Summary:   Season 15 – Episode 9  A continuation of the Honor Series

Rate: T   Word Count:  6746

Honor series:

Changes
Steps Forward and Back
The Most Important Job in the World
Broken Promise
Reclaimed Love
Whisper My Name
When Little Boys Grow Up
Romantic Interlude
I Do, I Do
Twenty Years
Old Shadows

                                                         I do I do

Adam closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to will away the growing headache. He knew he wouldn’t be successful but he would try anyway. Taking in a deep breath quickly yet cautiously, he dropped his hand from his face and glared at the world through slightly blood-shot eyes. The bright sunlight only made the pounding increase its tempo. He groaned softly.

“You gonna make it?” the voice at his elbow asked, the muted tone full of conspiratorial sympathy.

“This isn’t the time or place -“came from the other side and lacked the compassion of the first voice.

“I know,” he hissed, silencing the words of reproof he knew he had coming. He turned towards one of his now-silent partners but his eyes didn’t make the same passage at the same time and he staggered slightly.

“Must have been some bachelor’s party.” To add insult to the implied recrimination, Adam’s father harrumphed once.

“That it was,” he agreed and tried to smile but the sun glinting off the blue of Lake Tahoe turned it into a grimace instead.

Guess that’s what I get for being the last Cartwright son to tie the proverbial knot, he mused to himself. They’ve had too much practice. Inwardly, he smiled while recalling the night before.

The prestigious Washoe Club had blazed with lights as a swirl of hazy cigar smoke wreathed the chandeliers. The walls had shaken with laughter – raucous male laughter that rose above the clatter of silverware on fine porcelain plates and the tinkle of crystal goblets.  How many times Adam Cartwright had emptied his glass, he’d lost track of but he decided some time during the night that it didn’t matter. After all, how many times did a man marry?

“Like I said, you gonna make it?” again the voice to his other side whispered.

This time when Adam turned his eyes stayed with him. “I told you. If you can do it, so can I.” Yet even as he spoke the words, his stomach rebelled, threatening to explode and ruin the day. Something of his internal distress must have shown on his face for his brother looked doubtful.

“Okay then. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Adam wondered if he should take what his brother had said as a promise or a threat. Half an hour of freedom left, he mused, watching his brother’s back disappear through the throng of people gathered there on the shore of Lake Tahoe. It was Joe’s job to let the rest of the bridal party know that all was ready for their appearance.

Adam straightened his shoulders and gazed evenly at his father.

“We’ve talked it out, Pa,” Adam had explained once more, cutting across his father’s protest again. “We’re agreed. Please?”

The pencil Ben held had actually bounced on the desktop when he threw it down. “It’s an honor, son, but surely your brother -”

“He suggested it! Said it would be the right thing and, as much as I hated to admit it, he’s right. My best man should be you.”

“But he’s your brother!”

Adam had felt more than seen when his father rose and strode across the room to stand behind him at the fireplace. For the briefest of moments, memories of another man, another brother, darted into the room, into each man’s thoughts.

“A long time ago a lifetime, it seems, I asked Hoss to stand beside me when I was going to marry Laura Dayton. He said he would then grinned at me, but there was sadness in his eyes when he did it.”

“She wasn’t half the woman Athena is, son, and you knew that then as well as now. We all know it, but the fact that you asked your brother then gives credence to what I am trying to get across to you now.”

Slowly, Adam had turned from the warmth of the late evening fire. “Knew you’d put up a fight about it,” he’d chuckled and smiled for his father. “The best man needs to be the groom’s best friend, his confidante. He needs to be someone that the groom, in his most trying time – waiting for the appearance of his wife-to-be- can turn to for support. For wisdom. All my life, you’ve been that someone. It would be an honor if you’d be there beside me that day too.”

“But a best man does more than that for the groom and, quite frankly, I don’t think I’m up to all the other responsibilities.” Characteristically, his father had stuffed both hands into his pockets and looked to the floor.

“Okay, how about a compromise? You be my best man for the ceremony. Joe’ll handle all the rest of it.”

“Well, if you insist.” Ben’s silvered head shook slowly from side to side; then, as a set of new footsteps entered the room, he looked up.

“If he doesn’t, I do,” Joe’s cheery laugh cut through the night.

And that, as they say, was that.

