He ran Kirby down with the ease of a gazelle chasing a donkey.
“Who’s going to kill Victoria?” Trinity shouted, the wind valiantly trying to tear his words from his lips.
“German Lyman.”
“Who the hell is German Lyman?”
“He took care of Mother when my father deserted her and left her pregnant. He’s been with her ever since.”
Diablo tried to savage Kirby’s thoroughbred gelding. The gelding was so frightened of the huge stallion he went into a full-out gallop. Diablo kept up effortlessly.
“How do you know this man is going to try to kill Victoria?”
“I saw one of the hands in town. He said German left the ranch this morning several hours before mother went visiting. German would never let mother go anywhere without him, not unless he had something more important to do.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ve got to make her stop him. I’m sure he killed Jeb. I won’t let him kill Victoria, too. It would kill the Judge.”
The whole story seemed utterly fantastic to Trinity. He wouldn’t have given it a moment’s credence if he hadn’t known Queenie. Where she was involved, anything was possible.
“What’s he going to do?” Trinity asked as he continued to foil Diablo’s efforts to attack Kirby’s gelding.
“I don’t know”
Trinity realized it was useless to question the boy. He was nearly hysterical with fear and worry. He was tempted to use Diablo’s greater speed to hurry ahead, but he stayed alongside because he knew Kirby would be better able to guess where an ambush might take place.
Trinity had never felt so helpless… or so murderously angry. If Queenie hurt Victoria further, he would kill her. If anything happened to Victoria, it wouldn’t matter what they did to him. Not as long as he killed Queenie first.
Diablo pricked his ears. Trinity couldn’t hear what had attracted the stallion’s attention, but he felt his muscles gather, his pace quicken. They left Kirby behind in a half-dozen strides. Going on instinct, Trinity let Diablo have his head. The great black stallion wasn’t fighting him any longer. He had lost interest in Kirby’s gelding. Something ahead riveted his interest.
Then Trinity heard it. Faintly at first. But as they rounded the edge of a small rise, it suddenly grew much louder. The sound of gunfire! Diablo screamed with fury and galloped even faster. Trinity had no way of knowing why Diablo hated the sound of gunfire, but this afternoon he was glad. It just might save Victoria’s life.
He saw a lone rider first, a rider chasing something in the brush and firing almost as rapidly as he could cock his rifle. Whoever he was chasing had to be in the brush. He hoped it wasn’t Victoria. She wouldn’t come out alive.
He saw her when she and Ben made a dash from one clump of brush to another. Even at a distance he could tell her clothes were being torn to ribbons. With a howl of rage, he drove Diablo after the rifleman.
Diablo needed no encouragement. The distance between them closed with dramatic swiftness. Trinity drew his gun but didn’t fire. He wanted to be closer. He didn’t want to kill mis man. He wanted to know who sent him after Victoria and why.
The rifleman was so intent upon following Victoria, Diablo was almost upon him before he realized he was being pursued. With a look of fury he whirled about in the saddle, his rifle raised.
Trinity fired, and the man’s body jerked, but he didn’t drop his rifle. As Diablo drew closer, he raised it again. Trinity shot into him a second time, and still the man retained his hold on the saddle and his rifle.
Diablo reached the flanks of the straining mount. With bared teeth, he bit viciously into the tired horse. The animal screamed in pain and whirled around to defend himself. The sudden motion caused the rifleman to lose his hold and tumble to the ground…. Right under Diablo’s pounding hooves.
Trinity wrenched the stallion to one side but not before he felt the sickening impact of driving hooves on soft flesh. He leapt from the saddle and ran to the body lying motionless on the dry prairie.
He thought he recognized the man as one who used to hang around Queenie when she sang at the dance hall, but he couldn’t be sure. Time had changed him too much. The man’s eyes opened, and he stared at Trinity.
“Who are you?” Trinity asked. “Why are you trying to kill Victoria? Who sent you?”
