Arizona Embrace (9 page)

“Just like when you were eight,” Victoria said with a chuckle. She found a pinecone and tossed it at Trinity. He caught it, but the points stuck in him so badly he dropped it.

“More like six or seven,” he said as he lobbed it back. “I matured early.”

“I guess that makes you an old man by now.”

“If you’re going to start on my age again, I’m not going to talk at all,” Trinity threatened. “Who knows, I might grow so old by nightfall I won’t be able to make it home on my own.”

“Since I’m in the bloom of youth, I’ll help you.”

“Not with broken bones you won’t.”

“How ungallant,” Victoria responded with feigned shock.

“You don’t think comparing me to Father Time is ungallant? A man’s age is a sensitive thing. A woman’s fate may depend on her beauty, but a man’s fate often depends on his strength and quickness as well as his youth.”

“You don’t think brains count for much?”

Trinity helped her up. She brushed off her skirt.

“Yes, but unfortunately most young men don’t put much store by brains. They haven’t had enough experience to know better.”

Victoria had started toward her horse, but the bitterness in his voice caused her to direct a sharp look at him.

“Do you have something particular in mind, or is that a general observation?”

“General,” he said, deciding to turn the conversation to something else. He didn’t want to go into his past. He didn’t want his foolishness exposed, but the buried vitriol pushed its way to the surface, and his anger and frustration poured out.

“You’ve been complaining about being looked after and cared for and worried about until it’s about to drive you crazy. But men are taught to do that
by women
. By our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts! Everybody keeps telling us how we have to honor a good woman, cherish her, protect her from harm, give up our lives for her, until we can’t think any other way.”

“It sounds like your education was a little excessive, but I don’t see how—”

“Nobody ever tells us about the other women.”

“Other women?”

The ones who’ll cut your throat, or lie to you, or take everything you’ve got as quick as a man. They don’t teach you how to tell the good ones from the bad. All the women who hang out in saloons aren’t bad, and all the women who go to church on Sunday aren’t good. But nobody tells us that. They just keep telling us to worship at a woman’s feet until we can’t do anything else.

“Of course the day comes when you meet your first
other
woman. And she takes advantage of everything you’ve been taught. It’s as easy as taking candy from a baby. Before you know it, you’re in so deep you don’t know which way is out. Half the time you wouldn’t get out if you could. Until the morning you wake up and find it’s all been a lie.

“And do those
good
women help you then? Not a bit. They push you down farther. They tell you she was a bad woman and it was your own fault for putting yourself in her way. You deserved what you got. You’ll know better in the future. In fact, some of them are so helpful they want to keep you from having any contact with a good woman. Like that’s going to solve anything.”

Trinity stopped abruptly, then took a long, slow breath as if to regain control of his stampeding emotions.

“I wanted you to talk to me, but I didn’t know you were going to explode. I should have thrown a rock at you earlier.”

“Sorry” Trinity replied more calmly. “You hit a sore spot.”

“So I see.”

Trinity helped her into the saddle.

“You want to tell me about it?”

“I don’t know why I mentioned it. It happened fifteen years ago.”

“People can get hurt just as much at sixteen as any other age. Probably more,” Victoria added. “You have so little knowledge at that age. And no thick hide to dull the blows when they come.”

“I certainly didn’t have one, but I guess that was my own fault. You don’t want to talk about my callow youth,” Trinity said, mounting up. He didn’t want to recall an incident which, after fifteen years, still had the power to make him feel stupid.

“Girls want things that can do them just as much harm as the things boys want. I thought I wanted a husband who was handsome and rich and rebellious, but I only had to be married to Jeb for one hour to realize I had made a mistake. Only problem is, there’s no way for a girl to escape her mistakes. A boy can go West, but what can a girl do?”

Chapter Five

“Run away and become an actress,” Trinity answered, his devil-may-care smile banishing the solemnity of their discussion. “With that glorious head of red hair and your wonderful skin, men would pay to see you even if you had a stammer and a squint.”

Victoria nearly choked on a gurgle of laughter. It was just as well—it helped to disguise her extreme pleasure at Trinity’s modest compliment. She felt herself grow warm about the face; something fluttered in her stomach; her nerve endings were suddenly alive and sending messages at a frantic rate.

“I could see a stammer. It might be thought affecting, but surely not a squint.”

“A squint. They would all think you were winking at them.”

“Are men so susceptible to a wink?”

“They are when a woman like you does the winking.”

Victoria longed to have Trinity explain to her why her winks would be so entrancing, but she knew that would be indulging in pure vanity. With a considerable effort, she compelled herself to forego that pleasure, but the effort brought forth a sigh of regret.

“Unfortunately I didn’t have your bold vision. I reached the conclusion I had no way out.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. It was done for me, though it nearly cost me my life.”

“Do you know who murdered your husband?”

“No. Everybody was around, but nobody was
there.”

The sound of a rider coming toward them along the trail distracted Trinity’s attention. He thought nothing of it until he saw Victoria tense and grow pale. She pulled her horse off the trail and into the shadow of a large boulder. Seconds later Buc rounded a bend up ahead, and Trinity watched Victoria visibly relax.

The men of Mountain Valley Ranch weren’t the only ones wary of strangers.

“What are you doing over this way?” Victoria asked. “I thought you were at the other end of the valley.”

“I came to ride home with you. We can’t have Trinity hogging all your time. Pretty soon hell start to think it’s his right, and the rest of us won’t get so much as a smile.”

