The Trailrider's Fortune by Shannah Biondine Page B

Just want to flutter by
somethin' dark and scary, and pretend none of it'll rub off on you. Pretend
none of it's in you. You're full of horseshit, Sparkle. Look down your
own well sometime."
    "If you'd calm
down a minute—"
    "Know what?
Don't help me find Hoffman. Don't help me find myself. I didn't ask you for
that. Asked for one favor, in return for the couple I've done you, but forget
it. I don't need nothin' that bad. Just forget it and forget me."

CHAPTER 7
     
    Sparkle was busy;
still she found time between tarot readings to raise her eyes to the batwing
doors. Not that she actually expected a certain pair of spurs would come
through them. Rafe had told her to forget him and he seemed to be very much the
kind who meant what he said. He's not coming back here , she silently whispered
to herself. Do what he said, and forget him.
    He'd left her too
flabbergasted to respond to his outburst earlier. She didn't know how she would
have replied if he'd given her the chance. Some of his accusations were true.
She did like thinking she could associate with him and remain untouched.
There was no chance she'd change her mind about helping him destroy himself or
harm some man he'd sworn revenge against, but she realized she'd made a
tactical error. Tried to take a spirited wild thing and cage it. Then been
foolish and selfish enough to be surprised when it turned on her.
    But Rafe was also
wrong, because she didn't think she was above him. She wished she could have at
least explained that, and that he'd listened about his impossible quest for justice.
There was no such thing in this world. Sometimes bad things just
happened.
    You couldn't spend
your life wondering why you'd been a victim or plotting to set things right.
You couldn't spend your future trying to undo the past. Yesterday was gone. So
was Rafe, and he'd departed without realizing that Sparkle hadn't condemned him
for his chosen profession. She just couldn't fully support it. She shared his
family's view, and indeed could see what his relatives couldn't:  Rafe was
headed for some dire cataclysm. She'd failed to sway him from his path.
    She looked up again
an hour later and felt her mouth go dry. He was seated at one of the poker
tables with the newest addition to the staff on his lap. The strumpet had come
from Abilene, and either hadn't been informed or didn't care that Rafe was
supposedly married…to a woman employed in this very same establishment.
    As Sparkle watched,
the redhead gave Rafe a juicy kiss. His hand slid under the carmine skirt to
caress a stocking-clad thigh. His fingers probed higher. The whore broke their
kiss and giggled, squirming against Rafe's upper body, then leaned closer to
whisper in his ear.
    Had Sparkle just
been berating herself for being unfair to this lewd, selfish beast? She began
to seethe.
    Rafe had obviously
come here expressly to humiliate her. Playing her for a fool, embarrassing her
before her coworkers…and getting plenty of help from the new girl. Sparkle
rose. Her eyes were focused on the scene across the room. She never saw Frazer
watching her with snorting glee, barely noted as Ruby's eyes widened in horror,
paid scant attention to the customers edging out of her path as she crossed to
the poker table. She rudely shoved the redhead off Rafe's knee.
    "You've got
the wrong man, Dixie," Sparkle hissed to the woman sprawled on the floor.
She waved her gold band in the whore's face, practically rubbing it on the tip
of her nose. The girl actually went cross-eyed trying to focus on the ring.
"You can throw yourself at any other man in this place, but not this one.
He's mine ."
    Ruby Ann arrived to
drag Dixie away. Sparkle spun to discover Rafe was out of his chair, features
taut. " Yours , am I? That works both ways, Sparkle Honey. Reckon
it's high time we settled this hash."
    Before she could
say anything, Rafe caught her and tossed her over his shoulder. He carried her
upstairs and set her down outside her bedroom. "Where's