her name lovingly, his voice husky and deep with passion. "I want you to marry me. I don't want this to end."

    "We've been through this already and while I grow more and more in love with you, the answer is still no. This doesn't have to end."

    He rubbed his chin across the top of her soft crown of hair. "Sara, I can't be a hypocrite. I can't tell my sons one thing and then go and do the opposite. I've brought them up to be good men -"

    "Men, Ben!" she insisted. "Just like every other human being out there, they are men! Each and every person out there has simple basic needs that have to be fulfilled to make them happy. One of those needs is to be loved, Ben. Tell me that I am wrong, Ben and I will never -"

    "Shh," he crooned in her ear, silencing her with its simplicity. The last thing he wanted that night was for them to argue and it sounded like she was getting cranked up for another good discussion. He didn't want that. What he did want was for her to understand his position. "Sara, you are not wrong but you have to understand about my sons."

    She turned halfway in his arms and plucked at his shirt collar. "I understand about your sons. You love them. It's that simple."

    "No. I mean-" Ben began to protest but she silenced him gently with a caress to his jaw.

    "What if they were my sons? Would you feel the same way? Like you were being two-faced? 'No, I don't want you boys to know a woman before marriage!' That is a recipe for disaster on their wedding night if I ever heard one!"

    In spite of himself, he had to chuckle at her rendition of his voice admonishing his sons. "My head isn't stuck in the sand about this, Sara. I know my sons have been with women, that way, I mean. Well maybe not Hoss!"

    She giggled. "That young man blushed clear to his boot tops when I kissed his cheek! He is such a breath of fresh air, Ben. The woman who snags him for a husband will get a real gem!"

    "Well, I am not so sure he was blushing because you kissed him. He may have been thinking about you cooking for him!"

    Together they laughed but then grew sober again, the mood deepening once more.

    "Ben," she finally whispered, "If there were a man I would give my life to, it would be you. You make me feel like a woman again."

    "Then marry me," Ben murmured back.

    She turned and rose in his arms, leaning her face down to his to kiss him. The kiss was unlike any other she had given him. This kiss held no hot flame of desire. It held only the promise of love.

    Ben never saw the tears slip slowly down her face as she led him willingly into her darkened bedroom for a night of simple lovemaking.

Then the mountain rose before me
        By the deep well of desire
            From the Fountain of Forgiveness
                Beyond the ice and the fire
                    Cast your eyes on the ocean
                        Cast your soul to the sea
                            When the dark night seems endless
                                Please remember me

    The hustle and bustle of Virginia City seemed to fill her every sense that spring afternoon. The main street was crowded with wagons and people on horseback. The walkways were jammed with men, women and children all moving like some sinewy beast towards a dozen different destinations. Sara Brittingham stood briefly at the doorway of the mercantile, amazed by it all before she finally struck out into the fray. For those too-short moments, she could pretend that once again she was in San Francisco, walking that city's noisy, busy streets. She almost wanted to skip. After having been alone for the past week and a half out on her small farm, the joy of being with other people was intoxicating. As she walked towards the bank, she nodded and smiled to everyone, secretly pleased that no one really knew her yet seemed friendly all the same.

She was just stepping into the bank when she spotted him. It was hard not to spot Hoss Cartwright, even on the crowded street as he drove the buckboard up to the hardware store across the way. Beside him was a tall man, all dressed in black who lithely jumped down as Hoss pulled the team to a halt. Without ever having been introduced to him, Sara knew he was Adam, Ben's eldest son. For a brief moment she watched him, seeing his father in him as he moved and gestured as he spoke to his brother. Like his father, there was an air of confidence that was hard to miss. Shaking herself, Sara went on into the bank.

She heard the bank manager, Mr. Avery, greet Adam warmly as she finished making a withdrawal from her account. Unlike the street, there were few people in the bank lobby and she wondered if she could leave without ever actually being noticed. Drawing the strings closed on her bag, she put her head down and aimed for the door only to run into Hoss. Literally.

"Howdy there, Miss Brittingham!" he greeted her loudly, keeping her from falling by holding onto her arms.

She could feel Adam's eyes on her as Hoss introduced her to him. He surprised her by taking her hand and gallantly leaning over to kiss it.

"My brother Hoss here has spoken of you so kindly, Miss Brittingham, I was beginning to wonder if you weren't some figment of his imagination," Adam smoothly said, still holding her hand in his. It was easy to see, knowing his father, that Adam had inherited the family gift of charming repartee.

"Has he now?" Sara shamelessly flirted back as she attempted to retrieve her hand as well. Adam would not relinquish his hold on her and a tiny flutter of panic ripped into her.

"Miss Brittingham, perhaps you would like to join Hoss and me for a bit of lunch?" Adam asked, tucking her hand under his elbow and guiding her out the door.

Behind them, she heard Hoss' confused "Lunch?" but then he followed them.

She was about to pull away and plead other business when across the street she saw two men getting off of the stagecoach there. They didn't have to turn for her to know who they were. And why they had come to Virginia City. She hastily decided that having these two large young men beside her was an excellent idea since she didn't want to be seen by the newcomers. Reaching behind her, she drew Hoss up to walk on the street side of her, all the while chattering with Adam, sounding, she was sure, like a blithering idiot.

Sara let Adam buy her lunch at the small café he chose. She continued with her chatting through most of the meal, only stopping to smile or to chew.

