The Trailrider's Fortune (36 page)

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.

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."