The Trailrider's Fortune (6 page)

"Thank you for
being so kind and decent last night. And now. Is there someplace I might write
you?"

"Why, to tell
me how much you love me and miss me, or that I'm going to be a papa?"

Sparkle blushed and
stammered in reply. "No, of course not. I meant because I should return
the ring eventually. You paid for it. You may want to give it to—"

He interrupted,
grasping her upper arm. "Naw. Got to get my horse at the livery, then I'll
give you a ride back to the Scarlet Lady."

Sparkle dug her
heels in and refused to budge until he met her eyes. "Rafe, there's a wife
in your future, whether you believe it or not. There must be a friend or
relative somewhere who could get this ring back to you or get a message to you.
I'd like to think we're friends, that if I ever needed to reach you…you
know."

Rafe tugged his hat
lower. "Got a younger brother named Travis, has a ranch outside Pueblo. I
spend winters there. You could write care of Travis Conley at Crockhead Rest in
Pueblo. It'd get to me."

He paid his
stabling fee and mounted a big star sorrel. Then he reached to pull Sparkle
onto his lap. "This here's Snatch."

"That's the
most offensive name for an animal I've ever heard in my life."

"He ain't
offended by it. Considerin' he helps me round up trouble for reward money and
the lack of certain comforts when a man's on the trail, it's a right fittin'
name for my horse."

He slid her down to
the wooden porch outside the saloon. "Bye, darlin'. Thanks for the use of
your bed. Better make this look good."

He swung down from
the saddle and pulled her into his arms for a long kiss, noting she didn't push
his shoulders away this time. She fit him like a snug winter coat. Damned shame
she wouldn't be wrapped around him after this.

"Goodbye,
Rafe. Oh, and be careful." She frowned slightly. "I forgot to tell
you. The cards also said you could meet up with a snake."

He laughed and gave
her backside a pat. "Don't hardly need mystical cards to warn me about
that. Met up with my share of snakes, and I'm still around."

But Rafe wasn't
laughing a few days later as he watched the horse doctor run his hands over
Snatch's foreleg. They'd been riding flat out when Snatch suddenly reared and
threw him. Rafe was unhurt, but as he dusted himself off he heard the
distinctive dry sound of a rattler. He looked for the snake, but couldn’t spot
it amid the loose sand and rocks. Snatch danced back a few paces and suddenly
the rattlesnake struck at the horse. The fangs missed, but Snatch had pulled
his leg avoiding the strike.

Now Rafe would be
holed up outside Tulsa for several days. He paid the horse doctor to tend and
stable his animal, then set out on foot to look for lodging. He found a hotel
with a clean room and a hot bath. He stripped down and lowered himself into the
steaming tub. His tensions ebbed as a tremor ran through his body—both from the
delicious heat of the water and Sparkle's caution to him when he'd left
Wichita. Could she really have the gift?

It certainly seemed
possible, or Snatch almost being bitten by a rattler had been one hell of a
coincidence.

It was late summer.
Rafe had some unfinished business here in Oklahoma, another fella to see down
in Texas. He'd be headed up through Kansas by mid-autumn. Maybe he'd stop in
Wichita and see Sparkle again. She might be able to tell him something about Dan
Hoffman, the one man Rafe had hunted without success for years.

Rafe closed his
eyes and soaked, letting his head loll against the tub rim as he thought again
about Sparkle's aquamarine eyes and shiny hair. The smell of lavender, the way
she'd fit so perfectly within the circle of his arms. He'd slept like a baby,
cuddled against her in that soft bed. Then awakened to find her fingers on his
scar.

The water was
steaming hot, heating his blood. Making his thoughts turn carnal. Sparkle.
Dainty fingers on his bare chest. God, he'd wanted to feel her hands on the
rest of his body. Wanted her to close her fingers around his length and stroke
it as she had the scar tissue on his chest. Even now he felt the ache of need,
lustful want.

