Of Dreams and Yesterdays

Chapters 33-36 and Epilogue

by Heartcat

Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the TV program "Big Valley" are the creations of Four Star/Republic Pictures and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended by the author. The ideas expressed in this story are copyrighted to the author.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Rose was terrified that Jarrod wouldn't be able to hold onto her for long. Even though the hands that closed around her right wrist were strong, and she felt the determination in his solid grip. Her right arm was fast becoming numb from bearing the weight of her body. She stared, mesmerized at the turbid waters below. Imagining the shocking coldness of their depths, and seeing the dangers posed by the floating roots, scrub and other debris. Rose wasn't even sure, hanging there, if she could swim. Not, she decided, that it would probably matter. If the tempestuous currents claimed you, she knew they would never let you go. And she didn't want to die!

Rose threw back her head, and stared up at Jarrod. He was flat out on his stomache, his shoulders protruding over the edge of the ground. His handsome face was only two arms lengths away...hers and his. His features were white, the lips that only moments before had given her such supreme pleasure, were thin and colourless, pressed together in shock. His aristocratic nostrils flared with fear and effort. Those startling blue eyes were fixed on her with a mixture of trepidation, resolve...and love.

Jarrod Barkley loved her! And he had promised Rose that he wouldn't let her go. That everything would be okay. And Jarrod always kept his promises. She choked back another sob, heavy and hot in her throat. She had faith in him. Jarrod wouldn't let any harm come to her. Her green eyes tried to communicate her trust, even as her body quivered with alarm.

Jarrod felt the sweat ooze through his pores, greasy and rancid with fear. He felt it sheen his forehead, and bead his upper lip. The muscles of his neck, shoulders and arms protested, but he ignored their pleas. For a moment, the attorney lamented that he hadn't spent perhaps just a little less time behind his desk in recent years, and more time engaged in physical tasks.

Still, his grip on Rose was strong and secure. Jarrod didn't know how long he could continue to hold her, dangling like this, but he was in no imminent danger of releasing her. They couldn't remain this way for long though. There would be no one coming along to assist him. It was up to Jarrod alone to save the woman he loved.

He would have to pull her back up the embankment, inch by slow inch. He kicked his legs, digging the tips of his black boots into the soft earth. Praying that the ground at the edge would not continue to break away, but would hold under their combined weights, Jarrod pulled back his arms, trying to hoist Rose higher towards him, wriggling his legs and lower body backwards at the same time, stretching back with his left foot to dig a new hold.

Rose felt her body edge upwards, just a fraction, but her heart soared. Jarrod was pulling her to safety. His own position must be secure enough that he thought he could hold himself there, and still try to heave her back up. She tried to help, jerking her arm, her left hand grabbing futilely at the bank for some kind of hold, but she came away with a fist full of soil, splattering more bits across her cheek.

When Rose moved her left arm, it twisted her body, and as she swayed, the imbalance increased the ponderousness of her weight. Jarrod had to grit his teeth and tighten his muscles, riding out the motions as gravity fought against him.

"Don't move!" Jarrod called down to Rose, when he had her secure enough again that he could speak. His heart was a lead weight in his chest. He had only manouevered her just a few scant inches up the bank. At this rate, he would tire before he had completed the rescue, Jarrod knew. It was imperative that Rose bring her other hand up, and clasp it onto his. Streamlining her body, and causing fewer unnecessary movements and less drag.

Rose gave a barely perceptible nod to indicate her understanding. Her attempts to assist him had almost been her undoing. She mustered up a thin smile, trying to show Jarrod that she had complete faith in him. In his ability to bring them back from the brink of disaster.

Her small, brave smile tugged at Jarrod's heartstrings. He could feel the trust and faith that flowed through her, communicating to him through the touch of their skin. She no longer cried out, and he could see across the half dozen feet that separated them, that she was blinking furiously to keep back tears. Her quiescent demeanour now allowed him to plan and rationalize. Jarrod was so proud of the fortitude she displayed.

"Rose, honey, I'm going to need you to do something for me," the dark-haired man said slowly. "Reach your left hand up, and grab onto the outside of my hands. You can do it," he encouraged.

Rose was afraid to nod again, and couldn't find her voice to speak, so she curled the corners of her mouth, just barely, in a semblance of a smile to show Jarrod that she would co-operate. It wasn't as easy to follow his direction as it sounded, however. Her left shoulder and arm hung below her right one, her body angled towards the river. To pull her left shoulder back up until it aligned with her right, so that Rose could then extend her left arm upwards, and seize Jarrod's fists, required more dexterity and tenacity than she would have anticipated.

The young woman concentrated, willing all of the strength that her youthful frame could muster to bring the left side of her body level and to straighten her position. Then, her right side aching, she thrust her left hand skyward, towards Jarrod, her fingers extending as far as they could reach. She felt the firmness of his knuckles, the bulging of the sinews in the back of his hand, and her fingers tried to close around him. Rose's nails raked raw gashes in his skin as her hand slid across the surface of his, and then her arm was falling again.

Disappointment and foreboding leeched at her brave resolve. Rose squeezed her eyelids shut, too frightened to cry out, as her body swung again, pain radiating from her right arm socket.

For a moment, Jarrod had thought Rose had managed to grab hold of him. Then he had felt the four furrows plow through his flesh, though he had so much adrenaline pumping that he didn't feel the discomfort. He had watched her hand drop away, and had gritted his teeth against the inevitable pull as her slender body again twisted and swayed in the air, wrenching against his hold. Jarrod fought back the panic that surged through his veins as he felt her right hand slide, ever so minutely through his clenched fists. He tightened them in frenzied alarm.

Time seemed eternal, as Jarrod waited for Rose's movements to cease. The blood rushed through his veins and pounded in his ears, as black spots swirled before his eyes. He couldn't lose her! She was counting on him. Her life depended on his ability to not only think a way out of this for them, but to implement that idea into action. All of his strength and skills were being tested. He just couldn't fail her.

"You can do it," Jarrod reassured Rose, his ragged voice no more than a whisper. "Try again," he encouraged...pleaded.

Rose opened her eyes again once her body had stilled. She swallowed convulsively. Somehow, Jarrod had managed to maintain his grip on her. But he couldn't do so indefinitely. She couldn't make any more mistakes. There was only so much he could do, and he was counting on her to participate in her own deliverance. Her heart sank as she saw the scratches on his hand. She had hurt him! And beyond that, Rose knew that one more error on her part...could be fatal.

"Give yourself a minute," Jarrod cautioned. "Then give it everything you've got." He paused, his desperate blue eyes boring into her frightened green ones. "You can do this, Rose. We can do this!"

His pep talk re-energized her and Rose felt a dogged resolution return. She would do this.

Once more Rose tightened the muscles in her left shoulder, down through her side and into her hip. She steadied her right shoulder, disregarding the spasms in her back. Valiantly, Rose propelled her left arm into the air, this time seeking to reach beyond Jarrod's grasp, and then to relax the motion and grapple for him from just above his clutched fists.

Jarrod watched Rose's hand plunge through the air towards him. His heart pounded a mantra, 'Yes, yes, yes..' He saw the hope and satisfaction that shone in her brilliant, green eyes. She was going to do it this time, they could both sense it!

Rose's eyes fixed on her goal. The two strong hands that dwarfed her smaller one. As her left hand shot beyond Jarrod's hold, for the first time, she noticed the glint of gold at his wrists. Time was suspended, as she stared with a preternatural clarity. The cufflinks were embossed with a horseshoe, etched with fine detailing of the nails, and below it was the relief carving of the proud head of a horse.

The knowledge coursed through her, taking her breath, as the present gave way to the past. Jarrod's handsome face, framed with shining blue-black hair, his sapphire eyes...were replaced with the face of another. A different voice called out to her across time.

"A pair of cufflinks?" Jason had asked from over her shoulder. Natalie had swivelled her head in time to catch the raised eyebrow, but there was a softness in his eyes that she recognized. "That much money for a tarnished old pair of cufflinks?" He had chuckled then, planting a kiss on the top of her dark head. "Issued to members of the cast..." he read. "You realize that probably means some walk-on extra, or, if you're lucky a guest star, assuming they even were used in the production of the show." Jason was always a skeptic. "But they wouldn't have been worn by the Jarrod character, if that's what you're thinking."

Jason...her husband. Often taciturn, unable to express himself, but loving her just the same. The man who had wooed her, the one she had exchanged vows with, fought with, laughed with, cried with and loved. Hard-working and dependable. A devoted father to their children.

Brady...and Brooke...her children. The perfect beings that had grown out of their love. She had felt them stir inside her womb as they had grown and developed within the shelter of her body. Both of them, dark-haired like their parents, Brady's eyes a similar green to hers, and Brooke's the soft azure of Jason's. Her babies.

She knew who she was now. Not Rose...but Natalie. Years of memories created with her family danced across her soul. How she had gotten here, she didn't know. But she was certain of one thing. They were still out there. Somewhere.

But she...she was here. Here in her beloved valley. Somehow, living the dreams of a perennial spate of yesterdays. And the man who gripped her from above, holding her valiantly, striving to keep her from harm...impossibly, it was Jarrod Barkley. As real and solid as she was herself. Thinking and feeling just as she herself was. Not a player on the stage of her fantasies, but real. Alive.

A part of her knew that he wasn't Jarrod Barkley. At least, that wasn't all that he was. He was Richard Long. And as much as Natalie knew that it was unthinkable for them to be together this way...they were. Somehow...a lifetime of wishing, of longing, of fantasies created in the secret places of her heart...had come to fruition.

Natalie knew that once he pulled her up the bank, and into his arms, all vestiges of her former life would be gone. They would no longer plague her or trouble her, neither while she was awake nor while she slept. Her family would continue on without her. And she would be wholly in this new world. She would be Rose. She would live out an eternity as Mrs. Jarrod T. Barkley. The ranch would be her home. The Barkleys her family. And that life...that life would be paradise. Beyond anything she had previously been able to conceive of.

She would fall asleep at the end of each day, with Jarrod's strong arms around her, her head resting against the scattered hairs of his chest. Those incredible blue eyes would shine each day with devotion to her. That deep, masculine voice would utter words of love. And those pale, pink lips, the thinner upper lip and fuller lower one, would kiss hers each morning and night. The love he had her for her would be real, it would be enduring.

Jarrod wanted her, she knew. Loved her. With an emotion so alive, she could feel it now, burning in his touch. And more than that...he needed her. With her at his side, he would continue forever. Young, vital, and strong throughout his prime. They would raise a family, and grow old together. And without her...her heart clenched at the thought...without her, in just a few short years...as Richard he would die. His wonderful heart would betray him. Long before his time.

And then she...as Natalie...would never come to know him. Except through old film clips and episodes. Would never be able to meet him, or talk to him, even just for the briefest of moments, to tell him how much she had always adored him. Would always adore him. To tell him of how he had touched her life, without ever knowing it. She would never be able to write to him. Or to watch his talent continue to shine. He would be gone...just dust and memories...before she herself ever became a woman.

But somehow, someway, through some miracle of love and longing and faith, she was here with him now. And through her presence, by remaining in this world, she could save him. Everything that Natalie had ever wanted, unfeasible as it might seem to her rational mind, was within her grasp. She had only to take his hand. Her eyes shimmered as she relived the dream again.

'But...who am I?' she asked, on the verge of tears.

'Yes,' he repeated. 'Who are you?'

'I don't know!' she cried. 'But I think you do. Please, tell me. Who am I?'

'Who are you?' he mused.

'Yes!' she said more stridently. 'Who am I?!' It was vital that she learn the answer. Everything hinged on her knowing.

He nodded to the flower that she held her in hand. A perfect, pale pink rose bud. 'Perhaps more importantly,' he suggested, and she began to shiver uncontrollably at his next words, 'is...who do you want to be?'

In just an infinitesimal span, her heart and mind were opened to her past and to the reality of the choice she had to make. This was her one, miraculous chance. There would never be another.

"I love you!" she cried out to Jarrod, her whole being flooded with her longing.

And then as her left hand descended against his, she grabbed not for his hands, but for the cufflink. She felt it pull away from the fabric of his sleeve...felt her fingers close around the solid bit of metal. She twisted her body, yanking her right hand away from his clasp, her eyes flooding with hot, salty tears. Jarrod, caught off guard, couldn't maintain his grip, and for a moment she hung suspended in the air. And then she was falling, towards the cold and murky waters, her body plunging into the darkness.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Nick could hear the voices, his sleep and laudanum-sodden mind picking up on their urgency and anxiety. He struggled to open his eyes, his heavy lids taking their sweet time before co-operating. His room was dim, beyond his partially opened window the sky was the indigo blue of late twilight, transitioning now to night. An oil lamp burned on his bureau, the wick turned low, casting a faint glow.

His mouth was pasty, his lips dry. Nick tried to moisten them with the tip of his tongue, but he didn't seem to be producing much saliva. A side effect of the laudanum, perhaps. His brain seemed shrouded with cotton wool.

"Mother!" he croaked out. Nick had to laugh at himself...at the feebleness of his voice. He was always being told he was too loud, when he hadn't ever meant to be, and now when it was important for him to marshall the strength of his impressive vocal chords, they failed him. The laughter ended in a coughing fit.

