The Trailrider's Fortune (28 page)

"You're
certain it
was
fortuitous? Jace will come around soon, you think?"

"You know I
can't promise that, but I believe so. He was stable when I left the hospital
earlier. But I wasn't speaking of your brother's medical status. I meant his
accident is what allowed us to meet."

"Oh yes, I
should have sensed…but I was hoping you implied Jace was lucky, in that his
fall precipitated the surgery to remove the bullet, and he'd finally be able to
walk again."

"That's a
distinct possibility. One we all fervently hope for."

"Indeed,
doctor." Sparkle pulled her hand away and moved to study the next oil
painting at the art exhibit. Two nights before, they'd shared a meal at a
fashionable supper club. Another time they'd had lunch in a local restaurant.
Last week the doctor had taken her for a long carriage ride in the open
countryside.

Dr. Barlow had
begun formally calling on Sparkle LaFleur.

She'd allowed the
relationship to develop out of concern for Jace's well-being and her own
lingering guilt over his injuries. Though comatose now, following the difficult
surgery he'd undergone, she couldn't escape the knowledge that he never would
have been hospitalized if she hadn't caused his fall. Jace had always been
cautious and sensible. He never would have been so foolish as to allow his
chair so close to the stairwell if they hadn't been arguing.

They'd had
disagreements before, but those had been mild rifts. Sparkle had never spoken
to Jace so cruelly, deliberately taunting him about his disability. She'd
wanted
to hurt him at that moment.

Everyone around
her, Majesta included, could deny Sparkle's culpability. But she knew better.
Knew how deeply it had stung when she'd learned Jace had wed. Knew how painful
the entire topic of Rafe Conley was, how she'd lashed out, trying to silence
Jace before he said anything more on the raw subject.

So she'd turned to
Jace's doctor for solace. Kent Barlow was calm and objective. He did his best
to assuage her guilt. She'd allowed him to become a close friend in a matter of
weeks, well aware the doctor hope to be viewed as something more.

Tall and energetic,
with flowing sandy hair and lively gray eyes, Kent soaked up his surroundings.
He chewed up details and spit them out, then pushed forward in search of more.
He was ever inquisitive, keenly intelligent, if admittedly a bit driven for
Sparkle's tastes. He evinced a true passion for his work. A passion she found
almost fascinatingly foreign. During her years in drinking houses, that element
was conspicuously absent amongst employees. Bardogs, whores, faro dealers,
piano players, cleaning women—they performed necessary chores in order to
survive. None of them particularly enjoyed themselves while they were at it,
most talking endlessly about better times to come in the future.

Unemployed now,
with little to occupy her thoughts or time but constant worry over Jace,
Sparkle had been grateful for the doctor's flattering attentions and detailed
explanations. He was extremely thorough in presenting information on Jace's
status and prognosis. When discussions of Jace became discussions of local
events, the larger world in general, Sparkle had continued to let him share his
personal insights.

They helped her
ignore the well of sadness that had enveloped her when Rafe walked out of her
life. Primping for the young doctor's social calls at the house and being
escorted around Kansas City kept her thoughts on the present. Kept her mind
from drifting back to saloons and cowboys.

Except when Kent
kissed her, as he was doing now. They'd left the art exhibit and gone back to
the LaFleur parlor. She'd been lost in her musings and couldn't recall most of
whatever he'd said since they arrived back at the house. She must have
automatically made the appropriate nods and mutters in the right places…old
habits died hard.

Her mind had wandered
many miles away. Back to a dark Kansas plain, to images of a gunslinger riding
a star sorrel or playing poker in a smoky gaming hall. Somewhere, a lifetime
from her present moment, raucous piano music and laughter spilled out of
batwing doors onto a dusty street bathed in the light of a Midwestern moon.
Somewhere a pair of spurs and creased leather boots thumped along a plank
sidewalk.

Sparkle sighed.
Kent interpreted it as encouragement and deepened their kiss. She closed her
eyes and he became Rafe. It was Rafe's lips and tongue melting over hers.
Rafe's hand moving slowly up her ribcage. He would bare her breast! Not here,
in Jace and Majesta's parlor. "No, we can't do this here."