Hell, it wasn't
Hoffman or a need for information. Rafe could make that excuse to see her
again, but that's all it was—an excuse. He wanted to see Sparkle because she
was in his blood. He'd ridden away before and forgotten most of the females he
left behind. But not this one. He wanted to kiss Sparkle again, wanted her in
bed again.

She liked him,
maybe more than a little. She'd asked how to get a message to him. When had a
woman other than his sister or ma ever given a rat's ass about Rafe Conley? But
that didn't mean Sparkle felt like he did.

He told himself not
to lose sight of that. She was unsullied, despite working in saloons. Men were
after her all the time. Fellas like that Brooks. Probably dozens of men like
him, maybe a hundred drifters like Rafe himself. She wasn't intimate with any
of them. Which meant there could be a damned good reason:  like she was sweet
on somebody or some man already had a claim. But if so, why wasn't
he
takin' care of her, so she didn't need to work in a saloon? Why wasn't she
settled down with him, sleepin' beside him, with her hand on his bare chest?

Rafe didn't like
the image of her that way with anyone else. There couldn't be anybody in
Wichita, or she wouldn't have asked him to play her charade. Her boss wouldn't
have tossed her out if some fella would get wind of it and march into the
saloon to punch him in the mouth.

Sparkle wouldn't be
the ice queen if she had a man available to protect her.

The more Rafe
thought on it, the more he felt baffled by the whole business. One thing he knew
for sure, though. Sparkle LaFleur was gnawing a hole deep inside his chest—and
this one would take more than some half-drunk country doctor's stitchin' to
close up.

* * *

Sparkle wasn't
surprised to find the gold band and Frazer's tales had a definite effect on
customers. She was busy as ever, telling fortunes and hustling drinks, but the
men no longer asked to dance with her. Whatever Deputy Thompson or Rafe himself
had divulged, Frazer had embellished the stories. Now Rafe Conley's exploits
were beyond bold, to practically legendary.

The man himself was
conspicuously absent. Weeks went by, then months, and still there was no sign
of him. No word. It was absurd that she found herself feeling slightly
dejected. What had she expected from a hired gun? Maybe he'd lost a gunfight
somewhere. That was a definite possibility, she realized, "legend" or
not. The thought left her heart cold.

But in early
December, a tall stranger walked through the swinging doors and immediately
drew the eyes of every girl in the place. He was over six feet and lanky, with
blue-black straight hair past his shoulders and an almost savage look. Sparkle
suspected he was part Indian. So did Benton Frazer. He reacted the second he
spotted the man at Sparkle's table.

"Take your
cards to the bench outside if that breed wants his fortune told," Frazer
asserted, scowling. "Don't cater to his kind in my place."

"Oh, that's
just dandy, Frazer," Sparkle replied, reaching for her tarot deck before
taking the newcomer's arm. "He probably doesn't cater to your kind in his
place, either." She dropped her voice and glanced shyly up at the
stranger. "At least I wouldn't. He's a real asshole."

The Indian didn't
even smile.

They stepped out
onto the porch. "Conley sends his good wishes. He cannot come now, but
thinks of you often. He asked that I see you are well."

"He's all
right, then?" Sparkle realized she sounded too eager. "I mean, I
worried when so much time had gone by…"

"He is strong,
a good man. We ride together from time to time. He does not like the one
inside, that man who makes life hard for you. He worries. You worry about
Conley too, I see. This is good. Good bond." He nodded firmly.

Sparkle coughed.
"Well, I suppose you could look at it that way. Conley's a friend of mine.
Mister…?"

"Parker."

"That doesn't
sound Indian."

"My
grandmother married a white man. My father was raised with your book of the
Great Father in Heaven. He liked the tale of the one called Samson, who had
great power in his hair. I am Samson Parker." Still no smile. A stiff bow
from the waist.

That explained the
looks and strange speech, Sparkle thought. "Would you like to sit down,
Samson Parker? I can take a break and read your fortune, if you'd like."

"My destiny is
already known to me, wife of Rafe Conley. You must help Conley find his."

