Arizona Embrace (33 page)

“They’ll follow you out of town,” me man nearest me door hissed under his breath to Trinity as he passed. “And they’ll kill you. They’ve done it before.”

Victoria paced the floor of her room, the seconds since she left Trinity downstairs turning into an eternity. Never in her life had she been threatened by strangers. She had always been surrounded by a dozen ranch hands. She had been so well protected, she hadn’t really been aware of the danger.

She was acutely aware of it now.

She was just as acutely aware that only Trinity stood between her and a nightmarish fate. No one had tried to help Trinity. One man had even drawn against him. She couldn’t look to anyone in this town for help.

She stood perfectly still, listening intently, praying she would hear nothing more than the tread of Trinity’s feet on the carpeted steps, petrified she would hear the explosion of gunfire.

After the last several days, her nerves were frayed. Nothing in her life had prepared her for the possibility she would be carried off to a cabin in the mountains to satisfy the lusts of three men.

Her brain was so tired she couldn’t think, but she had to do something. She couldn’t just wait, not with the whole town either ready to help the miners or willing to stand by and see what they would do. Trinity had risked his life to protect her. She couldn’t leave him alone now.

The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs galvanized her into action. She snatched up a rifle standing in the corner and pointed it at the door. The hammer clicked when the door opened, and her finger tightened on the trigger.

Trinity stepped into the room.

“Thank God you’re safe,” she said. Sobbing with relief, she tossed the rifle on the bed and threw herself into his arms.

Trinity had been prepared for almost any reaction except this. He had never embraced a woman except in the throes of passion. While he was quick to crush Victoria to his chest, he didn’t know what to do to make her stop crying. Except for little Maria, no one had wanted to nestle in the sanctuary of his arms. No woman had ever depended on him for comfort or protection.

Not since his mother rescued him from a brown bear had anyone put their arms around him and cried with happiness because he was safe. He simply hadn’t been important to anyone … even his father. Yet this beautiful woman who had half the Arizona territory at her feet cared so much she was prepared to go back downstairs to fight for him. If she had pointed a gun at him, he’d have known what to do in an instant. One sob and he was completely at sea.

Victoria put her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. Trinity did all he could to accommodate her. He didn’t care if she cried down the front of his shirt or ruined his coat. He knew how to stand still and get wet. And he didn’t mind it a bit.

“I can’t think why I’m acting like this” Victoria said, lifting her head up so she could look at Trinity, but making no attempt to leave his embrace. “I never cry, and I never go to pieces. I used to think I was so strong. I guess I’m not very strong after all.”

Trinity felt as low-down as a bounty hunter ought to feel. What gently bred woman was strong enough to go through what he had put her through in the last week without breaking down at least once? He had sworn he would take her back to Texas one way or the other, but what kind of lowdown skunk was he to expose her to marauding Indians and lust-crazed miners along the way? “If he couldn’t do any better, he should have left her alone.

“No reason why you can’t cry a little now and then If you like,” he said. “Nobody but me will see you.”

“But I don’t care about the rest of them,” Victoria said, making a detailed examination of his vest button. “I’d bawl my head off If it would put those horrible men in jail.”

“I should be shot for bringing you here. I should have known what would happen the minute men like that set eyes on you.”

“You didn’t have any choice. We had to get Red to a doctor.”

“I should have gotten rid of him way back,” Trinity said. “I had no call to get that boy into trouble.”

“He brought it on himself.”

“I had no call to go risking your life at every turn, either.”

“But you saved my life,” Victoria insisted. “I could never have escaped those Indians alone. And not even Buc could have held off those men. I never saw anybody who could shoot like you.”

“I wouldn’t need to be saving you from Indians and holding off miners “If I’d done things right” Trinity said. “I ought to turn you over to somebody else."—He tightened his hold on her—"You’d have every right to refuse to go with me any farther.”

Victoria didn’t seem to find anything unusual with that statement. In fact, she liked it so much, she put her arms around Trinity’s neck.

“I wouldn’t feel safe with anybody but you.” Her eyes seemed to reflect her complete trust.

Trinity knew he wasn’t worthy of her trust, but neither was he of a mind to give her a more correct impression, at least not just yet. “I promise I’ll get you to Texas without any more danger.”

“How are we going to get away from those men? Do you think they’ll leave? It’s raining awfully hard.”

A soft knock on the door brought a gasp of fear from Victoria. Her grip on Trinity became gratifyingly firm. He was sorely tempted not to answer the knock. He knew he had no business letting Victoria’s nearness influence his judgment, but he didn’t care. The minute she threw herself into his arms, his common sense went out the window.

But the repeated knocking brought him back to a sense of time and place … and danger. He gently pried Victoria’s fingers loose from his arms, drew his gun, and opened the door a crack.

“I got the horses away,” a voice said.

“Did they see you?”

“No. They’re still arguing.”

“Take them to Dr. Mills’s house. Leave them in the willow grove down by the creek. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

The door closed. Victoria couldn’t hear the receding footsteps.

“Get packed as quickly as you can,” Trinity said as soon as he closed the door. “We’re leaving now.”

“In the rain? It could turn into a bad storm.”

“Those men intend to kill me. If they do, nobody’s going to stop them from doing what they want with you.”

“How do you know?”

“One of the men downstairs told me.”

“But why?”

“They want you.”

“That’s the only reason? They
want
me?”

“They’re probably watching the front of the hotel. They’ll have someone at the livery stable in a minute. “If we leave now, I’m hoping we can slip away in the rain. At the least it will wash out our tracks.”

