Arizona Embrace

by Leigh Greenwood

  He must have been away from women too long. He couldn’t think of any other explanation for the spiral of sensations rapidly destroying his ability to concentrate. He was going to have to do better than this, or every Apache between Colorado and Mexico could be on his trail and he’d never notice.

  Besides, if the rest of the hands were like Red and Perez, he was going to need all his concentration to get her away without shooting anyone. He had never killed an innocent person. He had no intention of making this the first time.

  “It feels wonderful to get away,” Victoria said as they topped a rise. A panoramic view of the mountains lay before them.

  Mist blanketed the valley below. Bright rays of morning sun struck countless tiny droplets turning them into a thick, billowing cloud of purest white. The pointed tops of Ponderosa pines pierced the edge of the mist like thousands of stakes holding a blanket tightly in place. A brisk wind rushed down on them from distant, snow-covered peaks.

  “A few hours of freedom is worth hauling the equipment out, even if I don’t get any work done.”

  Of course it is, as long as the horse and I are doing all the work, Trinity internally droned.

  “Who usually comes with you?” Trinity asked. He couldn’t see Buc or Grant letting her go this far from the ranch without someone with her.

  “Anyone who’s free,” Victoria replied. She removed her hat and let her hair fall free.

  Trinity couldn’t imagine how he had forgotten her hair. In the soft light of the ranch house, it had seemed as dark as burnished copper. But this morning, in the full glare of sunlight, it looked like something alive. The rich mahogany hues retreated to make way for the flame of titian. Trinity had always preferred blond hair. Queenie had the longest, most luxuriant blond hair he had ever seen. Now he decided titian was just as beautiful.

  “With us being so shorthanded, I haven’t been out for a while,” Victoria told him. “You can’t imagine how relieved I was when you showed up.”

  “One look and you were certain I’d want to lug all this equipment around the mountains.”

  Victoria laughed. He was getting used to the sound … and he liked it.

  “Nobody does, not even me, but I knew Uncle would send you with me.”

  “Why? I’d have thought he’d send one of the older hands.”

  “He wanted to, but I asked for you.”

  Trinity took a moment to digest that surprising piece of information. Getting involved with Victoria wasn’t part of his plan, but he’d be a liar to say he wasn’t tempted. He had withstood temptation before, though he couldn’t remember when it had been quite this difficult.

  “Buc doesn’t trust me,” he said.

  “Buc doesn’t trust anyone, but I trust you.”

  “Why?”

  “Usually men who reach your age are either very dependable, or they take up easier work.”

  “What do you mean by reach my age?” Trinity demanded. He hoped he didn’t sound vain, but no one had ever remarked on his age in quite that way.

  Victoria laughed at his reaction.

  “Don’t tell me you’re sensitive about your age.” She looked at him more closely and burst into cascades of laughter.

  “My God, you are. You are positively rigid with outraged pride.”

  “It’s not my age,” Trinity said with as much conviction as he could muster. He didn’t like being off balance, and this unexpected turn in the conversation had caught him completely unawares. “I don’t even mind telling you how old I am. I’m thirty-one, but I didn’t think that made me an old man.”

  Victoria laughed again. Clearly it didn’t occur to her that her amusement might hurt his feelings.

  “I didn’t mean it that way. Usually boys take to being cowhands because they think it’s fun and they have lots of freedom to act like a man. You know, get drunk, shoot at anything that moves, and chase women. But by the time they reach their mid-twenties, they either decide they like being a cowhand and settle down to doing it properly, or they look for something easier. I have a great respect for anyone who can do the job. A cowhand who’s reached thirty has to know what he’s doing. Otherwise he’d have been dead or seriously wounded long ago.”

  Trinity hoped he didn’t show his embarrassment, To have gotten upset when she meant to compliment him mortified him. Besides, he had just suffered another shock. Never in his entire life had he been around a woman who could laugh as Victoria just had: honestly, freely, unconsciously, with no ulterior motive.

  The women he knew laughed only with their voices. Everything else about them seemed to be waiting and calculating, but it was a nervous expectation, one they didn’t seem to enjoy. Everything about Victoria’s laugh spoke of her pleasure, and the pleasure she would have if he joined her.

  Even though he knew he was smiling at himself, he didn’t mind this teasing. Her eyes sparkled, and mischief danced in and out of her pupils. She made it impossible for him not to smile back at her.

  “I don’t know why I reacted that way. You made it sound like I was aging Rather than maturing. I’m no expert on women, but I don’t imagine men like getting old any more than women.”

  “Then you’ll hate it when you turn grey or start to lose your hair, or your waist starts to hang over your belt.”

  “I think I have a few good years left in me yet,” Trinity declared. “And a bit of brown hair.”

  “Sandy,” Victoria said.

  “What?”

  “Sandy. Your hair’s not brown. It’s sandy.”

  “It used to be brown.”

  “Maybe it faded. Hair does that to some people when they get older.”

  “I hope you plan to help me down from my saddle,” Trinity said, more acid than amusement in his voice. “After riding this far, I doubt I’ll be able to stand by myself.”