In the weeks that followed, Adam knew he had made the right decision. It seemed odd that now in the prime of his life as a man that he found himself needing his father more and more. Thankfully, his father was there. The hand steadying him as he’d prepared himself to take a momentous step was gnarled with age yet it was as strong as ever. He found himself looking to him for advice on the simplest things and rejoicing when the deep voice answered him as of old.

The three of them had stood together on the shore of Lake Tahoe not far from the house that one afternoon. He’d told them bluntly that he and Athena wanted to be married right where they stood. Joe had whooped and hollered and pounded him on the back. His father had smiled and taken his hand to shake, but somehow Adam’s found those brawny arms wrapped around him. He heard the words, husky with wavering emotion, of how proud his father was that he was doing the right thing.

Then had come the time of preparation. To Adam, it felt as though he’d stepped into the center of a tornado. There were decisions to be made that he had never considered to be part of the marrying process and while he tried to keep an even footing, he found himself turning more often than not to his father for steadying, for help. It was not as though Ben had all the answers but he did possess a great deal of experience as he would tell his son. Adam didn’t realize how heavily he was leaning on his father until one Sunday afternoon, his father had put it to him bluntly.

“If I added up all the married time in my life, it would only be half of your brother Joseph’s time with Honor. Why aren’t you asking him all of these sudden questions?”

Taken aback, Adam had answered simply, “Because you’re my father.” Truthfully, he had never considered it….

“Straighten your tie,” his father encouraged under his breath and, like the schoolboy he was feeling like that afternoon, Adam did.

He re-crossed his hands before him and raised his chin. Still not able to handle the bright glare of sunlight dancing across the ripples of Tahoe, he looked instead to his left and the crowd gathered there. Adam let his eyes wander over the faces. They were ones he’d grown up with, had done business with and who’d had a part in his life. There were faces missing that he longed to see once more but knew it was impossible. No, he mentally shook himself, today is for looking ahead; not behind.

Paul Martin nodded then nudged Roy Coffee beside him as they both caught Adam’s nervous smile in their direction. On the other side of the old pair, Clem Foster dipped his head and murmured something that made the three of them laugh. Adam wondered if it had anything to do with the night before and Clem’s threat to lock them all up. Or was it Paul Martin’s cryptic and stern fatherly lesson on the birds and the bees? I had that lesson down pat even before…like those old geezers knew something I didn’t? Sounded like it last night.

Abigail Jones Meyers, now a widow, dabbed at her nose but gave him a cordial smile as she did so. She stood with several other women who Adam had at one time or another been romantically linked with and he wondered if this grouping was intentional. Still, he had invited them but why he had been moved to do so perplexed him. Perhaps, he thought, to show them just what sort of woman they had lost to.  His smile tightened, the dimple deepening. At least they hadn’t shown up at the party last night. Not that I believe Joe really did invite them like he said he did.

In the front of the crowd, his eyes swept across the other members of his extended family. Candy and his wife Anne stood off to one side, their infant daughter unseen except for the cascade of white eyelet in her father’s arms. Adam wondered what it would be like to hold a child of his own but then shuttled the thought aside. While Athena was younger than him by a good eight years, he thought that motherhood at her age might be chancy. Still the thought possessed him, clinging like a stubborn thorny vine as he watched Honor, Joe’s wife, come down the slope carefully. Behind her trailed her twin sons with Helen, the young black woman who had become part of the household through her own determination that the toddlers needed her. Honor, heavily pregnant, had allowed it, finally admitting that the thought of having three children under the age of four was frightful. Adam smothered a smile when one of the twins, AJ, had to be kept from joining his uncle at the water’s edge. Yes, while he would face this day with trepidation, should his Athena become pregnant, he would be more fearful then.

Finally, he let his wandering gaze come to rest on his adopted brother Jamie. The night before had been painful to the young man, Adam knew. As much as they tried to make him part of the rowdy festivities, Jamie just didn’t fit in, even when he had drunkenly recited some rather risqué poetry at the top of his lungs. Could it have been because just a short while ago, Jamie and his young wife Cathy had moved from the home ranch to their own place? And that the new place was in the central valley of California, not close by the Ponderosa? Adam had been part of helping them move, of course, lending his freight wagons to the chore but he couldn’t escape the feeling that it had been his own return a few short years before that had prompted it. Joe and Jamie had formed a strong bond following Hoss’ death, it was true, but when Adam had returned, Jamie seemed to have been shoved aside. A brother, yet not a brother was how he’d said it once and never repeated it for anyone else to hear. Adam smiled when he caught Jamie’s eye and nodded.