"Hoss, why don't you go ahead and get the wagon. I think Miss Brittingham and I will have another cup of coffee," Adam finally spoke up and his tone of dismissal was sharp and clear. Hoss looked perplexed but got to his feet and left. "Now then, Miss Brittingham, we can have a real discussion."

"Why I thought we were!" Sara shot back cleanly, playing still the empty-headed female.

"Miss Brittingham, I am not the innocent fool you may take me for," he spoke low and even, pleased when her eyes dropped to her hands and she said nothing. "I know that my father is in love with you and my father has never shown any penchant for the type of woman you are trying to be right now. So drop the act, Miss Brittingham."

She did and when she looked across the table her eyes held his steadily. "What are going to do about it?" she asked but her voice trembled slightly with irrational fear.

"Nothing," was Adam's reply. "Nothing at all unless you hurt him."

"I have no intention of hurting your father," she hissed softly.

Without batting an eyelash, Adam leaned across the table and grabbed Sara's forearm, his fingers tightening. "I'm serious, Miss Brittingham. I love my father."

She wrenched her arm away from him and stood swiftly. "That makes two of us. Now if this interrogation is finished, I'd like to go home."

Adam came to his feet slowly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few bills that he left on the table to pay for the meals. Once again, her took her hand under his arm to escort her from the café but he held it firmly against his side so she couldn't easily pull away without making a scene. They walked down the street towards where he could see Hoss had pulled up next to her wagon.

Gallantly to all appearances, Adam helped her up onto her wagon seat. She picked up the reins to the horse but before she could smack them over the horse's rump, Adam grabbed her hand again in his vice-like grip.

"I meant what I said. I don't want him hurt," he warned softly.

"And I meant what I said." She nodded in Hoss' direction then without giving Adam another moment's consideration, snapped the reins.

Adam watched the wagon pull out, the woman's back straight and her head held high.  His jaw working to one side, he swung up next to Hoss.

"You wanna tell me what that was all about?" Hoss asked, his chin jutting forward.

"Well, let's just say I was sounding the depths. She doesn't scare easy, that's for sure."
 

    She wasn't sure which had frightened her more that afternoon: the two men she had seen disembarking from the stagecoach or the encounter with Adam Cartwright. That evening as she readied for bed, Sara absently rubbed at the forearm he had grasped tightly. She hadn't expected his reaction to his father's newfound love interest. For some reason, she had thought Ben's sons would simply shrug it off. After all, she couldn't be the only woman he had ever been romantically interested in. Those other women, she considered, might have hurt Ben and who but his eldest son would have known and seen the pain they caused? Dragging a brush through her hair once more, she decided to stay as clear of Adam Cartwright as possible. She had no desire to cause Ben any pain but she also didn't need Adam's suspicions about her.

    "Why can't these damn men just let things be?" she shouted to no one there and flung her hairbrush aside, turned down the lamp, blew out the flame and slipped between the cold sheets. Alone with memories her sole company that night.
 

    "I tell you, she's hiding something!" Adam pounded a fist into a sack of grain again.

    "And I'm telling you to leave it alone!" Hoss replied and shoved another bag in Adam's direction. The barn reverberated with their voices as they worked but they didn't care as their father had left early that morning.

    "I agree with Hoss," Joe piped up and forked another load of soiled bedding into a wheelbarrow. "You got it into your head that this woman is bad news of some sort. You seem to think she is out to get Pa or something."

    "Well, maybe she is," the eldest commented then watched his younger siblings roll their eyes.

    "If she was after something, I don't think she would be sitting on that little puny couple of acres in a dilapidated house with the barn falling down around her ears!" Joe shot back then almost laughed at the way he had phrased it.

    Adam dropped down to sit on the bag he had pulled into the doorway of the feed room. "You seen that 'dilapidated' house lately? The barn didn't appear to be falling down either when I saw it last. And I'll tell you two something else: she didn't pay for the land. I know. I checked the ledgers and there is no entry."

    "What have you got against that woman, Adam?" Hoss pushed his hat back on his head and stood up straight, his expression defiant. "To listen to you, she is some no-good Jezebel out to take Pa for ever'thing he's got! So what if Pa gave her that piece of ground? And she wouldn't be the only woman known to have fixed a place up some."

    "She didn't," shouted Adam and for good measure, smacked the wall with his hand. "Pa fixed the place up. He bought her the stove you put in for her. He gave her that pretty little sorrel mare you broke, Joe. Why do you think he's been doing the books at night? Because he has been over there during the day!" In his fit of uncharacteristic temper, Adam had stood and paced angrily to the door of the barn. He had finished by pointing an accusing finger in the direction of Sara's.

    "Adam," Hoss started then bit down on what he was going to say.

    Joe picked up on Hoss' being put-out and added to it his own. "Is there something wrong with Pa having a woman in his life, Adam?" Grasping the handles of the wheelbarrow, Joe edged by Adam, glaring as he went.

    "No, he's entitled to a woman if that's what he wants!" came Adam's response.

    "Good," Hoss patted Adam's belly as he walked passed his brother, thinking about the donuts he knew Hop Sing was making that morning. "Then let Miss Sara be that woman."

    Finding himself suddenly alone in the barn, all Adam could do was fume to himself. Why couldn't they understand about this woman? Deep down, Adam was sure she was hiding something. Was it something that would hurt his father? He shook his head. That he couldn't decide but without Hoss and Joe feeling the same way, he would look rather foolish going to his father with his concerns. No, he thought, he'd look just like what he felt: over-protective of a man whose heart meant more to him than his own.
 

