Arizona Embrace Read online

  FRAMED BY LOVE

  “There’s not a man on this ranch who believes you’re guilty.”

  “They’ve all been wonderful, but there’s not one of them who believes a pretty woman can commit a crime.”

  “An investigation would cost a lot of money. If you have it, why are you wasting your time with me? You ought to hire a professional.”

  “How do I know he wouldn’t turn against me? No one seems able to stand up to that judge.”

  “How do you know I could?

  She looked directly into his eyes. “I just do.”

  Trinity hadn’t expected that. It caused the knot which had been in his stomach for several days to tighten with a jerk.

  “You don’t know that. I could be a bounty hunter or a sheriff’s deputy, or even a private investigator.”

  Her gaze didn’t falter. “You could, but you’re not.”

  Other books by Jake

  Leigh Greenwood: Ward

  Buck

  The Reluctant Bride Drew

  The Independent Bride Sean

  Colorado Bride Chet

  Rebel Enchantress A Texan’s Honor

  Scarlet Sunset, Silver Nights Matt

  The Captain’s Caress Pete

  Seductive Wager Texas Tender

  Sweet Temptation Luke

  Wicked Wyoming Nights The Mavericks

  Wyoming Wildfire Texas Loving

  The Night Riders series: The Seven Brides series:

  Texas Homecoming Rose

  Texas Bride Fern

  Born to Love Iris

  Someone Like You Laurel

  Daisy

  Violet

  Lily

  The Cowboys series:

  Arizona

  Embrace

  Leigh

  Greenwood

  Copyright © 1993, 2011 Leigh Greenwood

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Arizona, 1878.

  “Just a few more weeks, and another murderer will hang.”

  Trinity lowered his field glasses. He spoke the words into the wind, something he did a lot more these days. Hangmen didn’t have friends.

  Not that Trinity Smith was a hangman … but he felt like one. It wasn’t a feeling he liked, but he had become aware of it over the last few years. During the past month it had settled over him like a duck fog, obscuring his vision and making him wonder what lay ahead.

  Never before in thirteen years of tracking down convicted killers and returning them to justice had he doubted the justice of what he did. Murderers had to be punished. They couldn’t be allowed to flout the judgment of society, or decent men and women wouldn’t be safe.

  Still the uneasy feeling nagged at his conscience.

  Trinity reminded himself that entire towns had turned out to thank him. They had tried to give him money, make him their sheriff, give him cows and land so he would settle nearby and continue to protect them, but he never accepted a reward. Knowing he had brought a murderer to justice had been all the reward he wanted.

  Trinity raised his field glasses and surveyed the scene below him once again.

  Mountain Valley ranch lay snuggled between two low ridges in Arizona’s Verde River valley. Through the mountainside scattering of pines, fir and spruce, their top-knots waving in the breeze, he glimpsed several meadows covered in the pinkish purple of an abundant wildflower. Everywhere grass grew to a height and thickness that testified to a winter of heavy snow and a spring of generous rains.

  The valley lay quiet below him. Something whispered this was a place where men lived together peacefully and in harmony with nature. It felt like a place where a man could spend his life the way he wanted, without the pressures of the outside world, without having to deal with the evil in people.

  Yet, he knew his feelings betrayed him. Evil had brought him to this unspoiled valley. Evil clothed in innocence, beauty, and tranquility. He would hunt it down just as he had so many times before.

  Still, the feeling wouldn’t leave him, the presentiment that he, rather than the person he hunted, posed the greater danger. At first, unable to figure out what bothered him, he had shrugged it off. Now he could no longer ignore it. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before, but the feeling grew stronger every time he looked at the valley.

  Why?

  He couldn’t doubt the justice of his mission. The killer had been caught virtually in the act. A jury sat in judgment and returned a verdict of guilty. The judge had pronounced the sentence of death by hanging. No one doubted the guilt of the killer or the justice of the verdict.

  Then why did he feel so uneasy? All he had to do was do his job and move on.

  But there was something different this time. The killer was a woman, and she had murdered her husband.

  The muted footfall of an approaching horse caused Victoria Davidge to look up from the bed of yellow poppies she was transplanting. Visitors to her uncle’s ranch were so rare she didn’t stop to remember she was alone until a man riding a powerful dark bay gelding came into view.

  A stranger!

  A stab of fear caused her heart to skip a beat; a vein in her temple began to throb. She felt her body tense. She took a deep bream to help herself relax. It didn’t work. Her fingers clenched into tight fists, breaking the delicate plant she held in her hand. Even as she discarded the ruined flower, she remained helplessly in the grip of suffocating anxiety.

  Victoria hated to feel this way, but she had to be wary of strangers. Her life depended on it.

  Would she ever be able to hear the sound of approaching hoofbeats without tensing with fear? Or look into the face of a stranger without caring if he knew her name? Would she ever be able to live her life without worrying that the next day, or the next visitor, might destroy everything?