An expectant hush settled on the small crowd as from the top of the slope came Father Peter, his black robes looking rather warm in the July afternoon. Because Athena had been raised in the Catholic religion, she had expressed the wish to married by the priest. It had been easy to accede to her wish for Adam recalled the pain his step-mother Marie had endured because she had been married outside of her faith. Indeed, the new-born Catholic Church in fledgling Virginia City had turned its back on her and refused to baptize her infant son, calling him a bastard. Marie had silently wept and never again attended Mass. To this day, he was sure his father had never known about it for Marie had kept her silent pain locked away for all eternity. Adam had kept his promise to her for he had been the sole witness to her humiliation. If changing the name of his faith was all that was required, Adam would do it for he felt that God was God no matter how or where He was called upon. No, he would not have his wife bear the same stigma that his father had unintentionally branded his Creole wife with.

“Ready, son?” the priest asked lowly as together Adam and his father turned to look out over Tahoe.

“Yes.” Why, suddenly, was his normally strong voice reduced to all but a hoarse whisper?

A ripple went through the people behind him and although he fought the urge, Adam turned to see what caused the stir. And what he saw made him catch his breath.

At the crest of the slope, she stood, the afternoon sun bathing her in shimmering light. Her gown was of pale ivory cotton with a high lace edged collar. The mutton-legged sleeves caught the slight breeze and belled with it as she came slowly, regally, down the path created by the gathered throng. In her long fingers, she held a simple bouquet of wildflowers, blue and violet, pink and yellow, all held together with sprigs of pine and trailing ribbon streamers. As she took her place beside him, Adam caught the scent of lavender. She knelt, her glossy black hair falling forward beneath her lace veil to shield her last thoughts as a single woman.

The priest’s words were blurred sounds coming to his ears. In sharp contrast, Adam heard the calling of birds in the surrounding pines, the swish of the breeze through the trees, the lap of water there at the water’s edge.

How did her hand get into his? Was she shaking or was it just him? She had said something and once again, he heard the whisper-soft drawl of her deep southern heritage. Her eyes, had they always been that large, that full of love? And she was looking up at him with such expectation.

“And do you, Adam Cartwright, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? To love her, honor her, cherish her? To have and hold in sickness and in health until Death do thee part?”

The words came easy, his voice surprisingly strong now as he answered, “I do.”

Then he placed the simple gold wedding band on her finger and she was his according to the priest, the church, the law. As he raised the veil to kiss her, he saw the beaming smile she wore and knew it was reflected on his own face. He gathered her to him, his hands holding her face as he leaned down and kissed her. He didn’t hear the shouting, the cheering. Just the beating of two hearts in time with one another.

From that day forward that was all he’d ever need.

The wet cloth hit his face with a resounding smack. The cold water it was drenched with trickled down his throat and pooled in one ear before Joseph Cartwright managed to get one hand free from the entangling blankets and remove it. As much as the shock of cold water had been to his system, the bright sunlight pouring through the windows was greater. Even as he watched, the window turned first to one side then the other, taking his stomach with it. He got a foot out over the side of the bed and onto the floor, figuring it would anchor him in place.

“I hope Adam isn’t in this bad a shape,” her voice hissed into his dry ear. The wet cloth was taken from his weak grasp and slapped back again onto his face. This time he would let it stay.

“It was a bachelor’s party,” Joe gave in defense of his sad state. With one hand holding the damp cloth in place, the other began searching for the body that was attached to the voice. Blindly he groped and came up empty handed. I wonder where Candy got that picture painted. No, I wonder if Adam is going to hang it in his new house. Odds were running against it last night. Unable to stop himself, he snickered.

An answering snort of laughter came from the opposite side of the room. “Do you know what time it was when you got home?”

“What difference does that make?” he mumbled, reassured and thankful that his wife couldn’t read his thought. With an effort he got both feet onto the floor. It did nothing to help the roaring between his ears.

“Is there anything alcoholic left in town to drink? If the rest of the men -”

“No, we did not drink the town dry last night. In fact, we behaved ourselves. Had to since Adam insisted we invite Roy Coffee.” Didn’t know the old guy could put it away like that. Never did when he was town sheriff…or did he?

“Unlike the party you threw for Candy? As I recall, Roy Coffee was there too but it didn’t stop you from getting arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct.”

