Explaining Herself (36 page)

Victoria glared at him. Then she turned her bright gaze to Laramie. "But I took photographs," she pleaded. "Pictures of the rustlers blotting brands."

Sheriff Ward, though tied and gagged, turn to glare silent accusations at his deputy.

Laramie stared down at her. She'd put herself at risk to take photographs of the rustlers?
Was she a lunatic
¹
?

If so, she was a lunatic with what might be important evidence, assuming photographs were admissible in court. She was exactly the kind of lunatic he had figured her for, both at Hole-in-the-Wall and Stuart MacCallum's sheep ranch. And she was a lunatic asking
him,
not Alden Wright, for help.

"Please let's go back?" With him turned back in his saddle and her leaning around to better meet his gaze
—with her hands still on his hips, fingers brushing the crease where his dungarees folded onto his thigh—the moment felt almost intimate.

Ross looked at Alden Wright. "Cover them."

"Me?" Wright's surprise hardly inspired confidence.

Ross stared him down. "Do not get close to them."

Then he reined Blackie back in the direction they'd come. Just him and Victoria Garrison.

He wondered if she knew how tightly she was holding him.

He didn't kill the sheriff,
Victoria reminded herself.
And the sheriff even murdered Julie. Surely Alden
—

But she
wasn't
sure. That's why telling Ross posed such a risk. Staying silent, though, risked no less than
his
trust. Ross had kept his promise and come back, at the best possible t
ime. He'd saved her from a fate
she feared to imagine. How could she
not
trust him?

"Ross?" Victoria bowed her head so that her forehead touched his spine, through his long, black duster.
Like praying.
He filled her arms, her heart, every dream she had.

If that didn't deserve prayer, what did?

He did not say
What?
But she felt his interest in the shifting tensions of his body against hers.

"I have to tell you something. I don't want to tell you, because I'm afraid of how you'll react. But as long as I'm afraid of how you'll react, then it's not right to pursue anything further, and I've
got
to pursue this further. Sensible or not, I've got to. So I have to tell you."

He tensed beneath her hands, so taut that he almost vibrated with it. But he also managed to say, low and raspy, "Go on."

"It's just that, after you left, I realized ..." She felt like a traitor, even to hesitate. "I realized that you wanted to know who seduced Julie in order to get revenge. Didn't you?"

It felt like hugging a tree, all hard muscle and hardened heart. 'Yes," he admitted.

So much for explaining that away. "But you decided not to."

He hesitated before admitting, 'Yes."

See? She took a deep breath of him. "Because of me."

He said nothing.

"Well, I'm going to ask you to do that again. I mean, to
not
do anything. Because of me. I
—" Oh God. If she were wrong, and got Alden Wright killed, how would she live with herself?

But if she let her need for proof get in the way of what her heart already knew, insulted him with her distrust, how could she live without him? She loved Ross. Beyond words, b
eyond reason. She loved his sup
port when Kitty was hurt. She loved his protection when they surprised the stranger by the creek, when he rescued her today. She loved his wounded heart and his steady spirit.

So she told him. "I want you not to hurt Alden."

Now it felt like hugging a rock. He said nothing. His only movements were the tiny adjustments in his arms and legs as he guided the horse to retrace the route of her capture.

Victoria considered asking him to promise before she said anything more. That would be safer for Alden. But it would also be manipulative; she would never know his real decision unless he had full freedom to kill Julie's lover.

He didn't kill the sheriff, though.
Ward deserved punishment for what he'd done to Julie, far more than Alden did, but Ross hadn't executed the man himself. He was good.

"You should know that after you left. . . ," she began
—then recognized a rock formation. "There!"

Ross's body jumped beneath her hands. Feeling cowardly to welcome the distraction, she quickly slid off Blackie's rump and hurried to the base of the rocks, searching through undergrowth. It had to be here. She knew this was the place
—

Ah! With a cry of triumph, she lifted her prize by its leather strap. "Here it is!" she exclaimed happily, turning back to Ross. "We've got proof
—"

But she stopped at the sight of his blank face.

Nothing about how he'd schooled his features hinted at emotion. His brows, his mouth, how he held his head as he watched her seemed more indifferent than the first time she ever saw him. But the brightness in his deep-set eyes, behind his indifference, and the pallor of his dark face shook her.

She saw the pain behind the mask. "What's wrong?"

He looked sharply aw
ay, so that she had only a pro
file of sharp nose, angled jaw, high cheek. A muscle in his throat twitched, giving him away, and she stepped to his side, reached up to touch his leg. "Ross, what's
wrong?"

He shook his head, reached down to lift her back up onto the horse.

She backed away from his hand. "No. I'm not going until you tell me what's wrong."

He glared at her then, and his dark, greenish eyes were bright. Bright with agony. Bright with accusation. Bright with despair. He swallowed and managed to say, "I'll go."

What?
She wished she understood. It felt cruel, after his obvious effort, to ask him for even more words, but she had to know. "Go where?"

He glared.

"Go to town without me?" she tried as she looped the camera up over her shoulder. Maybe if she gave him options
—

But he just looked angrier.