    "You know, it would be a whole lot easier." Sara sighed and shook her head, her long braid swishing across her back. The hand she used to wipe away the trickle of sweat on her face left a dirty track.

    "I'll have you know that I plowed many a field in my day!" Ben told her firmly then adjusted his grip on the plow handles again. He wouldn't give in that he was having some difficulty with the plowing he was doing for her. After all, it wasn't that much. Not at all like the acres he had done as a young man. Sara just wanted a garden area plowed and Ben, eager to please, had brought over the plow and team early that morning. But nothing had gone right. The horse had balked and fought the idea. Sara had finally grasped the headstall and led the horse while Ben handled the plow. She had quickly shed her shoes so that she could walk easily in recently plowed ground but Ben had not. As such, he had stumbled more than once. Her suggestion that he do likewise and shed his boots had met with firm resistance.

    "And you were younger then! Who plowed the last field on the Ponderosa?" She saw his grim expression, his lips pressed tight together. "I rest my case! Why don't we take a break? Sit on the porch? Have a drink?"

    "When we get to the end of the row! Now get a hold on the horse-"

    Looking back on the crooked row he had just plowed, Ben silently cursed himself. If anyone else had done such a poor job he would have doubted that they had ever done any plowing at all! Sara was tugging on his arm, urging him to the cool of the porch but he unhitched the horse first and led it into the shade. Wiping the sweat from his neck once more with a bandana already soaked through, he followed her to the house. He didn't bother trying to walk up the few steps but just sat on the edge.

    "Here," Sara offered him a glass of cool water and dropped down to sit beside him. "There is no one going to tell on you if you take your boots off, you know. It's actually rather fun, feeling the dirt cool and a little wet on your feet." As though to demonstrate, she lifted both of her feet into the air, dirty toes wiggling.

    Ben just huffed once in reply but she laughed gaily. "Were you one of those who was never a child?" she asked, leaning against his arm, her eyes sparkling in the shadows. "I bet you were. So serious and all. Never took the time to play and be a boy because you were always trying to be an adult."

    He set his glass behind him as he listened to her. "You are partly right, my dear. I went to sea as a very young man. From cabin boy, I worked my way up to first mate. Before then, I had to work the farm with my brother and father. Making a living on a New England farm isn't the easiest thing to do. Serious all the time? Probably. But, I did play. Just not a lot." Ben sighed and tugged at his sweaty shirt sticking to his chest. "My sons taught me more about play. And, I admit, when they were little, I played with them."

    "They mean a lot to you, your sons, don't they?" Her words, gentle and softly voiced, seemed to make her question more of a statement. "Of course they do! That was silly of me!"

    "What about you? I bet you were a freckle- faced little girl so full of mischief-" Ben pulled on her single braid and she yelped playfully. "You were a handful to your mother and father. I can see it in your eyes, Sara Brittingham!"

    She danced away from him, her feet puffing up yard dust as she did. Daringly she lifted her long skirt almost to her knees, showing delicate pale legs and shapely ankles. "I was a tomboy! My mother swore if I didn't settle down and learn to behave like a proper lady that I would be a spinster, an old maid! I didn't care! I wanted to run wild and fast, wear boy's clothes. I even tried chewing tobacco once. Ugh!" Ben laughed at the puckered face she made. "I wanted to be tall and muscular. Instead, I quit growing up when I was twelve and started growing out." To demonstrate what she meant, her hands held her bosom, the dirt on them making smudges on the white cotton blouse. "You have no idea how things like these get in the way of a tomboy!"

    "Somewhere along the way, I think you listened to your mother." Pushing hard at the porch, Ben stood, back muscles protesting but he paid them no mind. He crossed the sunny yard and caught her in his arms, delighting when she laced her hands behind his neck. "And I am glad that you grew 'out' instead of up! Now, let's get that garden plowed for you." As emphasis, he playfully smacked her buttocks.

    "On one condition! You take off your boots! You'll twist an ankle if you don't." Seeing the stern set to his mouth, she smiled back at him. "I'll make you a deal then. You take off your boots and I'll -" she stumbled to a halt, unsure of what she would do.

    Ben took a deep breath and released her. He went back to the edge of the porch and proceeded to pull off his boots and socks. Walking back towards the rested horse and the crooked rows of her garden, he winced as tender feet encountered pebbles. He didn't look back at her, not wanting her to see the resignation on his face. But as he stood ankle deep in the newly turned soil, he had to admit that it felt good on his feet, the cool moistness there. Once he had the horse again hitched to the plow, he finally turned and found her once again at the horse's head. She had shed her blouse and was now clad only in her chemise above the waist.

    "Well?" she challenged.

    He groaned. "If you don't put your blouse back on, my dear, your garden will never get plowed."

    "Oh, yes it will."

    Later that afternoon, Ben looked back over the small patch and chuckled to himself. The later rows were straighter. There weren't as many but they were straighter.
 

    Sara had just finished planting a row of corn when she heard the horse in the yard. Dusting her hands, she walked towards the sound. There in the yard sat a young man on a black and white horse. She put up a hand to shield her eyes from the bright sunlight and asked if she could help him. He didn't answer her directly but swung down from the horse and scuffed a boot toe into the dirt.

