“What happened?”
“We got rid of him.”
Trinity didn’t have a chance to ask any more questions before Buc stormed out of the bunkhouse, but the question continued to burn in his mind. Would Grant or Buc, or both, kill a man rather than let Victoria go back to stand trial? He hoped not. He didn’t much care for Buc, but he had taken a liking to Grant.
Besides, this valley didn’t feel like a killer’s hideout. Neither Victoria nor her uncle acted like they had anything to fear from strangers, but then they didn’t need to. Buc was suspicious enough for both of them.
Trinity couldn’t find it in himself to blame any man for doing whatever he had to do to protect Victoria. Men had robbed, cheated, and killed for less beautiful women. Scaring off strangers seemed almost harmless by comparison. He certainly wouldn’t be too particular about what he did if Victoria were his woman.
The thought caught Trinity by surprise. After Queenie, he had sworn he’d never let another woman have any power over him. Despite the many beautiful women he’d known, and the several who would have been willing to forsake everything for him, he had kept his vow.
There could be do doubt Victoria killed her husband. The evidence said it couldn’t have been anybody else. So there must be a good reason why she did it. Oddly enough, Trinity felt compelled to find out what it was.
Don’t be a fool. Your job is to bring her back, not understand why she did what she did. That’s what the jury was for, and they’ve already made their decision.
But Trinity couldn’t rest. He turned over several times, trying to find a more comfortable position. He knew the fault didn’t lay with the bed. The trouble lay in his head.
He didn’t yet understand why, but he couldn’t just take Victoria back to Texas and forget about her. Even though it couldn’t make any difference, even though it wasn’t part of his job, he had to know why she did it.
But how could he find out?
Trinity didn’t get a chance to explore that question. Without warning the bunkhouse door flew open with a noisy crash. In a flash, Trinity dropped to the ground, his gun drawn.
Chapter Three
A Mexican, short, thick waisted, and fortyish, entered the bunkhouse. He leaned on a skinny, carrot-topped, freckle-faced boy for support. For a moment the three men stared at each other. Trinity spoke first.
“Sorry for the chilly welcome. You surprised me.”
“Who’re you?” the kid demanded. “And what are you doing here?” He didn’t look more than eighteen, fresh-faced but wary.
“The name’s Trinity Smith. I just hired on.”
“Buc never hired you,” the kid said, openly suspicious.
“Mr. Davidge hired me against Buc’s advice.”
“That I believe,” said the Mexican. He hobbled to the nearest bunk and lowered himself carefully. His bronzed, leathery skin and permanently bowed legs branded him a man of the range. His skeptical black eyes and piercing gaze said he wouldn’t be fooled easily. “He needs to hire new vaqueros to replace old men like me.”
“You’ll be as good as new in a couple of days,” the boy said, his fondness for the old man easy to hear despite the gruffness in his voice. “Just make sure you stay off that leg.”
“How will you manage? You have nobody to ride with you.”
“Maybe Buc will let me ride with him,” Trinity said to the Mexican. “I don’t know the layout of the ranch, but I’m better than an empty saddle.”
“I don’t need no stranger making free behind my back” the boy said. He wasn’t exactly hostile, but close enough to suit Trinity.
“Forgive our manners,” the old man asked. “We worry every stranger is after the senorita.”
“Now that I work for the Mountain Valley, she’s my worry, too.
The old man responded with a cautious smile.
“I am Perez Calderon. My sister keeps house for Senor Grant. That is the only reason Buc keeps me. This young gringo is Michael O’Donavan.” He tousled the boy’s hair. “We call him Red.”
“Would you like me to have a look at that leg?” Trinity asked.
“There is no need. My horse fell on me and pinned my leg under him. He would have broken it if Red had not got to me so fast. It would not happen if Buc would hire more men. We work so hard we get careless.”
“Is that what you meant a minute ago?” Trinity asked.
