Chapter 27 – The End of Domino

I tried sorting out my feelings as I walked slowly up the staircase to the suite we'd been calling home for a while now. It wasn't my feelings for Domino that were in question – I loved the woman. I flat out loved everything about her.

But there is another lady in my life – one that I've loved since I was two years old and caught a glimpse of her. I remember the chill that went up my backside the first time I held five cards in my hands. Sometimes I have to stop myself from getting that same feeling today when I pick up a deck. And even now I could feel her pull on me, doing her best to lead me away from the flesh and bone woman I'd fallen for. By the time I got to the threshold of the suite, I still didn't have an answer or know what to say.

I opened the door and my breath caught in my throat. There stood Dominique, my beautiful Domino with the strawberry-blonde hair and aquamarine eyes, in the arms of another man.

She didn't have to tell me who it was. I knew instinctively. Richard Hawkins, the husband that had abandoned her almost a year and a half ago, to scrape and scratch out a living with no way to do so. Who'd caused her to sell the livestock just to keep eating, to lose the farm and be forced to take a job scrubbing floors, so beaten down and defeated that becoming an upstairs girl for a parlor house seemed like a step back up in the world. And from the look on her face, she still loved him.

I cleared my throat and they realized for the first time that I was there. I stepped into the suite and closed the door behind me, and they pulled apart. Domino turned beet red, and Hawkins whirled to face me. "Uh, Mr. Maverick. I'm – "

"I know who you are," I interrupted him. I saw the look in her eyes and I knew in an instant – she'd never looked at me quite that way. She cared about me – of that I was certain. But she felt for him what I felt for her. The only thing I could think of was that we had a Mexican standoff.

"Bart. I'm sorry. Richard just appeared – "

"It's alright, Domino, you don't have to explain. He's your husband. I'm going back downstairs. I'll be back in an hour. Please don't be here when I come back. And make sure you take everything with you when you go. Good luck to you both, you're gonna need it." And I turned back to the door and opened it.

As I left I heard Hawkins say, "Domino?"

"Bart, wait . . . . . . " but I couldn't. If I'd stood there one more minute I would have cried, and begged, and pleaded with her to choose me instead of him. And her answer would have been the same. So I took the easy way out, the coward's way out, and fled back downstairs.

I almost tripped on the steps on the way back down. It's hard to see where you're going when there are tears clouding your vision. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve, like I had when I was three years old, and rejoined my brother in the dining room. He was just finishing his coffee and he looked up, startled to see me back so quickly.

"What – " he began to ask, and I stopped him.

"How soon do you want to leave for Laredo?"

The End

The Saga continues next in 'The Gun Runner's Tale'