There was a glass of water at his bedside. That would help. Of course, he couldn't even pick it up to take a drink, not with hands bandaged this way. Frustration swept over him.

"Mother!" he tried again, more forcefully this time. He heard footsteps hurrying down the carpeted hall. Then Victoria pushed his door open the remainder of the way. He could see right away that she was agitated and preoccupied. Her finely arched brows, strikingly dark still under the silver halo of her hair, were knitted together.

"I'm here, Nick," she said soothingly. Nick had slept until mid afternoon as she had predicted. When she'd come to bring him his dinner a short while ago, he had still been deep in the grip of the laudanum. She had felt his forehead to reassure herself that the faint fever of the previous night had not returned. She had taken his tray back down to the kitchen, not wanting to wake him. Sleep and respite from the pain of his wounds was of paramount importance right now.

"May I have a drink please," he asked first, his eyes shifting to the glass of water. Victoria moved quickly to perch on the edge of his bed, and to bring the clear liquid to his parched lips. Nick drank gratefully. He waited for a moment, for the water to settle in his belly. "What's going on?" Nick wanted to know. "I heard Heath's voice, barking orders."

When her dark eyes slipped away from his, to stare out the window, Nick knew that something bad had happened. That she couldn't meet his gaze, caused icy fingers to rake his spine. The hairs at the back of his neck stood on end. He held his breath, waiting.

Victoria looked back at her dark-haired son. There was no easy way to say this. But she wasn't going to lie to him. "Jarrod and Rose are missing," she stated, as calmly as she could.

"Missing?" Nick repeated uncomprehendingly. His heart began to hammer in his chest.

"They went for a buggy ride earlier, and they haven't returned yet. It's almost dark, so Heath has arranged for he and some of the men to go find them." She tried to keep her tone light. As though there was some perfectly reasonable explanation as to why the pair had still not returned, hours after they had left the main house for a short jaunt. She didn't want Nick to see her fear. She didn't want to add to his troubles.

Nick's eyes narrowed, his thoughts a jumble of concern, jealousy, fear and anger. What business did Jarrod have taking Rose anywhere? But more importantly...why hadn't he brought her back yet? Something was terribly wrong! Nick could sense it. And Mother knew it too.

Suddenly, Nick swung his legs over the opposite side of the bed, the action pulling him into a sitting position. The sudden elevation made him woozy, and his empty stomache spasmed. He cradled his useless hands across his lap. Rose was out there somewhere and she needed him!

"Nick, what do you think you're doing!" Victoria scolded. "Lay down right this instance!"

"I have to go with Heath," Nick mumbled, not sure yet how he planned to accomplish that feat.

Victoria reached gently to lay a hand on her son's shoulder. "Nick, you can't," she said softly. "You have to stay in bed. Heath is more than capable. He'll find them." She rubbed his back through the cotton of his nightshirt. "Likely with the ground being so soft, the surrey got mired in mud somewhere," she comforted. "And Jarrod and Rose are just waiting, knowing someone will come looking for them, and get them out. The weather is nice, and they have food and water. There's no need to think the worst."

Except that...Victoria was thinking the worst. When Audra had come into the kitchen earlier, as she and Silas were preparing lunch, to inform her that Jarrod and Rose had gone off for a drive, and a picnic, Victoria had been surprised. Not shocked though. She had seen the way the two would gaze at one another sometimes when the other wasn't looking...that pensive longing that they didn't realize was so evident to anyone who happened to observe them.

Her maternal heart had bled for Nick though, knowing what this might mean. Knowing that both of her sons could not possibly see their dreams realized...knowing that one of them would get hurt. Not quite certain where Rose's feelings lay. Victoria knew that Rose adored Nick as well. That the young woman had turned to her rancher son again and again for comfort and support and friendship...and perhaps something more.

The longer Jarrod and Rose had been out, the more certain Victoria had become that their prolonged absence signaled unhappy portents for Nick. As the hours had passed and the afternoon sun had begun to slant low through the windows, her worry for Nick had metamorphed into worry for Jarrod and Rose. Even if they had simply lost track of time, the sun's setting rays would signal that it was fast approaching time for dinner, and they would know they would be expected to return. That they would be missed at dinner.

Heath and the men had been out later than usual, and she and Audra had set dinner in the warmer, neither of them having much of an appetite. Both insisting they would wait until the rest of the family was back home. Victoria had given the same explanation to her daughter that she had shared with Nick, when Audra had become agitated as the sun continued it's downward arc in the pale sky. Audra had seemed mollified for the moment, her panic suspended, but not her worry.

Victoria knew that though it was possible that the buggy had indeed been caught in the soft ground somewhere. The rains had turned much of the earth into a sticky trap. But she did not really believe that it was probable that this was what was keeping them from returning. Jarrod was always proactive, not the kind to sit around and wait to be rescued. If the surrey had gotten stuck, and he'd been unable to free it, in all likelihood he would have unhitched the mare and the pair of them would have returned to the ranch riding bareback. She had checked with Ciego and it was the grey, Betsy, that he had hitched up. In addition to being a capable cart horse, Betsy was also broken to saddle. Rather than waiting around for hours on end, Victoria believed that Jarrod would simply have unhitched her, and shared her with Rose, picking their way home before dispatching a couple of the hands to go pull out the buggy.

And Jarrod would know that they would all be worried. Especially as night began to fall. He would predict that, and his considerate nature would not allow him to sit out there somewhere waiting to be found. He would try to make his way home if he and Rose had had to walk, she believed.

There was another possibility. That at some point the area they had journeyed through, close to the river or one of it's tributaries, had been cut off by a flash flood, or a break through. That they were indeed stranded someplace, on high ground, unable to cross the waters that barricaded them there.

That didn't sit well with Victoria either. It just didn't feel right. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. But there was no point in alarming either Audra or Nick with her premonition.

"I can't just sit here," Nick lamented, and she could hear the frustration and self-disgust in his gravelly tones. "I have to do something." He tried to cling to his mother's version of what had gone wrong, desperate to believe that Jarrod and Rose were simply stuck in the mud. It was as though he were a drowning man and she had thrown him a life preserver. He had to cling to it, or risk going under and losing his mind.

"We wait," Victoria said simply. "And when they return, we simply smile, and scold them a bit for scaring us. Without letting them know how interminable the wait actually was." She leaned forward, placing her cheek against his back, against the warmth and solidity of her middle son. "As I have done countless times before, worrying about you boys. Wondering about your safety. And believe me, Nick, that is something. Being the one to keep watch. The one to do the waiting." She closed her eyes for a moment. "And always...you returned."

Nick felt so helpless. He should be the one out searching for his brother and Rose. But Mother was right. There was nothing he could do, not right now, not in this condition. He would have to defer to the able-bodied Heath. No matter how much it was eating him inside.

"I'm going downstairs to the parlour then," Nick asserted. He felt her tense against him. "There's nothing wrong with my legs. I want to be there when they come home."

Victoria knew that it was pointless to argue with him. Between she and Audra, they could help him down the stairs, if he was wobbly. To keep him confined to his room would probably only upset Nick more. And he didn't need that right now. Perhaps she could coax him to have a bite to eat. Or she might be able to get a bit more laudanum into him, and Nick could rest in one of the oversized chairs. "All right, Nicholas," she relented.

* * * * * * * *

Heath had ambled from the stable, after unsaddling Charger. He was tired and dirty from being out on the range all day, from splashing through some of the mud puddles that hadn't dried yet, and from having to dismount and right sections of the north fence that had buckled when a big tree, uprooted by the storm, had toppled onto it. At least the digging of the new fence posts had been eased by the softness of the ground. But his boots and chaps were thick were caked earth. He wanted a hot bath, and then a warm dinner.

As he had crossed the front yard, the door to the house had flung open and Audra had flown down the steps towards him. Calling to him, before she had even reached him. "Heath! Have you seen Jarrod and Rose?"

Heath had removed his hat, wiping his arm across his brow. "I just got back, Little Sister," he told her. "Yer the first one I've seen." As she drew closer, he saw how wide with worry her china blue eyes were; how pinched her pretty features. Nick! "What's wrong?" Heath demanded. "Is it Nick?!"

Audra had looked confused. "Nick? Nick's sleeping. He's fine...he...he's the same at any rate. Are you saying you haven't seen Jarrod and Rose at all today?" she wailed.

Not Nick then. Something was wrong with Jarrod and Rose. "The boys an' I haven't seen anybody all day," Heath told her slowly. "Sis, what's goin' on? What's this about Jarrod an' Rose?"

The words had tumbled out of her, as Audra had told him that Jarrod and Rose had gone driving before noon and hadn't returned yet. The sun was setting, and though it was a longer process at this time of year, there still wasn't much light left. Already, the sky had greyed. Heath had hurried back to the bunkhouse, asking the weary men to mount up again. Explaining that Jarrod and Rose seemed to be missing. The men had all complied without a word of complaint.

The had taken lanterns to ward off the approaching darkness. The surrey had been the only buggy to leave the ranch since the rains had washed the roads clear. So it was not difficult to trace the ruts the headed out along Stockton Road. They pressed their mounts to canter at a good pace, while the light was still decent, since along this initial stretch it was easy to track Jarrod's and Rose's progress.

Heath tried not to consider too hard the reasons that might be keeping the pair away. Or why they were out together in the first place. He concentrated instead on finding them. Guiding the tired but willing sorrel along the road. When they came to a branch, and it was apparent that Jarrod had guided the surrey down the less-travelled right fork, Heath thought he had an inkling as to what their destination had likely been. There was a treed grove not too far along. He'd gone there with Nick and Jarrod numerous times on lazy Sunday afternoons, just the three of them, to fish. It would be a good spot to picnic at too.

"Jarrod!" Heath would call from time to time, his voice ringing out over the land. "Rose!" There was never a reply. His worry increased. He felt the gooseflesh ripple across his skin. Something was horribly wrong.

They came upon the grove, just after the last of the light had seeped from the sky, to be replaced with black. He spotted the surrey right away, parked near the stand of trees on a rocky patch. It didn't look to be stuck. There was no response to his calls. Jarrod and Rose didn't appear to be there. As well...the horse was missing. Heath dismounted, striding apprehensively towards the buggy. He found the hamper, tied down in the back. He uncinched the straps and raised the wicker lid, holding his lantern aloft to examine the contents. It was full. Nothing seemed to be disturbed. The men remained in their saddles, awaiting direction.

Jarrod and Rose had not even eaten their lunch. And now it was past dinner. Heath's throat had tightened, and reflexively he had loosened the kerchief at his neck. Where were they? What had happened here? Holding the lantern out in front of him, he examined the area near the surrey in tight circles. There didn't appear to be any signs of a struggle or a scuffle. Nothing to indicate they had been accosted by bandits. There was no blood, so far as he could see, that would indicate injury.

Heath went back to the buggy, and followed the side rails to the end. On the ground, he found the severed lengths of the long carriage reins. They were cut cleanly through. Deliberately. Someone had shortened them, and in a hurry...ostensibly to ride the mare. Heath's intestines twisted. Wherever Jarrod and Rose had ridden off to...if indeed it had been them who'd taken the mare...it hadn't been home.

He split the men into three groups. One to search the area beyond the grove. Another to begin a search upriver. And the third group, lead by him, to begin to move downstream. If anyone found anything meaningful or suspicious, they were to fire off a single shot. If they found either Jarrod or Rose, they were fire two shots. Heath could hear the men calling as they began to move off, their genuine worry deepening their strident shouts.

Heath's group hadn't ridden too far, before his lantern picked out a shadowy figure against a grouping of boulders. His right hand dipped automatically to the gunbelt against his hip, tied around his thigh. Ready, until he determined just who that was ahead in the darkness. Surely the figure must have heard their approach, heard the metal clad hooves banging against the rocky ground, but there was no acknowledgement of their presence.

Motioning for the other riders to stay back, the lantern in his left hand, his right hovering over the butt of his pistol, Heath approached the dark outline on foot. It was definitely a man, the shadowy shape was bigger and bulkier than a woman's. "Jarrod?" he asked, his soft drawl a whisper, the question hanging in the air. He extended the arm with the lantern out towards the dark form. Was this his brother...or a different man altogether? Perhaps...perhaps someone like Mathers...who might have done something to Jarrod and Rose.

A whinny off to his left caught Heath's attention, startling him, though the eyes that were trained on the shadows never wavered, and the arm that held out the lantern never bobbed, and the hand that touched the weapon never flinched. Betsy...the mare? Heath wondered. Or a different horse altogether?

The figure on the rocks turned slowly to face him then. It was Jarrod, of course. The round handsome face, the jet black hair and the vivid blue eyes were all Jarrod's. Except, he appeared to have aged fifteen years. His features were cadaver grey. The dark hair, always immaculately swept back from his high, intelligent brow, tumbled now over his forehead. His lips were thin and bloodless. His cheeks sunken. The blue eyes were haunted. His posture was slumped. Defeated.