“That was a joke, I keep telling you. You know what I think your problem is? You women didn’t have a party of your own.” He had finally managed to sit up but had to bury his head in his hands so all he saw of his wife was the bulge of her stomach, the veins standing out bright blue against the pale taut flesh. That, he thought, was what was really eating on her that morning. She was eight months pregnant and probably missing out on a lot of the woman-sort of things that usually accompanied a big wedding. Joe knew for a fact that Athena had asked her to be matron of honor but she had declined, stating that it wasn’t proper for a woman in her condition to be part of a wedding ceremony. He hadn’t helped much, of course. True, he had been too wrapped up in things – the upcoming festivities, the workings of the ranch, the building of Adam’s new home- to pay a great deal of attention to her lately but he’d tried.

Standing before her husband that morning, Honor felt a little lost. She ran her fingers through his thick gray curls as she pulled him to her. He wrapped his arms around her and let his cheek rest on the coming child. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Hop Sing has coffee ready in the kitchen. Want some? I’ll bring you a cup,” she offered. Inwardly she cringed, knowing that her emotions were seesawing that morning. It was part of being with child; she knew that, but it didn’t make it any easier to handle and far less easier for those around her to understand. She didn’t wait for his answer but headed for the door, shrugging into her robe as she went.

Half way down the short hallway into the kitchen, Honor pulled up short, her hand pressed into the small of her back. The pain there seemed to roll, spreading to her sides and down her inner thighs. She leaned against the wall and took a deep breath that she let out slowly, her eyes closed in concentration. For a dozen heartbeats she waited, expecting the pain again, but it did not reassert itself and she pushed on into the kitchen.

“Can I have some coffee?” she asked Hop Sing meekly, all but falling onto the high stool there at the worktable.

“Missy all light?” the little aging Oriental asked, his hand tentatively touching her shoulder then gliding down her back. His concern for her was crystal clear in his words, his touch.

“I’m fine. Just a little worn out. Joe didn’t get home until almost daylight and I couldn’t sleep without him, never mind. Just some coffee please?”

Hop Sing smiled, his face crinkling. She didn’t need to ask for coffee; he would have presented it to her without the polite request. Yet he remained where he stood, one hand resting lightly in the small of her back. He was about to move when he felt the tremor run through her again.

“Hop Sing get Missy coffee but maybe she go lay back down?” It was as close to a command as he ever felt right to give this woman. Even as he turned to the stove and the pot perking there, he figured the phase of the moon and smiled secretly. Yes, the moon was coming into full this night.

“The coffee is for Joe, not me. If I drink anything now, I’ll have to go, never mind. Just the coffee? Please?”

Joe was still sitting on the side of the bed when she handed him the coffee. He sipped it and wondered if he always made that much noise drinking. Behind him he could hear his wife rummaging through her closet full of clothes.

“You’d best come on and get dressed, Joe. I mean it’s nearly noon. You and your father need to –”  Joe heard her stop in mid-sentence and he turned to see what had made her halt. All he saw was her paying close attention to the dress she was holding.

“I know what we have to do, Sweetheart. Get Adam up and dressed and down to the lake. Greet the guests. Make sure Hop Sing’s cousins have the food situation under control. Is my suit hanging in there?”

Her eyes darted to the clock on the mantle and noted the time. “The wedding starts promptly at two,” she said as though she were the only one in the room. “Two hours. Figure a half hour back here if”

“What are you mumbling about?” he asked, slipping up to stand behind her in order to reach into the closet for his own clothes.

“Nothing,” she snapped then instantly regretted the harsh tone. To cover it, she told him that there was plenty of hot water and time for him to get washed up. “Besides, I can hear your father upstairs with Adam. Your chores as best man are over, my dear.”

Joe grumbled then went in search of something more substantial than coffee.

In the minutes after her husband had left the room, Honor remained standing and as motionless as a statue, her eyes glued to the clock.

“This is silly,” she fumed aloud when nothing had happened for two minutes. Calling to Helen, she sailed into the room where her twin boys were being dressed for their uncle’s wedding. For the first time, the toddlers, now pushing on three years old, would be wearing trousers and shirts in public. The young black woman who had taken on their care was sitting in the rocking chair, a squirming AJ on her lap. One shoe was on and laced up; the other was nowhere to be seen.

