A gunfighter listened to his instincts.
He'd been watching as she laid out the cards. He didn't think she'd rigged this. Didn't think she could have, any more than she could have put that rattler on the trail in front of Snatch.
"Sparkle," he croaked out. "I'm not mad anymore. Look at me," he urged. "What does it mean, us havin' a lot of the same cards?"
Her eyes slowly opened and met his. "You know. I've told you. We're meant to be together. The hidden money belonged to a man named Roy McAllister, who rode with Micah Slade. Just like your uncle did. That draft is part of Slade's money. I hoped you'd look at it as your uncle's share."
She was still kneeling, leaning closer, her eyes glowing with a smoky green inner light. "Please let Hoffman go. I know you need closure. I can't bring your uncle back, but you have something of his, a kind of justice. Let it end, please."
"Never heard he left any loot in Texas." His voice sounded too raw to his own ears. Could she hear the pain and desire in it?
"I doubt he knew," she answered easily. "McAllister arrived alone, but someone had followed him. Jace and I suspect the third partner, Frank Jackson, killed McAllister for his share. But he never found it. Bludgeoned my mother to death, but she couldn't reveal what she didn't know. She hadn't been in the cemetery that night when they buried the money."
Rafe sighed as she went on. "The money was in one of the graves, but Jackson would have had to dig up the whole place to find it. If he'd followed McAllister, he knew your uncle wasn't involved. I wonder if he wouldn't have killed your uncle, as well—if he hadn't left the gang and taken that job as lawman. Jackson couldn't risk going after a man with a badge."
"Might be you're right. Or maybe Jackson paid Hoffman to take that shot for him. But I don't see—"
"We've always been connected, Rafe. To this money, to outlaws. Slade and his violence changed both our lives. We were just children and neither of us even knew him, but look what his criminal activity cost us. Let Hoffman be. Travis says you're still thinking about pursuing him. Don't."
"Jesus! You come here with this tale about outlaws, say the fella you introduced as your brother's only some old friend. Tarot cards and Micah Slade, our fates bein' tied together. It's damned eerie. You're makin' it seem like I have to take up with you again, or I'll have a curse on my head or somethin'."
She gathered the cards without looking at him. "Your own stubborn nature's the curse. Either you have feelings for me, or you don't. Someone confronted me with that same choice once." Now she met his gaze. "I can't put emotions in your heart that aren't there. Forgiveness. Understanding. Love."
"Sparkle."
She turned and the pretense of holding herself together was over. "I should have told you before how much you meant to me. Your lazy drawl and that damned sorrel with the awful name, the sound of your spurs on a wood floor."
Tears trickled down her cheeks now. Rafe wanted to reach out to her, but he couldn't let himself do it.
"You've never understood," she whispered. "I knew the first time I laid out your cards who you were, Rafe. The vagabond stranger who'd finally found me. But because you were also a hired gun, I was frightened. I was afraid of the danger and the violence. I never thought of myself as too good for you." She squared her shoulders at last and wiped her face. "A part of me is just like you. It's probably why I love you. Why I always will."
She got to her feet. So did he. He stood arm's distance from her and let the feelings flow. Fierce, merciless, lashing at them both.
"I should have gone after you," she choked out between sobs. "but I was hurt and being selfish…too busy thinking how Jace had shattered my life. I'd lost so much. My job, half my clothes…my innocence…my dreams. Then I lost you."
His hands came to rest lightly on her shoulders. "You don't belong with me because some tarot cards or my uncle's past say you're supposed to be here. That doesn't make sense, Sparkle. And you're nuts if you left some city fella who could give you a decent life to come after me."
His voice broke. "You know I've got no future. Told you that the day we met, and I never needed painted cards to figure it out. We can't tangle ourselves up again. It was one thing playin' in Wichita or Dodge, but this ain't a trailhead. And we got no one left to fool but ourselves."
"I'm not fooling myself. I've had months to assess how I feel. I love your grin and the way you can be so reasonable you make me want to murder you. The way you kiss me, the way you make love. But I'm here because you'd never take me to the opera with your parents on our wedding night."
"What?"
