Arizona Embrace (24 page)

“You speaking for Buc as well?”

“Buc works for me. He does what I say.”

“That’s a pretty decent offer. Could you give me some time to think about it?” Trinity asked.

Victoria’s unbelieving glance flew to Trinity’s face. She had thought he would hold out until the bitter end.

“I’ll give you ten minutes. You let Victoria go before then, and my men will swear you never set foot in Mountain Valley.”

“I’m glad you came to your senses,” Victoria said as Trinity approached her. There was no way you could succeed.”

Trinity whipped the handkerchief from around his neck and folded it over several times. “You don’t know me very well yet. When you do, you’ll know I never give up.”

Without warning, he took Victoria’s jaw in his hands and squeezed. Her mouth popped open, and before she could close it again, he stuffed the handkerchief in her mouth.

“I’m not going to ask you if you’ll be quiet if I take the gag out, or if you’ll try to escape if I untie you. I’m going to throw you across your horse and hopefully get over that ridge before they realize we’re gone. When your uncle comes looking for us, he’ll find the nest empty.”

Trinity lifted Victoria over his shoulder. Her furious grunts only made him smile.

The breath left Victoria’s body with a painful whoosh when Trinity draped her over the saddle. In the agonizing minutes which followed, she vowed to pay him back for every tortured minute.

In the meantime, it was all she could do to breathe. She wondered if anybody could be carried this way for more than a few minutes and live. She felt her grip on consciousness slipping.

They hadn’t gone far when Victoria heard a shout behind them.

They’re gone.” It was Buc’s voice. The bastard has run out on us.”

“Damn!” Trinity said. “Looks like your uncle didn’t keep his word any more than I kept mine. Now we’re going to have to find a place to hole up and fight.”

Trinity mounted his horse and headed down the trail at a fast trot.

Victoria thought she would die. She was certain every rib in her body would break. She wondered if it might not be easier to hang. Certainly it would be faster.

This will have to do,” Trinity said a few minutes later, and mercifully the bouncing stopped. Victoria didn’t even mind being dropped roughly on the ground. After the agonizing ride, she didn’t feel it. Trinity took out the handkerchief.

“You’re going to need to talk, and I may not be in a position to get to you just when I need you.”

“What are you going to do?” Victoria demanded.

That depends on your uncle.”

“Where is he?”

“Coming down the trail right behind us.”

Trinity lifted his rifle and put a bullet into the ground in front of Grant’s horse. He had the pleasure of seeing the men scatter among the brush and trees along the trail.

That’s far enough, Davidge. I don’t want to put lead in anybody”

“Give up,” Grant shouted back. “Well surround you and pick you off.”

“Victoria will be sitting in front of me.”

“I never thought you would hide behind a woman,” Grant called.

“I mean to take Victoria back to Texas. I’ll get there any way I can. That first shot was a warning. I’m a properly sworn deputy in Texas. You’ll be breaking the law if you try to stop me.”

“We’re coming after you, Smith. Let my niece go.”

“If anybody comes after me, let him know I’ll shoot to kill.”

Trinity went over to Victoria and took the rope off her feet.

“What are you going to do?” She hoped fear didn’t show in her eyes. She had known Trinity could be hard, but she had never seen him cornered. Now she understood why he had never failed.

“We’re riding out. Anybody who follows takes his life in his hands.”

“But they’ll follow?

They’ll keep their distance.”

“For how long?”

That depends?”

“On what?”

“On how much of a chance they’re willing to take with your life.”

Trinity lifted Victoria into the saddle and tied her ankles beneath the horse. He tied her wrists to the pommel.

“You don’t mean for me to get away.”

“I don’t mean for you to fall off. We may have to run for it.”

This began the strangest day of Victoria’s life. Trinity led the way just as if they had been traveling in the normal way. If she twisted around in the saddle, she could see the group of riders led by her uncle. Every now and then they fanned out looking for a second trail, but they inevitably returned to the main trail, following like a pack train.

There were no shots. Victoria realized there wouldn’t be any, at least not as long as they kept to the narrow mountain trail. As long as her uncle’s men were unable to leave the trail, they couldn’t get a shot at Trinity. She was directly in their line of fire.

But that didn’t discourage her.

She knew Buc and her uncle would manage to free her. She also knew they would probably kill Trinity. No sooner had she accepted Trinity’s death as inevitable when she realized she didn’t want it. Despite all he had done, despite all she had threatened to do to him, she didn’t want to see him hurt. Maybe she felt there had been enough killing because of her…. Maybe she had gotten softer as she matured…. Maybe she had gotten to like him too much before he kidnapped her to hate him enough to want him dead.

But how could they free her without killing Trinity? Trinity wouldn’t let her go, not as long as he was physically capable of doing anything to prevent it.

She studied his back as she rode behind him. His strength of character appealed to her. It must be wonderful to spoil a man who didn’t need it, a man who could easily meet every demand you or anyone else made of him.

She could remember a time when she thought Jeb was all a man could ever be. She had dreamed of him holding her in his arms, kissing her, making love to her. It had excited her, but it had been the cool excitement of a young woman thinking of a coming event.

There was nothing cool about the way she felt about Trinity. Even now she was sweating despite the frosty mountain air. Nor was there the young girl’s eagerness to rush forward to another new and interesting experience; rather there was the feeling that if she stayed close to Trinity for too long, she would be changed forever.