The man said nothing, just continued to stare at Trinity with hate in his eyes.
“You need a doctor. Tell me who paid you to kill Victoria, and I’ll take you to Bandera.”
Still the man remained silent, motionless.
Kirby came galloping up. He leapt down and bent over the fallen man.
“That’s German Lyman.”
“So Queenie did send you to kill Victoria.”
“He won’t say anything,” Kirby said. “He’d die before he’d say anything that might hurt Mother.”
Trinity thought the hatred in German’s eyes grew even more intense when he looked at Kirby. He must consider the boy a traitor.
“Is he going to die?” Kirby asked.
“I don’t know. I promised to get him to a doctor if he’d tell me who sent him, but he refuses to talk.”
“He won’t. You’ll never know.”
Abruptly Trinity lost interest in German Lyman or anyone else. Victoria and Ben were riding up, and they looked torn to pieces. Victoria tumbled from the saddle into his arms.
There was blood all over her. She looked like she’d been chewed up by a threshing machine. Great rents had been torn in her clothes, pieces of cloth were missing altogether. Her horse appeared to be equally bad.
Ben looked worst of all.
“There wasn’t any other way,” Ben explained when Trinity gave him a look which had death written all over it. “It was the only way out.”
“Ben made me stay behind him,” Victoria muttered. “Otherwise I’d have been torn to pieces.”
Trinity looked quizzically at his old friend.
“Sir Walter Raleigh, again. You read too much about those queer birds and you start acting like them.”
Trinity heard a whisper of movement behind him and turned just in time to see German Lyman sitting up on his elbow, his rifle aimed straight at Victoria.
The sound of a shot exploded in his eardrums. Trinity expected to see Victoria collapse before his horrified gaze. Instead German slumped to the ground.
He was dead.
Kirby’s gun slipped from his limp grasp, and he stared at the body in horror. “He was going to kill Victoria. He had the rifle pointed straight at her.”
Trinity felt an overwhelming desire to march up to the ranch and shoot Queenie on the spot. Two things stopped him: Victoria and Kirby.
He had to get Victoria to a doctor. She had been badly mauled by her ride through the brush. He didn’t think she had any serious injury, but he wouldn’t know until he got her back to the hotel. She was more important than Queenie. She always would be.
Also, if he rode up to the ranch now, Kirby would follow him. And no matter how angry he was, no matter how much she deserved it, he couldn’t shoot Queenie right before her son’s eyes.
The boy was barely hanging on to his sanity as it was. And Trinity remembered too well how he felt after his father’s death. Not even his awful rage would cause him to do that to someone else.
But he would find Queenie some day, and he would kill her.
He had no other choice.
“Oowwww!” Victoria moaned as Trinity pulled out the last thorn embedded in her shoulder. “You don’t have to pull it out sideways.”
“It would serve you right if I left it in,” Trinity said as he discarded the thorn and cleaned the wound. “You wouldn’t have had to ride through the brush if you had stayed here like I told you.”
“I’ve already admitted it was my fault. I’ve said I’m sorry until I’m sick of apologizing. I can’t even look Ben in the eye. That’s punishment enough. You don’t have to keep piling it on.
Ben and the horses had been turned over to Ward and Doctor Roundtree. Trinity had reserved the pleasure of taking care of Victoria.
“He shouldn’t be attending you at all,” Grant Davidge protested. He and Red had been waiting at the hotel when Victoria returned. From being overjoyed to learn his niece was alive, Grant had progressed to outrage when he learned that she and Trinity practically shared the same room. He was furious when she arrived looking bloody and tattered. His sense of propriety was further offended when Trinity, rather than a doctor, attended her wounds. “Why won’t you let Dr. Roundtree do that?” he asked Victoria for the third time.
“I’m going to marry Trinity” Victoria explained wearily. “I’d prefer him to see me half naked than some doctor.”
“But it’s not proper for even your fiance to see you like this.”