Heath rushed forward then, dropping to one knee beside where his brother sat on the rocks, obviously in shock. A cursory examination didn't indicate any injuries. Jarrod's clothes were dirty, but Heath couldn't discern any blood. Heath raised the lantern, and looked around, but he didn't see Rose anywhere. Where was she? What the devil had happened?

Jarrod stared at Heath, seeming to look right through him. There was no recognition in their dark blue depths.

"Jarrod," Heath prompted gently. "What happened? Where is Rose?" He laid a gloved hand on his brother's shoulder.

At the mention of the young woman's name, Jarrod seemed to snap back to himself. Heath knew that his oldest brother was actually seeing him now. Grief etched the patrician planes of the dark-haired man's face.

"She's gone," Jarrod rasped, shaking his head as though to deny that reality. "The river. I tried to hold her." Jarrod's hands suddenly left his sides, clamping down painfully on the sandy-haired cowboy's shoulders. "I had her. And then...she was just gone." Wild azure eyes, bright with pain and disbelief cut Heath to the core.

Jarrod had shouted her name when he had lost his hold on Rose. In terrifying slow motion, he had watched her body fall through the air, then plunge feet first into the river's muddy flux. He had been stunned, unable to believe that he no longer had her slender wrist in his grasp. His heart had torn in two as she had disappeared under the swirling brown depths.

His first instinct had been to jump in after her. But on some level, that was still rational, Jarrod had known that that was the worst way he could help Rose. To become a victim of the churning waters, and to have to help himself before he could ever help her, would be a step backward. Then, as morbidity crept in, he had thought that if the waters were a grave, he would simply join her in final rest.

Because he was still optimistic at first that he would be able to save her, to reclaim her from the raging stream, Jarrod had not followed her in. He had watched, petrified, as he thought he saw Rose's dark head break the surface for a moment, twenty yards or so downstream. He had scrambled back to the rig, using his pocket knife to slice through the long reins that connected the grey to the surrey. Grabbing hold of the dark mane, he'd vaulted onto the mare's bare back, and digging his heels into her sides, he had hurried her along the river's edge.

His whole body was cold, he could barely feel the fingers that curled around the shortened leather straps of the reins. His thighs, clenched around the mare's broad back to keep his seat, quivered his fear. Jarrod had known that with the grey he would have a much better chance of keeping up to Rose than he would on foot, but he was frantic at the few precious moments he had lost.

He'd followed the river's winding progression, his eyes never leaving the water's surface, as he searched vainly for some sign of Rose. He had railed at the heavens, cursing a God who would take her from him that way. As the futile pursuit continued, his anger turned inward. How could he have let this happen? How could he have put in her danger like that in the first place? How could he have let her go? He had PROMISED her he would save. He had been so close...

For just a moment, laying on his belly overlooking the river, watching Rose's hand slip past his again, Jarrod had felt...impossibly...that she had pulled away from him. That was senseless of course. His memory trying to assuage his guilt in some way, as though it hadn't been his fault. The truth of it was that when it had mattered the most...he had failed her.

Jarrod hadn't caught sight of her again. He wasn't sure how long he had raced the grey down the length of the river. At some point, he had begun to question the wisdom of continuing. Perhaps Rose hadn't been washed this far from the point where she had entered the water. He must have come miles by then. Wasn't it more likely that she was perhaps further back upstream? What if he gone past her already?

What if Rose had managed to make it to shore? Was clinging weakly somewhere, to a scrub tree at the water's edge? Waiting for him to find her and pull her out before she went under again. What if she had managed to grab hold of a floating log, to pull herself out of the water enough to use it as a flotation device? And had manouevered herself to the shallows and out of the water? But was cold and wet, wondering where he was and how come he hadn't come to her rescue, slowly succumbing to hypothermia.

So, Jarrod had turned the grey back the way he had come. But the woman he loved was nowhere to be found. When he had returned to the spot where she had fallen, he had begun to tremble, believing he had made a horrid mistake. Thinking that indeed Rose was further down the river, and in backtracking, he had set himself even further behind. Tears of frustration had burned his eyes. And once more, he had sent the mare barreling back down the length of the river. His hope slipping away, his agitation growing, Jarrod had raced the grey back and forth along the river, first in one direction, then the next.

Time and distance had lost meaning for Jarrod as his panic had increased. At last, unable to go any further, the mare had stumbled, gone down on one knee, and stopped. It was his innate skills as a horseman that had enabled Jarrod to keep his seat, his reactions automatic. As the grey had stood there, legs splayed and sides heaving, covered with white froth, her gentle, dark eyes rolling in her head, Jarrod had slipped from her back.

He had dropped the reins, and moving as an automaton had gone to the edge of the embankment. He had stood staring blankly into space, refusing to acknowledge that Rose was really gone. When the light had begun to fade, he'd moved to the rocks, taking up his station there. Thinking that he could will Rose back. Waiting for her to magically reappear to him. Sitting that way while darkness descended, until his brother had arrived.

Heath could hear the swollen river, off to their right, rushing through the night. His stomache lurched. He didn't want to comprehend what Jarrod was telling him. That inconceivably, Rose had fallen into the water, swept away in it's savage currents.

Then Jarrod removed his grip from the cowboy's shoulders. Burying his head in his hands, as dry sobs racked his frame. Heath drew the gun from it's belt, pointed it up and away from them, and fired off two quick shots. Then he slipped the pistol back into it's holster, and wrapped his arms around Jarrod. He pulled his brother to his chest, while his own heart fought with the tragic knowledge that Rose was lost to them forever.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Victoria had given up all pretense of reading, and had slipped the bookmark between the pages, and set the novel on the table to her left. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, watching her adult children. Knowing that the same worried thoughts that haunted her were running through their minds. Wondering how Heath was progressing with the search. Wondering...where were Jarrod and Rose?

Audra paced back and forth in the room, from one end of the parlour to the next. She would pause at the tall, French doors overlooking the front yard, staring out as though it were possible to discern anything in the black void beyond, hugging her slender arms around her. Then she would retread her steps, and come to a halt in front of the hearth, were a low fire burned, started up for Nick's benefit.

Her pretty blue eyes would gaze into the flames with intensity, as though seeking an answer there. Then she would begin to move again, usually ending up at Nick's side, where, more often than not, taking an unspoken cue from her brother, she would bring the big snifter to his lips, allowing him to take large swallows of the brandy.

Nick sat slumped back in the black leather chair, his elbows on the armrests, his bandaged hands angled across the tops of his thighs. His slippered feet resting on the matching ottoman. Even wearing the nightshirt and a grey, silk dressing gown, he had found the air chill, so Silas had started a small fire. He had refused the laudanum that Victoria had tried to press on him, though he had accepted the brandy.

The decanter, retrieved from Jarrod's special stash in his study, sat on the table at his right. The liquor took the edge off of his pain, tempering it to a constant throbbing that while it made him grit his teeth, was bearable. He could have used the laudanum, but Nick did not want to fall asleep. If he couldn't go out and search for his brother and Rose, the least he could do was remain conscious while he waited for their return. Even though that waiting was as hard to bear as his injuries themselves were. Harder perhaps.

This marking of time was interminable. They had given up all pretense of conversation long ago. Now, each faced their tortured thoughts alone, while the frustration and worry continued to mount.

Audra, standing by the glassed panes, was alerted to the riders' return first. Her wide-eyed gaze swung to Victoria, then to Nick, searching for something in their drawn features. Some kind of affirmation that everything really would be okay. Then she was dashing for the front door, throwing it wide, and hurrying out into the darkness.

Victoria tried to ignore the warnings that pulsed in her veins, the ones that foreshadowed doom. She rose to her feet, brushing imaginary creases out of her dark blue dressing gown, then crossed the short distance to Nick's chair. She stood beside him, her left hand on his right shoulder, as they both swivelled their heads to the open door. For a moment, Victoria wanted time to stop. As long as Heath was still out searching, there was still a semblance of hope. But once he stepped across the threshold...

She felt Nick's shoulder tense beneath her fingers, as he struggled to pull himself to a fully upright sitting position. He took his feet from the ottoman, planting them firmly on the floor. He leaned his elbows on bent knees, and held his breath as he looked at the black rectangle, just beyond which the direction of the remainder of his life lay.

Audra rushed back into the house, and the devastation on her lovely, porcelain features, made Victoria's heart plummet. Her knees felt weak. Then came Heath, his normally inscrutable sapphire eyes, so like Tom's, dark with sorrow. Behind Heath, trudged Jarrod, dirty and disheveled, enveloped in a cloak of despair. His blanched features looked as cold as marble. His blue eyes were riveted to the polished floor. Victoria's heart soared for a moment, to see him standing there of his own volition. Before the worry claimed her again.

Nick stood up as his siblings entered. He had prepared himself for the idea that something had gone wrong. That there had been trouble. At least, he thought that he had. But now as the three of them crossed the front hall, Nick realized that he hadn't been prepared for any of this at all. His eyes went beyond the trio, to the front door, still open onto the night. Nick waited for Rose to step through. He waited to see her lovely face, and to hear her dulcet tones call out his name. Whatever had happened, whatever ordeal she and Jarrod had faced, Nick would be here for Rose.

He waited, his dark eyes refusing to leave the door, ignoring the other occupants of the room. What was taking Rose so long? How unchivalrous of his brothers to go into the house ahead of her! Where was Rose? Nick wanted to ask the question. It sang in his veins, and shone in his eyes. But...he didn't know if he wanted the answer. At last, unable to say whether it had been seconds or hours later, he finally could not bear the horrible uncertainty any longer.

Nick stepped away from the parlour, and towards the door, pushing past Heath and Jarrod, his deep voice ringing through the all too still air. "ROSE!" he hollered with all of the force his capable lungs could muster. He stood in the middle of the hall, frozen, waiting. Then he crossed the floor with lengthy strides, until his tall, rangy frame was silhouetted in the doorway. There was only darkness beyond. Nick spun back towards the people in the room. "Where IS she?!" he bellowed, his voice pregnant with fear.

Jarrod stood dumbly, staring at his dark-haired brother. He knew that he had to answer Nick. It would be the hardest thing he'd ever had to do in his life...to tell Nick what had happened to Rose. Jarrod couldn't even bear to consider the reality and finality of the truth. He had come to grips with it, somewhat, on the ride back to the ranch. His initial shock had passed, to be replaced with an overwhelming grief and melancholy. And a guilt that seemed to chew through him from the inside out. Heath had pulled their little sister into his arms outside, and had told Audra the terrible truth. But telling Nick...that was Jarrod's burden to bear.

Heath, who stood behind Jarrod, began to move towards Nick. Jarrod laid a hand on Heath's arm. Heath halted, in deference to his older brother. Jarrod's legs were leaden weights as he stepped towards Nick, who towered still in the doorway. Nick's jaw was clenched tight, the muscles in his cheeks working feverishly. His darkly hazel eyes were unnaturally bright, boring formidably into the attorney across the several paces that still separated them.

Jarrod's heart ached beyond any sorrow he had ever had to bear. He stopped, a few feet away, the intensity of Nick's gaze seeming to create an impenetrable wall that Jarrod just couldn't push through.

Victoria's hand scrambled in open space, before coming to rest on the back of Nick's recently vacated chair. She closed her eyes, as the horrific truth washed over her. She was too stunned for tears. She forced her lids open, not wanting to witness the scene that was going to play out in front of her now, but knowing that she had no choice.

"Nick...I..." Jarrod began brokenly. He closed his deep blue eyes for a moment, against the memories that assailed him. Why, oh why, hadn't it been he who'd fallen into the river instead? "I tried to hold her Nick..." he explained. "We were walking...along the river. And Rose...she slipped." Jarrod forced his gaze not to waver. He watched the colour steal out of Nick's rugged features. "I tried to hold her...I swear by all that is holy, I did...but somehow...I just...couldn't..." His voice trailed off in self-recrimination and disgust. He watched Nick's eyes narrow with horrified understanding. "Rose fell into the river. I...I searched and searched...hours...she...Rose is gone, Nick."

Nick's eyes blazed as he catapulted himself towards his brother. He tried to hang onto his rage, because otherwise his grief would destroy him. He had been able to glean enough from his older brother's words to understand what Jarrod was telling him. Jarrod had taken the most precious piece of Nick's life, and with total disregard for the young woman, had put her in danger...and then...he had failed to protect her when it mattered the most.

"You arrogant fool!" Nick snarled, as he descended on his unflinching sibling. "What the hell do you mean...you couldn't hold her? You let Rose fall into the river?!" His face was a twisted mask of fury, just inches from Jarrod's. On his inner eye, he could imagine the river, treacherous after the recent downpour.

"Nick..." Heath began to intercede.

Jarrod waved his sandy-haired brother off. It was he who had to stand alone and face this judgement. Jarrod wanted to say, 'I would have given my life for her, Nick! I loved her, every bit as much as you loved her!' But he couldn't say that, of course. Just as Rose's final words to him would go with him to his own grave. No one could ever know the joy Jarrod had found that day, or the true extent of the loss that he had suffered.