"The doctor in Kansas City had just enough time in his schedule for a brief ceremony. We couldn't have a big wedding, because he didn't want to invite his colleagues and risk them finding out that I'd worked in saloons. We'd just have a private ceremony, then go to the opera with his parents. I hate opera," she announced with conviction.
Rafe wasn't sure how to react, so he just stood still as she rambled on. "I hate art shows and men who can't admit they've ever been to a bordello. He called it a gentlemen's club. Told me to keep my fancy evening gowns and tarot cards, so I could play gypsy for him alone in our bedroom. That the image of me in a saloon dress had a wicked allure. Can you believe he insulted me, practically admitted he was ashamed of me, then had the temerity to think I'd marry him?"
Actually, Rafe could. Them stuck-up city fellas were like that. Damned if she hadn't found a way to make him chuckle inside, at the very last thing he should find amusing—the notion of some other man wanting to marry Sparkle.
She was his woman. Rafe's. Just ask Travis, or any of the dozen or so men on this ranch.
"Sounds like a Nancy," Rafe agreed. "Even if my folks were still alive, I sure as hell wouldn't ask you to go anywhere with them on our weddin' night."
There was an awkward pause as they both realized what he'd said. She cleared her throat. "I heard you were seriously wounded and a friend brought you here. How's Samson doing?"
Rafe let his gaze drop along with his hands. "Driscoll and I buried him. Bushwhackers attacked us. Sam was gut-shot. Nothin' I could do."
"Oh Rafe, no! Bushwhackers murdered Sam?" She touched his sleeve gently. "I'm so sorry. I know what he meant to you. He was…You're not going after the men who did it?"
He jerked away from her, unable to bear her sympathy. He moved across the room. "Naw. Heard Hoffman might be in Salt Lake. Plan on headin' over to Utah after the spring thaw. Got ambushed by too many men; there was too much crossfire to sort out faces. Be a waste of time tryin' to find the one who killed Sam. He knew the chance he took ridin' with me. It's part of the risk."
"Sam's life was just part of the risk? Losing your best friend was…" She seemed to grope for the right words. "Just a cost of doing business? Is that what you're saying?"
He stared out the front window at nothing in the distance. "Reckon so."
She left so quietly he never heard her go.
CHAPTER 23
A low sound intruded, nudging Sparkle to consciousness. She opened her eyes. The ranch bedroom was pitch black, but she was certain she'd heard something. A low thud, then a sort of jangle. She recognized the sounds then: boots and spurs striking a wood floor. She sat up and was fumbling for her dressing robe when a match flared. Rafe lit the bedside lamp.
"You tried every way you could to make me feel guilty," he announced, flexing his fingers, then closing them into fists. "Sat outside my cabin all day. Got Miz Abbot givin' me dirty looks, her husband avoidin' me, cowpokes gapin' at me like I was a two-headed calf. You even used my own horse and my little brother against me. But usin' Sam Parker is goin' too damned far."
"Don't you dare throw Sam's death up to me," she gasped. "I didn't get him killed. I had nothing to do with it. I liked him…very much. I nearly got killed myself protecting him that night at the Bold Adventuress. He was in danger from Slocumb, not you."
"All of us were," Rafe argued. "I felt like shit when I realized my bullet had grazed your scalp
and sent you into shock. Yeah, you followin' me?" His features went taut. "I shot you, Sparkle. Do you think it's been easy livin' with that? You were between me and a man I'd been hired to kill, a place you never should've been. A place I never should have allowed you to be. My fault. And Sam was killed because he backed me up. My fault again."
"So you feel guilty?" She didn't ask with kindness, any more than she'd asked him to come here in the middle of the night to finish their debate. If he'd come looking for the bitter truth, by God, she'd give it to him. Cold and stark, in spades, with nothing to wash it down.
"Of course I do, woman."
"Good! Maybe if it eats at you day and night, you'll stop your insane way of life before you get yourself killed. But I doubt it. I'm not sure there's enough guilt west of the Mississippi to make any difference. You're wasting your time searching for Hoffman. But if you can't find him, there's always someone on a Wanted poster. So go look for trouble. Sooner or later it's bound to find you again."
Rafe just glared.