Victoria asked no more questions. Trinity had proven he wasn’t afraid to face Red Beard and his friends. “If he thought they needed to escape in the middle of a rainstorm, she believed him.

Ten minutes later they left the hotel by the back stairs. Keeping in the shadows of the half dozen false-fronted buildings that lined the only street of Gabel’s Stop, they made their way to Dr. Mills’s house. Twice lightning flashes turned the night to day. Victoria prayed the miners were still inside. She and Trinity had no cover and nowhere to run.

“It’s not completely dark yet,” Dr. Mills said when Trinity told him what they meant to do. “They might see you.”

“We can’t wait. If they discover we’re gone, they’ll start searching the town. It’ll be bad for everybody If they find us.”

“Don’t worry about the kid,” Mills told Victoria. “I’ll make sure he’s safe. You just make sure you get her out of Arizona,” he told Trinity. “I won’t be able to fix what they’ll do to either one of you.”

Victoria had thought she would look forward to the rain. After the scorching heat of the desert during the daylight hours, she expected to enjoy its coolness. Instead, she hated it. It continued hour after hour in a steady downpour, the kind she remembered from Texas in the spring.

Trinity had provided her with a rain slick and a hat large enough to keep the rain off her face, but the cold and the wet got in nonetheless.

The rain even managed to run down the back of her neck. She couldn’t talk to Trinity because of the steady drumming of raindrops on leaves, the plunk of drops in puddles, and the noisy squishing and sucking of the horses’ feet in the soft mud. Trinity rode slightly ahead, constantly on the lookout.

“They’ll follow us,” Trinity said when they stopped several hours later. The only question is how to throw them off our trail.”

“We must have a good head start. They don’t know where we’re going.”

There’s only one trail in or out of Gabel’s Stop.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Double back.”

“Are you crazy?”

It was so dark Victoria could barely see Trinity’s teasing smile.

“We’re going to use that creek” Trinity said referring to a shallow stream which only that morning had been a dry wash. “If we can get behind them, “They’ll never be able to follow us, even if the rain doesn’t wash out our tracks.”

By now Victoria had complete faith in Trinity’s abilities and decisions, but every step in the direction of Gabel’s Stop caused the muscles at the back of her neck to tighten. She was certain her heartbeat could be heard above the rain. As for her breath, she didn’t know how she managed to get enough air in her lungs to remain conscious.

As the rain came down harder and harder, the stream grew in size and swiftness. Victoria knew a sudden downpour could turn it into a raging, death-dealing wall of muddy water. She couldn’t help but cast anxious looks over her shoulder. Lightning illuminated the sky from time to time showing her trees and large boulders which could hide them from Red Beard or kill them in a merciless flood.

After what seemed like hours, Trinity signaled her to pull up. They drew the horses into the midst of a particularly thick grove of trees. A tangle of mesquite, Palo Verde, and creosote bushes effectively screened them from the trail.

“We’ll wait here until they pass,” Trinity said.

“How long do you think that will be?”

“I don’t know, but I doubt more than a couple of hours.”

“If Victoria thought she had been miserable before, she was mistaken. The trees sheltered them from the rainfall, but fatter drops of water fell from their drooping leaves. There was nowhere to sit. Her feet quickly became wet and cold. They couldn’t talk. It was essential not only that they hear the men first, but that their horses remained absolutely quiet when the others passed by.

They came by in less than an hour, but Victoria would have sworn she’d waited at least six. There seemed to be an unlimited number of hours in this cold, wet, endless night.

The rain continued to come down harder. The stream had overflowed its banks and was flooding the area beneath the trees. At this rate they would soon be knee-deep in water.

Victoria sneezed.

“Quiet” Trinity hissed.

“I didn’t do it intentionally,” Victoria hissed back, “but I’m cold and wet through. I wouldn’t be surprised if I came down with a cold by morning.”

“You’re welcome to have pneumonia as long as you don’t sneeze again.”

“What am I supposed to do? Stop up my nose?”

Think of something. Remember it’s you they’re really after.”

Coldhearted brute—she really needed to be reminded of that.

She sneezed again a few minutes later. The horses moved about restlessly, stamping their feet.

Without a word, Trinity opened one of the saddlebags and took out one of his shirts. “Here. If you have to sneeze again, bury your face in this.”

She felt guilty about sneezing. She realized it could jeopardize their lives. “You act like I’m doing it on purpose.”

“I know you can’t help it, but it’s just as dangerous no matter the reason.”

Still, she was irritated Trinity had no sympathy for her. She didn’t suppose he’d ever sneezed at such a moment, or coughed, or cleared his throat, or had to relieve himself. His body probably obeyed his orders just like he expected other people to do.

Well, she didn’t work like that. She was cold and wet and probably going to come down with bronchitis. She’d been in the saddle all night. She was so tired she could hardly stand up, and all he could do was tell her to bury her face in his shirt.

Buc wouldn’t have said that. Would he? He said he loved her and would do anything for her, but he’d been giving her orders ever since he’d known her. Even her uncle. They all tended to dictate to her. At least Trinity had a reason. If those men found her….

She felt a sneeze coming on. Unable to stop it, she buried her face in Trinity’s shirt. She felt like her head had exploded. She couldn’t do that again. She’d blow out her ears.

“Someone’s coming,” Trinity whispered. “Get to your horse’s head. Don’t let him make a sound.”

Victoria put her hand on her mount’s nose. She had to keep him from nickering.

It was so long before Victoria saw anyone she started to wonder If Trinity had been mistaken. “Then she saw them, too, dim shapes coming through the grey veil of slanting rain. At first, she couldn’t recognize anyone, but she felt her body tense. She
knew
it was Red Beard and his companions.