Arizona Embrace (26 page)

“You young fool,” Grant called out. “You nearly killed me”

“Talk,” Trinity ordered Victoria, “and make it good. If that young carrot-top is anything to judge by, they’re in a rotten mood.”

“I suppose you’re proud of yourself.”

“No. I’d much rather have gotten you back to Texas before anybody noticed you were missing.”

Victoria stepped forward until she could see the men scattered below. In their upturned faces she saw many stripes of the rainbow: youth, lovers, wives, children, the hope of a nation. They were ready to die for her, and she had done nothing to deserve it. She had to stop it.

“Uncle Grant, I’ve made up my mind to go back to Texas with Trinity.”

“You can’t mean that,” Grant shouted over a chorus of protests from the cowboys. They’ll hang you.”

Trinity has promised to find Chalk Gillet.”

“It won’t do any good. If you don’t remember the jury they picked out, I do. There wasn’t a single man who wasn’t handpicked by Blazer. They’d have found you guilty if you’d been ten miles away.”

Trinity will find proof.”

“You can’t go back, honey. I admit I think a lot of Trinity’s ability to do what he says, but I can’t let you risk the chance he won’t succeed.”

“Then you go ahead of me. You said before you wanted to hire a good lawyer and some Pinkertons. You can do that now. But you’ve got to see Buc gets to a doctor. He looks bad to me.”

“Victoria, I don’t know what kind of tales Trinity’s telling you, but if he’s telling you he can prove you’re innocent, he’s lying. I’m not letting you do anything this crazy. Now get back down behind those rocks. We’re coming in, and we’re coming in fast.”

“No,” Victoria called. “I won’t let you.”

“You can’t step me.”

“I’m not moving. I’ll stand right here. I’ll stand in front of Trinity if I have to.”

“Victoria, what’s wrong with you? You’re not trying to tell me you’ve fallen in love with him?”

“No” Victoria replied. “I’ve just realized somebody’s going to die if I don’t go back—you, Buc, one of the men, even Trinity. If not this time, the next. I never thought about it like this before. It seemed so simple on the ranch.”

“If you’d just stayed there, everything would have been okay. It will be again. After we kill Trinity”

“It’ll never be simple again, especially not if you kill Trinity.”

“I can protect you.”

“What for? To live locked away for the rest of my life, afraid to set foot outside the house?”

“I’ll hire more men.”

“And who’ll take care of me if they kill you?”

“Your husband.”

“And who after that, my sons, my daughters’ husbands? No, I can’t condemn you to the kind of life I would have to lead. And I can’t condemn my husband and children to a future of protecting someone who can’t be protected, of hiding someone who can’t be hidden. What kind of life would they have? How could they respect me? They might only wonder in the back of their minds if I killed Jeb, but they would know I chose not to face justice.”

“We can move to another ranch, somewhere they won’t know us.”

“And who’s to say somebody won’t recognize me. Then it would start all over again. No. I’ve cost you enough already. I’ll not cost you your ranch.”

“Well work something out.”

“I’ve made up my mind. This has to stop, and it has to stop now. I knew that as soon as I saw Buc get hit.”

“I won’t let you do it.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“Well get Trinity. We’ll take you back to the ranch.”

Then I’ll go back on my own.”

There was a pause.

“You really mean it, don’t you?”

“Yes. I never realized until today what this kind of freedom could cost. Now that I know, I’ve decided it’s too much. I don’t know why I didn’t see it years ago. I suppose you and Buc guarded me too well. Did you kill that bounty hunter?”

Grant didn’t answer right away. “There are no bodies buried on my land,” he finally said.

Victoria heaved a sigh of relief, but Trinity looked unconvinced.

“Send someone up to get Buc,” Victoria said. “He’s got to see a doctor.”

“I’m not letting you go,” Grant said. “If you must go back to Texas, I’ll take you.”

Victoria thought for only a moment. “No, the time for that has passed. I have to go with Trinity.”

“I trust him, but not that much.”

“I do. Now there’s no point in arguing any more. Once you know Buc’s going to be okay, you can head for Texas. I’m sure Trinity will leave messages along the way to let you know I’m still okay.”

“I’m coming up,” Grant called.

“I’m coming, too,” Red called.

“Leave your guns,” Trinity ordered.

Both men took exception to this condition, but they finally allowed Victoria to convince them it was the only way they could remove Buc without someone getting hurt.

The sight of Victoria tied up almost started a fight. Grant and Red refused to do anything until Trinity removed the belts. Victoria hid her wrists. She doubted her uncle would keep his word if he saw the chafed skin.

“If anything happens to Victoria, either now or back in Texas, I’m coming after you,” Grant said. “She wouldn’t be going back if you hadn’t come busting in where you had no business, pointing guns at the only people she has in the world. You remember that when you start rattling on about your
duty
. From this minute on your duty is to see nothing happens to Victoria.”

Buc got to his feet, but he couldn’t walk. One of the men brought up a horse. It took all three men to hoist him into the saddle. As soon as Buc steadied himself with a grip on the pommel, he turned his pain-filled eyes to Victoria.

“Why did you warn him? I could have killed him easy”

“I didn’t want you to kill him,” Victoria said. “I don’t want anybody to kill anybody. That’s why I’m going back. This killing will never stop as long as I keep running away. I didn’t kill Jeb, but if you had killed Trinity, or he had killed you, your death would have been on my head.”

Victoria paused and looked at Buc. He was such a nice, honest, decent man. He worshipped the ground she walked on. He would love and cherish her for the rest of her life. He would spoil her and treat her like a queen. Any woman in her right mind would the for a husband like that.

Why couldn’t she love him?

