Summary: Adam’s fate is sealed.

650 words, rated K

Written for the Pinecone Challenge. The first sentence was given and had to be developed into a story. This is the slightly polished version.

My Story Index and reading order for the Art-Universe

 

Ride of Destiny

 

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.

Madame Titia had said it would take less than an hour, but apparently she’d never met a man like Adam Cartwright. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that Adam put up more resistance to the drug’s effect than any other man would. He’s a strong one, such a strong one.

It did surprise me, however, that I didn’t think of that before I put the potion into his coffee at our last stop at Goat Springs’ way station. I should have reckoned with his stamina. He always exhibited that sturdiness and…virility.

Well, what was done was done. And the important thing was that the drugs did take hold at all—and just in time. Oh, well, it would have been lovely if they’d worked earlier, just to make everything that tad more convincing. But what counted was the outcome, not how it had been accomplished.

I know, I know…the journey is the destination they say, and, honestly, I’d have preferred another journey, too. But sometimes a girl—make that a lady—has to do what a lady has to do. The end justifies the means.

And the end…oh, the end…. Everything turned out perfect. Per-fect.

We saw the first scattered houses at the outskirt of Barstow and the first pedestrians on the sidewalks, which brought the stage coach driver to slow down the horses, when the change in motion made Adam start from a slight slumber and look up. I sat just opposite him—not at all by coincidence—and so the first thing he saw upon waking up was me. He looked into my eyes, and I into his—and I saw how the drug began to work. His eyes were glassy first, then they focused on my face. And then a slow smile spread over his handsome features.

A slow, dreamy smile.

“Miss Abigail,” he said. “Oh, Miss Abigail.”

It was better even than that one night on my mother’s veranda, when we’d had pink lemonade and Adam had talked about…whatever.

Much better.

I put on my most charming smile. “Yes, dear?” Oh, yes, I dared to say it. Madame Titia’s words in my mind “It never fails, Miss Jones” made me daring, bold…frivolous.

And Adam…oh, he looked at me with those intense eyes, with that smoldering manliness, and declared, “I love you very much!”

Upon my word, Sir Walther Raleigh couldn’t have said it more chivalrous. It was all I’ve ever dreamed of and more.

In retrospect, I would have preferred a bigger wedding, not just Adam and me and the stage coach driver as witness; but Adam, dear, dear Adam made it so urgent. And who was I to contradict the man whose wife I was to become?

And I honestly had no idea how long that love potion would keep having an effect on him. Better not chance it, right?

_________________

They say that there’s nothing as inevitable as death and taxes; and under the circumstances I think I’d like to add one more thing to that: a woman, once she’s made up her mind to land a man—and son, I speak from many years of serious observation. ~ Ben Cartwright in “The Wooing of Abigail Jones”

 

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