“Nearer to eight. Mason, you could’ve left me.”
“No.”
“Do you think they’ll come in the morning?”
“If they do we’ll know they have something more than robbery on their minds. You left the leather bag you carried into the bank on your saddle.”
Victoria’s mind whirled giddily. “Kelso wouldn’t…” Her voice was shaky and her breathing ragged in his ear.
“Don’t think about it.”
Her anguish was apparent. “But I’ve known him for so long!”
“Don’t think about it,” he commanded gently and wrapped his shirt and his arms closer about her. She was silent for a long time and he permitted himself the luxury of kissing her cheek.
“I owe you so much. You could have left me and…”
His hands on her back stopped for a moment. “Do you really think I would have done that?”
“If you had to.”
“Mention it again, dear heart, and I’ll have to do one of two things—spank you…or make love to you. Now be quiet and go to sleep.”
She moved her lips away from his ear and he could feel them against his neck. Suddenly he felt extremely happy. She lay soft and relaxed against him, her breasts pressed tightly to his chest. More than anything he wanted to caress them, to strip away the thin shift and let the rough hair on his chest arouse her nipples to rock hardness. Fighting down his desire for her he stroked her hair. Her breathing was quiet and he wondered if she had drifted off to sleep. He closed his own eyes, but they wouldn’t stay closed. He wanted to be aware of every minute be held her, he wanted to fill his mind with an indelible memory of her.
She stirred. “You mean you’d kiss me?” Her lips brushed against his ear.
“If I should start to kiss you, golden girl, I wouldn’t be able to stop. I’d have to have more.”
“More?”
“Yes, more. Go to sleep.”
Her voice had a velvet huskiness when it pierced the silence. “My mama told me about that. Do you think I’ll die before I know what that more is, Mason?”
“I have the feeling you’re going to know very soon, dear heart.”
Moments later she seemed to drift off to sleep. Mason lay wide-eyed and alert. He moved his head so his ears were free to pick up any sound foreign to the night. Mentally he counted the rounds of ammunition he had and sized up their position. He felt reasonably sure they were high enough to see both up and down the trail. Before morning he would wake Victoria and find a place to hide her. After that he would move out and carry the fight to their attackers. He’d had enough of waiting and hiding.
Once during the night Victoria stirred and moved her injured leg against him. She cried out in pain and Mason rolled her gently onto her back and hovered over her, keeping his chest against her breast, his arms and shirt around her.
He murmured reassuringly to her and whispered, “Go back to sleep. It’s all right, golden girl.” This might well be the one and only night she would ever spend in his arms. Tomorrow, if they lived to get back to the Double M, the same problems would face them.
When the birds began to move Mason knew dawn was near. He gently lifted Victoria’s head from his arm and was surprised when she whispered to him.
“I’m not asleep. Is it time to go?”
He put his lips to her ear, glad for the excuse to linger a moment. “I want you to stay here. I’m going to scout around. First I’ll cut some more boughs to cover you. I don’t want you to move from here no matter what you hear.”
Her arms slipped up and encircled his neck. “Why are you doing this for me? Mason, promise me you won’t go looking for them.”
“We can’t wait here and let them find us. We’ll have a better chance if I surprise them,” he explained patiently. The lock of dark hair that fell across his forehead, the day’s growth of beard, the cut on his face all combined to give him a satanic look that didn’t go with his soft voice.
“I’m afraid for you!”
“And I’m afraid for you, if they find us here. Victoria, give me something to take with me. Kiss me.” His eyes searched the golden depth of hers and he was swept with a feeling that went far beyond physical desire.
Her lips were indescribably sweet as they searched for his. And although his lips were soft and gentle, they entrapped hers with a fiery heat that caused strange sensations inside her. His tongue pressed inside her lips, moving, probing the honey sweetness of her mouth. He moved his mouth away and then back. Their lips, now that they had found each other’s, were hungry to be united.
Mason held her mouth with his. It was selfish, but he was greedy for her. He had looked all his life for a woman like this. A woman who would be totally his. Victoria was that woman. He would have her! He kissed her eyes, nose and temples, and tantalized the corners of her mouth.
She drew a frightened little breath when her mouth was free. The normal rhythms of her breathing and heartbeat had flown, and she feared she would not be able to regain them.
“Has no man kissed you?” he whispered.
“No!”
He smiled. “I’m glad! I’m glad you’ve known no other man, that you’ve lived all your life in this valley. You’re sweet, fresh, and you’ll be touched by no man but me!” He pushed himself away from her and got to his feet.