“Then you do it.”
But Grant drew the line at doing it himself. “I’m not sure I approve of this engagement. I could hardly believe it when Red told me.”
“He should have left that to me.”
“He was too shocked to think straight, poor kid.”
“Then he should have stayed in Mountain Valley where you can take care of him,” Victoria snapped. Trinity was pouring raw spirits on her wounds, and the pain was terrible.
“I don’t understand why you’re acting this way, Victoria. It’s almost like you’re trying to shock me.”
“Compared to what has happened to me during the last few weeks, this is nothing. Now stop buzzing about like an angry wasp and tell me about Buc.”
Grant looked unhappy, but he was obviously at a loss to understand how his niece could have changed so much in such a short time.
“Buc’s wound will heal, but he’s leaving Mountain Valley. Going to California. He said he couldn’t stay. Everything reminds him of you.”
Victoria wanted to curse. It was just like Buc to try to make her feel guilty. “There’s no need for him to do that. I’m not going back.”
“He couldn’t know.”
Then send him a wire.”
“He won’t get it.”
Victoria lost patience. “I think you ought to see that lawyer as soon as you can. There’s no telling what he’s started and you’ll have to stop. And then there’s the Pinkerton. Trinity will have me all bandaged up and looking proper again by the time you return,” she said when her uncle hesitated. “Then he’ll go away, and we can have a long talk.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“You deserve the chance to give your niece the benefit of your advice,” Trinity said. “I want to marry her more than anything else in the world, but I can understand your reservations. I’ve gotten her in quite a bit of trouble.”
“You seem to have gotten her out of it, and a bit more besides,” Grant admitted.
“I didn’t have much choice, did I?” Trinity said with the puckish grin Victoria liked so much. “Not with Red breathing down my neck.”
“You know he’s never going to approve of you.”
“I don’t know of anybody who does … except Victoria.”
“You’re sure?” Grant asked his niece.
“More sure than I’ve ever been in my life.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
“You don’t believe Myra is Queenie,” Trinity said. Victoria’s uncle had gone, and they were alone."Don’t deny it, I know you don’t. I wouldn’t mind if she weren’t so dangerous. You have to admit somebody paid to have you killed. Who else could it be but Queenie? And who else would be hiring their killers from the Tumbling T hands but Myra?”
“I admit I was wrong. Just seeing Kirby after he killed that man was all the convincing I needed. Do you think he’ll be all right?” She was sincerely concerned.
“It’ll take a little while. He’s obviously not a killer, but hell get over it. It all depends on Queenie.”
“What do you think she’ll do?”
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, she won’t do it tonight. Now take off that robe. I want to check your wounds.”
“They can’t have gotten infected already.”
“You never know.”
“Oh, all right. Inspect away,” Victoria said, willing to indulge Trinity. “Are you done?” she asked when he had checked the last scratch.
“Yes.”
“Do you mind if I get some clothes on?”
“I mind very much.”
“Trinity, you can’t mean to …”
“Yes, I do.”
“But I’m covered with scratches.”
“I love your scratches.”
“It’ll be like making love to a hospital patient.”
“I love hospital patients.”
“You don’t know a thing about hospital patients.”
“I’m willing to learn.”
Victoria gave up any notion she had of teaching Trinity propriety. Clearly the man was besotted; a desperate case; putting him out of his misery was the only humane thing to do.
“I hope you don’t think I’m going to make a habit of this.”
“You don’t have to. I will.”
“You’re hopeless. And shameless.”
“You’re right.”
“And you don’t care.”
“I care passionately.”
“Balderdash.”
“I care passionately about being shameless with you everyday of my life.”
Victoria surrendered. It was so much more wonderful to let herself be carried along on the tide of their mutual passion. She didn’t think she would ever get tired of Trinity’s need to make love to her. She loved his gentleness when he kissed her and held her close. She loved his strength when he overpowered her and drove his tongue deep into her mouth. She loved his impatience when he wanted her so much he couldn’t wait.