“Miz Honor, this child is a trial.” Still, she giggled and pulled the missing shoe from under the toddler. Across the room, little Hoss was busy trying to put on his own shoes while standing up, an act he hadn’t acquired the balance for.

“AJ!” Honor corrected the child harshly as she leaned over to help with the shoe. “You need to be a little firmer with them, Helen. Now, take them over to Candy and Anne’s would you?”

Her eyes rolling white and large, the teenage girl gathered the boys by the hand and slowly walked them out the back door. All the while, she spoke soothingly and encouragingly. Not long ago, they would have dug in their heels and refused to go with her but her steady patience had won out. Or was it because they sensed that their mother was preoccupied with the coming baby and that Helen made a good surrogate?

Shaking her head, Honor returned to her own toilet, brushing her hair and chastising herself for real and imagined shortcomings of her own that morning. Without a great deal of difficulty she got into her pale blue dress then stood looking at herself in the mirror.

Look at me, she said to herself, her hands smoothing the fabric over the bulge of child. Beneath her hand came motion, a strong kick that seemed to connect with her breastbone. He’s turned. He’s head down now. He’s ready.  Her own heart rate picked up and it made her dizzy. Instead she put out a hand and touched her reflection in the mirror. Get a hold of yourself. You’ve had two twinges. So what? You’re a doctor; you’ve delivered babies. You’ve had two! You know it takes more than two twinges – lots more!

She slowly stood then buttoned the dress. She remembered when she’d had the dress made back in the spring. Then she’d thought the fabric very pretty and flattering as it fell in easy pleats over her expanding waistline. Now there were no pleats except on the sides and she swore that the whole world could see her feet with the front rising up like it did. The lace about the rounded collar had been imported and cost nearly as much as the dress but in the spring she had considered it the perfect accent. As she looked at herself in the mirror now she swore never to put lace close to her face again since it made her face seem puffy by comparison.

“Darn. Shouldn’t have let Helen get away before I got my hair up.” She held the gathered auburn mass in one hand at the nape of her neck and shook it.

“Want me to help you with it?”

At the sound of Joe’s voice, she turned and in doing so, nearly fell. He caught her easily and held her while she got her feet together again. For just those few brief moments, held against his chest, Honor was transported to a different time and place where there had been no fussing children, no late-night coming home, no pregnancy, nothing but the two of them. She clung to that moment. And him.

“Hey there,” he softly crooned, running one hand down her back. “You okay?”

As quickly as the passion and desire to be close to him had arisen in her, it left just as fast.  Honor pushed back from him, away from those welcoming, loving arms and the confusion she saw on his face. Claiming she was fine, just a little top heavy, she brushed by him and went to sit at her dressing table. With trembling hands, she again gathered her hair at the nape of her neck.

“It’s going to be too hot today to wear it down or I would,” she pouted.

“Want me to go catch Helen?” Joe offered, not knowing what else to offer.

“No. There isn’t time.” A glimpse at the clock showed her that a half hour had passed without any other cramps or twinges and she secretly sighed in relief. This was, after all, Adam and Athena’s day. They didn’t need anyone stepping on their toes and into their limelight. “You and your father need to get Adam out of here. Athena will be here in fifteen minutes. You know the old saying about the groom seeing the bride on their wedding day.”

Still trying to get his tie right, Joe left her sitting with her dress half-buttoned and her hair held back in an unflattering ponytail. He’d playfully nuzzled her neck, told her he loved her, then hurried out.

She had been helping Athena settle her veil when the next one hit. This time, the pain stayed longer, reaching from her back around to her front before it swept down her legs. Fortunately, all eyes had been on the bride and her startled expression was missed. Honor excused herself and drifted into the corner of the room until it had passed completely.

“I can’t believe I am really doing this,” Athena remarked, her Southern cadence more prominent. Usually one had to listen hard to catch it but the more excited she became, the less likely she was to try and hide her accent. And today, the day she married a man she had secretly been in love with since she was sixteen, she was beyond excitement into pure bliss. And it showed on her face.

There came a discreet tapping on the door to the upstairs bedroom. Honor answered it.

“Ladies, excuse me for the interruption but there is a gentleman who wants to see you, Athena. Said something about meeting you down by the lake,” teased Joe and while Honor and Athena both laughed, Honor’s was restrained.