  Victoria’s laughter trilled in the crisp, morning air. “Nonsense. You’ll be riding just as straight in the saddle when you’re seventy as you are now.”

  “To hear you tell it, that can’t be more than a few weeks away.”

  Victoria laughed again then sobered. “I don’t know why I’m picking on you. I’m nearly twenty-three and unmarried. That’s the same as being a confirmed old maid. Not that I’m likely to ever be anything else.”

  She spoke the last sentence more to herself than Trinity.

  “I didn’t mean to start feeling sorry for myself. I suppose being an old maid is better than being hanged.”

  “Most people would say so.”

  “It’s just that when I remember my wedding day, and what I thought my life would be like, well, it’s hard to accept.”

  Chapter Four

  She seemed to give herself a mental shake.

  “I didn’t mean to go on about myself. I’m afraid that’s one of the results of being left to myself too much, of not seeing anyone new for months, or years, at a time. When you finally do meet someone, you chatter your head off.”

  “Chatter all you want,” Trinity said. “T’ve got nothing to do but listen. By the time you get through playing with all your instruments, I hope you won’t have a single thought you haven’t dragged out, dusted off, and thoroughly aired.”

  “What do you mean, playing with my equipment?” Victoria asked, slipping from the saddle before Trinity could lift her down. “Surveying isn’t a game to keep me busy.”

  Then what are you doing?”

  “I’m making an accurate map of my uncle’s land.”

  “Surely he could hire someone to do it.”

  “He could if either he or Buc thought it was important enough.”

  “And you do?”

  “Uncle Grant can’t seem to understand people won’t be able to use government land forever. The only way to keep land is to own it. And the only way to own it is to survey it so you’ll know what you have, what you don’t, and what you want.”

  “Does your uncle subscribe to this theory?”

  “Unfortunately, no. But he thinks it’ll kee
p me busy, so he lets me do it.”

  “Where did you learn how to survey?”

  “From my father. My mother died when I was a child. I used to beg my father to take me with him when he traveled. He wouldn’t let me go until I learned to do something useful. So I learned to survey.”

  “I thought your father owned a ranch.”

  “He did, but he was a surveyor until he inherited the money to buy it. Unfortunately, he died before he could really enjoy it. I’m going to need you to help me set up.”

  Trinity helped Victoria set up a tripod and settle the telescope into place. He watched with growing respect as she anchored her equipment firmly and then spent several minutes of intense concentration getting it level. Next she laid out a set of charts, which Trinity admitted he didn’t understand. Whatever she was about to do required knowledge that went beyond his experience.

  “Now I need to measure the distance to that large pine,” Victoria said. “After you call back the measurement, I want you to hold this pole as straight as you can. I have to get a sight on it.”

  Over the next several hours Victoria worked her way across and along the ridge, measuring a rectangular grid and taking sightings from each of the intersections. When they stopped for lunch, Trinity asked her to explain what she was doing.

  “I’m laying out everything in blocks which can be claimed as homesteads. That’s what the cabins are for.”

  “Buc told me they were so the men could stay out on the range and not have to ride so far each day.”

  “That’s what he and Uncle Grant decided when I proposed the idea. It’s really the only reason they let me do the survey.”

  “Does your uncle realize what a service you’re doing for him?”

  “Of course not,” Victoria said, laughing easily. “My uncle loves me dearly, but he thinks women are helpless creatures who have to be cared for and protected. He’s certain I know nothing about the ranch, that I’m merely playing at surveying, and that if I would only take a greater interest in cooking and cleaning, I’d be completely happy.”

  “But you wouldn’t?”

  “Would you?”

  “Not the way I cook.”

  Victoria laughed again. “You know what I mean. It would be different if I had a family and the normal life a married woman expects. I’d probably be so busy having children, taking care of them, and planning their futures I wouldn’t have any time or energy left to worry about claiming land, surveying homesteads, and planting a flower garden big enough for a whole village. My uncle has organized his whole life around my protection, but he won’t let me do anything to pay him back.”

  Trinity saw sadness in her eyes. The kind that stays until it becomes a permanent part of one’s dunking and one’s life.

  “But things didn’t work out the way I expected, so I’ve had to think of something else to keep me busy.” She appeared to take a deep breath and shrug her worries from her shoulders before she stood up. “I have to get back to work. I’ll never get this ridge done if I sit around talking all day.”

  She worked him just as hard as if he’d been riding the trails. By the time he had hauled her equipment over several miles of mountainside, climbed over boulders bigger than the house he’d been born in, scrambled up and down ravines, even climbed a tree, Trinity was ready to head home. He had a much greater respect for the men who surveyed the seemingly trackless miles of the West.

  He also had a much greater respect for Victoria.

  He had better make his move soon. If today was any example, the more he learned about Victoria, the harder it would be to take her back to Texas. He had never gotten to know his victims before. There had been no need … and no desire.

  This time things were different.

  Whatever kind of woman lived inside that beautiful, desirable shell, it was a very different woman from the one he’d expected when she stepped out of her flower garden. It didn’t bother him that he was strongly attracted to her. He’d have been worried about himself if he hadn’t been. By any standards, Victoria was a lovely woman, and he had always had a weakness for beautiful women.