“Si. Buc is not hiring anybody now. When he does, he will hire only old men, ugly hombres like me, or young gringos like Red.” He winked and nodded his head in the direction of the house.
Trinity smiled in understanding. “Too young or too old.”
“Buc means to marry Senorita Davidge.”
“He already told me.”
“Nothing wrong in that,” Red piped up. “A man would have to be crazy out of his mind not to want to marry Miss Victoria.”
Trinity’s gaze appraised the young man. Earnest. Idealistic. Temper probably as hot as his hair. He might be able to get a few more answers if he prodded the boy a little.
“I got to admit Victoria’s a fine-looking young woman, but I don’t think I’d like to be married to her.”
“She’s Miss Victoria to the likes of you,” Red snapped. “And you’d jump at the chance to marry her.”
“Naw. I don’t think I could lie comfortable in my bed married to a woman who killed her husband.”
The words were hardly out of Trinity’s mouth before Red had covered the space that separated their bunks, his drawn gun inches from the bridge of Trinity’s nose.
“Take that back, or I’ll kill you where you sit,” he said, his young voice no more than a harsh growl.
Trinity never expected anything like that. The boy was like lightning. Trinity doubted he was as fast.
“Easy, Red,” Perez cautioned. “No call to get upset. He is an outsider. You cannot expect him to know the senorita like we do.”
“He’s got to take it back,” Red said, too angry to be swayed by reason or caution. “Nobody’s going to say Miss Victoria’s a murderer. The boys will kill to protect her. You’ll be expected to do the same thing.”
“But if she killed that man …”
“She didn’t kill nobody.”
The words sounded like those of a youth in passionate defense of an idealized love.
That pure, sweet girl could not kill her husband,” Perez said. “Anybody can see that just looking at her. Judge Blazer paid the jury to convict her. He did not even let Mr. Davidge bring a lawyer or make an investigation.”
They had a trial.”
There was no trial” Perez told Trinity. The judge already decide everything. He have to hang somebody, so he choose Senorita Davidge. He say they find her with a gun in her hand.”
“But if she held the gun …”
“She didn’t fire it,” Red insisted. “Somebody else killed Jeb Blazer, and Miss Victoria got blamed for it.”
Trinity let the old Mexican tell him every detail of the efforts Grant made to postpone the trial, of the people he contacted, the conflicting evidence he turned up about that night. But like everyone else, Perez ignored the fact that Victoria was found holding the gun with nobody else around. To him, Victoria was innocent. Period.
Just like with Red.
Trinity had to admit it was difficult for him to see Victoria in the role of a killer, but not for the same reason. He didn’t see her as a weak, helpless woman afraid of her husband or of a gun. Killers were usually timid people who saw murder as the only way out of an unbearable situation, people so greedy for power or money they would do anything to get more, or cruel, heartless brutes who killed because of their contempt for human life.
Victoria didn’t seem to fit into any of those categories, but Trinity reminded himself he knew nothing about her except she grew beautiful flowers and baked a marvelous pecan pie. No telling what she had been like five years ago. A girl could change a lot between seventeen and twenty-two. Still, it didn’t fit.
“They paid them to lie,” Red said, the gun barrel now pressed against the skin between Trinity’s eyes. “Now take it back.”
“You better,” the old man advised.
“I was just repeating what I’d heard,” Trinity said. “I didn’t even know Miss Victoria until today. She doesn’t look like a murderer to me.”
“She isn’t,” Red said, slowly backing away from Trinity, his gun still leveled at him.
“It is better that you not say what you heard in front of the vaqueros” Perez advised. “They take it bad.”
“You mean they’re all as convinced as Red here she’s innocent?”
“How can you have seen her and ask such a damned fool question?” Red demanded. “Could an angel kill anyone, even a drunken sot who didn’t have the sense to know what he’d got?”
“I don’t know as much about the situation as you.”