Sparkle felt
ashamed flaunting the ruse to this fellow. Hadn't her mother spoken of Indians
and other ancient peoples as having prophetic abilities of their own? Lying
wouldn't do.

"Rafe isn't my
husband," Sparkle rushed to amend. "He bought this ring and pretended
he was, because of my boss and to protect me from other men."

"But you are
Rafe Conley's woman."

"Rafe
is…" Sparkle stopped and tried again. How to make it plain? "Here, in
this saloon, I'm Rafe's close friend. He stayed with me here one night, but we
are not truly—"

Samson Parker
abruptly stepped off the porch into the street and solemnly glanced back.
"
Everywhere
you are Rafe Conley's woman. The signs say this. I will
tell him that you are well and send your regards in return."

"Thank
you," Sparkle muttered, watching him disappear into the swirling dust as
an overloaded wagon filled with lumber rattled by.

Ruby Ann was
braiding her ash brown hair as she stepped onto the porch to stare after the
tall stranger. "I'd like to warm
his
wigwam. Take it he's a friend
of your husband. What'd he tell you? Rafe due back anytime soon?"

"I don't know.
It didn't sound like it. We better get back inside."

"Spark, I know
it ain't my place to say, but shouldn't he be comin' for Christmas, at least?
It's been months since you got married, and you ain't had no time together.
Rafe must seem a huckleberry above a persimmon to you, but I always figured you
for a different type. The steady sort, some fella who'd work down at the bank
or general store. Not some gun out to prove who's fastest in a bullet-pissin'
contest."

"Sometimes the
strangest people turn out to be the right type, Ruby," was all Sparkle
said before she walked back into the saloon and took up her post at the
fortune-telling table.

She hoped a
customer would come up quickly to distract her. She didn't want to face the
thoughts running through her mind just now. She wished she couldn't hear her
mother saying cryptic words about Indians. She wished at that moment that Eliza
Cummings had never spent time in Europe or met the Italian
strege,
or
witch woman, who taught her about tarot and helped developed Eliza's second
sight. And in particular, far above everything else, Sparkle vehemently wished
she hadn't understood exactly what Samson Parker had come to tell her.

Travis Conley was
two inches taller than his older brother and even leaner. His legs reminded
Rafe of a woodstove's flue pipe. Nineteen and positive he already knew
everything, Travis was used to bossing other men around and accustomed to his
men—most years older than Travis—following orders without question. The bluster
wasn't working on Rafe, though. He smoothed the saddle blanket and tightened
the cinch on his sorrel, barely acknowledging his brother's anger.

"You know,
Trav, I don't get what the gals see in you sometimes." Rafe stepped past
Travis to lift his bedroll. "Might have Pa's looks, but you got his cranky
disposition too."

"Rafe, you
know damned well I was countin' on you to stay on at least until March. You
never leave this early. If I'd known you'd be headin' out so soon, I wouldn't
have let three hands go this winter."

"Your
bunkhouse ain't empty."

"No, your
damned head is! There's still more than a foot of snow out there."

"Should've
seen somebody in Wichita before I came this time, but I never made it. Got
sidetracked with Henry Tate Watkins. If I don't go to Wichita now, body's
liable to think I ain't never comin' back that way."

"
Body's
liable to think?" Travis repeated, snorting in disgust. "A damned
filly
.
That's what you mean. You're leavin' me shorthanded to chase some skirt?"

"Maybe. So
maybe you can understand why I'm itchin' to get out. Been holed up in the cabin
for weeks. Don't go to them dances and social like you, little brother."

"You're shorter,
Rafe, and probably weigh less than I do. You're the little brother now. And
there's no reason you can't go into town with me. Hell, if it's companionship,
I can—"

"No gal at
them town socials is hankerin' after the likes of me. This spread and every
other's crawlin' with menfolk. A woman round here can take her pick. Not by a
jugful am I lettin' you drag me to one of them barn dances, so I can watch
while the gals make eyes at you and Mick Keenan. Don't belong in no boiled
shirt at the meetin' hall."