    "I just thought you might want to know that there are some men in town, asking about you," he said softly, still not looking at her.

    "And?" Sara's voice shook as she said the one word, her breathing becoming shallow and quick.

    "My name is Joe Cartwright and I know my father has been spending time with you."

    "So, you told your brother Adam and he sent you here to run me off!"

    He looked squarely at her as he answered calmly. "No, ma'am. I came here first. Adam and I don't see eye to eye on lots of things and you're one of them. I just thought maybe I would let you know some folks were taking a queer interest in your whereabouts. If there's gonna be trouble, you need to know you have friends that will help you. But first we need to know what that trouble is."

    "Friends," she softly repeated the word, her hand clutching at her throat as she spoke it.

    "Yes ma'am. Friends. Not just Pa but me and Hoss-" the young man started but Sara interrupted.

    "I can't imagine your brother Adam-"

    "He'd be the first one, Miss Brittingham, to stand between you and whatever it is that makes you afraid of these men. I can see it on your face. You're afraid of them. Like I said, if there's going to be trouble, we need to know about it before it lands on your doorstep."

    "The men in town, asking about me, did you say anything about me?" asked Sara, not trying to hide her fear now since he had clearly seen it.

    "No, but others did. That's why I came here directly. Why don't you get together a few things and ride with me over to the Ponderosa? I'm sure Pa would love to see you and maybe even introduce us all properly." He smiled as he spoke and Sara was warmed by it. "Please?" he begged.

    "I don't think it's really necessary but thank you for the offer, Joe. Those men were associates of my husband and I am sure they mean me no harm. Like I said, thank you for the offer, but I'll be all right."

    Something inside Joe screamed that she wasn't telling the whole truth but he acquiesced to her desires and swung back onto his horse. "Can you find your way to the Ponderosa in the dark, ma'am? I mean, if you had to?"

    She smiled at the naked concern in the young man's voice. "You are just like your father! Go on, now. I'll be fine."

    Sara waited until he disappeared into the trees before she sank down into the dusty yard and cried.
 

    "Well, what did you want me to do? Throw her over my saddle and drag her here?" The words hit him just as hard as the rain did the window behind his dining room chair but Ben held his ground, banging the table with his fist as he shouted yes. Joe didn't flinch and remained adamant. He had done what he could to convince the woman and now his father was angry because she was headstrong?

    "Pa, be reasonable. With this storm like it is, ain't nobody gonna be out in it. 'Specially somebody who ain't familiar with the land. Miss Sara is gonna be safe tonight. Tomorrow morning, we can all go over and make sure she's all right." Hoss cut into his roast beef while he tried to placate his father. He had listened to Joe and thought his brother had done all that he could to get her to return with him. Joe was right, he couldn't treat her that way. If nothing else, their father would have taken him to task for it no matter what!

    "Hoss is right," Adam spoke up from his end of the table. "Maybe in the morning she will have thought about it and come to her senses. I am sure once she talks with you, she'll accept our offer to help her." He had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from saying "I told you so!" to Hoss and Joe.

    As much as what his sons said made sense, Ben still wanted to saddle his horse and ride through the pounding rain to be beside Sara. Yes, Hoss was right about  strangers probably not willing to brave the storm and they thought they had time, not knowing that Joe had gone to Sara's and told her of their presence and their questions. And Sara's explanation as Joe had relayed it did little to settle his ill at ease. The rain pushed hard at the window, the wind rattling it. He would stay there that night but that didn't mean he wouldn't worry.
 

    Before the first light, Ben was up and saddling his horse. His sons wordlessly joined him in the barn.

    "I don't need your help," he hissed tersely but they ignored him, tending to their own mounts and following him out the barn door. When he saw them swing into the saddle, he repeated that he didn't need them.

    Adam nudged his horse up beside Buck and rolled his shoulders under his jacket. "It's pretty obvious that you care for this woman, Pa. She's important to you for whatever reason. That makes her important to us, too. Besides, if she's anything like what I think she is, it may take all of us to convince her." He smiled for his father's sake but he really expected the house would be empty when they got there. That little Miss Sara Brittingham's past had caught up to her and she had run away, and probably not for the first time, as he figured things. And that being the case, his father, claiming that he needed to be alone, really wouldn't want to be.

    So, as the light misty rain continued to fall, father and sons rode out. Hoss was the first to see her as she staggered then fell, disappearing in the high grass of the meadow a mile below the main house.

    Ben was off his horse before the animal came to a complete stop. Sara lay on her side in the grass, her torn nightgown little protection against the cold and wet there. Her face was bruised and a cut on one cheek bled, staining the once ivory skin. As Ben lifted her, she cried out and weakly tried to fight him, leaving streaks of watery blood on his jacket front. He called her name and she opened her eyes, fighting to focus on the sound of his voice. A huge sob caught her and she melted into his arms, her head pressed to his chest.

    "Here," Adam draped his jacket around her shaking shoulders as he knelt there beside his father. He reached back and took the slicker Hoss offered and covered the rest of her body. "Joe, get Doc Martin out here. Better find Roy Coffee too! Hoss get over to Sara's. See what you can find in the way of who did this. Pa," Adam had to touch his father's shoulder to get his attention, "we need to get her back to the house."