  But there was something more about Victoria, something about her character which had gotten in his craw and wouldn’t let him go. She had been characterized as a cruel, selfish woman. Yet instead of complaining about the work she had to do, she looked for things to keep herself occupied. She chafed under the restrictions that were imposed upon her, a captivity nearly as confining as the one from which she had escaped; yet she tried to make sure her frustrations and irritations didn’t worry her uncle and Buc. She denied having committed the killing that made it impossible for her to lead a normal life, yet she seemed reconciled to spending the rest of her life in this valley.

  There were too many contradictions, but he did understand one thing. Whatever reasons she’d had to murder her husband, they weren’t what he’d been led to believe.

  A bountiful and delicious dinner awaited them when they returned.

  “Now you know all this talk about my cooking and cleaning is just fiction,” Victoria admitted when Trinity looked at her, a question in his eyes. “Ramon and Anita do it better than I ever would. And they like it.”

  Two diminutive Mexicans grinned at Trinity.

  “You could try reading,” Trinity suggested.

  “I’m not much of a scholar. I like to read newspapers, and I’d love to have some magazines with pictures of the latest fashions or stories about what people are doing these days, but I’m easily bored and much too restless to sit still.” She laughed. “I even tried embroidery. You only have to look at this tablecloth to understand why Uncle Grant was glad I gave it up.”

  “And quilt making,” Buc added.

  “Wouldn’t you know I’d be terrible at the only practical things I know how to do. I like to sketch, but nobody can tell what I’ve drawn.”

  Grant Davidge looked uncomfortable. “I’ve told you over and over, I have no eye for art.”

  “But you’re perfectly capable of telling when a tree doesn’t look like a tree.”

  “You can ride out with me whenever you like,” Buc said.

  “And be treated like a fragile flower by every man on the place,” Victoria said, her mouth compressed in annoyance. “No, thank you.”

  “You make sure nothing happens to her,” Buc said to Trinity as they walked back to the bunkhouse later that evening. “I can’t make her believe it’s dangerous for her to be riding around in those mountains.”

  “She’s working too hard on that survey to get into trouble.”

  “I don’t know why she insists on doing it. I can’t make her see it’s not the kind of thing a lady ought to do.”

  “She’s bored. She’s an intelligent, active woman. She needs to be doing something.”

  “Don’t you go putting notions into her head,” Buc said, spinning around to face Trinity. “She ought to stay home. My mother did. So did every other woman in the town where I grew up. It’s not normal for a woman to run about the way she does.”

  “There’s nothing normal about Victoria’s life. How many women in your neighborhood had been convicted of murder? Or lived on a remote ranch with absolutely nothing to do from dawn until dusk? How many were completely cut off from other women? How many had given up hope of having a husband and a family?”

  “Victoria will have a family,” Buc stated, the light of triumph in his eyes. “She’s going to marry me.”

  Trinity fell instant victim to two emotions: Jealousy at the thought of Victoria becoming any man’s wife, and scorn that Buc would expect Victoria to marry him without his showing the slightest concern for her thoughts and emotions, or anything that didn’t have to do with the physical requirements of being a wife, mother, and manager of a household.

  He would have bet his horse Victoria had no intention of marrying Buc. A woman didn’t turn her back on the man she loved. Or completely forget his presence. Or treat him like a brother and talk to him like a child with l
imited understanding. Hell, since he’d arrived, she’d reacted more to him than she had to Buc.

  “Have you talked with her about it?” Trinity asked, trying to sound offhand.

  “Of course not. Not after the terrible time she had with Jeb Blazer. I talked to her uncle.”

  Just like a man of Buc’s stamp to decide Victoria was going to marry, him even though he’d never broached the subject with her. Did he think he owned her just because he saved her life?

  Trinity felt something inside him knot.

  “I think you’d better talk to her. She may have some different ideas.”

  “What do you know about Victoria’s ideas?” Buc asked, his stance belligerent. “You spend one day following her over the mountainside and think you know more about her than I do after five years of living with her day to day.”

  “I didn’t say a thing about knowing her better than you “Trinity said, hoping to neutralize some of Buc’s anger. He didn’t like the man, but he didn’t see any point in unsettling him needlessly. “I just think you ought to talk to her. When a woman has as much time on her hands as Victoria, you never know what kind of things she’ll get to thinking about.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Buc said, with an abrupt about-face. “There’s no end to the number of excuses she can come up with for not staying inside the house. Not to mention going about on her own, no matter what I say to the contrary. At least when we’re married, I can tell her to stay home.”

  And you think Victoria will do it, just because you say so?”

  “It’s a woman’s duty to obey her husband.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if Victoria has a slightly different idea of duty.”

  “It don’t matter what you think,” Buc responded irritably. “Shell do what I tell her. And while I’m dunking of it, you stop calling her Victoria just like you been knowing her since the two of you were babies.”

  “She asked me to.”

  “She asks everybody to, but they all call her Miss Victoria. Only Mr. Davidge and I call her by her Christian name.”

  “And what am I supposed to do when she jumps all over me? She’s already forbidden me to call her ‘ma’am.’”