  Yet, for the first time she could remember, the familiar wave of nausea didn’t rise in her throat. Neither did she feel the need to hide behind the trellis of a newly leafed climbing rose her uncle had given her two years earlier. She brushed the loose, moist soil from her fingers. Rather than allow her hands to clutch at the heavy material of her skirt, she clasped them in front of her.

  Victoria took a step forward to get a better view. Instinctively she reached up to pull the wide brim of her straw hat farther down over her eyes. Her hand slowed, then paused, her fingers not yet touching the brim.

  This man was different.

  Don’t be silly. You can’t tell anything about a man just by watching him ride a horse.

  But she could.

  He approached with a lazy assurance that could have come only from years of matching his skills against all comers, a confidence as apparent in his posture as in his unhurried pace. Even though she’d been constantly warned her safety depended upon no one knowing the location
of her hiding place, Victoria felt irresistibly drawn to this cool, self-confident man.

  As she started forward, she detected the sound of a second horse. Turning toward a stand of pines which grew along the ridge behind the ranch, she saw Buc Stringer, her uncle’s foreman, ride out of the trees and head toward the bunkhouse. He would ride between her and the stranger. He would talk to the man and see what he wanted. There would be no need for her to reveal her presence.

  Buc would be angry if she did.

  It had been such a long time since Victoria had talked with anyone from outside the ranch, but she reluctantly decided to stay in her garden. Buc and her uncle had risked their lives to bring her to Arizona. They had organized the ranch around her safety. She couldn’t ignore all their precautions for nothing more than a brief chat with a passerby.

  She stepped back into her garden. She still had a dozen wild iris to set out. Maybe he would be gone by the time she was done, and perhaps temptation would be gone, too.

  But curiosity about this man overrode caution. Shielded by branches heavy with purple lilac, Victoria drew closer.

  Trinity Smith rode with all his senses alert. He had no reason to expect trouble, but in the territories a man learned to be cautious.

  Or he died.

  He allowed his horse to pick its way through the shallows of the wide, meandering stream that ran though the center of the valley. Occasionally he would move into deeper water to avoid rock outcroppings or the overhanging limbs of trees which lined the banks, grew in clusters in the valley, and climbed the hillsides in thinning ranks.

  The plop of his horse’s hooves as they struck the water, the soft swish as they pulled free of the heavy gravel in the bottom of the stream, barely intruded on the sound of water rushing over rocks and swirling in eddies. Patches of unmelted snow on distant mountain peaks still fed this ice-cold stream, but he could feel the promise of summer’s heat in the afternoon air.

  Trinity pulled up when the ranch buildings came in sight. He saw only two, a ranch house and a bunkhouse, each large and well-made, each built of unpainted wood turned grey with age. Their builder had positioned the buildings to allow the defenders to cover an attack from any direction. They had also leveled the ground and cleared all the rocks for a hundred yards around the enclave.

  The occupants had come to stay.

  He counted two corrals. The still-peeling wood of one indicated its recent construction, as did the pristine carpet of grass it enclosed. The older corral showed well-worn paths among the trees and bare spots around the feeding shed and water trough. Deep chewed spots in the smooth wood and a tangle of heavy-scented honeysuckle covering the poles gave additional testimony to its age.

  A faint plume of smoke issued from the ranch house chimney. Someone was cooking. Trinity could almost smell the aroma of baking bread. His stomach growled in anticipation. Most likely just wishful thinking, he warned himself.

  Of course he noticed the flowers. They were everywhere. Roses, lilacs, wisteria, mock orange, spirea, weigela, tulips, lupines, delphiniums, iris, and many other flowers he knew didn’t grow naturally in Arizona. It must have taken a lot of planning and work to nurse them through the cold mountain winters—and a lot of love to coax them into such lavish bloom.

  A feeling of tranquility gradually settled over Trinity, but bitter experience caused that illusion to fade. No world could be built on the rustle of leaves, the murmur of a stream, the tranquility of a lonely mountain setting, or his own weariness with the trail. People determined the character of their setting. He had never found any place where the character of the people matched the beauty, purity, or majesty so abundant in Nature.

  Trinity saw a cowboy ride out of the pines and up to the bunkhouse.

  Buc Stringer, foreman.

  Trinity had spent hours watching Buc through the binoculars, watching him interact with each person on the ranch. He liked to know everything he could before he exposed himself to danger. He had discovered that sometimes watching people could be almost as good as talking to them.

  He could tell Buc considered himself to have as much authority as the owner. And everyone else seemed to feel the same way. Buc slept in the bunkhouse, but the rest of the time he treated the ranch house as his own.