    Numbly, Ben let Adam lift Sara's body and hold it while he got back onto his horse. Gently, his son handed her to him and Ben settled her across his saddle, cradling her as he would have a babe, holding her close to him. He could feel how cold she was and struggled to cover her. Adam tucked the slicker around her legs, seeing her bloody feet before him. He swung onto Sport and reached out to his father.

    "You hold her. I'll lead your horse," he offered and said nothing else when his father simply handed him the reins of his horse and pulled the woman closer into his embrace. And it didn't surprise Adam one bit that when they reached the house, his father had taken Sara into his own room and laid her on his bed.
 

    Paul Martin shook his head as he accepted the cup of coffee from Hop Sing. "Can't say, Roy. Other than the fact that somebody beat her pretty good. Then from the looks of it, she went out in that storm, trying to get here would be my guess. Bruises, her feet are cut to ribbons, ribs that if they aren't broke, it's a miracle. Toss in being chilled to the bone and that is one sick lady."

    Roy Coffee turned to Hoss as he stood warming his own hands at the fire in the great room of the Ponderosa. Outside, the rain picked up the tempo again and the wind rattled the windows. "You didn't find anything out there to her place?"

    Hoss shook his head. Again he told them what he had discovered: the house torn apart, right down to floorboards pulled up. "Whoever did it was looking for something."

    "Did she have anything valuable stashed away that you boys know of? Jewelry? Money, maybe?" asked Roy, his hands spreading as he spoke.

    Joe rose from the settee and jabbed at the fire, making sparks fly up. Like Hoss, he shook his head in reply.

    "She had something, all right," Adam spoke up and earned a pair of hard glances from his brothers. "Why else would someone follow her to Virginia City then ride out in a driving rain, tear up her house and beat the living hell out of her if she didn't?"

    "Before I rode out here, I checked at the hotel for those two ya-hoos you told me about, Joe. They checked out yesterday afternoon."

    "Just in time to follow me to her house, most likely." Joe couldn't lift his eyes from the fire as he spoke, knowing that he should have thrown her across his saddle and made her come with him. Guilt weighed heavily on his shoulders.

    Roy thumbed his mustache down and agreed.

    "I don't think she had any such thing, Roy. I was there right after she moved in and I didn't see anything worth all that. I think it's a mistake." Hoss couldn't get the pieces to come together. The woman he knew as Sara Brittingham had been a cheerful and energetic widow, starting out a new life with very little but hope.

    "She had something valuable all right, but it wasn't there at her house," said Adam, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees. "Maybe, just maybe, this was aimed at someone else." He felt the eyes of everyone in the room come to rest on him. "She had our father's heart and what better way to hurt him than to hurt her?"

    "You folks been having trouble with someone?" Roy had to consider the possibility. He didn't know whether to be relieved or not when he saw all three brothers shake their heads from side to side. "Tell you the truth, boys, I don't think anyone outside of this room knew your pa was seeing Miss Brittingham. I didn't. Seen them a few times right after she come but I didn't think it was anything serious-like. Not enough that somebody would do what they did to her to get back at your pa. What do you know about her past?"

    Before anyone could answer Roy's question, they heard Ben's footsteps on the stairs and turned to greet him silently.

    "She's recently widowed, Roy. She came from San Francisco." Ben held the eyes of his sons as he spoke, "Beyond that, she never told me anything else about herself. And I didn't ask." She was a tomboy growing up; she loves the feel of fresh-plowed ground on her feet; she feels like sunshine when I hold her in my arms; when she makes love, she laughs; she's ticklish, independent and strong-minded. And I love her. But those thoughts he left unspoken, knowing what they said about her only made a difference to him.

    "Well, that gives me some place to start. I'll head back. Get a telegram out to the police chief fella over there in San Francisco. Don't know what he can tell me but it's a start." Roy shrugged back into his slicker and headed back into the teeth of the storm. He was surprised when Adam followed him.

    "Roy, when you hear something back, do me a favor?" Roy nodded once and pulled his hat down. "Come tell me first."

    "Adam, your pa -"

    "My father is about to get his heart broken by this woman, I know he is. Please Roy, it'll be better if it comes from me."

    "You are so sure there's something sinister in her past, aren't you? What if there ain't?" For that last question Adam Cartwright had no answer. All he did know was there was a heartache on its way and there was no way he could stop his father from being its victim, no matter he did.
 
 

    Under Hop Sing's care and Ben's watchful eye, Sara began to heal. A week after the attack, Roy Coffee presented himself at her bedside and although he was solicitous, he was also firm.

    "So, you don't know the men who came to your house that night?"

    Sara shook her head. "One of them looked like a man my husband had dealings with. Dealing that didn't go well. He thought I had something of his, but I didn't. He couldn't take out his anger on my husband so he did on me. Beyond that, Sheriff, I don't know any thing else."

    Roy patted her hand. The names of the two men who had registered at the hotel had turned out to belong to two drunken cowboys over in Placerville. They had been in that jail sleeping it off when Sara Brittingham had been attacked. Moreover, they claimed no knowledge of anyone by her name. Roy figured the men who had beaten the woman had just borrowed two names but why? They weren't known in Virginia City. That question, and others, made Roy uncomfortable standing by the lady's bedside that afternoon. He promised her he would keep an eye out for the two, tipped his hat and left her in Ben's care.