"I had hold of her hand," Jarrod said slowly, and the nausea crept over him as he relived again the horror at the embankment. He swallowed hard to keep back the hot bile. "I swear to you, Nick, I tried...I gave it everything I had, but somehow..." Jarrod recalled how it had seemed for a moment as though Rose had deliberately pulled away from him. Had caused him to break his hold...almost as though she had wanted to fall...

That was senseless though. His mind distorting reality because he didn't want to face his own failings...because he was seeking a way to alleviate his culpability and assuage his guilt. The fact was...he had been unable to hang on...and Rose had been lost because of his ineptitude.

"I tried..." Jarrod continued hoarsely, his eyes shining with unshed tears.

"You tried?!" Nick barked out. "She's gone and you're still here? I don't think you tried anywhere near hard enough!" he accused. The anger was slipping away and in it's place was coming a wave of grief so intense that it shook Nick to his core. He had to maintain his anger. Had to find a target for it, or risk losing his mind.

Jarrod was unprepared for the elbow which shot up, catching him square on the left side of his jaw. Nick's face swam out of focus and the room reeled around the blue-eyed man. For a second or two, there was nothingness. Then Jarrod felt the stiff coldness of the floor against his back, and a hot pain radiating across his chin and down his neck.

Nick was on bended knee beside him, hatred etching the familiar countenance that Jarrod had loved unconditionally for almost three decades...and which had always loved him in return. "I never would have let her go!" Nick hissed through clenched teeth. Then the dam burst and the hot, bitter tears flowed down the rancher's cheeks. "I would have saved her!" His voice broke then, unable to sustain his acrimony in the face of his heartbreak. Nick pushed back from the prone body of his brother, unable to look at the other man, shifting away on the floor with his knees bent in front of him, swallowed up by an invisible cataclysmic shroud.

As heart-rending to Jarrod as it was to hear his brother give voice to the claim, that Nick would have persevered and saved Rose...even worse was Jarrod's tormented belief in the veracity of the accusation.

* * * * * * * *

Heath stood on the veranda, smoking a cigarette, one hand on his slim hip, surveying the first soft rays of dawn. He still found it hard to believe that Rose was really dead. She had survived the trauma that had brought her to them. Had survived that seizure she had suffered the day of the church picnic. Her strength of will, her desire to fight...to survive...had allowed her to persevere. She had been on the brink of death when he had found her, Heath knew. Dr. Merar had given them no false hopes. But somehow, the young woman had beaten the odds. She had recovered from the horrendous battering her small frame had endured.

And Rose's journey back to life, her bravery, her sense of humour, her beauty both without and within, her intelligence and grace in the face of the loss of who she had been, had been a journey that had wound through the lives of the Barkleys, moving through their home and their daily happenings, until she had arrived, finally, in their hearts.

With aching clarity, Heath envisioned the morning after Jarrod had accidentally walked in on Rose in her bath. Remembered how both he and Nick had wanted to be there when the pair came face to face again. Despite the sorrow that pulled at his every breath, Heath smiled to himself now, as he heard his suave, sophisticated oldest brother's cultured voice deliver that faux pas. 'You look lovely dressed, Rose.'

The horror on Jarrod's normally immaculately controlled countenance, had been priceless. They had all looked to Rose, wondering how she would react to what must have been a humiliating public reminder of their indecorous meeting. They had all thought, initially, that Rose had been crying. But instead, her slender shoulders had shaken with her uncontainable mirth. And one by one, they had joined her, even Jarrod, until their combined voices had reverberated through the dining room.

Heath had been suspicious of Rose at first. Unable to reconcile finding her the way he had, and the conditions under which that had occurred. He had been troubled by the inconsistencies. Wary of her claims not to remember her past. But gradually, he had come to trust her. To accept her. To appreciate all of the qualities that embodied the young woman who had decided that they should call her Rose. And finally...Heath had come to love her. Not with the same passion that Nick did. Not, he realized now, the way Jarrod did. But more as a sister, with the same indulgent joy he took from his relationship with Audra.

And now...now the sun was readying to begin it's daily ascent, as though the world today was no different than it had been yesterday, as though Heath's whole world was not torn asunder. As though all of their lives were not distorted by the events of less than twenty-four hours ago.

Life was not static...it was ever changing. There were no guarantees, Heath knew. One moment you could be here, vibrantly embracing life...and the next you could be gone. Too many people left this world when they still had plenty of living to do. Heath had always accepted that. The sweet, gentle, loving mother who had raised him, and the father whom he had never known, among them.

But that didn't make it any easier to reconcile the loss of the young woman who had touched their souls. And her loss this way...was nothing short of a disaster. Heath's gut churned again as his mind tried to process what had happened in the foyer last night. In retrospect, Heath believed that he should have anticipated Nick's attack on Jarrod. His violent reaction at the shocking news of their loss of Rose. But Heath had stood, stunned, while Jarrod had picked himself up off the floor. Then without a look to anyone, or a single word, the oldest Barkley brother had walked to his study with tragic dignity, locking himself in his private domain to battle the demons of his soul.

Audra had run, crying for the security of Mother's arms. The matriarch had held her daughter, while the two of them had wept for Rose. Heath had helped Nick to his feet, his blue eyes trying to communicate his sorrow and understanding. None of them could bear to chastize Nick for his cruel words to Jarrod, not now, with their loss so fresh. Heath didn't think that there was anything any of them could say, anyways. This was between Nick and Jarrod. Jarrod had known that. That was why he had refused Heath's intervention...twice.

With Jarrod beyond Nick's reach, and desperate to detach himself from the gaping maw of grief that threatened his sanity, the dark-haired rancher had sought out his next target. Tottering on his feet, shrugging Heath's hand from his arm, Nick had launched into his castigation of his younger brother.

"How could you leave her out there?!" Nick railed at Heath. "All alone?!"

Heath had returned the murderous stare levelly. "Nick...it's too dark," he said softly. "Jarrod searched for hours, up and down the river. Ya know what it's like after a storm...mud brown and roarin' towards the sea. There was nothin' more we coulda done." He felt the weight on his chest, the same one that had pressed upon him when he'd come to that same realization earlier by the grove.

"You don't know that she's dead!" Nick shouted. "No one knows that for sure! Maybe she's out there, waiting for us...wondering why we've abandoned her!" He choked on those last words, the idea more than he could bear to contemplate. "You just gave up on her!"

"No one could survive those currents, even if they could swim," Heath's soft drawl insisted. He had to nip this fantasy in the bud. He could smell the brandy on his brother's breath and didn't doubt that the liquor was also contributing to Nick's state of mind. "Ya know that, Nick."

"We don't know any such thing! No one should have survived those injuries Rose had when you first brought her here! Should they?! Doc said as much. But she DID! Rose did survive! Even after someone left her for dead!" Nick tried to hold onto that thought. "They left her for dead and she WASN'T! And now you just take Jarrod's word for it that she's gone, without making any effort to find her! What the HELL is wrong with you?!"

Heath bore the unwarranted attack because he knew the depths of Nick's pain. "I can't do nothin' more tonight Nick. But come first light, I'll go back out again."

"WE'LL go back out again!" Nick avowed, his eyes glinting like shards of glass.

Heath bit back a sigh. "Nick, come on, ya can't. Yer hands. Ya gotta stay here. Ya gotta trust me to do this," he implored.

"I don't GOTTA do nothin'!" Nick shouted. "I don't need my hands to ride. I've been on a horse since before I could walk...I'm not some tenderfoot who has to grab the saddlehorn to keep my seat. And Coco is the best cutting mount this valley has ever seen. He doesn't need reins, I can direct him with my legs. You saddle him up for me, and you help me get on him...if that's not too much to ask...and you just leave the rest to me now, ya hear Boy?"

Heath clenched his jaw. Nick was being totally irrational he knew. One slip in the saddle, one loss of balance, and Nick would be unseated, tumbling from the stallion's back and doing untold damage to his hands. Damage that might even prove fatal, should infection set in. "I can't let ya do that, Nick," he said regretfully.

The belligerence had gone out of Nick then. He knew that without assistance he couldn't even get out of his dressing gown and into his pants. He couldn't saddle his own horse, and he certainly couldn't mount him. He felt castrated by the debilitation of his injuries. His big heart, so used to taking charge, so used to doing, was breaking.

Nick thought back to the day he had taken Rose riding...the day she had cast off the melancholy that had been plaguing her, and which had cast a shadow over all their lives. He recalled the words he had spoken to her.

"I just know that if you were my girl, Rose, and you were missing, nothing on God's earth would keep me from you.

"I'd go to the end of the horizon and beyond, to find you. I'd use every last resource, every last ounce of strength I could muster." The intensity of his gaze had mirrored his conviction. "Nothing and no one could keep me from you, and as long as I had breath in my body, I'd devote my life to getting you back again."

"Nothing would matter to me more than getting you back. And there's nowhere I wouldn't go, nothing I wouldn't do, to be with you again. I'd move mountains and change the course of rivers," Nick had asserted softly. Then he had leaned towards her, his towering frame bending close. Ever so softly, so that it might have been the brush of a feather, he had kissed the corner of her mouth.

"That's what I'd do," he had whispered gently against her cheek, closing his eyes for a moment, inhaling the sweet scent of her. "If you were my girl."

And in his heart...she was his girl. Would always be his girl. "You don't understand, Heath," Nick said despondently. "I promised her. I gave her my word. You know I'm nothing, if not a man of my word. Someone left her to die, once. I just can't..." He couldn't complete the sentence.

Nick swallowed hard. If he had to walk from here in his dressing gown and slippers, he was going to go after Rose. The only way Heath could stop him, would be to put a bullet in him.

Heath could read the sorrowed determination in his brother's eyes. Certainly, he could make it so that Nick was unable to accompany them. And really, it was ludicrous to even consider it, because Nick needed to be in bed. But Heath saw the truth etched on Nick's face. If Nick didn't do this...something inside of him would die.

Heath nodded reluctantly. "Okay, Nick," he relented. He couldn't let Nick ride, that would be to compound what was probably already a grievous mistake with blatant foolhardiness. But he could hitch up the buckboard, and he and the dark-haired rancher could ride in it together. "First light," Heath promised.

They had all gone to bed then. That Nick had relented to allowing Mother to give him a spoonful of the laudanum...not a full dose that would pull him under for several hours, but just a bit, enough to allow him to sleep until almost dawn...told Heath how much Nick's hands were paining him.

Mother had allowed Audra to sleep in the big, double bed that had been hers and Tom's, just like she had done when Audra had been a little girl and dealing with some personal crisis or tragedy. Like a break up with her boyfriend, or the loss of their old Collie dog who went out one day and never returned. The last time Audra had slept in her mother's bed, had been the night Tom Barkley had been murdered.

Heath didn't imagine that either Victoria or Audra slept any more than he did last night. He had gotten out of bed after a restless hour or so, and padded softly down the hall to check on Nick. His brother had been tossing in his bed, mumbling in what appeared to be distress. The laudanum had been enough to allow him some respite but had not put him under enough to stave off his troubled dreams. Heath had stood in Nick's doorway for a moment, then had continued along the hall and down the wide, sweeping staircase to Jarrod's study.

He had seen the light that seeped under the doorframe, and could smell fresh cigar smoke. Heath had rapped on the door, tentatively at first, and then when there was no response, he had knocked more forcefully. Jarrod had not spoken or acknowledged him in any way. Heath had spoken to the wooden barrier, and informed his eldest brother that he and Nick were resuming the search for Rose at dawn. Then he had gone back up to his room.

Now there was a soft whicker, and Heath turned to see Jarrod coming from the stables, leading Jingo. At some point in the night, Jarrod had changed from his stained suit, into grey pants and shirt, and a tan leather vest. There was black stubble on his cheeks and chin, and his eyes were bleary and bloodshot. Some habits died hard though, and his raven black hair was swept immaculately into place, his head bare. Heath had noticed when he had found his brother yesterday that the older man wasn't wearing his trademark grey Stetson. Heath wondered if it had been lost somewhere along the way, during the search for Rose.

Behind Jarrod came Duke McCall and two of the men, Ortez and Baker. Ortez had Baker's black gelding by the reins, while the younger cowhand manouevered the buckboard up to the front of the house. Everyone was ready, it seemed. Heath ground out the cigarette beneath his heel, then went back into the house for Nick.

There was not even a pretense of conversation as the small procession made it's way from the ranch, retracing the previous evening's ride. The men on horseback cantered ahead, while Heath drove the buckboard just behind. He had tried to get Nick to recline in the back, but Nick had insisted on sitting up front on the plank next to Heath.

When Nick had come out of the house, and had seen Jarrod mounted up with the others, for a moment Heath had anticipated trouble. Nick had glared at his older brother, but Jarrod had avoided his stare. Nick had stood for a moment, before seeming to make a decision, and allowing Heath to help him onto the wagon, without verbally objecting to Jarrod's presence.

Heath removed the sterling silver flask from his vest pocket and soundlessly offered the whisky to Nick. It was way too early to start drinking, but Heath figured that since Nick hadn't had any laudanum this morning, he could use something to get him through the day. Nick tilted back his head when Heath brought the flask to his lips, then closed his eyes for a moment. "Thanks," Nick spoke briefly.