Abruptly her eyes
opened and her fantasy shredded. The eyes searching hers were gray, not
chocolate brown.

"Forgive me,
I'm being too forward," Kent murmured. "I don't mean to press
you." He pulled back, straightening his rumpled jacket. "I had a very
enjoyable evening, Miss LaFleur." He got up and crossed to the front door.
"Will I see you tomorrow at the hospital?"

She offered a
wistful smile. "You know I'm there every day, rain or shine."

"Well, good
night." He nodded politely and went out.

"Is the doctor
gone, Sparkle?" Majesta's voice came from the top of the stairs.

"Yes."
Sparkle bolted the door and blew out the candle on a shelf near the entry.
"I thought you'd be at the hospital. Is everything all right?"

Majesta floated
down the stairwell, robe rustling softly. She perched on the ottoman before
Jace's favorite chair. "He likes you very much, our young Dr.
Barlow." Sparkle shrugged. "I get so weary of that hospital room and
waiting for Jace to come out of the coma," Majesta sighed. "Do you
think we made the right decision?"

The question was
fraught with exhaustion and uncertainty. Sparkle couldn't let either of them
give up hope. The doctors had explained there were roughly equal odds that Jace
might make a full recovery, only a partial recovery, or exhibit no change at
all. But the tarot presaged a rosy future ahead for Jace. Sparkle had chosen to
put her faith in the cards.

"It's not as
though we had much choice. It was his best chance, possibly his only chance, at
a normal life. Kent and the other doctors made that clear. He reassured me Jace
is doing as well as could be expected. When he's stronger, he'll wake up. My
cards predict that. Any day now. You'll see."

"I don't know
how much longer…if he doesn't wake up…" Sparkle heard the defeat creeping
into Majesta's voice. "If he doesn't come around, I don't know how I'll
deal with it. I'd already given him my life and accepted him as he was. I could
have borne up under the demands of caring for an invalid. At least he was here.
I could look in on him. Now it's so hard to wait alone upstairs."

Sparkle drew
Majesta back up to the room and bed she shared with Jace. "Any night now
he'll be home." Sparkle moved his pillow alongside Majesta's body and
placed her arm over it. "Until then, hold onto this and tell yourself it's
him. Jace will come back to you, better than ever. Don't stop believing."

Sparkle left
Majesta weeping softly into her own pillow, hugging its mate. Sparkle tiptoed
across the hall to her own room. She undressed and climbed into bed, mimicking
the ritual she'd just taught Majesta. At least Majesta could hold more than a
pillow. However fragile, Majesta could cling to hope.

Sparkle's tears wet
her pillowslip as she admitted her own longings were futile. Her desires would
never come true. Her cheek would never again be pressed against a rough,
scarred torso. Rafe had walked away for the last time. After swearing he'd
never leave her, that's exactly what he'd done. She knew he wouldn't come back.

And he'd been right
in predicting she could no longer abide saloons. She'd discovered she couldn't
bring herself to consider another trailhead. Any cow town would be torture. No
matter where the saloon was, no matter how remote the chances of it happening,
she'd wait and watch the swinging doors. Hoping uselessly, pathetically, that
Rafe Conley would walk through them.

She needed to stop
thinking about him and concentrate on Kent Barlow. Maybe once Jace came home
and she didn't see Kent in a clinical environment…but she'd been with him in
other settings:  the park, restaurants, the countryside, the art museum. He was
pleasant company, but there simply were no sparks sizzling in her blood.

Part of the problem
was Kent smelled of disinfecting agents. He was ever crisp, well heeled, his
trousers impeccably creased, his fingernails buffed. She'd never encountered
anyone so compulsive about scrubbing himself. She'd watched the ritual repeated
endless times at the hospital. Not that she didn't believe cleanliness was next
to Godliness, but Kent washed his hands so often, she'd bet he actually arrived
home cleaner than when he left.