"Go ... ?" Where else was th
ere? "Back to die ar
royo, to let the cattle loose?"

He tipped his head back, turned his face to a glimpse of sky through the trees. When he parted his lips, an almost inhuman cry shuddered out of him.

She'd never heard anything so hurt as that cry. Somehow, it shook with every bit of ugliness
—lynch mobs, and dead girls, and murderers; range wars and self-defense and missing mothers—that had tried to destroy him. As die pain of it washed past her, through her, she wondered if anyone else could have endured as long as he had and
not
want to commit murder.

Then, as if he'd cleared a dam, he talked
—leaning out of his Texas saddle to bend over her, throwing the words at her like rocks. "I'll go
away,
Victoria. From here. You can have your Alden Wright, your—your
cattle fortunes, and
—and all his educated words. If you want them, take them. Just get your beautiful butt back up on this goddamned horse and let me bring you home first, all right? I want..."

He looked sharply away then, and muttered the last of it. "I just want to see you safely home."

She stared up at him, speechless. Not because he'd taken the Lord's name in vain. Not even because of how many words he'd strung together. Because he believed
—

"You think I want Alden Wright?"

He peeked quickly back at her, dark eyes wary. "You
—"

"Alden Wright?"
she repeated. "If you could see my list of why I would never seriously consider Alden Wright, even you could not say that with a straight face. How could you think I would want Alden Wright?"

Ross searched her face, as if for a hint that she was lying. About
this?

"Get down here," she told him.

'You don't want me to hurt him," he reminded her, an accusation. "You said you want to pursue it further."

Clearly, words would not work for this. "Ross Laurence, you get off that horse right now."

He seemed reluctant now, as if she would attack him.

Wise man. "If you love me," she warned, "you'll get off that horse."

To her delight, Ross slowly lifted his leg over Blackie's rump and dismounted. Then he turned to face her, all planes and hardness and walls. Walls against her. Walls against his own feelings. Walls against all their possibilities.

But he got off the horse.

She stepped up against him, reached for the back
o
f his neck, and drew his head down to where, on tiptoes, she could just barely kiss him. "I love you, too."

It felt wonderful, kissing him again. It felt right. But the fact that he didn't move his mouth against hers
— that she was the only one doing the kissing—left something to be desired.

"I don't understand." But he said it leaning toward her. He didn't straighten to where she could not reach his mouth again.

Since he was at least cooperating that far, she wrapped her arms around his middle instead. She liked that better because she could slide her arms inside his duster and pull herself more tightly against his shirt
—feel his ribs against her breasts, brace her skirted leg against his own. He'd come back to her, and they loved each other, and when she kissed him this time, he kissed her back.

But he was still hesitant.
Controlled.

"I don't
—" he protested, and when she tried to kiss him a third time, he actually straightened away from her. Well, away from her mouth. She was affixed to the front of him. "Please, Victoria," he protested, his voice caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "Please talk to me."

"I don't want Alden Wright," she confirmed, craning her head up to keep looking at him. He'd tipped his face sharply down to look at her, too.

"Then why would I want to hurt him?"

"Because . . ." Oh dear. But if she could trust him with anything, she had to trust him with this, no matter what Alden had begged. "Because I was wrong about his age. Alden was sixteen when Julie was fifteen. Ross,
he's
her sweetheart."

Ross stood very still within her embrace, staring down at her, expression blank. "He what?"

"That's what I found out, after you left. He's the
one who brought flowers to her grave, and he bribed the undertaker to add that line from "Clementine" to her tombstone. He swears he loved her, and he didn't know about the child, and he never knew she tried to see him after the lynchings. And I believe him. So I'm asking you not to do anything to him, because you're a good man and because if you do now it will be partly my fault for telling you. But I
had
to tell you. I
—I have to trust you, and I
do,
even with this. Or else it's not really love at all, and it
must
be. I don't want you to go anywhere. And if you have to go, I want to come with you. So that's what—"

"Victoria," interrupted Ross softly.

At least he was blinking again. She balanced on the very tip of her tiptoes, trying to get closer to the face bent above her, and wished she were even a little taller. "What, Ross?"

He kissed her.

Chapter Twenty-five

Alden Wright seduced Julie?

After eleven years, that simple answer shattered into a rock slide of further questions. Victoria didn't want him taking vengeance, but she also believed Wright's overdue claim of love. Last time Laramie checked, true love did not impregnate, betray, and abandon. His own responsibility to Julije's memory had kept him alive, had brought him to Sheridan. And yet.. .

He'd come to Sheridan for a different reason this time.

Victoria
didn't
want Alden Wright?

Two worlds dragged at him, promises from his past, dreams for his future, equally complicated. But Wright wasn't here and Victoria was, saying his name, lifting her earnest face toward his
—and she wanted
him.

She loved him.

Laramie covered her beautiful, sweet mouth with his own and chose her, worshiped her with his kiss.

Her affection tasted
—felt—so delicious that he trembled with it. She really wanted
him!

He felt such relief, gratitude, such joy that he laughed into her mouth.

She drew back, startled. Then she laughed too.

"Sorry," he whispered, ducking his head.