Arizona Embrace (21 page)

He had been with many women, but he’d always gone on his way immediately afterward. He’d never been with a woman for days at a time. He’d never had the chance to discover them as people. He had never had the time, or the desire, to explore their bodies, to run his hands over every part of them, to luxuriate in their closeness. Their meetings had been urgent and over quickly.

But something felt different this time. The feel of her skin—the curve of flesh over bone, the give of the soft spots, the hard places where her bones lay just beneath the skin—defined Victoria. Each part had its own fascination, its own allure.

This surprised Trinity. It added a whole new dimension to his appreciation of a woman’s body.

He turned Victoria over on her back and slowly began to knead the muscles in her slim, delicate neck; a neck too fragile to withstand the jerk of the hangman’s rope.

Forcing that thought from his mind, Trinity’s hands moved to her shoulders. The muscles were hard as iron. Even with the insistent pressure of his fingers, it took several minutes before he could feel the tension begin to leave her shoulders.

As the minutes passed, Trinity experienced more than just desire racing from his fingertips to every part of his body. Again, a sensual appreciation rooted in feeling close to Victoria, a feeling of sharing, of being needed rather than the bare drive for sexual gratification, coursed through him.

He was so enthralled by this revelation he forgot what he was doing with his hands.

He touched Victoria’s thigh.

Chapter Eleven

“Move your hand.” Victoria sounded very much awake and very much aware of what Trinity was doing.

The unexpected command caused him to jerk his hand back faster than if he’d touched a hot stove. His reaction made him angry and guilty.

He hadn’t done anything improper, but he knew his thoughts had gone much further than simply thinking about which muscles needed to be relaxed. He had begun to think of her as a very desirable woman; if she didn’t know it, he did.

“Did you imagine I was going to take advantage of you?” he asked, hoping his puckish grin would cover his discomfort. “You’re a very attractive woman, but I haven’t been reduced to forcing myself on helpless females.”

“I didn’t think you had,” Victoria answered, struggling to sit up. She leaned against the pillow he had put behind her and dragged herself into a sitting position. “If other women fall over themselves as fast as I did to believe every word you say, I would rather imagine you look upon this trip as something of a vacation.”

“You forget I’m a bounty hunter, scorned by man and beast alike.”

“Unfortunately I can’t forget it for even a moment, but I’ve no doubt there are plenty of females who wouldn’t let that dissuade them.”

“What an odd woman you are. One minute you accuse me of being so vile the entire human race has turned its back on me. The next you’re saying half the women in the world can’t resist me. Do you consider your own sex to be so weak minded?”

“Yes. I used to think I was a very strong-minded, clear-headed thinker. I thought marrying Jeb and being convicted of something I didn’t do had knocked all the idealistic nonsense out of me. I guess I’m more romantic than I thought. If, after all that, I can’t separate what is from what I would like to be, I can’t expect other women, who haven’t gone through such harrowing experiences, to be any less credulous.”

“Why do you continue to maintain your innocence?”

“Why do you keep trying to make me believe you’re not taking me back for money?”

“Because it’s true.”

“That’s my reason as well.”

“But you were convicted by a jury.”

“And you’ve been convicted by circumstantial evidence, the same kind of evidence, by the way, that convicted me.”

“We won’t get anywhere talking about this. They didn’t ask me to decide whether or not you were guilty. They just wanted someone to bring you back.”

“And you don’t care that you may cause an innocent woman to hang.”

Trinity’s gaze locked with hers. “If I believed you were innocent, I’d try even harder to make sure you remained free.”

Trinity’s eyes remained hard and unyielding, but Victoria felt an upsurge of hope. She knew by now Trinity would stick with anything he believed in, even if he had to lie and cheat to do it. He had done that to capture her. She believed he would do it to defend her.

But was there any hope of convincing him of her innocence? Probably not. He had closed his mind to the idea. She would have to wait until Buc and her uncle showed up. It might be better if she changed her behavior. If he were just a little less vigilant, she might be able to escape while he fought them off.

“But you’re not innocent,” Trinity continued. “Jeb’s stepbrother Kirby and Judge Blazer saw you with the gun.”

“Kirby saw me holding the gun
after
he ran out of the house
after
he heard the shot,” Victoria said. “I noticed it on the ground after I realized Jeb was dead. I foolishly picked it up thinking it was Jeb’s gun. I thought he must have shot himself.”

“Where did it come from if not from you?”

“I don’t know. The killer must have tossed it there after he shot Jeb.”

“And you didn’t hear it hit the ground?”

“I don’t remember the gun being there when I knelt over Jeb, but it wouldn’t have mattered when it was dropped. I wouldn’t have heard it. They were having a party in the house—they always seemed to be having a party—and there was a lot of noise, music, people laughing and talking. Judge Blazer had had a dance floor set up outside. Their boots and shoes made a dreadful racket on the wood floor.”

“You’re trying to make me believe someone shot Jeb the moment you turned your back, tossed the gun to the ground while you bent over his body, and fled without you seeing or hearing anything?”

“I know it sounds preposterous, but I was extremely upset. I wasn’t paying much attention. I had just had a terrible argument with the man I’d married only seven days earlier.”

“What was it about?”

“The same thing we always argued about. All he wanted to do was get drunk and stay up all night with his friends. I could understand one or two nights, but Jeb always seemed to be going to a party, or giving one. He started having them every night after his father announced our wedding date.