“I don’t think Mr. Smith is particularly anxious to monopolize my company. I even had to take him to task for not talking to me. There were times when I thought he’d forgotten I was here.”

“He’d have to be dead to do that,” Buc said. “There’s not a man who’s ever set eyes on you who isn’t counting the minutes until hell see you again.”

Trinity dropped back to allow them to ride abreast. After a few minutes he didn’t even hear Buc’s fulsome compliments. He had wanted to hear Victoria’s version of what happened that night, and he cursed the jealous temperament that made Buc ride thirty miles across the valley for a thirty minute ride home with Victoria.

He was also extremely angry at himself for mentioning Queenie. He had told himself it didn’t matter any more. He hadn’t spoken of her to a living soul since his father’s death.

Now, in one brief, unanticipated conversation, the bitterness and anger came spurting to the surface. But worse than that, he had been so weak as to tell it to someone else.
To another woman
.

In all the years since it happened, he’d never lost control. What kind of hold did this woman have over him? He’d never manage to fulfill his mission if he didn’t get his response to Victoria under control.

Or cut it off altogether.

“Tell me about the places you’ve been,” Victoria asked.

They were on their way home after another long day and had stopped at one of Victoria’s favorite spots, an outcropping of rock which afforded them a view up and down the length of the valley.

They stood side by side, next to their horses, not looking at each other—that would have been too dangerous—but at the distant mountains. In the pristine mountain air, Trinity could see with amazing clarity peaks nearly a hundred miles away.

The sun had burned away the mist, and everything below stood out in fine detail. The lighter green of maples and aspen against the darker shades of pine and fir were as vibrant as a magnificent painting. White fleabane, rose-colored asters, and the brilliant yellow of poppies, goldenrod, and sunflowers splashed colors across a landscape dominated by brown and green.

In such a spot, it was possible to feel like they were the only two people in the world.

Trinity knew they shouldn’t linger. He had already proven he couldn’t control his feelings when it came to Victoria. Just knowing he was alone with her, close to her, made his muscles ache with delicious tension. He could feel his fingers nervously flex at the thought of touching her.

Only her horse stood between them.

“There’s not much to tell,” Trinity replied, deciding to make the story of his life brief and his description of the places he’d been unglamorous. “All towns look pretty much alike. And people aren’t much different no matter where you find them.”

“I’ve never been anywhere. I grew up on my father’s ranch, moved to my husband’s, and then to my uncle’s. I’ve never seen anything but cows, and I’ve never talked to anybody but cowboys.”

“Most of what’s out there isn’t worth the trouble. It’s certainly not worth exchanging for a place such as this.”

Victoria looked at him across her saddle. “You can say that because you’ve seen it for yourself. I haven’t
seen
anything. I don’t
know
anybody. No matter what Uncle Grant tells me, I know there’s more to this world than Mountain Valley Ranch.”

“Most women live out their lives on some farm or ranch.”

“But they know they can leave if they want,” Victoria said. “I can’t. Not ever. It makes me feel absolutely desperate sometimes.”

“Not too desperate I hope.”

Victoria laughed despite the gravity of the subject. “Not desperate enough to let somebody take me back to Texas, if that’s what you mean. Missing something is quite different than being cut off from it altogether.”

Trinity couldn’t resist her laugh. He turned to Victoria, a quirky smile on his lips.

“I wouldn’t recommend visiting friends in Texas just now, but I don’t see why you have to stay here if you don’t want to. There are lots of places you could go. I doubt anybody outside of Texas has heard of you. You could go to London or Paris. Even New York. There’re so many people there nobody would find you, even if they were to come looking.”

“I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before,” Victoria said, excitement shining in her eyes. “You can defend me.”

“No, I can’t,” Trinity stated flatly. I’m not a lawyer.”

Victoria laughed at him. “And you’re not an ignorant cowpoke either, even if you do try to talk like one when you remember.”

It was impossible for him to concentrate when she laughed. It simply engulfed him. Her smile teased and tempted him, but there was a timbre in her voice which invited him to share something intimate with her.

“Maybe not,” he said, trying to push every sensation out of his mind, “but that’s a far cry from knowing the law and how to use it.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything with the law. I want you to organize an investigation into Jeb’s murder. You would hire detectives to collect the evidence and lawyers to present it in court.”

“But …”

She came around her horse and stood in front of him, her eyes looking up at his. “Don’t say no, at least not yet. Think about it.”

Trinity forced himself to step back. If he stayed that close to her a minute longer, he wouldn’t be able to think of anything but her eyes … or her lips. He might not even be able to think at all.

“Have you talked to your uncle about this?”

“Several times, but he doesn’t think it would do any good. Neither does Buc. They think I ought to be content with things as they are.”

“And you can’t be?”

“How would you feel if everybody thought you were a murderer who was only alive because your uncle broke you out of jail?” Her glorious blue eyes entreated him to help her. How could any man resist such a look?

“There’s not a man on this ranch who believes you’re guilty.”

“They’ve all been wonderful, but there’s not one of them who believes a pretty woman
can
commit a crime.”

“An investigation could cost a lot of money.”

“My inheritance will cover the costs.”

“If you’ve got plenty of money, why’re you wasting time with me? You ought to hire a professional.”

“How do I know he wouldn’t turn against me? No one seems able to stand up to Judge Blazer.”

“How do you know I could?”

She gazed directly into his eyes. “I just do.”