Heath brought the flask to his own lips next. What the heck? This didn't promise to be one of the best days of his life...what did he have to lose?

The sunrise that morning was magnificent. In light of the heaviness of their hearts, it was actually too beautiful...too painful. It heralded what was going to be a perfect day, weatherwise. It seemed to underscore the sorrow of their task. The golds, the corals, and the vermilions that some talented celestial artist brushed across the underside of the white wisps of clouds...were breathtaking. A pair of bald eagles cried to one another, as they sailed on invisible currents of air, high overhead, the sound reaffirming their joy in life and in one another.

The day just shouldn't be this beautiful, Heath knew. It should be overcast and grey. Cold. Miserable. To mirror the wretchedness of their souls.

Eventually, they came to the fork and began the journey to the river's edge. The path was rockier here, the buckboard shuddering as it skipped over stones and dipped in rocky depressions. Heath's sidelong glance took in Nick's discomfort, as the dark-haired man gritted his teeth at the more vigorous jarring motions. Heath had waited in Nick's room that morning, while Mother had performed the tortuous ritual of bathing the burned skin, and then reapplying the salve and clean bandages. Heath had wanted to see improvement in the raw, red, puckered flesh, but he wasn't sure that he could.

Heath had suffered a bad burn before, on his left leg, back in the war. He knew how every nerve ending sang with the pain. How even when the actual burning had ceased, the flesh held the memory of the searing. Nick had submitted to the ministrations stoically, but Heath had seen the sheen of sweat on his face, and afterwards on his brother's body when Heath had helped him to dress. Nick shouldn't be out here. But the dark-eyed man felt he had no choice. So he, Heath, had no choice either.

When they came to the spot by the grove where the embankment had actually given way and Rose had made the plunge into the river, Jarrod had dismounted from the sorrel and gone to stand near the edge. He had stood with his hands on his hips, staring down into the mercurial waters. Then he had raised his face to the sky, and closed his eyes.

Heath jumped down from the wagon and moved quietly to stand beside his brother. In the light of early day, Heath could see now where the ground had crumbled away, the rocks and dirt tumbling into the currents below. Normally when they would come here to fish, the river was much lower. They would be able to climb down the banks to perch on boulders at the river's edge, casting their fishing lines into the gently swirling depths. The boulders were hidden now, covered by who knew how many extra feet of river. It was hard to imagine the volume of the water that the storm's runoff had brought.

One thing was certain. The river looked cold and it looked dangerous. Heath's intestines twisted to imagine the scene that had played out here just the day before. There was still lots of detritus spinning on it's surface, an indicator of just how quickly the currents really were moving. His heart lurched to think of their delicate Rose, submerged in it's fast-flowing depths.

Jarrod remounted Jingo, and Heath went back to the buckboard. Nick was staring at the caved ground, at the edge of the high bank, the only evidence of what had happened there. He could picture Rose standing there, her full, pink lips parted in a smile. The smile that would light a room...and which lit Nick's life. He could see her wide, expressive green eyes, shining with vitality. He could almost reach out and touch the dark hair that cascaded in soft waves over her shoulders. Rose.

Nick couldn't comprehend how Jarrod had been so careless. How he had let Rose get so close to the edge of the embankment. Jarrod would have to have known the ground would be precarious, softened by the rains. What had Jarrod been thinking? Nick asked himself that question over and over, while his dark eyes shot daggers at his attorney brother's back. If he could concentrate on that...he wouldn't have to ask himself the other question. What had Jarrod and Rose being doing out here together...alone?

They began to pick their way along the river's edge, moving slowly and methodically. All eyes swept down to the river below, and then to the infrequent scrub off to the left. Just in case...impossibly...Rose had managed somehow to escape the river's pull and had crawled to the safety of the high shore and lay huddled somewhere, spent, seeking the shelter of the brush. One hour stretched into the next. Then another.

At one point, Ortez found Jarrod's Stetson, laying on the ground, as though waiting for it's owner to return. Ortez had retrieved it, and handed it to the other man. Jarrod had given a sad smile of thanks, before settling it in it's customary place atop his dark head.

Heath felt the tension build in his chest. He was tiring of bringing up the rear. Frustrated with the slow, lumbering movements of the wagon. He called to Baker, and asked the young man if he would drive the wagon for a bit, and if Heath could borrow his horse. Baker had acquiesced willingly. Anything he could do to help, he wanted to do. The oppressive, funereal gloom that weighed down on the assemblage was causing the young cowboy to ache physically.

Baker almost regretted his volunteering earlier when Duke had roused them apologetically at dawn, explaining that the Barkleys were renewing a search for Rose. Baker had always liked the young woman though. She was friendly and pretty...and she reminded him a lot of his girl in Stockton. Same dark hair, though Shelly's eyes were the soft hue of the bluebonnets of his native Texas. One day, when he had enough in his poke, Baker was going to marry the girl. The young man knew Nick was sweet on Rose...everyone knew that. Baker couldn't imagine something bad happening to Shelly. His hand had gone up automatically. He didn't regret being here to help. But the sadness seemed almost to be strangling him.

Heath revelled in the fluid motions of the black beneath him. The gelding...Scout the lad called him, Heath remembered...was a Barkley bred horse, born right there on the ranch. Baker, who had helped with his gentling, had become attached to the animal. He had come to Heath one night, red-faced and stuttering, proposing to be allowed to buy the gelding, paying a portion each week from his pay, til they were squared up. Baker was a good kid, a fast learner, loyal and hard-working. Heath had been happy to work something out with him.

The young man had brought the black along well, and was making a fine cowpony out of him. Scout's youthful, well-conditioned gait helped, for a time, to take Heath's mind off of his grief. It didn't take his mind off of Rose, of course. And Heath felt guilty as all get out. But for a few moments, he needed to think about something other than their tragic quest and the pain in his innards. Because otherwise...it would be he who would drown, in the sorrowful pall that hung over them all.

Heath tightened his lean thighs, and clicked to the gelding. The horse too seemed eager to escape, and launched forward. Heath kept him back far enough from the edge so as not to endanger the animal or himself, but close enough that he would still have a good view of the waters below. Heath tried not to think that he was abandoning Nick for a time. He had heard his brother's sharp intake of breath when Heath had handed the wagon's reins to Baker.

The black loped easily over the ground. The sun was fully risen now, a golden eye above the horizon to the east. Heath tried not to think about the incongruity of the brightness of the day, and the blackness of their hearts.

Heath hadn't meant to get so far ahead of the others. From the corner of his eye, he noted the logjam at a tight bend in the river, and he slowed the gelding. The others were still making their way along, the riders holding back their mounts in deference to the unwieldiness of the wagon on the rocky ground. Heath reined in the black, and slipped from the saddle. He thought he had spotted something.

In amongst the broken bodies of the trees that had been uprooted by the storm, Heath's sharp eyes picked out a green swath next to the shore. Scrambling down the rocky bank, the earth breaking away beneath his boots, the breath tight in his chest, the sandy-haired man made for the spot.

The group behind him saw Heath stop. Watched him dismount. And then saw him hurry over the edge of the bank. Jarrod kicked Jingo's sides and the gelding shot forward at his master's urging. Jarrod's heart thudded in his chest. He couldn't recall if he had come this far yesterday. His memory of those first hours after Rose's fall had been hazy. Distorted by his fear and grief. The sorrel's hooves couldn't fly quickly enough to bridge the gap between Jarrod and Heath.

Duke and Ortez began to canter as well, each man with his own fearful jumble of thoughts. Baker, not wanting to be left behind, shook the reins at the pair who pulled the wagon, forgetting for a moment the severity of his boss's injuries, and what each agonized jolt was doing to Nick. Nick didn't protest though...Baker couldn't get there fast enough for him.

Heath sloshed through water up to his mid-thigh. It was shockingly cold. The currents here, even in the shallows, sucked and pulled at his legs, trying to upend him. He slipped on some loose stone, lost his balance for a moment, and almost went down. He pushed towards the smooth patch of green, softly discordant among the dark, twisted branches and limbs of the small trees.

Heath's hands froze for a moment in mid-air as he reached for what could only be fabric. He grabbed at it then, feeling the firmness beneath the billowing, water-logged clothing. Grimacing, kicking away the debris that surrounded him, Heath heaved the object forward. He pulled it towards him, turning it at the same time.

Her slender form was still pliant. The sudden decrease in body temperature, caused by the plunge into the frigid waters, had held rigor mortis at bay, though Heath could see that the facial muscles were already being affected. There was a large gash running from her left temple across her forehead, which would have bled profusely, but now was washed clean. Something big and heavy had struck her...pre-mortem, he figured. The lifeless green eyes stared unseeingly back at him. Her long, dark hair was knotted with leaves and small twigs. Heath let out a sob. Rose. Their journey was at an end.

Heath dragged her body back to the bank, and sat with her cradled across his lap, their legs still in the water. He hadn't realized until he held the truth in his own hands, that a tiny corner of his heart had actually held onto a faint hope that maybe...just maybe...there had been some truth in Nick's wild blusterings last night. Some part of Heath had been praying that somehow...some way...Rose had beaten seemingly insurmountable odds and had cheated death a second time. He hadn't been prepared, not entirely, to find her this way.

Jarrod stood at the top of the bank, while the world swirled around him. He saw the green of Rose's dress, and the black of her wet hair, as Heath pulled her to shore. He knew that she was dead. His Rose was gone. It was only her shell that Heath retrieved from the river now. Jarrod felt a crushing weight on his chest...and his lungs seemed to have collapsed in on themselves.

The wagon pulled to a stop, and Jarrod heard Nick climb down. He swivelled quickly. He couldn't let Nick go down there, and he knew his brother was going to try. The ground was too treacherous, the slope too steep, the earth too soft. If Nick fell...

Nick had watched Heath disappear below the edge of the embankment. The buckboard seemed slow as molasses. Anxiously, Nick had watched first Nick, then Duke and Ortez arrive at the spot. Finally, Baker was slowing the wagon. Nick had hopped down, and rushed now towards the edge. "ROSE!"

Jarrod swivelled, turning his back on the scene below, and blocking his brother's path. Nick thudded into Jarrod's chest, and he was furious that the blue-eyed man would try to stop him. Jarrod put his right arm around the rancher. "Nick...you can't go down there," Jarrod told him.

Nick tried to peer over Jarrod's shoulder. He tried to shove past the older man, surprised at the solidity of the attorney's stance. "You'd better take your hands off of me!" Nick bit out, his voice cold.

"Wait for Heath, Nick," Jarrod said. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard, feeling the burning behind his lids. "It's Rose. We've found her." His features twisted. "She's dead."

Nick had known that she would be, of course, despite all of his bravado. No one could survive the river after a rain like that. His legs buckled beneath him. He felt Jarrod's hands take hold of his biceps, steadying him, keeping him on his feet. He jerked himself out of his brother's hold. Nick could see the grief on Jarrod's face. Knew that he was mourning too. But his own raw pain was too much to contain.

"You as sure as killed her yourself," Nick spat.

Jarrod felt the words as a physical blow. He couldn't disagree.

"Tell me, Big Brother, just what were you doing anyways?" Nick asked, his voice rising with each word. "Just what were you doing with her here? Alone? With my girl?!" He saw the answer in the guilty flick of Jarrod's deep blue eyes. Nick was consumed by the anger and the betrayal. Then came the self-loathing. If Nick had been a whole man, he would never have allowed this to happen. Would never have laid unwittingly in his bed, while Jarrod schemed behind his back. If Nick had been awake and alert yesterday...none of this would have happened. Rose would still be here. She would still be alive.

Nick's heart pounded with a myriad of emotions that it could not contain. He stared for a moment at his useless, bandaged hands. His dark eyes, shining with tears, met his brother's sorrowful blue ones. "I wish..." Nick began...and then he stopped himself. He didn't wish it. Not really. As tormented and raw as he was feeling now, he could never give voice to such a thought. It had died before it could even pass his lips.

Jarrod stepped back as though struck. The colour drained from his face. He knew what Nick had been about to say. Had seen the truth of it in his brother's wild eyes. Jarrod had spent a lifetime learning to read people, honing and perfecting the skill. And this tall, rangy man who stood before him...he knew better than any other human being on earth. Jarrod knew what Nick had been thinking, even if Nick hadn't come right out and said it.

'I wish I had let you die.'

Heath looked up at his two brothers. He couldn't hear their conversation, but he knew Nick's voice was raised, and he could see the tension in their frames. He had watched Jarrod hold back Nick, and Heath had been grateful for that. Nick would never have been able to navigate his way down the sides of the embankment. And if his bandaged hands and ravaged flesh had come into contact with the loose earth, or the worse, the dirty water...Heath didn't want to think about it. Heath saw Jarrod step suddenly away from Nick now. Watched Jarrod spin on his heel. Watched Nick turn his back on his brother.

Heath smoothed the hair back from Rose's face, clutching her to him while the water drained from her clothes, saturating his own. Was this to be her legacy then? Brother pitted against brother? Decades of bad feelings stretching before them?