    He found who he was looking for in the barn before he left. It was plain to see Adam had been waiting for him. Before Adam could open his mouth to speak, Roy held up his hand, asking for silence. "I promised you that I would talk to you when I found something out. And I will. But Adam, the folks over in San Francisco, well there's lots of people there. But the name of Sara Brittingham don't ring a bell with none of 'em. Not only that, there ain't been no one by the name of Brittingham died in San Francisco in the last two years."

    "That's a lot of ain't and no's, Roy. You think she isn't using her real name?"

    The lawman nodded. "I looked through her things over to the house. Didn't find a letter addressed to her, nothing. It looks like this lady just dropped into the world."

    "Could she be on the run from the law?" Adam asked and just as quickly wished he'd never had the thought.

    "I checked on that but there's no one wanted that fits her description. How about you talk with her? Maybe she'll tell you somethin'," encouraged the sheriff.

    "Her name is Sara Brittingham. She is not wanted by the law. She is a widow and she is a guest in our house." Adam wanted the floor to open up and swallow him when he heard his father speak, knowing that now his father was aware of what Adam had done. Ashamed, he couldn't look his father in the eye; couldn't make his voice speak to even begin to apologize.

    "Settle down, Ben," Roy said harshly. Unlike Adam he had no problem bracing his old friend. "What she's told you about herself don't amount to a hill of beans! I figure she knows who those fellas were and just exactly what they were after. She says she come from San Francisco but nobody there ever heard of her and nobody in Virginia City knew her before now!"

    Ben's face grew black with anger. He raised his voice until the rafters shook. " Nobody ever heard of Roy Coffee years ago when he first came to town! Why should it be any different for Sara? For God's sake, Roy, she is the victim!"

    Keeping his voice low and even, Roy replied, "Some victims, because of who or what they are, bring it on themselves. Ben, find out more about this lady before she brings you some real trouble."

    "GET OUT!" shouted Ben but Roy was already leaving. For the next few moments, Ben fought for control over his roiling anger. Adam stayed silent, watching his father struggle.

    "Do you want me to leave too?" he softly asked.

    "I want to know why you've apparently decided that Sara is-"

    "She is just what you said she is, Pa. She is a guest in our house and I was wrong to suspect her of anything-" He floundered for the right word, feeling hot acid rise in the back of his throat. "-anything unfavorable or unsavory," he finished lamely.

    The words seemed to take the anger from Ben and as it departed, he found himself weakened. His shoulders slumped and he found he needed to lean on the side of the stall just to remain standing. The long hours spent worrying over Sara were catching up to him, he feared, just when he needed his strength the most.

    When Adam saw his father begin to falter, he moved quickly to him and with gentle pressure, sat his father on a barrel and knelt before him. Whatever it had been, it passed in a few heartbeats and Adam found his father's big callused hand on his shoulder.

    "I love her, son," was all he said.

    "I know you do, Pa, and that puts her in a special light, one that doesn't show imperfections in the lady. But they're there, I'm sorry to say, and as long as we don't know the whole truth about her, it leaves us vulnerable. I'm sorry, Pa, but until we know all about her, one of us has got to-"

    Ben lifted his hand and Adam ground to a halt. "Did it ever occur to you, young man, that I don't care what she was before we met? This is the woman I have fallen in love with; not who or what she was before. This woman, Adam. I'm asking you, man to man, stop looking into her past."

    When his father had left him there in the barn that afternoon, Adam knew he couldn't stop searching for the lady's elusive past because that past would hurt when it came calling again.
 
 

    Within the space of two weeks, Sara was angling to return to her home but she met with four formidable foes. She had expected Ben to put up a fuss and of course the doctor was one of them, too. She had also expected Hop Sing but Adam's resistance to her going home surprised her. For the most part, she and the eldest son stayed apart from one another. When they did meet, such as for meals, there was a strained courtesy to the man that Sara grew more uncomfortable with. But ultimately, the doctor said she was in as good a shape as he thought she could get and Ben could find no reasonable argument to keep her at the Ponderosa.

    "I don't like the idea of you being that far away, Sara," Ben had huffed even as he pulled the carriage to a stop at her doorway. She only laughed and stroked his face lightly, wanting to wipe away the trepidation in her own heart as easily as she did that on his face.

    He handed her down then stood aside as she mounted the few steps and opened the door. She took a deep shuddering breath as the door swung open. Ben knew what she would find there for he had made his instructions very clear and very plain to his sons: fix it; what ever it was - fix it. Make the place look like she had just been away on a trip. That nothing had happened there. Just yesterday he had ridden over and inspected the work they had done. Indeed it showed no sign of the attack.

    As swiftly as a bird in flight, Sara turned back, her face radiant in the afternoon shadows. "Thank you," she said and smiled as her hand pressed his chest, holding him back just a little.

    "You're welcome but I still wish-" but her fingers crossed his lips to stop another request that she not stay there but come home with him. He grasped those fingers and kissed them, his sigh showing he had resigned himself to the fact that she would have her way.

    "Now go home, Ben. I want some time here to myself. But dinner tomorrow night. All right?"

    He trailed the back of his hand across her cheek before he kissed the silken flesh it had touched. "But remember! Paul Martin said you were not to be out hoeing in your garden, or sweeping the floor. You are still supposed to be resting! Resting! That means you get yourself into that bedroom and into that bed."

    "Alone?" she teased even as she pushed him from her door.
 