It had fallen to Joe as the other best man, to procure the bride, taking her from her dressing room to the wedding site. In the planning stages, it had seemed so simple. Just leave the lakeside when everything was in place and go back to the house and drive the buggy with Athena in it back down. But, like most good plans, this one had a hole in it that had not been discovered until that morning. Namely, how was Honor to get to the lake? Even though she had declined to participate in the actual ceremony, she had promised her help to Athena in the preparation stage. She had never considered how possibly being in labor would affect her help.

Honor felt awkward and heavy as Joe handed her into the buggy then even more so when he had to lift her out. She bit back a remark she would have aimed at Athena about how much fun it wasn’t being pregnant and to warn against the condition. When Athena had nimbly gotten out of the buggy and settled herself, Honor wanted to bash her head in for just being narrow-waisted but another cramping pain made her bite her tongue instead.

Don’t look at me, she wanted to shout as she lumbered down the slope, Helen herding the twins and Joe bringing up the rear. She glimpsed over her shoulder, wanting him beside her, holding her arm so she couldn’t slip and show the watching society of Virginia City that she had not been able to put on her stockings that morning and that her feet were incredibly swollen. No, instead, with the crowd around them, she figured her fall would take out half the dignitaries there. The other half would be taken out by tidal wave she would create when she hit the lake itself.

Standing with the rest of the family during the ceremony, she at last found her husband’s arm to lean on. When the hurrahs went up as Adam kissed Athena and truly made her his wife, she found her own husband kissing her. Hanging onto his neck, she pressed her lips to his ear and said, “We need to get out of here.”

He reared back and gave her a teasing smile, completely misunderstanding what she meant. “I thought you said we couldn’t do that until a while after the baby comes.”She was about to correct him when he smiled and kissed her once more. Honor looked to the sky and counted to ten twice then went to join the line welcoming Athena into the fold.

The party slowly wound its way to the white-covered tables loaded to the groaning stage with foods. In and about the many guests, Hop Sing’s cousins served glass after glass of champagne, delicate pastries and morsels beyond description. Again and again, Honor waved them off, trying to get and keep Joe’s attention long enough to make him understand.

“Is something wrong, Honor?” her father-in-law asked but before she could tell him anything, the mayor of Virginia City pulled him away.

“You feeling okay?” Candy asked her. She thought about screaming out that she was going into labor but at the last possible moment, decided it wasn’t a socially polite thing to announce. Instead, she grinned and sailed away like the half-beached whale she felt like.

Finally, silence settled over the assemblage and everyone stood still. This, she decided was when she would find her husband and make him understand that he was about to become a father again and if he didn’t want it to happen in front of all these people, he had darn well better take her home.

“Can I have your attention, please?”

Honor puffed out a sigh. She recognized Joe’s voice and she began to maneuver through the crowd towards it.

“May I present to you all Mister and Missus Adam Cartwright? Took you a long time to finally do it, brother, but I think you did just fine. Ladies and gentlemen, a toast to the bride and groom!”

A grand hurrah went up at the same time an eye-popping pain went down Honor’s spine and wrapped around her girth. While others were drinking to the newly-weds, she was backed into a tree, hoping that her water wouldn’t break just yet. Across the way she saw Paul Martin and when she raised her hand to summon him, saw his head dip as he listened to someone behind him that she couldn’t see. As she watched in horror, he darted away to his nearby carriage. A high pitched moan of frustration escaped her.

“All I can say is that I am just following in some well worn foot prints,” Adam called back and the people laughed with him.

It wasn’t until Athena was delicately feeding her new husband a slice of wedding cake that Honor got to her husband’s side. Mindful of others close by, she pulled on his jacket hem until he acknowledged her.

“We need to go home, Joe. Now.”

“But the fun is just beginning,” he protested.

In answer, she took his hand and held it to her belly as a contraction lanced across it. “No,” she calmly cooed. “We need to go home now. Without a load of fanfare. Just you and me. Calmly leaving. Understood?”

His demeanor changed in less time than it took his heart to beat. He started to open his mouth, to shout for help but her finger across his lips stopped him. To anyone looking on, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Just the two old lovebirds at it again.

“Lemme get a buggy, okay? You be all right for a few minutes? Should I get Pa -”

She wanted to smack him, letting him know that of course she would be all right since she had spent the greater part of the afternoon both okay and in labor at the same time. Instead, she shook her head and again told him that they didn’t need to make a scene.

“I ran into Helen and told her to take care of the boys and come home when Pa does,” Joe breathed into her ear as he helped her into a buggy that wasn’t theirs.