Heath felt his anger build. He cursed Fate or God or whoever had been responsible for this travesty. What, Heath wondered, had been the point of it all? What good had he done by saving Rose's life that day? What cruel twist had allowed her to survive, for them to all grow to love her, only to take her away a scant few months later?

If he hadn't found her that day...none of this would be happening. None of this pain. None of this division between the brothers that Heath loved more than life itself. Mother...Audra...himself...all of them spared the agony of Rose's loss. What had been the point of bringing Rose back from the brink of death, to have her become a part of them, only to have her snatched away from them now? Especially like this. In a way that would bring a lifetime of torment to Jarrod and Nick.

For the briefest moment, Heath resented ever finding the young woman that day. He resented the way she had claimed their hearts. Resented that a stupid, avoidable accident had wrenched her from their family. Heath had always believed that life had some kind of purpose. Even when it wasn't readily discernible. He believed that everything that happened...happened for a reason. Part of some master plan, even if it was too complex for human minds to comprehend.

But now, Heath thought bitterly, as the sorrow fought for control of his soul...what possible reason could there for any of this?

Chapter Thirty-Six

Heath sat in the barn, perched on a bale of hay, a hammer and chisel held loosely in his right hand. Resting on the bale opposite him was a slab of white stone. A swallow swooped low overhead then swept up into the rafters towards its nest. The weather had turned again, the cool freshness of those couple of days following the rain, giving way to more traditional August heat. It was humid inside the barn, though the shadows provided protection from the blazing midday sun. Heath's blue shirt clung uncomfortably to his back. The barn was heavy with the scent of horseflesh and manure, and further down in their stalls, he could hear the animals moving about, their tails swishing against the wooden walls, their shod feet stomping the earth occasionally, as they sought a change of position that might bring them some relief from the flies.

Nick had wanted to do this, Heath knew. It was eating his brother alive not to be able to carve the headstone himself. Heath had asked Nick if he wanted to wait. There was no rush to have the marker ready for the burial, it could keep til Nick's hands were healed and Nick could carve it himself. But Nick had wanted it in place at the graveside service tomorrow evening. And besides, Nick had told him without a trace of self-pity, there was no guarantee he would ever be in the kind of condition again that would enable him to do the job.

And so, Heath had been working on it steadily. Nick had one request, and it required an awful lot of carving on Heath's part. But the sandy-haired cowboy had put Duke in charge of the men, and left it up to the foreman to decide what needed doing on the ranch, and devoted himself to the work. It was a laborious process, and it made Heath's back, arms and hands all ache. His eyes were strained, and his face kept getting stung by small chips of stone. But being able to concentrate on this important task, to throw himself into the physical and intellectual demands of it, had been just what Heath needed, as he tried to work through his grief.

Jarrod was doing the exact same thing, in his own way, Heath knew. Jarrod had selected the spot for Rose's final resting place, on a grassy knoll of the family plot, between two large trees. When Heath had stopped for lunch, he had taken back a couple of sandwiches to his brother. Jarrod had been knee deep in the earth, shoveling, having built a mound of dirt at the foot of the space. It was slow going, the ground there heavy clay and interspersed with feeder roots from the trees. His brother had been shirtless, his upper body glistening with exertion, his shoulders red with the beginnings of sunburn. The grey Stetson shaded his face from the glaring summer's rays. Jarrod had declined the food, pausing only to take a sip from his canteen. Judging from the slight glaze in Jarrod's eyes, Heath figured that there was more than just water in there.

Jarrod had cancelled his trip to Sacramento, wiring family friend and fellow attorney Tom Lightfoot, to notify the other man that he would have to plead their case to the legislature on his own. Tom, who had discussed Rose with Jarrod when she had first come to be with the family, and who knew how she had become almost part of them, had wired back his condolences and given Jarrod his word he would lobby tirelessly to get the Prison Reform Act passed by the state.

Heath put the chisel back against the stone, carefully lining up his next strike. His raised his hammer again and again and the bitter clang of metal against metal rang out with a finality that chilled him despite the overbearing heat of the day.

* * * * * * * *

Victoria walked into the library, and found her daughter seated on the settee, crying softly. She crossed the room, and settled next to her, reaching to tuck a strand of platinum hair back behind the young woman's ear. Audra looked at her, her blue eyes shimmering with tears. In her daughter's lap, Victoria saw the crochet hook and the ball of fine, cream silk thread. Attached to the hook were delicate loops of handiwork, curling outwards to form the edges of a doily.

"I found this," Audra said, her sweet voice breaking. "Rose was working on it, the day...the day she..." She tightened her ivory fingers against the lacework. "Oh, Mother, I just can't believe it! I can't believe how unfair it all is, how senseless it all is." She searched the older woman's face, looking for answers, but there were none there.

"I love my brothers," Audra told her fervently. "I wouldn't change a day of my life with them. They have always been so wonderful to me. I've loved being the princess. The little sister. I really have." There was a hitch in her voice. "But there is a part of me that always envied them...the bond they shared with one another. First just between Nick and Jarrod, and then with Heath too. That brotherly bond.

"I used to pretend, sometimes, that I had a sister. A confidante of my own." Her pale pink lips trembled. "Someone to gossip with, and talk to about boys. Someone to giggle with. Some to shop with, and to look at dresses in the magazines. Someone who would understand the things that a brother never could."

Victoria rubbed her daughter's back. She too, had often wished these things for her only girl child.

"I felt like...for a time, with Rose here...I felt as though I really had a sister," Audra continued, sniffling. Victoria handed her a lace handkerchief. "And I know it's selfish...I know that Nick loved her so...but right now, Mother, I just keep feeling so badly for me."

"It's not selfish, Audra," the silver-haired woman assured her, wishing as she had done for the last couple of days that she could pull her children's hurt into herself, sparing them the pain. "It's natural that we will all be feeling the void that Rose's death will leave in our own lives. That doesn't mean that we don't have empathy for what others are going through, as well."

The blonde woman looked at the family matriarch with gratitude for the understanding and the absolution of her guilt. She sat deep in thought for a moment or two. "You should have seen Rose at the orphanage," she reminisced, a faint smile curving her lips. "She had such an affinity for the children. And they really loved her in return. This has come as quite a shock to them, as well." Audra looked pensive for a moment, and her blue eyes softened. "Rose would have made a wonderful mother, it was so plain to see." And then at the thought of unrealized dreams and a life cut so tragically short, Audra buried her face in her hands, as her shoulders quivered her sorrow.

Victoria allowed her own tears to fall then, as she pulled her weeping daughter close against her chest.

* * * * * * * *

After she had left Audra, curled up on the settee, cried out for the time being and deep in the release of sleep, and had pulled a light coverlet over the young woman's lower body, the older woman made her way up the stairs, and then down the hallway to her middle son's room. She took a deep breath, silently saying a prayer for Tom's assistance, missing her late husband all the more as she tried on her own to deal with this mournful crisis that had the power to tear her family apart. She squared her shoulders, and tapping softly at the door, pushed it open into Nick's room.

He was propped up against the headboards, his features as pale as the fine, snowy, Irish linen sheets that decked his bed. Victoria had been terrified when she had heard Nick's determined speech the other night, that he was going to go with Heath to find Rose. She had been going to interject, to forbid any such thing, her maternal protectiveness roused from where it always lay, just beneath the surface, even after her children had passed the trials and tribulations of childhood.

But she had known she had to stay out of it. Nick was a grown man. He was aware of the precariousness of his health right now...of his very life. If this was something he felt he had to do, to be able to live with himself...she owed him the respect to allow him to make his own decision.

"May I sit a moment?" Victoria asked. Nick nodded. She straightened her skirts underneath her. Her eyes travelled to his bedside table. To the Dickens book there, David Copperfield, the one that Rose had been reading to him. Her stomache twisted. How long, Victoria wondered, would they find these little reminders of the young woman's presence that lingered beyond her physical exiting of their lives? One reminder would be enduring, she knew. The glorious gardens whose showy, fragrant flowers had given the young woman her name.

Victoria put her hand on Nick's left forearm. "I know how difficult a time this is for you. Firstly, your injuries from the fire. And now, Rose's death." His scowl told her that he didn't really believe she had any true concept of what he was feeling. She could understand that. "I know how much Rose meant to you, Nick," she told him, squeezing the arm gently.

Nick tossed his head, like a proud young stallion, his dark hair falling into disarray. "I loved her," he stated strongly, as though daring her to disagree.

"I know you did. That you still do. And that a part of you always will," Victoria acknowledged, as she continued. "The loss of any life is a tragic thing," she said softly. "But there are two losses in particular, that carve indelible scars on our souls. One, is the loss of a child. The other is the loss of the man or woman we love, that we thought we would share our lives with, grow old with, and who would comfort and love us in our twilight years."

She sighed, looking again at the book, then back into Nick's eyes, dark with pain. "I have never known the loss of a child, and God-willing I will never have to face that torment before I leave this earth. But I have lost a husband...the man that I loved...my partner and my soulmate. I know that agony."

She kept her gaze fixed steadily on his. "I also know that it seems as though never before in the history of mankind, can anyone else possibly have endured the pain that such a loss carries with it. No one else can know how you feel...because no one else could possibly ever have loved as much as you did...or had what you had. We all feel that way when we suffer such a loss.

"And we wonder, how will we ever pick ourselves up and go on? We wonder how anyone else ever could have, if they really and truly had loved as deeply as we do. Surely, anyone who had ever been so disconsolate could never again take any joy from life, could never again find a purpose...could never possibly love again. And if they did, well then their love couldn't be what ours is...their grief couldn't have been as crushing as ours, their spirit as badly wounded.

"Each and every human being who suffers that kind of loss...we all feel the exact same things. We all believe that we can never move beyond this kind of devastation. We wonder if there really is any point in living. How can we profess to have any real feelings for our departed loved one, if we are able to go on with our lives?

"When your father died, Nick, I was lost in an abyss of despair." She paused tightening her lids against the memory of that pain. "But we do go on. We live our lives as fully as we can. It doesn't mean that we have forgotten. It just means that the only way to truly honour love, is to live, as well as we can."

Nick ached to touch her cheek. He remembered how lost and forlorn Mother had been. How his father's murder had seemed, for a time, as though it was going to claim not one life, but two. Emotionally, if not physically.

When she opened them again, Victoria's eyes were full of compassion. "Even though it seems impossible to you now, I do understand what you are going through. And I understand that love doesn't need years, and it doesn't need the blessing of a preacher to make it real." She sighed again. "I am so sorry that Rose is dead. I am angry and I am heartbroken. We all are." She saw his jaw tighten, and knew that there was one member of the family whose heartache Nick didn't want to consider, and with whom he was still unable to empathize.

"Anyhow," she continued, "I just wanted you to know, that I understand your loss specifically, and how it differs from mine now, even though I mourn Rose too. Because I lost a husband, the father of my children, and I will never forget the moment that I realized that he was forever gone from me." She let Nick consider that for a moment. She saw the concern and sympathy in his dark hazel eyes, so like hers. The only one to get her eyes. "Of course," she said consideringly, "your father died before I knew about Heath...and about his betrayal. That might have changed things."

"What do you mean?" Nick scowled, his dark brows pulling together.

"Well, when your father died, I thought he was one man, and then several years later when Heath arrived at the ranch, with his claims of being a Barkley, I realized that he was actually another. I realized that the man that I thought had adored me, the man I thought had placed as much importance in our marriage as I had, the man I had trusted...the man I thought had loved me as much I had loved him...wasn't the man I thought he was." She regarded Nick levelly.

Nick was shocked to hear his mother speak this way. "Father loved you!" he insisted. How could his Mother ever doubt that?

"Well, I suppose he did, in his way," she agreed pensively. "But if he had truly loved me, he never could have betrayed our vows." She shrugged her slender shoulders and gave a sad smile. "Either way, it doesn't really matter. I have you children, all of you, including Heath whom I love with all of my heart, as I love all of you. Your father may have failed me, but his weakness ended up giving me an incredible gift."

"How can you say it doesn't matter?" Nick struggled to marshall his thoughts and feelings. "He loved you! In every way! You were his life, Mother! You, us and this ranch," he insisted. He felt baffled and forlorn. Nick had had no idea his mother felt this way. He knew it must have been harder for her than she had let on, when Heath had arrived at their doorstep. But to think that it had changed his mother's feelings towards his father, or that she thought it changed his feelings towards her... "We'll never know for certain the truth of what happened in Strawberry. And maybe Father wasn't a perfect man. But don't you ever doubt his love for you!" Nick told her emphatically.

"I've forgiven him, of course. And it doesn't change what kind of father he was to any of you, or what kind of man he was to the people in this valley. But how can you say that, Nicholas, knowing how he broke his promise to me to be faithful? Knowing how he deceived me?" She stared impassively at her dark-haired son.

Nick gulped helplessly, his own worries, pain and sorrow forgotten for the moment. "One betrayal doesn't sum up who he was as a husband," Nick tried desperately to explain. "One moment of weakness, doesn't negate all of the years...the decades of love. I can't begin to explain what Father was thinking, or how he rationalized things to himself. And he made a mistake. And I bet he paid for that in ways we'd never imagine. But how can you just forget all of those other ways, day in day out, year in year out, where he proved to you how much he adored you?!" Nick's nostrils flared, and the arm beneath her hand was ramrod straight with his tension.

