Arizona Embrace by Leigh Greenwood Page A

ma’am, and don’t avoid the question.”
    “Okay, if you insist, no. I don’t think you can be attracted to me without it being sexual as well.”
    Boy, wouldn’t Buc love to hear him say that! He’d probably blow a hole right through him.
    “Why?”
    “Because I can’t be attracted to you without feeling hot as hell.”
    Damnation! He could have sworn he saw a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes. Why did women always feel they had to humble a man? Couldn’t they just like him in an ordinary way?
    Can you like her in an ordinary way? That was a foolish question. Only Buc could like Victoria in an ordinary way, like a stallion pursuing a mare because instinct told him to.
    “Are you telling me I excite you?” Victoria asked, coming so close he could almost feel her body heat.
    “Didn’t you expect I would?”
    “No.”
    She may have been around men most of her life, but she obviously didn’t understand her effect on them. He had to get the conversation on another track, or he’d get himself thrown out before nightfall.
    Trinity stepped back. “I think it’s time we started back. This discussion is headed in the wrong direction.” He took a good grip on the saddle and started to put his foot in the stirrup.
    Victoria didn’t move. “Why haven’t you said something?”
    The woman was determined to get him shot. Had she been so protected she didn’t know how she affected boys like Red or men like himself?
    “You’re a beautiful, desirable woman, ma’am, and I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to tell you how much I appreciate your kind of beauty. However, I’m nothing but a cowhand, and every man on this ranch is just waiting for me to make a wrong move. Reminds me of a week I spent in a small gold mining town in Colorado several years back. I didn’t find any gold, but I did find out I could live without a woman better than I could live with holes in my hide.”
    “I don’t believe you scare that easily.” She took a step toward him. Trinity stood his ground.
    “It’s not a question of being scared. It’s a question of common sense. And honor.” Desperation made Trinity add, “A man doesn’t jump another man’s claim.”
    Victoria stepped back, her eyes flashing fire. “What a disgusting thing to say. I’m a woman, not a piece of property. Besides, I don’t belong to Buc.”
    “You’d better tell him that. He and your uncle seem to think you’re going to marry him any minute now.”
    “I like Buc, but I feel more strongly attracted to you than I do to him.”
    Hell! Why did she have to go and say that just when he’d gotten his gumption back. He had met half the famous “ladies” of the West. He’d loved a few, he’d left them all. Yet, he’d been brought to his knees by little more than a pair of lovely blue eyes, some unmanageable locks of titian hair, an irresistible laugh, and a relentless desire to turn him inside out. Not to mention the candor to tell him she liked him more than the man she was supposed to marry.
    If it were possible, that admission seemed to shock Victoria more than Trinity.
    “Why?” asked Trinity.
    “I didn’t mean that like it sounds.” Victoria seemed to be searching for words to blunt the impact of what she had just said. “It’s just that Buc wants to own me. That suffocates a woman. You seem more interested in discovering what I’m really like. I like that.”
    Trinity gripped the saddle as though it were his lifeline. He had to get himself in hand. He needed something to block her view of the swelling bulge in his jeans.
    “Why?”
    “Don’t you know any other word?” Victoria asked, exasperated. “I don’t know why. Maybe you don’t have to understand why to be attracted to someone. Maybe it’s just there the moment you set eyes on them.”
    “You’re a beautiful woman,” Trinity said, keeping his hold on the saddle. “A man would have to be unnatural not to feel attracted to you.”
    “I didn’t mean like that,” she said,