“I used to think he’d settle down after we got married and pay some attention to the ranch. His father had been hurt a few years earlier when a steer gored his horse, and he needed Jeb’s help. But when he continued to get drunk after our wedding, I realized he had never grown up. I had to try to do something, or our marriage would be over before it even started.”

“So you killed him.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Victoria nearly shouted. There was no purpose. I still thought I could reason with him, but he shouted at me like some kind of servant. I was glad nobody heard the things he said.”

“Somebody must have heard?”

“What do you mean?”

“The man who killed him. He must have been close enough to hear what you said.”

“I suppose so. I never thought of that.”

“No wonder the jury convicted you. That story’s got more holes in it than a target after a turkey shoot. You say you were alone, but you didn’t shoot your husband. You say you don’t know where the gun came from, but you were holding it when they found you. You say no one overheard you, but you insist someone was close enough to kill your husband, throw the gun at his feet, and escape without you noticing. Would you believe that?”

“Not if you were on trial,” Victoria snapped. But her temper soon evaporated. “I don’t suppose I would. I know it sounds impossible, but it’s true nonetheless.”

Unaccountably Trinity found himself listening to what she said and evaluating it. If she were lying, wouldn’t she have come up with a better explanation? Even though that story had convicted her, she kept repeating it. She hadn’t changed so much as a word.

“They held the trial right away. Judge Blazer assigned me a lawyer who didn’t want me to be found innocent. I begged them to wait until Uncle Grant could get there, but they refused. They said they sent him my letters, but Uncle Grant never received them. When he did arrive, they wouldn’t let him or his lawyer see me. Judge Blazer wouldn’t grant a motion for a new trial. He wouldn’t even grant a stay of execution long enough for them to go over the transcripts. My own father-in-law was determined to see me hang.”

“They could have appealed to Austin.”

“Uncle Grant started to, but Judge Blazer swore he’d hang me before they could get back. That’s when Buc broke me out of jail.”

The coffee had nearly boiled away. There was just enough for one cup. Trinity gave it to Victoria and put on a pot for himself. He stirred the broth and added a few dried vegetables. It would be ready in about fifteen minutes.

“How did he do it?”

“He just walked in, took the key from the jailer, and we rode off in the middle of the night. We took the jailer with us so he couldn’t warn anyone.”

“You mean he just walked in? Nobody stopped him?”

“Nobody was expecting a jailbreak” Victoria said. “Buc came in sometime after midnight. He told the jailer my uncle had been taken with a bad heart spell and the doctor thought he was going to die. Since I was his only relative, he had to ask me what to do. The minute the jailer turned his back, Buc knocked him out. Uncle Grant was waiting behind the jail with the horses. Not a soul knew I was gone until daybreak.”

“What did the judge do?”

“He sent a posse after us, but we were out of Texas before they found our trail. They sent some other bounty hunters after me, but Uncle Grant and Buc managed to buy them off or run them off.”

“I’m not a bounty hunter.”

“And I’m not a felon.”

“I guess this is what you call a stalemate.”

“I don’t see how you can call it a stalemate when you hold all the cards,” Victoria replied. “You may not like being called a bounty hunter, but you could change that by letting me go. I don’t like the thought of being hanged, but what I want isn’t going to change anything.”

“The broth is ready” Trinity said, unwilling to pursue that argument. The more he talked to Victoria, the more uneasy he became. Reason told him she was guilty, but instinct whispered she might not be.

He had always been a man to trust his instincts, but how could he trust them now? She had destroyed his objectivity. He couldn’t differentiate between what instinct told him was true and what he wanted the truth to be.

Don’t think. Do your job. Get her to Bandera and forget her
.

But that was impossible. Traveling at her side for hours had been torture enough, holding her in his arms, touching her, running his hands over her body had completely unraveled what was left of the iron restraint he habitually practiced around women.

In just two days on the trail, he had become intensely conscious of her presence. No, that had happened the first day he helped her with her survey. It intensified the afternoon he held her in his arms, but another element had been added, an emotion much more dangerous than mere physical attraction.

Sympathy.

He found himself wishing Victoria were innocent. He couldn’t believe the foolish story she told, but he
wanted
to believe it. He didn’t know a thing about the Judge or Jeb or Kirby, but he wanted to believe they had somehow been at fault instead of Victoria.

He had to stop this before he completely disregarded the jury’s decision, the evidence, the sentence. The turmoil boiled inside him; this debilitating battle between desire and principle was tearing him apart.

Had he lost his absolute certainty of her guilt?

He knew he didn’t
want
her to be guilty, but did he still
believe
she had killed her husband? That question was crucial. Without this certainty, his mission had no moral justification; without such a justification, he would never have taken her from Mountain Valley.

He didn’t know what he believed any more. He had only to look at her and nothing else seemed important. What did right and duty and self-respect mean when set against her life? Or his own peace of mind?

He was caught. No matter which way he turned, he would never know peace of mind where she was concerned.

Every time he tried to ignore her, his every sense seemed to focus on her presence. If he talked to her, she made him question her guilt. Half the time she made him so angry he wished he could hand her over to the sheriff right now. The other half of the time he wished Texas were on the other side of the world.

He could no longer control his response to her, and that scared him.

The sooner he got away from her the better.

“What are you going to do when my uncle comes?” Victoria asked when she had finished eating. She still hadn’t moved from where Trinity set her down.

“Maybe he won’t catch up with us.”

“He will.”

“Maybe we’ll be in Texas before that happens. I’ve been deputized by Sheriff Sprague, so it’ll be against the law for him to interfere with me.”