Because he would never have been able to see the real Victoria. Buc loved the helpless girl he rescued from jail, not the woman who had grown tough enough to face being hanged. He wanted a wife he could care for and protect, not one who would argue with every other word he spoke.

Victoria wanted to be treated like a real woman. She didn’t know exactly what that entailed, but she did know it was as far from Buc’s ability to understand as it had been from Jeb’s.

But more than that, she simply didn’t love him. She never had.

“I can’t marry you, Buc. Not now or when I come back from Texas. I’ve told you before, but I didn’t try very hard to make you believe me. That’s my fault, and I’m sorry, but I don’t love you. I tried to, especially when I first came to Arizona, but it never happened. Now I know it never will.”

“But you like me. Isn’t that enough?”

“Not for me. And it shouldn’t be for you. You’re a fine man, Buc. You deserve someone who can love you just as much in return.”

“I won’t ask any more than you can give.”

“But I want more. I can’t settle for
like
when I might have
love
. I did that once, and I’ll never do it again.”

“Are you in love with him?” Buc said, indicating Trinity.

“No, but if he hadn’t come along to shake me out of the cocoon I let you and Uncle Grant build around me, I might never have known I wasn’t in love with you.”

“What you mean is if he hadn’t come along, you’d have married me and been happy about it. I don’t know what kind of lies he’s told you, but I promise hell pay for every one of them.”

“Buc, you’ve got to promise me one thing. You, too, Uncle Grant.”

“Anything,” Buc said. Grant didn’t appear equally eager to commit himself.

“Neither of you will come after Trinity.”

“You
are
in love with him,” Buc growled.

“This has nothing to do with Trinity. I’m asking because of me. If you got killed, I’d never forgive myself. You’re the only people in the world who love me enough to risk your lives for me. Do you know how precious that makes you?” Her eyes filled with tears. “If I lost you two, I’d have nobody.”

“But we can’t just let you go back to Texas and forget about you.”

“There must be a way to find out who killed Jeb. You can work on that while Trinity goes after Gillet. But make sure Buc’s all right first. Promise?”

“Okay.”

“I don’t promise,” Buc said angrily.

“Buc, you so much as lay one hand on Trinity, and I’ll never speak to you again.”

“I knew you were in love with him.”

“To hell with Trinity,” Victoria snapped angrily. “I’m talking about you. Trinity can get himself shot to ribbons or beaten to a pulp. That’s no concern of mine, but you are. I don’t want you hurt, and I don’t want men like Trinity coming after you for the rest of your life. You’ve got to promise you’ll leave him alone. Promise. If you don’t, you’ll have to leave the ranch.”

Buc looked to Grant for support, but he didn’t get it. “She’s right. As much as I like you, as much as I hoped you two would marry, I can’t have my foreman on the run from the law.”

Buc looked cornered.

“Okay, but you haven’t heard the last of me,” Buc said, turning on Trinity in helpless rage. “I vow to see your kind wiped from the face of the earth.”

“Be careful of vows” Trinity advised, no anger in his voice. “I made one, not very different from yours, and it has consumed my life.”

“I mean it. I swear it on my mother’s grave.”

“I swore on my father’s.”

“This is no time for vows, old or new,” Victoria broke in. “Get him to a doctor, Uncle Grant. Make sure he’s completely well before you let him out of your sight. See you in Texas.”

“Trinity—” Grant started to say.

“I know. If anything happens to her, half the world will be on my tail.”

“You can count on it. She’s all I’ve got.”

“You ought to choose your next victim more carefully,” Buc said. “One without friends or relatives.”

“There won’t be another
victim,”
Trinity practically snarled.

“There’ll always be another one for men like you,” Buc said, too full of wrath to listen to Trinity, or to believe him if he had. “And one more after that until somebody kills you. It’s in your blood, like a dog turned killer. You can’t give it up.”

But Victoria heard the smothered emotion behind the snarl in Trinity’s voice. Was it bitterness, exhaustion, frustration, or disgust? She couldn’t tell. She turned to Trinity, her eyes full of questions, her nerves strained.

Did he really mean he would give up this hideous pursuit of death? If so, did it have anything to do with her?

Chapter Fourteen

Trinity saw the questions in her eyes. Victoria was certain he knew what she wanted to ask, but he turned away.

“We’ve got to be going if we’re going to make my next camp,” he said.

Victoria controlled the feeling of excitement growing inside her. Trinity
did
mean it, otherwise he wouldn’t have looked away, but he wasn’t willing to discuss it. Not now. Not in front of Buc and her uncle. But there would be time before they reached Bandera.

Plenty of time.

Neither Buc nor Grant would be the first to turn his back on Victoria, so she took the reins of Buc’s horse and started it down the trail. “Make sure you do everything the doctor says. Wounds like this can easily become infected. I’ll be expecting you in a few weeks. And don’t worry about me. You can be sure Trinity will get me to Texas in one piece. He’s already given you a good sample of what he can do.”

“I suppose so,” Grant said, but he looked unhappy.

“Go on” Victoria said as she slapped the horse’s haunches. “Go find that doctor.”

Victoria watched as a few minutes later her uncle gathered his men. Several of them were vociferous in their objections to leaving Victoria in Trinity’s keeping. After a heated argument, Red saddled his horse and rode away at a gallop.

His departure took the life out of the crew’s resistance. Dispirited, they mounted up and started back along the trail. Many of them turned back for a last look. Victoria waved to each one, smiling as though she were absolutely certain she’d done the best thing for everybody. Rather than the only thing she could do.

“I’m ready,” Victoria said, turning to Trinity after the last of her uncle’s men had passed from view. “You don’t have to tie my hands and feet. I won’t try to escape.”

“Maybe, but I’d feel a little more comfortable with you tied.”