But most of all she loved it when he made love to her.
Everything else was merely a prelude, an overture before the main act. She relaxed and let him make slow love. But as he touched her arm or brushed her shoulders with his lips, she thought of the riotous sensations those same lips would cause to erupt when they suckled her nipples. When his fingertips feathered across her lips or traced maddening arabesques on her abdomen, she remembered the exquisite agony they called forth from her loins.
When his hands cupped her breasts or gently massaged her thighs or stomach, she anticipated the desperate need she would feel when they parted her thighs. When his tongue darted deep into her mouth, searching out the sweetness in every far corner, she longed for him to sink his manhood deep into her, searching for the kernel of need which would never be fully satisfied.
“Love me,” she groaned, too desperate to wait any longer. “You’re driving me crazy.”
But not as crazy as when he circled her nipples with his hot tongue, or as frantic as when he nipped at her swollen nipple with his teeth, or as frenzied as when he suckled her nipple.
“Hurry!”
But Trinity didn’t hurry. He continued to torture her breasts while one hand slowly ventured down her ribs, over her hip, and tantalizingly low across her abdomen before returning to cup her breast.
Victoria writhed. “Stop torturing me,” Victoria pleaded.
Trinity moved inside her and Victoria groaned. Throwing herself against his hand, she tried to draw him deep inside. He found the tender nub of her pleasure and gently massaged it with the roughness of his fingertip.
Victoria thought she would explode.
She helped him out of the last of his domes, ripping and tearing in her haste. She wrapped herself around him, capturing his body and drawing him inside her. She didn’t know what pleased him most, but at this moment she didn’t care. He would quench the fire in her loins even if she had to become the aggressor.
Trinity had dropped all restraint. He wanted Victoria as much as she wanted him. They came together in a tremendous release of energy. Once released, there was no restraining their drive to fulfillment. Trinity’s thrusts into her body we
re controlled and measured, but mere was no advance and retreat, no attempt to prolong the tension. Each move was a steady drive toward consummation.
Wave after wave of pulsating hunger washed over Victoria, each more exquisite and more agonizing than the one before. Again and again she called out to Trinity to ease her agony, to release her, but he rode the bronco of his own yearning. He heard nothing but the call of his loins driving him on to utter exhaustion.
After one final thrust, and one deep breath, Victoria let go. She felt all the need melt away within her as she floated away on a cloud of utter content.
Victoria woke with a premonition of disaster. Then she remembered Trinity’s making love to her the night before and her foreboding fled. Her first -movement made her acutely aware of pain and stiffness in her arms and shoulders. She inspected her wounds. Some of them looked rather nasty. He had loved her passionately even though she looked liked she had spent a whole afternoon being dragged naked through a rose garden.
Never again would she worry about Trinity not wanting to touch her. Any man who could love her the way she looked now would love her for the rest of her life.
She laughed to herself with pure happiness. There was so much about these last days she wanted to remember, to enjoy until she had drunk all the sweetness. Life was wonderful, people were wonderful, and Trinity was the most wonderful of all. She could hardly believe that while being cloistered at a ranch in a remote region of Arizona she had had the good fortune to run into anyone like him. The odds were incredible. She felt tremendously fortunate.
Her years of unhappiness and misfortune seemed to be less than nothing now, only a moment in a sea of happiness. She thought she might even go back home to Alabama one day. She wouldn’t mind letting her imperious aunts get a look at Trinity. Certainly their colorless, perfectly behaved daughters hadn’t found a husband even remotely as exciting and handsome as Trinity.
That made her laugh. Her aunts would have fainted, all in a row, if any one of their daughters had brought home a Trinity. She didn’t know what they feared a man like Trinity would do, but she had the pleasure of knowing it couldn’t hold a candle to what had actually happened to her.
Arizona Embrace Page 37