SUMMARY:  This started as a pinecone, Cousin Bette, but needed closure.  This is it.  Adam met a beautiful woman and the romance progressed rapidly.  But was it too rapid, and what else was going on?

Rating = T  Word count = 1667

Double Cross

The woman was exquisite. Whenever Adam Cartwright was down by the Bay on business, he enjoyed the company of worldly women like her. This time, he was with Joe who said he had agreed to do a favor for a friend and would be busy but gave Adam a ticket to a play. He said he got it from a friend but left without supplying any details other than a wink that conveyed all that Adam needed to know.

The woman was an actress named Valerie. When Adam saw Valerie on the stage, he was enthralled by her graceful movement and the rich vibrato of her voice. Seldom had he ever seen anyone perform on stage and move him emotionally, but she did. He ordered roses to be sent to her dressing room after the performance and was surprised to have a messenger catch him before he left to tell him she would indeed receive him backstage. He didn’t worry about how she had known how to recognize him. Women like her had their ways. They talked briefly, and she agreed to accompany him to dinner. They arranged to meet again the next night after the performance but she suggested dinner in her suite. He accepted with a grin which she reciprocated. She was no shy ingenue and knew what her invitation implied.

After the performance that next evening, Adam had a carriage waiting outside the theater. Valerie was impressed that he had chocolates and champagne for them even though it was only a short ride to the hotel. Once there, he took her arm and walked with her to her room with all the assurance of a man who expects to spend the night. As soon as the door to the suite closed, the two of them began kissing and an hour later, they rested in her bed with their passion spent. He had helped her disrobe and carried her to the bed showing her the attention an experienced lover knows to do. She almost regretted that their relationship promised to be so short. A knock on the door startled them, but Valerie only smiled. Then Adam remembered she had promised dinner.

“Shall I go let them in? Is that dinner?”

“No, my handsome lover, that isn’t dinner. That’s my cousin Bette. You may remember her. Your father told her she wasn’t a suitable match for your brother Hoss.”

Wracking his brain, Adam did his best to try to remember a Bette. When he did, he was surprised that Valerie would bring that up so many years later. “Hoss was sixteen. She was even younger. It wasn’t that it wasn’t a suitable match. They were too young.”

“Your father had the Ponderosa. There was no reason they couldn’t marry. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t have a place to live and food to eat. They were in love.”

“How do you know?”

“Bette told me. She’s told me a lot over the years. Oh, and your brother Joe is out there with her. He was here with me earlier as he was the last two afternoons. I’m surprised you didn’t notice the smell on the sheets. He does use too much of that tonic. But I suppose you were too much intent on achieving your goal.”

“What have you done?”

“Done? I’ve ruined Ben Cartwright’s family. This is the sixth floor. There’s no way out. Open that door or I will, and let cousin Bette have her revenge.”

“So, this is why you did all of this?”

It wasn’t the response Valerie had been expecting. She wasn’t sure how she expected Adam to respond, but this calm demeanor wasn’t at all what she had anticipated. It was ruining her revenge. What he did next made it far worse. He began to laugh as he reached for his pants and then yelled out to his brother.

“C’mon in, Joe. I don’t think it’s locked.”

Walking in with a middle-aged woman who looked equally confused, Joe was grinning as broadly as his oldest brother. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

“You were right, Joe. I should have believed you completely. I never thought anyone could be so devious, but I had to know the reason why too. Do you know that lady there is her cousin Bette. She and Hoss had a thing when Hoss was a kid. Pa wouldn’t let them marry, and she’s been holding a grudge ever since. I guess she didn’t want to hurt Hoss directly so she decided to try to destroy our family instead. I think you were supposed to come in here and shoot me or something like that.”

As Adam pulled on his shirt and tucked it in, Joe had a few more questions. “Was she as good as I said? Did she fall on her back for you as quickly as she did for me?”

“Yes, like you said, even better than paying for it, and cleaner than any house I’ve ever been to. Don’t have to worry about catching anything. I can’t imagine she lets many men anywhere near her. If she does, they probably end up dead soon after.”

Valerie found her voice. “You two used me. You took me to bed and used me.”

Snorting in disgust as he retrieved his coat and finished dressing, Adam stared at her. “You set yourself up as a common whore inviting us to your bed for the payment you wanted. Sorry, we’re not paying that fee. It’s too high for what you gave. Lots of women are offering what you did, and the price is far lower. Let me see, you were pretty good though. Would twenty dollars be enough? That’s twice for Joe and once for me. Let’s just round it off to one hundred. That’s a good payday for someone like you. You and Bette can split it and buy tickets to someplace far from here. What you tried to do here is going to be all over town by tomorrow.”

“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you both!”

Pulling a pocket pistol from her purse, Valerie aimed it at Adam and Joe who didn’t look too worried. Adam looked at Joe and reached into his pocket to pull out a handful of shells.

“I guessed she might not take it well. I emptied it at the first opportunity. She really doesn’t pay attention when she’s being kissed.”

Joe reached into his pocket and showed shells too but of two varieties. “Bette had two guns. A derringer and a pistol.”

“I think we can go now.”

As Joe and Adam left, Joe had a question for his brother. “You’re not really going to tell this story to anyone, are you?”

“Of course not. I only wanted them to think I would. After what we already did, they should believe that and leave. That’s all I want.”

“Did you get new rooms for us?”

“Yes. I don’t trust those two at all. They probably have more ammunition. I hired a Pinkerton too who will be watching our backs tonight and tomorrow just in case.”

“Good thinking. There’s no predicting what women like that might do. I was thinking I might not be able to sleep tonight, but a guard at the door is just the right thing to have.”

It was an excellent precaution. They had an impeccable eyewitness for their alibi who saw them into their rooms on the sixth floor that night and stayed outside their doors. They couldn’t possibly have been in Valerie’s suite hours later when shots were fired. Bette and Valerie were found shot to death. The police found it impossible to believe they killed each other and the desk clerk mentioned the men who had been up in their rooms. However, their alibi was airtight, and the deaths were ruled a murder-suicide. It appeared that Bette killed Valerie and then herself. No one would ever know why except Adam and Joe got a letter from Bette that shook them to the core when they received it a week later on the Ponderosa. She must have written it and arranged for it to be sent before she decided to end her life and Valerie’s. She probably assumed Ben and Hoss would read it and be devastated.  Bette claimed that Valerie was Hoss’ daughter and the two brothers had slept with her and ruined her life. She said she had to kill her because of what they had done defiling her never mentioning her part in setting it up.

Two months later, Adam slapped a document down on the table in front of Joe when their father and Hoss were gone. Joe had been drinking too much and hardly sleeping. Adam didn’t look much better although he hadn’t been doing the drinking. Their father was worried but had been unable to get them to talk about what was bothering them.

“What?”

“Read it. I finally got a copy of Valerie’s birth record from her church. I paid some men to track her history and find out everything they could about her.”

Frowning, Joe looked up at Adam. “But it says she was born in eighteen forty. That can’t be. Hoss was only five years old then.” Realization hit as Joe understood what Bette had done. “It was a lie. Valerie isn’t Hoss’ daughter. Bette made that up to torture us. They weren’t even related.”

“Yes, and it worked, but only for two months. It was long enough. More than once I almost said something. Now we can let it go.”

“That Bette was an evil woman. Valerie wasn’t much better. Adam, I may never sleep with another woman when we go down to the Bay.”

“Joe, it wasn’t the sleeping part that got us in trouble.”

Tags: Adam Cartwright, brothers, Joe / Little Joe Cartwright, revenge