The Trailrider's Fortune (17 page)

"Sparkle…"
His voice was slightly hoarse. "You ever get that delivery from the
pharmacy?"

"Yes, that
same morning."

His eyes smoldered
with desire as he rose and abruptly caught her in his arms, then carried her to
the big bed. "Then it's time to settle up."

He kissed and
caressed every inch of her body, stroking and nibbling with sensual lips until
she was certain he'd set the bed sheets on fire. He'd turned the bed down while
she was across the hall. "Oh, Rafe," she breathed, twining her arms
around his neck.

She burned
everywhere and the only thing that seemed to help was saying his name over and
over. When he finally loomed above her, this thighs between hers, she raised
her hips to meet his deep thrust. He entered her smoothly and moaned her name
in turn. "God, I been wantin' you," he whispered, tightening his
embrace.

But his strokes
were slow and deliberate, not frantic."I want you to enjoy this," he
grunted. "Wrap your legs around me and don't let go." She gripped his
muscular frame and let him guide her.

They made love
three times, each more intense and delicious than the one before.

By the time Sparkle
lay sated and still in his arms, she was too dreamy to care that she was once
again in bed with Rafe Conley in a saloon. She closed her eyes, telling herself
the ornate panel crib was actually a fancy hotel room in Paris. She ignored the
rattling wagons and ribald shouts from below on Front Street and sighed against
Rafe's shoulder.

He slid a hand to
her hip and released his own deep sound of contentment. "Feels so damned
good to hold you. Get some rest. About to make a right hefty chunk of cash
these next few days. You'll be flush again, I promise."

Her arm slid over
his torso, stirring Rafe differently than her touch had before. This wasn't
sexual, but he longed for it, probably more than he'd longed to release his
pent-up passions. "I'm so glad you came after me," she mumbled.
"Glad we…belong…together."

Rafe shifted and
discovered her eyes had drifted shut. Her breath rose and fell softly. She was
wiped out, he thought with a satisfied grin. Truth to tell, he was tuckered
out, too. But instead of closing his own eyes and joining her in blessed sleep,
he peered straight up. It took a moment to focus and make out their shapes
against the white sheets through the darkness. He'd put the sconces out and had
to strain to see in the mirror. But he wanted, needed to know. He couldn't
trust the messages from his damaged nerves.

He saw their
reflections. Saw Sparkle. Stared in amazement. For once he didn't question or
deny, just accepted.

The woman he loved
was wrapped around him, fast asleep, with her fingers over his heart.

"Let me see if
I understand this." Sparkle's calm voice belied her anxiety. Dressed in
the blue gingham dress she'd taken from Al's trunk, she was seated in a chair
in the rear of the Dodge City Emporium, watching Rafe try on boots. "You
want me to tell fortunes at the Bold Adventuress, because my doing that would
help you entice a certain man into town."

"Yep."

Rafe shook his head
and reached past the nervous young salesclerk. "Too tight." Another
pair of mule-ears came down from the display shelf.

"This man
likes unusual women," Sparkle persisted. As the clerk ducked into a
curtained alcove, she said what she'd avoided before. "And I'm supposed to
be remarkable indeed, with divination being the mildest of my 'talents'?"

"The more
unusual and talented, the better," Rafe confirmed.

"You mentioned
a new outfit. What did you have in mind, some gaudy charm bracelet and my
flowered shawl? I don't see anything particularly exotic or fantastic
here." The emporium stocked few ready-made garments. Sparkle couldn't
detect anything among the calicos and finished cotton skirts anyone might
consider provocative. It seemed the good women of Dodge made a point of dowdiness,
probably to differentiate themselves from the larger population of fallen women
in town.

Rafe settled on a
pair of square-toes and paid the clerk. "I know just where to find what we
need." He steered Sparkle back out through the Emporium's door.

"Just a minute,"
she asserted, refusing to take another step along the boardwalk. "This
role you want me to play…Does it have anything to do with the fact you
specifically requested the panel crib? Not for our comfort, as I first thought,
was it? Because of your job. And buying me some fancy dress, insisting we
couldn't leave until your business here's finished…I have the oddest sensation
I'm not going to like what's behind this. What have you dragged me into,
Rafe?"