"But don't stand there pretending you don't have any choice or you're misunderstood. I understand. We both know all you have to do is walk away. Stop. Take off your peacemaker…in honor of your best friend, if you need a reason. Do it in Sam's honor."
"Sam didn't think he was my best friend."
She glared back at him. "He was right. Snatch is. You wouldn't come out of that cabin for anyone else."
"Wish my best friend would go inside it with me."
She snorted. "I hope you and your sorrel have a cozy life together."
He pulled a bandanna from his chest pocket and held it out to her. Sparkle ignored it and wiped her face with her sleeve. "Get out of here. Just leave me alone, Rafe. It hurts seeing you and talking to you."
"Same here. Been tryin' to ignore you, but I can't sleep. We got to settle this." He abruptly gathered her, quilts and all, into his arms.
"Put me down!" Her yelp was partially muffled by the bedcovers. She punched and kicked to no avail. He proceeded down the hall and through the empty kitchen.
"Hush up, before you wake Travis and the Abbotts," Rafe hissed.
"If you don't put me down this instant, I'll scream until I wake the dead." He tossed her over his shoulder. Now she was totally buried in the bedding.
The thump of his spurs and boots on wood gave way to a crunching sound. She would have jumped at the chance to be alone with him in the cabin when she first arrived. Now she meant to claw his eyes out as soon as he got her inside.
She landed with a little puff.
She shoved aside the quilts to find herself sitting in the middle of a crude bunk. A log snapped in the rock fireplace, a rifle stood propped in a dark corner. Rafe's gunbelt and hat lay on a side table—a table hewn from the same timber comprising the cabin's walls.
"I'm not interested in anything you have to say," she asserted, crossing her arms in front of her breasts. She realized she was barefoot and clad only in a flannel nightgown. Hardly the best attire for a rational discussion with a former lover. "Take me back to my room. We said everything this afternoon."
"Stop snivelin' and you just might learn somethin'," he replied, taking his rocking chair beside the fire. "Sam Parker's dyin' words were about you."
"Me?"
"Weirdest damned thing I've seen in years. You two hardly knew each other. Yet layin' there, bleedin' to death in my arms, he talked about you. Said you were my best friend. Swore you were still my woman, no matter what had passed between us."
Rafe's fingers plucked at the creases of his jeans at one bent knee. "And he was right." He glanced up at Sparkle now. "I ain't touched another since I met you. Can't stop thinkin' about you. I reckon, whether I like it or not, Sam's last words are true."
She sat immobile and kept her features impassive, afraid to let him see his admission had affected her.
"Got enough blame on my soul over Sam, and walkin' away back in Kansas City without givin' you a chance to explain. I couldn't just sit out here and let you leave on the next train without workin' through this."
"Uh, all right. I gather there are things you want to say."
"You said you understood me, but you don't," he sighed. "Everybody reckons I'm just like that Colt, ready to go off. Nobody ever considers I might know exactly what I'm doin." That I understand the cost too."
He stopped, swallowed, went on in a smoother tone, though still a long way from his signature lazy drawl. "You and my family see what I do and say I need to change, because it ain't your way. You all tell me it's dangerous, like that's the big dark secret I just haven't cottoned onto yet. Livin's dangerous, Sparkle. We're all dyin' a little more each day."
"Rafe—"
"I'm a freelance gun because it's what I'm best at. It's what I got natural talent for." He pinned her with his dark, forthright gaze. "I believe it's what I was put on this earth for." At her raised eyebrows, he chuckled…a harsh, unhappy sound. "See? Knew you didn't understand."
"No, and I'm not sure anyone would. I've known card cheats and whores. None of them believed they were destined to do those things."
"I'm like a wolf or a cougar, an avalanche. We keep the balance out yonder." He jerked a thumb toward the cabin door. "You talk a lot about what's meant to be. I was meant to be a gunman. Can't be a farmer or some dandy in a suit. I tried sittin' in Jace's parlor in a starched collar so I could…"
He pounded a fist on his knee. "Dammit, this talkin' don't cut it. It's just gettin' me riled up again. It's no use. You'll leave here tomorrow, still not understandin' that I love you, but—"
She spoke up abruptly, yet her voice was soft. "Don't get all upset. I'm listening and trying to hear what's inside of you. Go on and say what you feel."