Victoria shivered when his warmth left her and pulled her shirt together and buttoned it. Mason stood over her and arranged the leafy limbs to cover her. She watched him prepare to leave her. After he had buckled on his gunbelt and picked up his rifle he knelt down beside her.
“Don’t stir from this spot, Victoria. That’s very important. I may be able to find my horse before I find them. If I do, I’ll be back and we’ll go home.”
“I’ll be all right. Please…be careful.”
Making no more noise than a prowling coyote, Mason moved down the hillside. At the bottom he lowered himself to a crouch and listened. The sky was beginning to lighten in the east. He waited a few precautionary minutes, marked the place where he had come down the hill in his mind, then moved off through the trees. Nothing must happen to prevent him from getting Victoria back to the ranch.
Every few minutes he stopped to listen. His ears had become unusually sensitive during the night, enabling him to hear beyond the usual noises. It was any strange sound—or the lack of sound—that he listened for.
After about twenty minutes of walking and stopping to listen he approached the spring where he and Victoria had stopped for water. He skirted the small clearing, then waited. A gray dawn covered the mountainside. His eyes searched the area carefully, but he could see no movement. He moved silently to the spring, filled his cupped hand with water and drank. It was then he heard the sound of a hoof striking a stone. He faded into the underbrush.
Mason studied the riders as they approached. One was the tracker, bending over from his saddle to read the signs. They were in no hurry. The trail had told them Victoria was hurt, that he had carried her part of the way, that they were on foot. The second man had the flat, leather bag from Victoria’s saddle. Mason’s face froze with anger. Their intention was not merely to rob, but to kill!
Mason kept down, studied the terrain about him, then carefully lifted his rifle. Cold calculation had replaced his fury. Once again he was on the battle line, and it was either kill or be killed. He reasoned that the tracker was the more dangerous of the two and he turned the rifle on him. He had never shot a man in the back and did not wish to now. It might have been that which spoiled his aim, for he missed a shot that should have been a clean hit.
The tracker turned sharply in the saddle, his face startled and full of fear. He grabbed for his gun and Mason fired again. This time he did not miss. The bullet caught the man in the chest and tore through him. His horse bolted into his partner’s horse and spoiled the second man’s aim as he fired into the bushes.
With a shock Mason realized he had caught it in his upper arm and drew his pistol. The man charged into t
he undergrowth after him. Mason rolled quickly to the side, more to avoid the slashing hooves of the horse than to dodge the bullets. He fired the six-gun into the man’s chest even as a bullet whizzed past him. The man fell from the saddle and the horse plunged forward and out of the brush.
It had all happened in a matter of seconds. Now there was sudden and complete silence. Mason raised himself up and looked at the dead man. He didn’t look like a hired gun but more like a cowboy working for wages.
He felt the wetness of blood against his skin and blinked his eyes slowly. Using the butt of his rifle he pulled himself up from the ground. Why is it always so quiet after a gun battle? he thought. He looked down at his bare upper arm and saw that the bullet had torn a jagged edge across the fleshy part of it. It was painful but not serious. He was trying to figure out a way to stop the blood when the sound of running horses penetrated his numbed senses. The sound was so sudden and unexpected that he stood swaying for an instant before he darted behind a large rock and crouched down, hurrying to reload his rifle. He jerked a shell into the chamber and lifted the rifle, ready for a quick shot.
Mason had no time to think any further before the twins charged into the clearing at a dead run. A third rider hung back cautiously.
Relief and anger at his brothers’ carelessness vied for supremacy as Mason stepped out from behind the boulder.
“Damn it! I could have blown your heads off!”
His anger brought his brothers up short. The other man leaned on his saddle horn, his eyes taking in the scene. He was a large, quiet man. Mason had seen him in the cookhouse the first morning he and his brothers went there for breakfast.
Clay got out of the saddle and took the rifle from Mason’s hand, glanced at the wound on his arm and knew the flowing blood had to be stopped.
“Bullet still in there?”
“I don’t know. There’s a lot of blood. It may have gone through.”
“Where’s Victoria?” Pete asked from behind his brother.
“She’s back down the trail. We’d better go. She’ll have heard the shots.” The big man got off his horse and looked at the two dead men. “Do you know them?” Mason asked.
“Seen this’n around some,” he said and stripped the gunbelt off the dead tracker. He went over to where the other man’s feet protruded from the bushes. “This’n I ain’t never seen before.”
Pete went to round up the dead men’s horses and Clay tied a strip of cloth around Mason’s arm.
“Damn it! Don’t be so rough. I’m not a horse!” Mason growled, and then asked, “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Jim here brought your horse in last night and this morning we started to backtrack him and heard the shots. What happened?”
