Arizona Embrace (20 page)

For God’s sake, woman, he’s your jailer! How can you feel that way about him?

She didn’t know, but she did.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll try to escape if you don’t tie my hands?”

“No. I’m tying your feet.”

Victoria tried to kick at him and lift her feet out of the way at the same time. But it was too late. He already had a rope around one ankle. He held the other in an iron-like grip.

“Do you enjoy forcing females to suffer indignities?” she demanded, unable to repress her resentment.

“I don’t know. I never had a female in custody before. Am I forcing you to accept indignities?”

“How can you ask such a question? You steal me away from my home, bind me hand and foot, haul me about like a bag of pecans, force me to go without a proper change of clothes, refuse to allow me to wash or brush my teeth, force me to sleep in the open—”

“Would you prefer a cave?”

“—and then throw me into the saddle before I’ve had a swallow of coffee or a mouthful of food.”

“I warned you we were short of time,” Trinity said.

“There’s no point in talking to you. You have no feelings, not for yourself or anybody else.”

“Not in the least,” Trinity replied with cheerful sarcasm. “I like being in the saddle all day and sleeping on rocks at night and eating over a campfire. I make myself go out on the trail at least once a year so I won’t become too comfortable living at my ranch.”

“You own a ranch?” Victoria asked, jolted out of her train of thought. “Bounty hunting must pay better than I drought.”

Trinity jerked the rope around her ankle so tightly she winced in pain. He loosened it again, but she promised herself to think before she spoke next time. He looked like he wanted to break her neck and throw her body into a ravine.

“I paid for that ranch with money I earned working small claims up and down mountains of Colorado. It took me more than ten years. It doesn’t owe one cent to bounty hunting.”

“I’ll believe that when you believe I had nothing to do with Jeb’s murder,” Victoria said, glad to find a blade she could twist in his guts.

“Let’s get started,” Trinity said abruptly. “It’ll soon be daylight.”

Victoria swayed in the saddle. She had drifted in and out of consciousness all afternoon. Trinity had driven her unmercifully in his determination to get beyond the reach of her uncle. She would have traded her soul for just five minutes out of the saddle, but he ignored her pleas. Every time she tried to bring her horse to a halt, he would give it a cut on the rump with his reins. Now, having given up, she sagged in the saddle, not caring where they were or how far they had to go. She was glad he had tied her feet otherwise she would surely have fallen out of the saddle.

He had given her water as often as she had asked. For that she was profoundly thankful, even though she had to drink from a canteen and the water had grown warm and stale-tasting as the day wore on. He had also given her some jerky to chew on as she rode. She didn’t think she could ever be thankful for that. She pitied anybody who had to live on it for weeks at a time.

Her twisted ankle no longer hurt, but stabbing pains radiated from her seat. Mercifully, her body had become numb to the pain hours ago, or she would surely have passed out. Victoria had always considered herself strong enough to withstand as much physical hardship as any man, but in the future, if she had any future, she would have much greater respect for anyone who could stay in the saddle for two days straight and still ride in comfort.

“When are we going to stop?” She didn’t have to open her eyes to know the sun had gone down. She could feel the air begin to cool.

“Another couple of hours ought to be enough.”

“It was enough twelve hours ago,” she mumbled. “I don’t see how you can do it.”

“You get used to it.”

“I don’t think I could. I never really understood what Perez and the men went through on a roundup.”

“You don’t know anything about rounding up cows until you’ve had to flush ornery mossy backs out of the Texas brush,” Trinity said. “Riding through hell would be easier.”

“I thought you said you worked in the mine fields.”

“I did, but I grew up in south Texas between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. I helped my daddy chase longhorns every day.”

Victoria’s mind felt like it was full of cotton. “I don’t understand. I thought you said you paid for your ranch by mining. Did you inherit it?”

She was too tired to see the dark rage which flashed in his eyes.

“I grew up on other people’s ranches until my daddy headed to Colorado and struck it rich. Well, not rich, but he found enough gold to buy his own spread. I couldn’t figure why he would head back to Texas and ranching, not after all the times he swore he hated it. But I guess the day comes when every man wants to go home.”

“Did you ever want to head back home?”

“I had a lot of reasons not to go back.”

“Probably a woman,” Victoria mumbled, hardly conscious of what she said.

“What makes you say that?”

Even through the waves of fatigue which threatened to engulf her, Victoria could feel Trinity tense up.

“Why else would you hate women so?” Victoria said. “I figure you ran into several bad ones. If you can’t go back home, one of them must have been there.”

“That’s rather good thinking.”

“It’s common sense. A man is most vulnerable to three women: his mother, his first love, and his wife. You said you weren’t married, and in spite of all the lies you’ve told, I believe you. No woman would stay with a man as unfeeling and selfish as you. Your mother died when you were young, maybe even at your birth. There’s no softness in you, none of the gentleness which would come from the woman who gave you birth and who would forgive you everything.

“A man never forgets the first woman he falls in love with no matter how much he might love his wife. Especially if she hurt him. He never forgives her either. How am I doing so far?”

“Are you sure you aren’t a gypsy?”

Victoria tried to laugh, but she didn’t have the energy.

“Men think they’re such mysterious creatures, but they’re all alike. A few variations here and there.”

“What makes you say that?”