 

…………And now, with the dawn of a bright summer morning making fairies of dust motes, Ben awoke to find her gone. Hurriedly he dressed and called to her repeatedly as he went through the little white house. Even as he pulled the door open and looked across to the barn, he knew she was gone. Again and again he called her, searching the barn, the woeful garden even the field behind the house. But she was nowhere to be found nor was her horse. He went back into the house to retrieve his coat, making up his mind as he went that he would ride at once into Virginia City.

The note propped by the lamp on the table stopped him. A single sheet, folded in half with his name gracefully written across the blank side. Swallowing hard, he dropped into the chair at the table to read it.

My beloved Ben,

I wish that this could end some other way. No! I wish it didn't have to end at all but it must. Oh, if we had met years ago, how different our lives might have become. Please don't try to follow me, my love. Adam was right. I have a past and those men were - are- part of it. I would have told you but I am a coward at heart and I told your son the truth when I said I didn't want to hurt you. This way, maybe it will only hurt for a little while.
I hope that when you remember me it will be as we were last night.

All my love forever,
Sara
 

     He had no idea how long he sat at that table, holding her letter, remembering her in so many different ways, hearing her laugh, feeling her touch. Slowly, he went out to the barn and saddled his horse, part of him still wanting to race out after her. To bring her back and make her understand they could face her past and put it behind her!  Sitting in the saddle, he studied the house, now so cold and empty of life. But there on the ridgepole sat the two mourning doves, the same way he had first seen them.

    "Take care of the place till she comes back, ya hear?" he told them in a whisper. He put his heels to Buck and rode slowly away, leaving his heart behind.

    The Christmas season was a grand time to be in San Francisco that year. Although there was no snow, the many shop decorations didn't seem to care. With a cold wind blowing in off the ocean, a body didn't have to do much imagining to believe that snow wouldn't soon be there. With his sons in tow, Ben Cartwright cheerfully made the rounds of many of his long time friends there in the peninsular city.  Now that his sons were old enough to transact business on behalf of the Ponderosa, Ben got to San Francisco less and less. That, he decided while dressing for a formal dinner at the Lincolns' home, ought to change..

    While a formal dinner party usually wasn't high on their list of priorities, Ben Cartwright and his sons found themselves enjoying the evening, Ben especially. The sumptuous meal, the bright lights, even the string quartet that played in the background during the meal, he enjoyed. The lady to his right was the wife of an old friend, now departed, not dead, just departed for parts unknown but Betsy, his wife, still lived like a queen on his money. The lady to Ben's left that night was a younger woman he had never met. As he sat there, spooning up some overly sweet concoction that was dessert, he couldn't even remember her name. But something about her struck him when he realized  she would have been a contemporary of Sara's.

    "Excuse me," He touched her arm to get her attention. "You wouldn't happen to know a lady by the name of Sara Brittingham, would you?" and he described her.

    As he watched, her eyes went wide and her fan fluttered. Betsy answered him, her voice carrying loudly in the room.

    "Is that what she's calling herself nowadays? In my day, once you married a man, you kept his name, no matter what!"

    Finding himself in a growing pool of silence, Ben turned to the old dowager and asked her what she meant.

    "She's gone back to using her maiden name, I guess from what you say. Where did you meet the hussy? Virginia City where she hiding now? Thought with as much money as her husband got out of us, she could have done better than that!" Betsy hooted and slapped the table in merriment but one look around that same table and Ben saw no one else laughing. "Don't tell me you never heard about it? Why it made all the papers here until some editor realized his boss had gotten taken too!" Again Betsy hooted.

    "No, I'm afraid not much San Francisco news gets out my way," Ben began.

    "Her husband, Edgar Blackston Sheffield, took everyone of us here at this table. Set himself up as an investment banker of sorts! He'd find the gold mines, the profitable ones, for us. All we had to do was invest in his corporation. In two years, he had sucked up thousands of dollars, Mr. Cartwright, and never turned a nickel back to the investors. We finally figured we were being fleeced and had him arrested on fraud charges. But the lovely little Sara, she had skipped town, taking all the money with her. Old Sheffield didn't even have the funds to pay for a lawyer!" the man across from Ben explained as all other conversation around the table ceased.

    "Where is he now?" Ben asked, sure if he found this Sheffield, he would find Sara and she could explain it all.

    "In jail, where he belongs. Judge gave him nine years for each one of us he bilked! You can do the math, Cartwright. Sheffield is in jail for the rest of his miserable life. But I don't care about that old coot! I want my money. If you know where Sara Sheffield, or whatever she calls herself now, if you know where she is, you'd best speak up," his host spoke up from the end of the table.

    Ben couldn't find his voice, so stunned was he by what he had heard around that table. Adam however spoke up and said that, while Sara had been in Virginia City for a while that spring and early summer, she had left rather unexpectedly.

    "Tell me, Ben, how much did she take you for? Enough to get to Europe, maybe?"

    Ben never answered them for the talk then dissolved into where a person with means could hide from the law like Sara plainly was doing. As he sat there, deaf to all of it, his heart cried that they were all wrong about her. They had to be! Finally, he could take no more of it, excused himself from the rest of the party, pleading illness to return to his hotel. In the lobby there, he stopped, admitted to his sons that he needed some time alone and told them to go on up to the rooms without him. He would be along in a bit.