“It’ll take too long to tell. We’ve got to get Victoria back to the ranch. She was shot in the thigh and has lost a lot of blood. I don’t know if she’ll be able to ride. You may have to ride back to the ranch and bring a wagon. Have you got a canteen? She’s got a powerful thirst.”
“In that case we can load these two on their horses and take ’em back for plantin’ in the bone yard,” Jim said. “But reckon it’ll depend on if’n Miss Victory can ride.”
Victoria was far from being able to ride when they reached her. She was so weak she needed help to sit up to drink from the canteen. Her face had a pinched, tired look, and her eyes showed signs of weeping.
Pete swung into the saddle and took off at a gallop to bring back the buckboard. Jim Lyster followed at a slower pace leading the horses carrying the dead bodies. Clay stayed with Mason and Victoria.
“Was it Kelso?” Victoria asked as Clay covered her with his coat.
“Kelso?”
“Was it Kelso who tried to kill us?”
“No. It was two other fellows. Do you know why?”
“No, but I’m glad it wasn’t Kelso. I’ve known him since I was a little girl.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “I was just sure he wouldn’t do anything like that.”
Clay frowned. Now wasn’t the time to tell her what had happened at the ranch since she and Mason had been gone.
* * *
Nellie had stood on the porch, the breeze blowing her thin, cotton skirt back against her legs, and watched Victoria ride away from the ranch. A few minutes later Mason was galloping after her. Why can’t Victoria fall in love with him? she thought. He is so good, so handsome. If they fell in love all the problems would be solved. Victoria could stay here, live with them in the house. Mason would take care of her. Nellie wrapped her arm about the porch post, leaned her petite figure against it, and gave herself up to the dreamworld she had invented to survive the years in Mrs. Leggett’s attic.
Someday a handsome man will come for me and lift me up onto his horse. You’re beautiful, he’ll say. I can’t live without you. We’ll ride up a tree-lined lane to a cottage with flowering vines and he will set me down and carry me inside. This will be my home, all mine. I’ll clean and cook while my man works outside. Sometimes I’ll hear the ring of an ax striking wood, or the sound of him hitching a team to the wagon. He’ll come in to supper and grab me and swing me around and tell me he has waited all day to hug and kiss me. After supper we’ll—
“Nellie, I’m hungry.”
Dora jarred Nellie out of her daydreams. For one sweet moment of fantasy, Nellie had felt the glow of love and security in a cozy home of her own. She looked down at her little sister and was suddenly back in reality.
“Of course you are. I made some mush. I thought Victoria would eat before she went to town, but she and Mason just rode away.”
“Victoria didn’t eat last night. Neither did Mason. There’s lots of that cobbler left. Can’t I have that?”
“I think so, but eat your mush first.”
“Then I’m going to Ruby’s.”
“Not until after you help me with the chores.”
“Oh…fiddle! Do I have to?”
“Mason said for me to see that you learned how to do things around the house. We’ll clean up the kitchen, then make the beds. After that you can go to Ruby’s.”
Nellie hummed happily under her breath as she went about the task of setting the kitchen to order. For years the freedom to move about a house as she liked had been denied her. It was easy to imagine that this was her home, with only herself in the kitchen putting away the dishes, and Dora in the bedroom making the bed.
The day was bright and cloudless. Nellie was pleased to find she wasn’t as tired and as breathless as she expected to be after putting the house in order. A little half smile on her face, she tucked Dora’s hand in hers and they went out to the porch.
“Isn’t it beautiful and peaceful here, Dora?”
“Uh-huh, but can’t we go to Ruby’s?”
“C’mon, let’s look at Victoria’s flowers first. Oh, look, Dora! She’s got lily of the valley! I bet it’s pretty here in the spring when everything is in bloom. Remember the flowers Mama had, Dora? Of course you don’t remember! What’s the matter with me? You were too little to remember. You didn’t even remember Mason.”
“I remember Mama. I remember sitting on her lap.”
“You were only two years old, you couldn’t remember Mama.”
Dora jerked her hand from Nellie’s. “I do so remember!”
Nellie looked down at her sister and her smile faded. Dora’s mouth was turned down at the corners and she looked as if she would cry.
“Honey…”
“I do so remember Mama, Nellie. Don’t you tell me I don’t remember Mama. She was just like Ruby, and I sat on her lap, and she sang songs to me, ’n’ told me I was her pretty girl.” Large blue eyes defiantly looked up at Nellie, and when tears appeared she blinked them away but continued to stare at her sister.
Forever, Victoria Page 14