Victoria knew that it was time to set Nick's heart at ease. There had been so much to sap his strength recently, physically and emotionally. It was time for him to rest. She appeared to consider his words for a few moments, staring out the window into the distance. When she looked back at Nick, she smiled, a poignant smile. Victoria leaned her silvered-head towards him and kissed his smooth-shaven cheek. "You're right, of course," she relented.

She spoke her next words with so much feeling that there was no way for Nick to doubt that she believed them. "Your father did love me. With all of his heart and soul. And he was worthy of my love and trust in return. And I must never allow one moment...whether of poor judgement, or weakness, or for some other reason I will never understand...to hurt me so very badly that I forget that."

* * * * * * * *

The small group of mourners stood around the gravesite, listening to Reverend Adams say the final words of Rose's eulogy, while the sun hung low in the sky, bathing the valley with soft light. In the black clothes of mourning, they ringed the casket, already lowered into the ground.

Victoria stood to the minister's left, and beside her, their arms linked, was Audra. Next to Audra, looking pale but proud, stood Nick. Across the grave stood Jarrod, closest to Reverend Adams, his blue eyes downcast, and beside him, Heath.

The reverend clutched the big, well-worn leather bible between his hands. His sonorous voice carried out across the hilltop.

"For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.

"Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and take You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?

"The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers or sisters of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me'."

Reverend Adams paused for a moment, allowing them all to consider the passage. He had been shocked when Victoria had come to him with news of the young woman's death...the amnesiac that they called Rose...and to arrange this service. He could see the toll that Rose's death had taken on all of the Barkleys. Their grief was palpable. He hoped that in their faith, the Father would comfort them and ease their burdens of sorrow.

Then he cleared his throat, and began the familiar psalm. "Yea though I walk through the valley of death..."

And then it was over. One at a time, each member of the Barkley family bent to place a handful of dirt onto the beautiful, rosewood coffin, and then a long-stemmed pink rose. They shook hands with Reverend Adams, thanking him for his beautiful service and eulogy, while Victoria invited him to stay for a light buffet Silas was setting out in the dining room.

Jarrod came up behind Heath, placing his hand on his brother's shoulder. "You did an amazing job on the headstone, " he complimented his sandy-haired sibling, trying to keep his red-rimmed eyes from overflowing again. "Rose would be proud." They turned in unison, to look at the carved, white stone.

Our Rose

a Barkley in our hearts

August 21st, 1881

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers

for thereby some have

entertained angels unawares.

The quote that Victoria had shared with Rose that day, was the one that Nick had wanted to appear on her headstone. And in the centre of the marker, in glorious relief, was the carving of a rose, in mid-bloom. That had been Heath's idea, and he had applied all of his artistic and practical talent towards it's creation.

Jarrod stared at it now, missing Rose, loving her, but feeling unable to give voice to the true depths of his grief or the extent of his personal loss. He thought that she would have loved this spot he had chosen for her. Shaded by the overhanging branches of the big, old trees. Overlooking the back of the house, particularly the east wing. With a magnificent view of the peach orchards stretching for acres away to the west.

Jarrod had buried two women that he had loved. But he had been allowed to mourn Beth. He had been comforted and supported, his family rallying around him. Encouraged to grieve. Their love had been open, sanctified with a ring, his loss acknowledged.

No one would ever know that a piece of Jarrod's heart lay buried there with Rose though. He turned away, to hide his tears, and found himself face-to-face with Nick. Nick had not spoken to him since the day by the river when they had retrieved Rose's body.

"I'm so sorry, Nick," Jarrod offered, struggling to keep his voice under control. Wanting somehow, to share his brother's pain. "I know how much you loved her." He waited for the censure that was sure to follow.

Instead, Nick looked back at him for a moment, his own dark eyes fighting tears. Then Nick was putting his arms around his older brother, their cheeks touching for a moment. Jarrod's own arms went automatically around his brother's back, the way they had so many times over the years. "How could a man not?" Nick whispered sadly against his ear.

Nick released him, and his hazel eyes sought his brother's blue ones. Jarrod saw in their depths, if not quite forgiveness, the understanding of his own loss. Nick knew. The dark eyes held no malice. No blame. Then Nick was moving beyond him, to thank Heath again for his incredible work on the headstone.

Victoria watched Nick go to Jarrod. Saw her sons embrace, the two dark heads close, their arms reaching across the chasm of their individual sorrows. She closed her eyes, thanking Tom for his guidance and his wisdom.

Now, Victoria knew, the healing could finally begin.

Epilogue

He dug the spade into the ground, turning over the soil in the depression he had made. Mother had told him it was vital to soften some of the surrounding area as well, so that the roots of the newly transplanted bushes would be able to wend through and re-establish themselves. He paused for a moment, lifting the kerchief that was knotted loosely at his throat, up over his chin, to wipe at the sweat that beaded his upper lip.

Nick let the spade balance against his thigh, and held his hands out in front of him. He turned them, wonderingly. Before the accident, he had taken all of his limbs and appendages for granted, but especially his hands. He had never really thought about how crucial they were in just about every aspect of his daily life. When he had had to depend on someone else to feed and dress him, to shave his cheeks or brush his hair, to turn down the covers of his bed, he had been overwhelmed with the sense of helplessness.

It had taken months of painful recovery, but his hands had healed. Nick had managed not only to keep his life, but his limbs as well. They weren't pretty, certainly. He brought them closer, examining the thick scar tissue that padded their undersides. And the tip of the smallest finger of his left hand had been lost. The tops of his hands were shiny and hairless. Though he didn't have the one hundred percent range of mobility he had enjoyed previously, he could still do all of the same things. He could clear his gun from it's holster quickly enough to save his life, if need be. He could tie a lasso and twirl it and drop it over the neck of a running calf. He could saddle his own horse. He could hold a handful of cards at the Golden Eagle on Saturday night, and raise his own glass of whiskey to his lips.

There had been some loss of feeling as well, which was not surprising. In his left hand, especially. Some of the delicate nerves had been damaged. But there was enough sensitivity left that Nick could still feel Coco's velvety muzzle. The silkiness of the stallion's blond mane. And one day again...he would feel the silkiness of a woman's hair.

"It's looking wonderful."

Nick turned at his brother's approach. Jarrod stopped, hands on his hips, surveying the additions to the gravesite. Heath had built a wonderful wooden arch, that was anchored on each side of the marker, and which extended above and across it, at about the height of a tall man's head. It was painted white, and had an attractive criss-crossing of lattice work.

Nick smiled, nodding. "Heath does beautiful work. I'm half afraid he's gonna tire of life on the range and set himself up a little shop in town one of these days. That he'll give up bein' a cowboy, and do carving or millwork instead." He grinned at the suggestion, his dark eyes twinkling.

"I can just picture how glorious it will look, this time next year," Jarrod pronounced softly. "The vines trailing up and over the snowy backdrop of the arch, the bushes thick and filled in. A profusion of fragrant scarlet blooms, bright splashes among the green." In his mind, he really could envision it. A living tribute to their Rose.

Nick nodded, marvelling as always at his brother's way with words, at how pretty Jarrod could put things, as a familiar tightening closed his throat. He had selected the climbing roses from Mother's garden himself. The leaves on this variety were a dark, waxy green, the blossoms an incredibly rich, velvety blood red. He had dug them up with care, taking pains not to damage the roots, or the plants themselves. One bush was already in place. Mother had told him it was necessary to cut it back down to about three feet in height, and had warned him that it would probably suffer some initial shock, and not to be too concerned if the flowers it already bore died off, and some of the leaves yellowed. It would come back again.

It had been about this time a year ago that Heath had found the badly injured Rose and brought her to them. Just under nine months since they had buried her here on this grassy knoll. Jarrod stared at the archway thinking...had things been different...he might have married her under something very similar. He sighed deeply.

Nick had never asked his brother what had transpired between he and Rose by the river that day. But he had seen the truth of it in Jarrod's vivid blue eyes. "I wouldn't have made it so easy for you, ya know," he said now, without animosity. "I woulda fought for her. And in the end...she might've picked me."

Jarrod met his brother's gaze, hearing again Rose's final words to him. 'I love you.' He found himself unable to respond to his brother. He believed that the choice had already been made. Rose had cared for Nick, certainly. But Jarrod would have made her his bride. And he wouldn't, couldn't offer Nick anything different, as some sort of insincere platitude.

Nick could read the bittersweet confidence in the other man's handsome countenance. And he accepted that, as much as Rose had meant to him, as much as she had valued his friendship, needed him, respected and admired him perhaps, she had never given him reason to believe that the depth of his feelings was reciprocated. It hurt now, to know that. But it didn't change his love for her. "And if she hadn't, well...I woulda been the best damned brother-in-law she ever could have wanted." He raised his chin proudly.

Jarrod nodded, unable to speak. His brother was a remarkable man.

"I know that you did everything you could've, Jarrod," Nick continued. He knew that he had to say the words that had gone far too long unsaid. "All that anyone coulda done." It wasn't Jarrod's fault. Nick believed that. He hoped that one day, his brother could believe that too.

Jarrod felt the tears prick his eyes. He had come to terms with the idea that Rose's death had been an accident. That he was not responsible. Or at least, he thought that he had. Even though now and again the dream would plague him...Rose suspended over the raging river, then slipping from his grasp. And he would wake up wondering what he could have done differently...how he might have saved her. To hear Nick say it though, to have him take back the words that had haunted Jarrod since the awful tragedy, was more than he ever could have hoped for...or felt he deserved.

Jarrod moved to where his brother was working, and saw that the hole was deep enough, ready for the planting. He reached for the second plant, unwrapping the damp burlap that kept the roots moist. He knelt by the hole, and positioned the bush, his fingers untangling the smaller roots, and spreading them out to give the plant an anchor. He held it there, wordlessly, avoiding the sharp thorns of the stalks, while Nick began to fill in the dirt.

Jarrod looked up at the hands that gripped the wooden shaft of the spade. Saw again the terrible scarring and the gnarled place where the missing portion of Nick's left pinky finger should be. He glanced away, knowing what his life had cost his brother.

Nick let the shovel fall away, and tamped down the earth with his tan boots, while Jarrod kept the bush upright. He had followed his brother's guilty gaze to his hands. Nick's heart constricted at the knowledge of what he had almost said to Jarrod the day Heath had pulled Rose's lifeless body from the river. Born out of his frustration, jealousy, grief and sense of helpless inadequacy.

"Sometimes," Nick said, his voice heavy with regret, "I'm not the man I'd like to be. It shames me that when faced with loss and adversity, I wasn't the kind of man I should have been." He cleared his throat, wishing for a moment that he shared Jarrod's silver-tongued proficiency. "It's not who he is when times are good that counts to a man's character, but who he is when the chips are down." His mind sought for the words that he needed to say, to release them both. "I'd give both of my hands...I'd give my life for you, Jarrod, any day. Without ever having to think twice. If I ever made you think any different...ever made ya doubt that I wouldn't do it all over again...then I've failed you. I've failed myself.

"I don't have your way with words, ya know I don't. What I'm trying to say is...you're my brother. Always." Nick's voice was gruff with emotion.

Jarrod stood up then. His deep sapphire eyes, shining with emotion, sought his brother's dark, expressive ones. "You've never failed me, Nick," Jarrod told him, "unless we failed each other. And if I am even half the man you are, then I've exceeded all my goals."

They stared at one another across the newly planted rose bush. Trying to communicate to one another the words that were in their hearts.

As the two plants, transplanted from Victoria's garden and given a new start here, would spring anew from an old, established root stock, so too their relationship had been given a new beginning. Their brotherhood was like the rose bushes. Some of the vines and leaves might become damaged, might need to be removed, and the plant might be uprooted, but the foundation from which it sprang would always be there, solid, and life-sustaining. And as the new, strong growth was generated, the bush would be as healthy and beautiful as it had ever been. And given the proper care, it would always thrive.

Nick bent to pick up the spade. "The Founder's Day dance is next weekend," he mentioned, as the two men began to stroll back towards the house. The annual event, held at the town hall, was always the official beginning of summer in the valley. "I invited Macy Whitman," Nick admitted shyly. Macy was the eldest daughter of the family who had recently taken over the dry goods store in Stockton. A lovely, grey-eyed blonde.

Jarrod grinned. So that was why his rancher brother had seemed to be making so many trips into town for supplies in the last couple of months!

"You thinkin' of going?" Nick asked him.

Jarrod felt the hitch in his chest. "I don't think so," he answered, as memories of Rose's green-eyed visage flashed before him.

"I heard Audra telling Mother that that pretty school teacher, Miss Penny Hill, has her eye on you," Nick teased lightly. "She seems like a great gal, even if she always seems to have her nose stuck in a book." He winked.

Jarrod tried to smile, but the result was a feeble imitation. He shook his head. He just wasn't ready yet...wasn't done grieving Rose. "Nick, I..."

Nick slung his left arm over his brother's shoulders while he kept pace with him. "Yeah, Jarrod," he said quietly, "I know."