  Buc towered over the hands. Trinity guessed he stood at least six feet three inches. Judging from the size of his biceps and the breadth of his shoulders, he would be at least twice as strong as the average range rider. A bull of a man. And handsome enough to turn any young woman’s head.

  He couldn’t underestimate this young man. Sheriff Wylie Sprague believed he had been the one to engineer the woman’s escape. It was well done. They were gone long before anyone knew.

  Buc dismounted but didn’t enter the bunkhouse. He turned and looked down the creek toward Trinity. And waited. With a gentle nudge of his heel, Trinity started his horse forward again.

  Trinity could tell from his aggressive stance that Buc had taken a dislike to him. Leaning against the corral fence, Buc began to roll a cigarette. About the time he spread the tobacco over the cigarette paper, he got a good look at Trinity, and Buc’s body stiffened like a starched shirt drying in a high wind. He stopped in the middle of moistening the cigarette paper, and his tongue stuck to the paper. It tore when he pulled his tongue away. With a gesture of disgust, he tossed the ruined cigarette away.

  Trinity couldn’t decide whether to curse or laugh. He shrugged instead.

  “What do you want?” Buc asked when Trinity dismounted. Victoria continued to spy on the confrontation. He was making no attempt to be polite; he wanted the stranger gone as fast as possible. She hoped he would at least stay for supper. His nonchalance intrigued her.

  “Just riding through,” Trinity replied, keeping his voice casual. It would be fatal to respond to Buc’s dislike. He removed his hat and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “It’s a bit warm today. Thought I might drop in for a drink. The name’s Trinity Smith.”

  Buc didn’t introduce himself or take Trinity’s extended hand. “Pump’s next to the trough. Water’s scarce out here, so don’t waste it.”

  Trinity knew most Easterners thought of Arizona as a desert, but here in the snow- and tree-covered mountains, the range stayed green. In a good year, the streams would run all summer. There was no need for Buc to be stingy with water unless he wanted to get rid of the man with the thirst.

  Trinity led his horse to a trough set half-in, half-out of the well-used corral. Buc followed. A little water remained in the bottom of the trough. Trinity scooped it out with his hat.

  “I told you not to waste water,” Buc said. “There was plenty for your horse.”

  “It was warm,” Trinity said. “Spangler hates warm water.” Trinity primed the pump and began to run fresh water into the trough.

  Victoria couldn’t help but smile to see this Mr. Smith twist Buc’s tail so easily. Buc shouldn’t be so bossy.

  “Cold water’s not good for a horse when it’s hot. It’ll give him colic.”

  “Spangler knows that,” Trinity replied, still pumping. “He’ll drink real slow, but he sure does like cold water.” Trinity doubted his horse cared what kind of water he drank. He just wanted to nettle Buc, to see what he was made of.

  “Get your water and get going,” Buc said irritably. “I got things to do.”

  “You don’t have to watch over me. I don’t expect to come to any harm.”

  “I’m watching to make sure you don’t do any harm,” Buc replied. “I don’t like strangers nosing about the place.”

  “Surely you can’t be getting into a dither over one lone cowboy looking for a drink of water,” Trinity said as innocently as he could. He shook his head like he was feeling sorry for Buc. “It sure must make you feel awful skittish knowing there’s Apaches in them hills.”

  Buc had no excuse to be so rude to a stranger, even on account of her safety. Victoria stepped forward to make her presence known. But just as she started to speak, Trini
ty’s gaze turned toward the house.

  An older man came out of the ranch house and started toward the two men. He was a nice-looking man, tall, thin, greying at the temples but in good physical shape.

  Grant Davidge, the owner of Mountain Valley Ranch. He acted like a man in control of his destiny, not someone who needed to depend on Buc Stringer to do his work for him. But he did. Why?

  “We don’t have trouble with Apaches anymore,” Grant said. “They know we can kill too many of their braves.”

  “I never noticed that stopping an Apache,” Trinity replied. “Seems it only makes them more determined.”

  “That’s something I never could understand,” Grant said, his hand extended in welcome. “I’m Grant Davidge, and this surly young man is Buc Stringer, my foreman. I own Mountain Valley Ranch. You come far?”

  “You might say that,” Trinity answered, taking Grant’s firm handshake. “My last stopping place was Texas. Don’t have any particular place in mind for the next, but I got a hankering to see California.”

  A shadow of suspicion flitted across Buc’s face at the mention of Texas, but it didn’t impair Grant Davidge’s good humor.

  “You looking for work?”

  “Nothing permanent. I figured on punching a few cows until I got a grubstake together. I’ll probably move on after that. Can’t seem to stay in one place too long.”

  Victoria felt a twinge of regret. She liked Trinity’s sense of humor. It had been a long time since she had felt so much like laughing.

  “You can move on now” Buc said. “We don’t want your kind around here.”

  “Take it easy, Buc,” Grant said. “You don’t have to treat every stranger like a bounty hunter.”