put your hands on her again, I’ll see to it that you’re thrown in jail.”
“Oh, will you?” An angry flush darkened cheeks already bright with rouge. “I’ll put my hands on who I please.” She stabbed the fan into Sarah’s chest. “No prim-faced bitch from back east is going to come into my place and tell me different.”
With surprising ease, Sarah reached out and snapped the fan in two. “I just have.” She had only an instant to brace herself for the slap. It knocked her backward. To balance herself she grabbed a table and sent a statuette crashing to the floor.
“Your kind makes me sick.” Carlotta’s voice was high and brittle as she leaned toward Sarah. Whiskey and anger had taken hold of her and twisted her striking face. “Looking as though they wouldn’t let a man touch them. But you’ll spread your legs as easy as any.
You think because you went to school and lived in a big house that makes you special? You’re nothing out here, nothing.” She scooped up a fat plaster cherub and sent it crashing into the wall.
“The fact that I went to school and lived in a house isn’t all that separates us.” Sarah’s voice was a sharp contrast to Carlotta’s in its calmness. “You don’t make me sick, Carlotta. You only make me sorry.”
“I don’t need pity from you. I made this place. I got something, and nobody handed it to me. Nobody ever gave me money for fine dresses and fancy hats. I earned it.” Breasts heaving, she stepped closer. “You think you got Jake dangling on a string, honey, you’re wrong. Soon as he’s had his fill of you, he’ll be back. What he’s doing to you on these hot, sweaty nights, he’ll be doing to me.”
“No.” Amazingly, Sarah’s voice was still calm.
“Even if he comes back and puts your price in your hands, you’ll never have what I have with him. You know it,” Sarah said quietly. “And that’s why you hate me.” With her eyes on Carlotta, she began to pull on her gloves again. Her hands would tremble any moment. She knew it, and she wanted to be on her way first. “But the issue here is Alice, not Jake. She is no longer in your employ.”
“I’ll tell that slut when she’s through here.”
It happened so quickly, Sarah was hardly aware of it. She had managed to hold her temper during Carlotta’s insulting tirade against her own person. But to hear Alice called by that vile name while the girl was lying helpless and hurt was too much. Her ungloved hand shot out and connected hard with the side of Carlotta’s face.
The three women, and the one who had come creeping down the stairs to look in on the commotion, let out gasps of surprise in unison. Sarah barely had time to feel the satisfaction of her action when Carlotta had her by the hair. They tumbled to the floor in a flurry of skirts.
Sarah shrieked as Carlotta tried to pull her hair out by the roots. She had handfuls of it, tugging and ripping while she cursed wildly. Fighting the pain, Sarah swung out and connected with soft flesh. She heard Carlotta grunt, and they rolled across the rug. Crockery smashed as they collided with a table, each trying to land a blow or defend against one. Sarah took a fist in the stomach with a gasp, but managed to evade a lethal swipe of Carlotta’s red-tipped nails.
There was hate in Carlotta’s eyes, a wild, almost mad hate. Sarah grabbed her wrist and twisted, knowing that if the other woman got her hands on her throat she’d squeeze until all her breath was gone.
She had no intention of being strangled, or pumeled. Her own rage had her rolling on top of her opponent and grabbing a handful of dyed hair. When she felt teeth sink into her arm, she cried out and yanked with all her strength, jerking Carlotta’s head back and bringing out a howl of rage and pain. Other screams rose up, but Sarah was lost in the battle. She yanked and clawed and tore as viciously as Carlotta. They were equals now, with no barriers of class or background. A lamp shattered in a shower of glass as the two writhing bodies careened into another table.
“What in the hell is going on here?” Barker burst into the parlor. He took one look at the scene on the floor and shut his eyes. He’d rather have faced five armed, drunken cowboys than a pair of scratching women. “Break it up,” he ordered as the two of them tumbled across the floor. “Somebody’s going to get hurt here.” He shook his head and sighed. “Most likely me.”