When they reached the house, Jarrod paused before opening the door. He looked over his shoulder at his rancher brother. "Do you ever wonder," he asked haltingly, "who she really was? What her real name was?"

Nick considered the question. "Ya know, it's funny, but I never really think about that. I guess she's just always been our Rose, to me. That's all that seemed to matter."

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," Jarrod quoted thoughtfully in reply, nodding his head.

"Awwww...ya know how I feel about you, Big Brother, but if you're gonna start quoting Wordsworth..." Nick began with exaggerated exasperation, rolling his eyes.

"Shakespeare," Jarrod interjected with a long-suffering sigh, shaking his head.

"Sure, Shakespeare," Nick corrected disinterestedly. "But if you are, then I'm gonna need a drink! Where ya hidin' your good brandy?!"

Laughing, shoulder to shoulder, they pushed through the door.

* * * * * * * *

"Happy Mother's Day!" the voices cried out in excited unison.

With a grand flourish, Brady brought the large, brightly wrapped gift from behind his back, grinning. The two of them stood to the side of her bed. Beyond, in the doorframe, Jason lounged, smiling indulgently.

"Open it, Mama! Open it!" Brooke squealed. She climbed onto the bed beside her mother, to be in the best position to observe what the little girl was certain was going to be a very pleased reaction to their present.

Natalie laughed, reaching for the long, rectangular package. The paper featured adorable brown puppies and kittens, on a pink background, and it was plastered down with a mishmash of tape...at least a third of a roll, she judged. Two big bows were stuck randomly on top, a green one and a purple one. "This looks so beautiful! Did you two help Daddy wrap this?"

"We did!" Brooke announced proudly.

"I picked the green bow, and Brooke picked the purple one," Brady explained.

Natalie glanced at Jason, who winked at her. The children had helped with breakfast too. Two pieces of cold, blackened toast, smeared with globs of peanut butter. Washed down by a cup of instant coffee, heavily laden with cream. It had been one of the best breakfasts she had ever eaten.

"It's from all of us," Brooke was telling her, as Natalie used her thumb nail to slice through some of the layers of tape. "Daddy too. Even though you're not his Mommy." The child brought her hand to her mouth, giggling, her blue eyes dancing at the thought.

"Well, you three are certainly spoiling me," Natalie said. "I must be the luckiest mommy on earth!" She began to pull the paper away. From the size and shape of it, she could tell that it was some kind of picture. As the puppies and kittens fell away, Natalie found herself staring down into the eyes of Jarrod Barkley.

There were two photographs, actually, two eight by tens, matted separately and mounted in one long frame. The first was a black and white portrait of Richard Long, as Jarrod Barkley. Wearing his grey suit and Stetson, stepping down from a black surrey. The second was a group photograph of the entire Barkley clan, also in black and white. Heath, Nick, Jarrod and Victoria standing, and Audra seated on a bale of hay at the front. The photos were double matted, in navy and white, and in a thick, black wooden frame.

It was obvious that Jason had gotten the photos custom mounted. And the piece would look perfect, displayed in their room. "This is just wonderful!" Natalie enthused. "Thank you all, so very much!"

"It's the Barkleys," Brooke added unnecessarily.

"And one of just Jarrod, 'cause you like him the best," Brady remarked, nodding sagely.

"This is just the best present ever," Natalie told them. "But the very best thing, is that I get to be your mommy!" She reached her arms for them both, scooping them into a tight embrace, and closing her eyes tight, feeling overwhelmed with maternal love. Knowing how very close she had come to losing them both. To leaving them all.

* * * * * * * *

Later, as Natalie readied herself for bed, she held the picture in her lap. She had not yet decided where the best place to hang it would be. She stared down at it, concentrating on the photograph of Richard Long. She reached a finger to trace the deep, downward curve in his chin. She loved the gift, it was beautiful and thoughtful, and just perfect, really. So why...why did it make her feel so sad?

Natalie supposed that it could just be the aftermath of everything that she had been through. And the fact that it was almost the anniversary of her accident. She was fully recovered...physically at any rate. Dr. Vuthoori, the psychologist she was still seeing once a month, had explained to her that often emotional recovery after a serious or life-threatening event, could take much longer, extending beyond the time that the physical self had healed.

She didn't remember anything at all about the day of the accident. Natalie had been told what had happened. She knew that she had been in a coma. But when she had finally wakened, to her it had been as though no time had passed at all. She had been angry at first, also a natural reaction, Dr. Vuthoori had assured her, to know that she had simply lost part of her life that way. That she had missed out on not only some of her own life, but a portion of the lives of her children as well.

Brady and Brooke had become used to her absence. They had never stopped loving, wanting or needing her, but they had found a way to go on with their lives in the meantime, and had found ways to cope. Natalie had wanted to step back into her life as though time had not only stopped for her, but for her family as well. It had been frustrating and upsetting to have to work her way back into her own life again.

And it had taken a while before the children had been able to accept that their mother was really back. For the first little while they had been fearful that she would leave them again. They had been afraid to get too close to her again. And that had broken Natalie's heart.

She had been grateful when she had learned that her mother had been there for her family, the entire time Natalie was in the hospital. June had even stayed on for a month afterwards, to help ease the transition for the children. She was lucky to have such a caring, selfless parent, Natalie knew.

Natalie had been frail at first, needing intensive physical therapy to get her unused muscles back under her command. The therapists had been surprised that she had had the strength and mobility that she did have, though. It wasn't until months afterwards that Natalie had learned that Jason had continued to try to exercise her unresponsive limbs while she had hung suspended in limbo. He had never given up on her.

Jason. Her dear husband. Once she had been home for a couple of months, and their lives had begun to get back to normal, he had settled her comfortably in their bed one evening, and made her a cup of tea. Then he had handed her a sheaf of papers, without a word, and left her alone. They had been letters. Printed off on the computer. Signed with Jason's painstakingly neat hand. She had read them all, about a dozen or more, and by the time she had reached the end, she had been weeping openly. If she had ever doubted his love before, she never would again.

As time had passed, it really had healed all wounds. Now, there were days that would go by without her thinking about the accident at all. Physically, she was as fit as she had ever been. Perhaps even more so. She'd lost weight in the hospital, and now that she was working out all the time, she was more toned than she had been before the accident. Their life had settled back into their old routine. Work for Jason. Karate for Brady. Dance for Brooke.

And for Natalie, child care, and laundry, and housework, and scrapbooking. And, of course, Big Valley. She had been touched by the outpouring of concern from her cyber friends, when she had returned to their virtual valley. They had been shocked to hear of her ordeal. Supportive and caring.

Natalie got to her feet, setting the frame on the floor against the wall. She was tired. It had been a long day. A special day. She had already checked on her children, and both were fast asleep in their rooms. Jason entered the bedroom, coming up behind her, wrapping his arms around her, and kissing the side of her head.

"Did you have a good day?" he asked. "Did you really like your present?"

"I did. And it's beautiful," Natalie assured him. "Thank you."

He released her, and went around to his side of the bed, pulling back the covers. "Are you coming to bed now?" he asked her.

"In a few minutes," she told him. "I just want to check my email."

Jason nodded indulgently as he looked at his wife across the room. His heart tightened in his chest, as he thought about how he had almost lost her. When she had woken up that day, simply opened her eyes and smiled at him with recognition, as though nothing had ever been wrong, and she was merely waking up on a lazy weekend morning, it had been the absolute best day of his life.

He had been surprised by the difficulties and adjustments they had all had to make. Jason had assumed that they would all just go back to their lives as they had been before Natalie's accident. But it hadn't been that simple. They had all gone to counseling at first, as recommended by her physician. As a family. Together and separately. Natalie still saw Dr. Vuthoori once a month.

It seemed to be helping her, and Jason was grateful for that. While for the most part, his wife seemed like her old self again, there were times when she seemed to detach from them. When she would stare off into empty space, with an air of melancholy. And sometimes, every few weeks, Natalie would have bad dreams. He would wake up, and she would be crying in her sleep. Miserable, heart-rending sounds that made him ache for her. He would try to put his arms around her, without waking her, and pull her to his chest. Eventually, she would soothe, and in the morning, she claimed to have no memories of the dreams.

* * * * * * * *

Natalie logged onto the computer, and clicked on her email inbox. There was six new messages. Four were spam, one was a forwarded joke for Jason, and the other was for her. From bonniebee. Eagerly, she opened it.

Hi Nat!

Oooooh, I have the most intriguing news! I have to tell you that I am just bursting with curiosity and ready to mortgage the house, lol, to get my hands on this bit of memorabilia!

I couldn't wait to tell you about it either, because I know that rather than thinking I am crazy, you will understand why this is so exciting to me.

Apparently, while he was working on The Big Valley, Richard Long had a personal assistant/secretary named Andrea Carpenter. She died several months ago, and among the articles of her estate, which she left to her only child, a son, was a previously undiscovered, unfilmed, original Big Valley script!!

But, as if that isn't thrilling enough, it is supposed to have been written by RICHARD! Can you imagine? As you know, in addition to acting, he also directed a few episodes of the series. I guess he thought he'd try his hand at writing too.

There was a diary among her things, that talks about it. Andrea Carpenter is supposedly the only one, other than Richard, that knew of the existence of this script. A spokesperson for Richard's wife says that the authenticity of the hand-written papers is not in question. And she does remember a time when he was working on something, that correlates with the timeframe that the diary states, but he was very secretive about it.

Andrea Carpenter wrote that during the whole time that he was writing the script, Dick Long became very introverted. Very moody. He'd lock himself in his trailer and work on it between shooting scenes. She says that he wasn't sleeping well either. He was almost obsessed with it. That's the word she uses.

And then strangely, once he finished it, he simply turned it over to Andrea. He seemed very sad. He told her that it could never be an episode. He said it was far too long, and it was all wrong for the show. But he couldn't bear to destroy it. He gave it to her instead. And once he was done writing it, he seemed to return his old self. Her diary says that he asked her about it, when she ran into him again, just a month before he died. He seemed pleased that she still had it, though he didn't ask for it back or anything. He said that one day, perhaps, it would find its intended audience. Which struck her as really strange, because of course Big Valley had already been cancelled for almost five years by then.

For some reason, she never shared it with a single soul, not even her family. She wrote that she believed Dick had put a piece of his heart into that script. Isn't that a wonderful thought?

I'm not sure about the legalities of it all, since the characters are creations of Four Star, but the script itself is the original creation of Richard Long. His widow doesn't make any claim on it, since she says he gave it to Mrs. Carpenter. So, by right of survivorship, the son is planning to put it up on ebay.

Can you just imagine? I am salivating, just thinking about owning it! Of course, it will probably start astronomically beyond our little budgets, but wouldn't it be neat if it had a low starting bid, and you and I could get in there just as soon as it lists, and even for a few minutes see our names up there as 'high bidder'? I am sure that it will appeal to a variety of collectors, from diverse groups. There is supposed to be proof of it's authenticity, certification from a hand-writing expert, and all that.

I wonder if it's any good? Technically speaking, of course. Not that it would make any difference to me, or to you, I know, but I am curious. I have a feeling that since he was a bright, articulate man, the script would probably reflect that. And as a director, he would have a good sense of setting the scenes. And who better to write about the Barkleys than a man who portrayed one of them?

Forgive me for rambling on, lol. I hope you had a happy Mother's Day, and that Jason and the children were good to you, and that you got breakfast in bed and got to keep your feet up all day. We had a pretty good day here ourselves.

Take care and talk to you soon,

Bonnie

Natalie, sat in front of the screen, her heart galloping in her chest. She was trembling, her body covered with gooseflesh. She reached for the chain around her neck, her fingers sliding its gold length. Real gold. Jason had gotten it for her last Christmas. And hanging from the chain, the cufflink, tarnished with age. Natalie ran her thumb over the shape of the horseshoe, and the horse head below it.

She could see his incredibly vivid blue eyes. But not through the two dimensional surface of a photograph or television screen. Real, there just inches from hers. She could see that familiar cleft in his chin, and feel the warmth of his breath between his pale, pink lips. She could hear his deep, melodious voice, not distorted by a sound system, right there, inches from her ears. 'I love you.'

Her reverie was interrupted by the musical bell that denoted she had a new message. Natalie refocused on the screen. It was another message from bonniebee. She highlighted it, and clicked twice.

Natalie,

Me again! How could I have forgotten to tell you what the script is called? It's kind of clichéd. I know it was just a working copy though. I can't quite decide if it's cute, or just plain hokey, lol! Either way, it came from Richard, so I'm not going to think of it as anything less than perfect, of course.

I guess he was a Shakespeare fan. My information says that he titled it, 'A Rose By Any Other Name'. I wonder what it could be about?

Bye again,

Bonnie

The blood roared through Natalie's ears, and for a moment she couldn't breathe. She felt for the cufflink again, closing her whole hand over it, and it seemed to burn her palm. Across time and distance and beyond everything she had ever known or understood about the world and about reality, Natalie whispered the words back to him. "I love you, too." And then she smiled through her tears, feeling the melancholy leave her, as her heart spoke to her of dreams and yesterdays.

THE END