He didn't flinch.
"You said you wouldn't help with Hoffman, and I know you don't like what I
do. But this time's different. You need money, and I need you as my
partner."

"You
have
partners. Sam and that fellow Driscoll."

"Yeah, and
they'll be workin' along with us on the set up. But the man I'm lookin for has
got a real penchant for whores. You lure him up to our room, and—"

"You'll be
waiting behind the panel," she finished, growing angrier by the minute.
"Which is supposed to make me feel perfectly secure, despite the fact
I'm
the one who'll be having her clothes ripped off by some outlaw
. No,
absolutely not. I'm not helping you, Rafe. I want no part of what you do. I've
had a taste of outlaw hospitality, remember? I didn't like it. Get some real
whore at the Adventuress to play fortune teller. Tolover must have a
harem."

"There's a
thousand in it."

"A thousand—for
one night's work?" She gaped at him, horrified. "After last night, us
together like that…You actually
want
me to let some stranger climb in
bed with me? How could you?"

"Like
hell," he growled, gripping her arm fiercely. "
Pay attention
.
I said lure him into the room. He ain't gettin' in bed, and neither are you.
Just get him into the panel crib and get him to take off his gunbelt. You
disarm him. I take him out. Done. You're a thousand dollars richer."

Sparkle hesitated
while he awaited her decision. Blackmail wasn't so amusing on the receiving end
of the proposition, she discovered. At length she sighed and nodded. He led her
to a dressmaker's shop on a side street. The racks were filled with satin,
taffeta, velvet, and organza gowns. Brass wall hooks displayed frilly bonnets,
feather boas, and all manner of garish necklaces and trinkets.

It was the last
place a gunslinger would frequent.

"You're a
source of constant surprises today, Raford." The use of his full given
name should have been clue enough, but she made certain her mouth and eyes
evinced her displeasure. "I suppose you'll get me a costume free here,
like the room at the saloon. Just what did you do for this business owner, nab
a bootlegger pilfering corsets from the back room?"

He looked
perplexed. "My sister…Bought her a…forget what you call it. Some womanly
thing, like a shirt with buttons." He gestured on himself and managed to
look like a circus baboon.

"A
Basque?" Sparkle offered, fighting a smile. She relished his embarrassed
flush.

His shoulders
jerked. "Might be. And some hair ribbons for Christmas. Before I headed
back to the ranch last winter. Ain't got credit here. I'll buy you whatever you
like."

The proprietress
arrived in time to overhear the operative words. Her smile was instantly
brilliant. All for show, like her merchandise. "Well, in that case, madam
will want to look at—" She took in Sparkle's faded blue gingham and torn
stockings and seemed to grapple with herself to refrain from saying
everything
.
"My newest evening gowns and corsets."

Rafe followed the
dressmaker to a long rack of dresses. "We need somethin' real flashy. Got
one to match her eyes? I'm partial to the color of my wife's eyes."

"I don't
wonder," the woman answered, patting her spill of plump ebony sausage
curls. "Yes. I know just the dress."

She disappeared
into the back and re-emerged displaying a long gown of pale cream silk. The
hemline shimmered with several inches of intricate beadwork, iridescent wonders
of various sizes, all in shades of turquoise and teal.

The dress was
fabulous. Sparkle hated it on sight.

"We'll take
it," Rafe announced.

"Darling, I
haven't tried it on yet," Sparkle countered.

The dressmaker gathered
up underthings, silk stockings, and a turquoise silk shawl. "Come right
back here."

Sparkle appeared a
few moments later to pirouette for Rafe. She looked like a first-rate trollop.
"We'll take what she's got on and these, too," he stated, handing the
shop owner a pair of rhinestone earbobs. The woman was only too pleased to wrap
everything up when Rafe produced a wad of folded bills.