"I feel riled. Tired and confused. Pissed off, and …"
"And?" She crept closer, almost close enough to touch his shoulder.
"Hurt, Goddammit! I've had nothin' but time to lick my wounds, and reckon on how the whole world's gone sour, and most of that's my own fault. You ain't the only one who's lost a lot these past months."
"I know." He did indeed look hurt. Too thin. Plagued by worries. Second-guessing himself, no matter what he said. Bereft of the unflagging sense of humor that had always seen him through before. "I didn't mean to sound heartless before about what happened. Your injury. Travis said you nearly died. He's still worried about you, and you do look much too thin."
He jerked his shoulders. "I'm all right."
She cocked her head, studying him. "Need a haircut, too. You shouldn't have carried me out here, you know. You might have reinjured yourself."
"Were you goin' to get out of that bed and come talk to me if I'd just asked?"
She flushed. "Maybe not."
"There you go," he replied, waving one arm. "See, it's things just like that. Folks don't want to deal with a problem. But when I do it for 'em, they tell me I'm wrong."
"I didn't say you—" She started to argue, then realized he was correct. She had just implied that. Much as Kent had inferred she'd been morally wrong for doing what she'd had to in order to survive. She knew how his assessment had made her feel, knew she deserved the twinge of conscience she was experiencing now. Everyone was quick to criticize Rafe.
She knelt in front of the rocking chair and laid her head gingerly on Rafe's knee. "I've been as hard on you as everyone else. I'm sorry for that. As much as I've missed you these past months, I'm glad I didn't know—" Now her head came up. "No, I'm not. I was about to say I was glad I didn't know you were so terribly hurt, but I'm not pleased. You might have died, Rafe. Died never knowing you'd been mistaken about Jace, or that I love you so much. When I think of what—"
His lips on hers wouldn't let her think. Neither would his arms, pulling her against his hard length, and dragging her across the small space to the bunk and enveloping her.
She finally drew a breath and found herself stretched out on the bunk beside him, her head on his shoulder.
"Know what's worse than
thinkin' someone you love might die?" he whispered.
"No."
"Lyin' alone night after night, feelin' a hand on your chest. Thinkin' the one you love is there, strokin' your skin, even though it's scarred and ugly. Thinkin' there's someone special to live for. Tellin' yourself you've got a reason to keep on, to get well. Then wakin' up to find it's just the nerves in your chest lyin' again."
"Oh, Rafe." She unbuttoned his shirt, ran a palm over his skin. "Do you feel this now?"
"Yeah, but I know you're here. Saw you reach into my shirt. Doesn't count."
"Doesn't it?" she asked sharply. "I could have wired you that money and sent a letter explaining about McAllister and Slade. I think my being here in person should count for quite a lot. And considering the rude reception you gave me, count for even more," she huffed.
He kissed her tenderly. "Sparkle, you're a fool crazy woman, givin' up a city doctor to chase after me. Even crazier for sittin' out there for hours, tryin' to prove a point."
"All right, I'm a crazy woman. Just promise you won't leave me again, Rafe. You told me back in Dodge it would never happen and I shouldn't worry about it. But it did. Promise never again, without at least trying to sort things out. Swear it."
She saw his eyes were damp in the low firelight. "Sparkle…God Almighty, but I'm so sorry. You know it was a mistake. I love you, darlin'." He gently stroked her cheek with a long finger. "Don't stop trustin' me. I never did it to hurt you."
"I know that, but I still need your promise before we can be together."
He tilted his head, staring at her. "Are you blackmailin' me again?" Sparkle had to grin at the hopeful note in his voice.
"I think so," she nodded. "You payin' up?"
"Shit howdy. I promise I won't walk away from you again without at least givin' you a chance to explain whatever I'm ticked over." He undid the neckline of her sleep gown. She let him take the gown off, then pull his shirt free of his pants. He climbed off the bunk and removed all his clothes. He was returning to pull Sparkle into his arms, then stopped when he saw she was crying.
The Trailrider's Fortune Page 25