He stepped into the melee just as Jake strode through the parlor doors.
“Let’s pull them apart,” Barker said heavily.
“Take your pick.” But Jake was already hauling
Sarah up off the floor. She kicked out, her breath hissing as she tried to struggle away.
“Pull in your claws, Duchess.” He clamped an arm around her waist as Barker restrained Carlotta. “Get her out of here.” Carlotta shoved away from Barker and stood, her dress ripped at both shoulders, her hair in wild tufts. “I want that bitch out of here and in jail. She came in here and started breaking up my place.”
“Now, that don’t seem quite logical,” Barker mused. “Miss Sarah, you want to tell me what you’re doing in a place like this?”
“Business.” She tossed her hair out of her eyes.
“Personal business.”
“Well, looks to me like you’ve finished with your business here. Why don’t you go on along home now?”
Sarah drew on her dignity like a cape over her torn dress. “Thank you, Sheriff.” She cast one last look at Carlotta. “I am quite finished here.” She glided toward the door to the secret admiration of Carlotta’s girls.
“Just one damn minute.” Jake took her arm the second she stepped outside. She had time now for embarrassment when she noted the size of the crowd she’d drawn.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said stiffly, “I must get home.” She reached up to tidy her tousled hair. “My hat.”
“I think I saw what was left of it back in there.”
Jake ran his tongue over his teeth as he looked at her. She had a bruise beginning under her eye. It would make up to be a pretty good shiner by the end of the day. Her fashionable gray dress was ripped down one arm, and her hair looked as though she’d been through a windstorm. Thoughtfully, he tucked his hands in his pockets. Carlotta had looked a hell of a lot worse. “Duchess, a man wouldn’t know it to look at you, but you’re a real firebrand.”
Grimly she brushed at her rumpled skirts. “I can see that amuses you.”
“I have to say it does.” He smiled, and her teeth snapped together. “I guess I’m flattered, but you didn’t have to get yourself in a catfight over me.” Her mouth dropped open. The man looked positively delighted. She was scratched and bruised and aching and humiliated, and he looked as though his grin might just split his face. Over him? she thought, and made herself return the smile.
“So you think I fought with Carlotta over you, because I was jealous?”
“Can’t think of another reason.”
“Oh, I’ll give you a reason.” She brought her fist up and caught him neatly on the jaw. He was holding a hand to his face and staring after her when Barker strolled out.
“She’s got what you might call a mean right hook.” In the street, people howled and snickered as Sarah climbed into the wagon and drove off. “Son,” Barker said with a hand on Jake’s shoulder, “you’re the fastest hand I ever saw with those Colts of yours. You play a fine game of poker, and you hold your whiskey like a man. But you got a hell of a lot to learn about women.”
“Apparently,” Jake murmured. He walked across to O’Riley’s and untied his horse.
Sarah seethed as she raced the wagon toward home. She’d made a spectacle of herself. She’d engaged in a crude, despicable sparring match with a woman with no morals. She’d brought half the town out into the street to stare and snicker at her. And then, to top it all off, she’d had to endure Jake Redman’s grinning face.
She’d shown him. Sarah tossed her head up and spurred the horses on. Her hand might possibly be broken, but she’d shown him. The colossal conceit of the man, to believe that she would stoop to such a level out of petty jealousy.
She wished she’d torn Carlotta’s brass-colored hair out by its black roots.
Not over him, she reminded herself. At least not very much over him.
She heard the rider coming up fast and looked over her shoulder. With a quick gasp of alarm, she cracked the reins. She would not speak to him now. Jake Redman could go to the devil, as far as she was concerned.
And he could take his grin with him.
But her sturdy workhorses were no match for his mustang. Nor was her driving skill a match for his riding. Even as she cursed him, he came.up beside her. She had a flash, clear as a bell, of how he’d looked when he’d