“This isn’t our rig, Joe,” she cautioned and would have said more but another contraction caught her in mid-sentence.

“We aren’t going that far. Once I get you home, I’ll see if anyone knows where Paul Martin got to. I saw him here, I know I did.”

“Joe, quit babbling and drive or I’ll have this baby right here in the middle of your brother’s wedding reception.” As another contraction came, she grabbed hold of his arm with enough force that he knew he would have the bruises for a week. He eased the borrowed rig away from the others, having chosen it because it was the outer- most one. Once away from the sights and sounds of the party, he started to whip the horse into a faster gait but one look at his wife’s face, contorted in pain, and he held off.

“Do you know whose rig this is?” Honor asked, her breath now coming in slow, labored pants.

“No. Why?”

“Because if you don’t get us home real quick, you are going to have to buy them a new seat. Joe, I can feel the baby’s head. That means my water is going to break soon. Really, really soon. Got that?”

It actually held off until Joe was lifting her down from the buggy. Swearing she could walk on her own, instead she had clung to him, burying her head in his chest as he held her.

“This wasn’t smart, Honor. Shouldn’t have left there without someone -”

“It’ll be a while, Joe. You know how long it takes sometimes. This is just the beginning. Help me into the house and out of this horrible dress. With any luck, you’ll be a father again about the time Adam and Athena are getting on the stage for their honeymoon.”

He swung her into his arms and headed for the door. “They aren’t leaving for San Francisco until tomorrow afternoon. You mean to tell me it’s gonna take that long?”

The front door stood open, letting in the cool evening breeze, when Ben Cartwright came home. With him came a drowsy Helen, full of ideas about weddings, and two little boys who were just drowsy. In the wagon behind him came Hop Sing, the grand master of the afternoon and his legion of helpers, all chattering happily because they’d earned a bonus.

He helped Helen down and took one of the boys from her but once inside the house, she took the sleepy tot, saying she would have them in bed in nothing flat.

“Well, be quiet about it. Hop Sing said Joe and Honor left early because she wasn’t feeling good. She needs her rest, you know.”

The dark face with a brilliant white smile looked up at him and without further ado, disappeared. Ben also smiled as he loosened his tie and dropped exhausted into his chair.

“Any champagne left?” Ben heard Joe’s voice from the kitchen and wondered what would possess his son to want more of the blasted bubbly stuff.

He was still letting that thought run around in his brain when Hop Sing set a tray with three glasses full of the stuff on the table before him.

“I think I’ve had enough of this for one afternoon,” chortled Ben when Hop Sing handed him a goblet.

“No, you haven’t.” Joe’s voice, soft and low, made Ben turn in his chair to look. Right there behind him, his son stood, a gentle smile on his face and a roll of something in his arms. “Need to celebrate a little bit more.” The realization came to Ben that the blanket roll his son carried had an arm. A very small one. “Earlier you got a daughter named Athena. This one’s name is either Rose Marie or Marie Rose, we haven’t decided which way it’ll be yet.”

Fumbling with his goblet, Ben finally got Hop Sing’s attention to take it as he took the small bundle his son offered him. Slowly, he pulled back the edge of the blanket.

“Would you look at that red hair! And those eyes, if those aren’t your eyes, Joseph, I’ll eat my hat! How in the world? I mean”

“Don’t ask me. Seemed like one minute she wasn’t here and the next minute she was!”

“Missy Honor okay?” Hop Sing asked as he tentatively touched the small warm silky cheek.

“Tired. Resting but she says she’s fine.”

“I can’t believe it,” Ben cooed and the little girl, responding to his voice, yawned and wrinkled her petite nose. “Do you know this is the first Cartwright female born in at least three generations?”

“Long time ago, back in China, royal family have many sons. To make family go on, know it must find wives for sons. Many, many families try for big honor. Have daughters. Every little girl born then be treated like she princess, hoping that one day she be princess.”

With his head tilted to one side, Ben Cartwright gazed up at his long-time cook sternly. “This little girl is a princess, I’ll have you know,” he informed them all in a no-nonsense tone.

From that day forward, although she would be christened with a proper name and would outlive all those who knew it, she would forever be known by the nickname given to her by her grandfather and the family’s cook.

And so the love goes on…………………

Next Story in the Honor series:

Twenty Years
Old Shadows

Tahoe Ladies