“My mother died when I was born. My life was dominated by my father and my four uncles. When Daddy bought the Demon D, I was surrounded by more men. When I married Jeb, I was surrounded by still more. Then I came to Arizona. Still more men. You’re all alike,” she mumbled. “Every one of you. No feeling or understanding. Just a noisy show.”

It was well after nightfall when Trinity drew up to his camp. It had been more than a week since he had cached supplies here. He hoped no one had found them. He couldn’t afford the loss of time to go into town for more. Nor did he want to run the risk of someone recognizing Victoria. Quite a few men might be tempted to try to take Victoria from him for Judge Blazer’s thousand dollar reward. He didn’t want a fight if he could avoid it.

He looked down at Victoria, so exhausted she didn’t know he rode next to her, his arm around her waist holding her in the saddle. It was just as well. She’d probably claw his face again. It didn’t surprise him Jeb Blazer hadn’t been able to handle her. It would take a very strong man to tame this woman. And an even stronger one to capture her heart without caging her spirit. She was such a vital, passionate creature, so full of life. It felt strange to look at her now, a spent force garnering energy for the next explosion. How could anyone have believed she would be happy married to Jeb Blazer?

From all he’d been able to learn, Jeb had been a completely selfish young man, too preoccupied with his own pleasure to realize his youthful wife might have needs of her own. Even now, as she leaned against Trinity, she created a bonfire in his loins.

She must have had a similar effect on Buc. Even though he was overprotective, Buc must have been aware of her underlying sensuality. Maybe he was so protective because in the course of five years, passion had overcome protectiveness.

At least once.

The thought of Buc and Victoria in a passionate embrace caused such a surge of anger to rush through Trinity he nearly pulled her from the saddle. The force of his reaction stunned him. Why should he feel such anger? She wasn’t
his
woman.

But he wanted her to be. Riding next to her, holding her close, feeling the mound of her breast against his hand, inhaling the fragrance of her hair, he couldn’t think of anything else. Neither her past nor her future.

He couldn’t help but wonder if she would respond to his touch as passionately as she responded to life. Of course she couldn’t feel anything but anger and rage for the man who had abducted her. She certainly couldn’t believe he could feel anything for her except indifference. She would be certain everything else was a lie.

Would she have responded differently if he hadn’t kidnapped her? Could her response to him on the mountain have been merely a prelude to the passion she would have been willing to share with him later?

How could any woman who had known the pleasures to be found in a man’s arms deny herself for five years? He couldn’t have starved his body for that long. He thought of the faceless women with whom he had shared a fleeting passion. He wouldn’t know them again. He didn’t want to know them. They came together because each had something the other needed. They got what they came for, and that was the end of it.

Was that the way Victoria felt? He didn’t know, but he doubted it. Maybe she could sleep with Buc because she thought she loved him, but he didn’t believe she could sleep with just anybody. She felt things too intensely. Not like him. He didn’t feel anything at all. He hadn’t for years.

Why an you lying to yourself? You’re feeling something right now, something you’ve never felt for anybody, not even for Queenie. You felt it the first time you set eyes on Victoria. That’s why you’re holding her in the saddle. She could stay there alone. She has all day
.

He started to pull his arm away, but her warmth, her nearness, made it impossible. But it wasn’t merely the physical attraction which kept him at her side. He liked the feel of her in his arms, but he also liked the feel of his arm around her. It made him feel needed. After thirteen years of loneliness, he wanted to feel close to someone.

There was nothing wrong with letting down his resistance just a little bit.

Maybe he had let it down too much. Needs from deep inside him, needs he had denied for thirteen years, cried out to him. He didn’t know if he could turn them off again. Looking down at Victoria leaning into the curve of his arm, he didn’t know if he wanted to.

Trinity dismounted. For a minute he wasn’t sure his own legs would hold him, but years of training stood him in good stead. In a matter of seconds, he started to move as easily as always. He led the horses into camp. The first thing he did was untie Victoria’s bedding from the packhorse and lay it out on the part of the ground where the pine needles and leaves were the thickest. Then he untied the ropes binding Victoria’s wrists and ankles. The raw, inflamed flesh of her wrists reproached him. He never meant to do anything like that.

Carefully he eased her from the saddle and laid her on the blanket. She moaned when he stretched her legs out, but she didn’t move. Going to his saddle bags, he untied his bedding gear and searched inside until he found a small tin of salve. He rubbed this into the inflamed skin of each wrist. He hated to tie her up each day, but he didn’t know how else to protect her from herself. If she escaped, she’d probably die.

She looked so pitiful lying there with her legs twisted beneath her. Trinity tried to make her more comfortable, but she only groaned. Her legs were so stiff they wouldn’t bend.

Trinity pulled off her boots and began to knead the muscles in her calf. They were as hard as corded wood. With gentle but firm pressure he began to work the muscles, pressing hard, pressing deep to loosen the tension. Victoria groaned and tried to move away from him, but Trinity continued his ministrations.

He shifted to the other calf. He could hardly believe anyone could become so tense just from riding. He had done it for years, and he never had more than a momentary stiffness.

But as he worked Victoria’s muscles loose, he felt his own tighten. He became so aroused his pants got uncomfortably tight. Self-consciously, Trinity rearranged himself so he didn’t feel like he was being cut in two. Reacting like a teenager on his first date made him feel a little foolish, but he hadn’t been so aroused in years.