“Then make sure you learn more before you go shooting off your mouth again,” Red said, stepping back and holstering his gun. “We don’t allow nobody to slight Miss Victoria. There’s people who could vouch for that if they could talk.”
“That’s not likely, them being far away and understanding how we feel about the senorita” Perez added. He said nothing more, but Trinity couldn’t mistake the warning directed to Red.
Trinity knew then that at least one man had died in his attempt to take Victoria back to Texas.
“What happened when they went to Texas?” Trinity asked. “Mr. Davidge told me Buc broke Victoria out of jail.”
“We all go” Perez said. “We mean to burn town if we have to.”
“Don’t pull your gun on me for asking,” Trinity said to Red, “but why were all of you ready to take such a risk?”
“You have to know Senor Grant and his brother, the senorita’s papa,” Perez said. “Some of us come from Texas with Senor Grant. Not Red. He is too young. I know Senorita Davidge as a girl. She can not kill anybody, not if she loves them.”
“Are you certain she loved her husband?” Trinity asked.
“Are you saying she’d marry a man because of his money?” Red challenged.
Tm just asking,” Trinity said. “A man can’t help being curious.”
“Better to leave questions unasked than be dead,” Red advised. “People around here don’t take kindly to questions about Miss Victoria. Any kind of questions.”
Apparently convinced that any threat to Victoria’s safety had passed, and that any question about her reputation had been settled, Red launched into a paean of praise that bespoke of a young man in the throes of love with a woman he considered so far above him as to be completely out of his reach.
Perez didn’t look nearly so certain. He didn’t watch Trinity directly, but Trinity realized he was being closely observed.
Trinity soon managed to get Red’s mind off Victoria. Later they swapped yarns. Perez proved to have an inexhaustible supply, but Trinity got the feeling the man’s thoughts were never entirely off their earlier conversation.
He would do well to keep his eyes on the old man.
“I hope you don’t mind going with me today,” Victoria said when Trinity had finished his breakfast next morning. “Uncle Grant says following me about while I work on my survey is the perfect way to get to know the ranch.”
Trinity didn’t get a chance to answer before Buc burst out with an objection.
“I still don’t trust him. How do we know he’s not one of Judge Blazer’s men?”
“It’s been more than five years, Buc,” Grant said. “Surely Blazer has given up by now.”
“Are you afraid Trinity will overpower me?” Victoria asked.
“No, but—”
“Or do you suspect he’ll talk me into something I don’t want to do?”
“Good God, no, but—”
“Then what’s your objection?” Grant asked.
“I don’t like him, and I don’t trust him,” Buc stated bluntly. “He could be a bounty hunter.”
A faint shadow passed across Victoria’s face.
“Nonsense,” Grant said. “Bounty hunters are known.”
“Not all of them. There’s one who uses a different name every time. Nobody knows much about him, but they say he’s hanged more than a dozen men.”
“Where’s he from?” Trinity asked. He couldn’t just stand there and let Buc accuse him of being a bounty hunter.
“Nobody knows that either. Seems he just shows up, gets himself deputized, and disappears. Next time anybody sees him he’s bringing in the man he went after. Then he disappears again. He must know the West better than anybody alive.”
“Then I can prove I’m not that man,” Trinity said. “You can follow my trail all the way back to Texas. I must have asked a dozen people the way to California.”
“If Trinity can’t possibly be this bounty hunter, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Victoria said.
“I’m worried about everybody,” Buc confessed. “I’m never comfortable when you’re out of my sight unless I know you’re here at the ranch, inside, safe from any prying gaze.”
That’s sweet, Buc,” Victoria said, a softness and affection in her voice that caused Trinity’s stomach muscles to knot, “but you can’t keep me indoors for the rest of my life.”
“I don’t see why not,” Buc said. There’s no reason for you to leave the house.”