He didn't need a
woman to share a tub of steaming bathwater or lick trail dust off his skin. He
didn't own a pair of leather boots. She'd asked when they'd taken a carriage
ride to the farmlands. He laughed and told her he'd never been on a horse or
worn denim jeans.

Maybe she'd grown
too accustomed to Western ways:  gritty men, cattle drives, horses, honky tonks
and saloons. Kent Barlow was pure Easterner. Cultured, urbane, handsome, ever
proper. He also had an illustrious career going…whereas she had absolutely
nothing going. Maybe
that
was the problem.

No, it wasn't. He
didn't wear spurs.

She chuckled aloud
at the thought, then heard her laughter dissolve into something closer to a
sob. She buried her face closer against the white cotton linens. The real
problem was Kent didn't own a saddle horse with the world's crudest moniker. He
didn't wear a charcoal gray cowboy hat. He caused scars with his scalpels, but
he didn't have one. He didn't drawl.

He wasn't Rafe.

She opened her eyes
hours later. Fingers of gray light poked between the shutters. She'd favored
sleeping until noon before Dodge City, when she'd shared a brass bed with an
amorous gunfighter. Now she often woke at dawn to find she'd been dreaming
about the panel crib again.

"Leave me
alone, Rafe," she whispered. "God knows I shouldn't have, but I did
love you." She rose and opened the shutters. She gazed out the window at
nothing in particular. "And it's a curse on both of us, because no matter
how hard I try to stop, it seems hopeless. Damn my soul, I still do."

* * *

Sparkle chatted
nonstop, emulating Joe Brooks on the stagecoach, though she doubted Jace could
hear her. He lay motionless except for his shallow breathing, beyond
comprehension, but it made her feel better to sit beside him each day. To
ruffle his tawny curls, hold his limp fingers. To watch and hope.

Jace was still like
a brother to her. Today she needed to tell him what was on her mind.

"You've got a
fine doctor. You don't know it, but he's been calling on me. Majesta said you'd
fretted I'd never take a husband. That's silly. Of course I will, someday.
Maybe in the next year or two, if Dr. Barlow keeps courting me. I'd have to
consider it, wouldn't I? Settling down with him as definite merit. I'd be
living right here in town. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

"You and
Majesta would have your privacy, but we'd see more of each other than we have
in recent years. I can't as yet claim to care for him. But I don't have much
sense when it comes to matters of the heart. I seem to love all the wrong—"

She stopped,
pausing to wipe her cheek and blow her nose before she asked the next question.
"Do you think it's appropriate for me to consider the doctor? People wed
for lots of reasons, like stability. Maybe I could learn to love Dr. Barlow. Do
you think so? I wish you'd answer me, Jace. You don't know how silly I feel,
sitting here talking to myself."

"Then why
don't you just shut pan, Sparkle Cummings? If you didn't rattle on, maybe a
body could get a word in."

"
Jace
?"
Her head shot up. Her hanky fluttered to the floor. "Jace, did you say
something? What did you call me?"

Blue eyes cracked
open. The voice came again, weak but lucid. "Sparkle Cummings. That's who
you are, aren't you? You're the only gal I know with those funny-colored
eyes."

"That's who I
was
,
a long time ago," she answered carefully. "When we lived in Texas.
You remember Texas? The name of our town?"

"Fire Thorn.
What's wrong with you? You act like…Lord, but you look weird. Kind of bumpy in
spots. You were always skinny as a rail."

"Yes,"
she laughed, tears of elation filling her eyes. "I'm bumpy in a few places
now. I need to go tell someone you're awake. Don't worry. You're in a Kansas
City hospital, but you're all right. I'll be back."

She skidded into
the hall, shouting for Dr. Barlow. A nurse pointed in the direction of the
intersecting corridor just as he headed toward Jace's room. "Looking for
me, sweetheart?"

She didn't even
acknowledge the endearment. "He's awake! And he
remembers
. He
sounds a little confused, though. He recognized me, but I'm not sure he
realizes we've both grown up."