Yet, she identified another feeling which surprised her. She was
angry
for Trinity. He had been badly hurt by some woman. He probably would have been a normal, cheerful, happily married man if that woman hadn’t broken him before he developed a character tough enough to withstand such hurt.

Because of what that unknown woman did, Trinity had passed a sentence on himself. One he didn’t deserve. One he couldn’t escape. Victoria understood and felt a bond of sympathy with him. Of course, Trinity wouldn’t admit to this—a man like him never admitted to any kind of weakness—but that didn’t make any difference. She knew it was there. In a strange way, his denial made her like him more. It made him seem … human. To the world, he was remorseless—without feeling for himself or his victims. Inside, he still hurt.

It seemed strange he could be hurt by anything. He had dropped into their valley and plucked her out against all odds. And now he kept her uncle and a dozen men at bay. He seemed not to care about her, her uncle, or himself. Only about doing a job.

Did pain do that to people? Could it turn her into a woman incapable of feeling love or joy? Or admitting she needed someone else?

The thought was chilling.

She understood now that Trinity must have a great capacity to care. Nothing else could have laid him open to such deep and long-lasting pain.

Unfortunately, his pain had twisted this caring into a need for revenge. Trinity might think he was performing a duty for society, but she knew he was revenging himself on other criminals because he couldn’t revenge himself on the only one that mattered.

The sound of a rifle shot brought Victoria out of her reverie.

Chapter Thirteen

Trinity’s shot into the air above Grant’s head jerked Victoria back to reality.

It’s time to eat” he called back to her uncle. “Make sure your men stay in camp.”

“I don’t want anything,” Victoria said as Trinity lifted her down from her horse. He set her up against a rock but didn’t untie her. She didn’t ask him to. It would be too much like begging.

“Suit yourself, but the horses are tired. And if you’ll remember, I didn’t get any breakfast.”

“I don’t care if you never eat again.”

“What a wonderful attitude that would make in a wife,” Trinity said, smiling in the way that made Victoria long to put a new set of scratches on his face. The others were beginning to heal and her conscience bothered her less. “Were you planning to refuse to feed your husband whenever he made you angry?”

“He wouldn’t make me that angry.”

“Who were you planning to marry, some meek bank clerk or a nervous accountant? I don’t care much for Buc, but I give him credit for some guts.”

“For the last time, I’m not going to marry Buc,” Victoria said.

“You’d better tell him. I don’t think he knows.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does. It’s not right to let a man risk his life for the woman he means to marry when you know all the time you have no notion of marrying him.”

“I didn’t expect him to come after me.”

“Do you mean you told him to stay home if anybody carried you off?”

“Of course not. Buc would never do that.”

“Then you
did
expect him to come after you.”

“Yes, but-”

“And he knew you expected him to come after you?”

“Of course. Buc wouldn’t stay home if he knew I was in trouble.”

Then you
did
expect him to come after you.”

“You’ve twisted my words around until I don’t know what I’m saying” Victoria said.

“I’m just making you say what you should have said all along. You know you let Buc look after you all these years.”

“My uncle
paid
Buc to look after me. He didn’t do it because I asked him to or because I promised him I’d marry him. I told him years ago I didn’t love him.”

“But you didn’t tell him you could
never
love him.”

“Why would I say that?”

“So he wouldn’t go on pining after you.”

“How was I to know he wouldn’t fall in love with the next girl he met?”

“Men have a way of falling in love with women they rescue, especially if the woman is as beautiful as you.”

“So now you’re blaming me for the way I look.”

“Just for taking advantage of it.”

“If I’d been taking advantage of it, I’d have tried my wiles on you.”

“It wouldn’t have worked.”

“You’re immune to women?”

“Not women. Just you.”

Victoria opened her mouth to ask him about his body’s response to her, but changed her mind. She didn’t know whether she wanted to wring a confession of vulnerability from him. She didn’t trust her own response if he admitted he was interested in her. Despite the fact she should hate him for what he was doing to her, he upset her calculations on just about every score.

“No man is immune to women forever. One day you’ll find a woman who can make you do things you don’t want to do. I hope I’m around to see that day.”

“You won’t be.”

“Do you care to explain that remark?”

He stared into the fire so long she thought he was going to ignore her. Dark emotions distorted his features and caused his fingers to grip his battered tin cup until it bent under the pressure.

“It’s already happened … fifteen years ago.” He threw the last of his coffee into the fire. “I swore then no woman would ever again have that kind of power over me.”

The sheer magnitude of the rage which gripped his body stunned Victoria. She hadn’t anticipated the violence of the emotions that swelled inside him.

“It’s time to get started. We have a long way to go to reach my next camp.”

“You really think you’re going to reach Texas, don’t you? You’ve got your camps laid out, and you know exactly how far you mean to travel each day. Don’t you think my uncle and a dozen men on your heels is going to make any difference?”

“It’ll make things more difficult.”

“You’re the most incredibly stubborn and arrogant man I’ve ever seen. They’re going to kill you. It may take a little while, but it’s just a matter of time.”

“Then sit back and enjoy the show. But you’ll have to do it on horseback.”

He’d never met a woman like Victoria. The longer he was with her, the more his fascination grew. The more he knew about her, the more he wanted to know. The more she struggled to escape him, the more determined he became to keep her with him. She had become part of his thinking and feeling, part of his world, and he couldn’t imagine it without her.