Samson Parker was
waiting at the bar when they returned to the saloon. Rafe brought him up to the
panel crib and discussed the plan in detail. Parker and Driscoll had tracked
their quarry from Colorado into Kansas. He was holed up somewhere on the
outskirts of town, and had been for at least three weeks. Knowing his penchant
for saloons and whores, it stood to reason he'd be making an appearance on
Front Street sooner or later. Sooner, once word got out about Sparkle LaFleur's
debut.

"There's one
problem with the plan," she mused. "I don't have a tarot deck. I left
my good deck back at the Scarlet Lady, and those idiots lost or stole my bag
with the spare when they drugged me."

Rafe nodded and
left the room. Sam looked at Sparkle, his warm, almost-black eyes kind.
"My friend Conley's heart is glad, for you are with him. This is good for
my spirit, too. You belong at his side, Conley's woman."

Sparkle knew her
cheeks were beet red. It was hard not to think of herself
beneath
Rafe
rather than beside him. "Thank you, Samson. It' nice to see you
again."

Rafe was back
already. "Hey, Tolover's gettin' us a tarot deck."

"He can get
tarot cards just like that?" Sparkle asked dubiously, snapping her
fingers.

Rafe grinned.
"Everett G. Tolover can get most anything just like that. He knows some
old spinster who has a deck of tarot cards."

It was good
shuffling them again, Sparkle reflected as she perched atop a stool in the
gaming parlor dressed in her finery. Rafe was playing poker; Sam was at a faro
table near the swinging doors. Tolover's attitude toward Indians was liberal,
unlike Frazer's. There were at least two other men in the Bold Adventuress at
that moment who might have been half-breeds, and Sparkle noticed an Indian
dressed in buckskins had been at a poker table the whole day. She'd seen him
when she returned from the shopping trip.

She had another
customer. She'd already given a dozen readings, and it wasn't yet ten o'clock.
A barker on the porch made certain the menfolk along Front Street heard about
the saloon's newest addition,. Sparkle wasn't only a novelty as a fortune
teller, she was also the only female on public display. Tolover's customers
weren't missing a chance to ogle a fancy woman for free.

Rafe caught her eye
as she was laughing with a customer and purposely gave her a disagreeable
frown. Sparkle suppressed the urge to poke her tongue out in response. Rafe
told her to pretend he was just another drifter. She wasn't to call him by name
or acknowledge him. He wasn't supposed to know her. But he watched her
constantly during the long evening.

The outlaw never
showed.

When Sparkle
reached the panel crib at two in the morning, Rafe was fully dressed and standing
at the windows. Sparkle cleared her throat. "Mr. Tolover thinks it may
take another night or two for word about me to draw your man."

Rafe turned, barely
glancing her way. "Reckon I should check on how Snatch is gettin' by,
maybe have a few words with Sam and a drink with Tolover. No need to wait
up."

She began the
arduous and irksome process of stripping off her finery, layer by irritating
layer. He might at least have offered to help before rushing off, she thought
with dismay. His manner struck her as peculiar, but she'd never been around him
while he was working. Maybe he was always to intense while he tracked someone.
All the more reason to dislike his profession. At the Scarlet Lady he'd been
eager to be alone with her, grinning, laid back. Just now, he'd left without a
hint of a smile or even kissing her.

"Fine,"
she said aloud. "Let him go kiss his damned horse."

She crawled into
the big bed, too aware of being alone in a rotten hellhole of a town. Dodge
City. Despicable. Where else would a whore who weighed almost four hundred
pounds have a steady stream of visitors? Where else would the bardog stand
proudly before such a lurid mural? Dodge was one step shy of the Barbary Coast,
which in turn was one small foothold shy of Hades itself. A woman working
saloons in Dodge City was definitely on the decline.

Sparkle wasn't
about to linger here for days on end, not even for a thousand dollars. She'd
give Rafe two more days, then she had to get home. Majesta knew to write
Sparkle care of the Scarlet Lady if there was ever a problem with Jace, but
what would Majesta think if the letter came back? If no one knew what had
become of Sparkle LaFleur after her disappearance that day?