    His thoughts ranging far and wide, Ben walked down to the docks. No longer was there a danger of being shanghaied although at that time, Ben would have thought it a blessing. He felt disgraced somehow that she had used him - or had she? As he stood leaning on a railing, watching the ships moored in the bay, he couldn't decide what he felt about Sara Brittingham.

    "For what it's worth, I don't think Sara had a penny of that money."

    Ben turned at the sound of the deep baritone just behind him. It was Adam, his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, the collar pulled up to warm his neck.

    "I'm pretty sure she didn't too but all of them seemed to think she made off with it! I can't believe I was that wrong about her, Adam. I just can't."

    "You're right," agreed Adam as he came and stood beside his father and watched the ships bobbing at anchor just off shore. "I don't think Sara was a bad person. Maybe her husband was - or I guess we should say 'is' since he is still alive. I think she was just caught up in something bigger than herself. Those men that came, some of those men at that dinner table were still angry enough to do what they did. Don't know about you, but I would side with Sara over someone who put money above human decency."

    "You must think your old man is a fool," Ben admitted, his voice straining in the dark.

    Adam slid his hand over his father's shoulders. "No, I think my father is a kind, generous and loving man who fell in love with a beautiful woman. And for what it is worth, I wish she would've stayed. I wish she would've lied to us all about her past and gone ahead and married you."

    "At least I know now why she wouldn't marry me. It never occurred to me that her husband was still alive."

    "Again, for what it's worth," Adam pulled his father a little closer to his side, "Sara loved you. I think she still does, where ever she is." He didn't have to be told that his father had loved Sara and still did.
 

    Ben shuddered, the cold dampness leeching into his bones even there in the visiting room of the prison. He heard the clank of metal keys behind him and he turned as a gaunt man in prisoner's garb was led shuffling into the room, his hands and feet manacled. The guard, his baton punctuating his statements, bluntly reminded Ben he was not to reach out across the table, not even to shake the other's hand. So each man sat, the guard stepping back to lean against the wall. Each studied the other for a few heartbeats before Ben finally found his voice.

    "My name is Ben Cartwright," he said and the other man smiled and nodded.

    "Yes, I know. I can see now why Sara was drawn to you. Your eyes are kind eyes. She said you were kind to her."

    "She's been here?" Ben's heart leapt to his throat and beat wildly.

    "Yes," Sheffield said, his sad voice barely carrying across the table. "She came here to see me right after she left you. To tell me about you, among other things. She told me how she loved you and how you loved her. It broke her heart you know, to tell you she couldn't marry you like you wanted her to. And that she had to leave like she did."

    Ben could no longer keep eye contact with the thin man with the scraggly beard and hollow eyes. "I didn't know she was married still," he offered up by way of apology. "She had told me she was a widow."

    The prisoner again smiled and nodded his head thoughtfully. "That's what I had told her to tell everyone she was. It sounds better to be a widow than to say your husband is serving a life sentence in prison. Don't you think so, Mr. Cartwright? I would have given her a divorce but dear Sara was raised in the Catholic faith and she wouldn't hear of it." The long statements seemed to wear on the man and he fell into a fit of coughing, the harsh hack shaking his whole thin body. "Too soon, she may be a widow," he finally wheezed out.

    "Do you know where she is?" Ben asked, every impulse in him reaching out to console the other. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't -"

    "Shouldn't what? Shouldn't love her? Nonsense! Shouldn't speak to me of her? Please! Without her here, your words are the next best thing I could hope for. Tell me about her, when she was there in the mountains with you. Please? I want to hear that she was happy, at least for a while."

    "Yes, I think she was happy there. She wanted a garden," Ben began and told the other man how they had plowed crooked rows; how Sara had learned to ride a horse and mend a pasture fence. At first, it was hard for Ben to speak of her that way, knowing the man across from him was still her legal husband. And that he had made love to her. But as he spoke, he saw the other man brighten and by the end of their time together, the other man sat straighter and had the energy to even clap his hands delightedly.

    The guard stepped forward and placed the baton between them, signaling the time was over. Standing, the other man bowed to Ben and thanked him for coming and speaking with him.

    "Wait!" Ben demanded and the other turned back. "Where is she? Do you know where she is?"

    The prisoner shook his head. "Even if I knew, I daren't tell you. We, you and I, have to keep her safe. You see, I never kept a dime that I stole from those investors. But they don't believe that. So you and I, we must keep her safe. Me, with my silence here and you by never finding her hiding place. Good bye, Mr. Cartwright." And he turned back and resumed his shuffle back into the bowels of the prison.

Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the Heart,
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars.

Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We'll rise above these earthly cares.

Cast your eyes to the ocean;
Cast your eyes to the sea;
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me, Please remember me,
Please remember me………….

                   (from "Dante's Prayer" by Loreena McKennitt)

Tahoe Ladies
September 2002 to April 2003

Postscript from the Tahoe Ladies:
We wish to thank several people for encouraging us to tell this story. Helen Adams first gave us the idea. Barbara (Bonanzalee) gave us the title, although she didn't realize it at the time. Becky Sims made us realize that while some readers may look at him as just "Pa", Ben had an inescapable charm and sensualness about him. And in particular, we wish to thank Karen Fedderly and Rowan for their straightforward response when asked to read it while it was still in the making.  What was that? That "breathing hard and fanning myself wildly"?  But most of all, we want to thank our own Irish for loaning us Ben upon a couple of occasions. Now there's a lady who never tells.

The other Tahoe Ladies.