“Yes, there is,” Victoria contradicted, with a sharpness Trinity hadn’t expected. “I’d go crazy if I didn’t get out of this house once in a while. And as much as I love being with you and Uncle Grant, I’ve got to do something or I’ll the on the vine, like pods drying in the summer sun.”
“Nonsense,” said her uncle. “I don’t agree with keeping you locked up, and I’ve told Buc, but I don’t want to hear any more talk about your going crazy or drying up like a pea pod.”
“Wouldn’t you go crazy if you were kept locked up all the time?” Victoria asked, turning to Trinity for support.
“I don’t know,” Trinity confessed. “It’s been more of a worry with me to find a place to lay my head for the night.”
That’s always the way it is with men,” Victoria said, her mouth twisted with disgust. “No matter what a man wants to do, no matter how foolish it might be, he’s perfectly free to do it, and nobody thinks the worse of him for it. But let a woman try to do the same thing and she’s hemmed in from all sides.”
“Now, Victoria.”
“Nobody’s hemming you in.”
Grant and Buc spoke at the same time. Victoria ignored them both and turned to Trinity.
“Do you mean to hem me in as well?”
“I expect I’ll just do what I’m told,” Trinity replied.
“Victoria may get a little impatient with her confinement,” Grant said, “but she’d never do anything foolish.”
“I’m not asking anybody to do anything foolish,” Victoria said with a sigh, “but there are times when I wonder if it’s all worth it.”
“How can you say that?” Buc demanded. The thought of you in that filthy jail with the gallows just outside your window…”
“You know she doesn’t mean it” Grant said. “She just gets out of humor once in a while. You go on with Trinity. You can start on the ridge you’ve been wanting to survey. Pack a lunch and stay all day if you like. I want you to work this restlessness out of your system, but no matter how fretful you become, you’ve got to remain on your guard.”
“I know,” Victoria assured him. “Even if I didn’t do it for myself, I’d never risk your happiness, or forfeit the risk you took just getting me here. I love you just as much as you love me.”
“Go along and enjoy yourself,” her uncle said, a slight catch in his voice. “Trinity will take care of you.”
“I’ll check on you,” Buc offered. �
��Trinity might get lost.”
I won’t get lost,” Victoria said, affronted. “I’ve been here five years. The shape of this valley is imprinted on my mind.”
“Then why do you need to make so many of those peculiar maps? Nobody’s ever going to look at them.”
“Because I’ve got to have something to do besides cook and clean house,” she replied, ignoring his insult to her work. “If I didn’t get out once in a while, I think I would go crazy enough to kill somebody.”
“Don’t say that,” Grant implored, “not even in jest.”
“It’s no jest” Victoria said.
Trinity quickly discovered that being alone with Victoria all day wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d expected. She might be a murderess, but she was a very beautiful, sensuous, desirable woman. The kind that drove a man like him crazy.
There was nothing provocative about Victoria’s dress. There couldn’t be with her bundled up inside a deerskin jacket against the morning chill. But even though he had to wrestle with the willful packhorse bearing her precious surveying equipment, Trinity seldom took his eyes off her. With her riding directly before him, it would have been virtually impossible to ignore her.
And he didn’t want to.
Riding astride, Victoria sat perfectly straight in the saddle. The gentle curve of her shoulders and her long, slim neck contributed to her delicate appearance. Despite the concealing bulk of her coat, she looked too fragile to handle the packhorse or her equipment.
She never turned around, thus denying him a glimpse of the outline of her breasts, but he had an uninterrupted view of the soft, white skin at the nape of her neck. Only a few moments of allowing himself to imagine how it would feel to kiss her neck, to tease the strands of hair that floated on the cool morning air, and he felt his body swell with desire.
He found it very uncomfortable to ride in a perpetually aroused state and cursed himself for responding like a randy youth. But even when he tried to concentrate on the scenes around him, the sound of her voice, soft and enveloping, like a warm blanket on a cold night, provided him with a constant reminder of her presence.
Arizona Embrace Page 4