Willow: A Novel (No Series) Read online

  With a sigh, Willow ran one hand through her sleeptousled hair. She had been so willing to come to Gideon as a woman, but now, in the light of day, she felt gratitude for his forbearance. It wouldn’t have been right, she supposed, for them to make love now, in this house where there was so much confusion and pain.

  Leaving Gideon sleeping soundly on his stomach, his broad back uncovered, Willow slipped out of bed, found a wrapper, and put it on. In the hallway outside her room, she encountered her father.

  Knowing he was well aware that Willow had not spent the night alone, she lowered her eyes for a moment. It hadn’t been proper, sharing her bed with Gideon Marshall, but surely it hadn’t been wrong, either. They were, after all, legally married.

  “Willow.”

  The whispered word made Willow lift her eyes to her father’s face in questioning dread. He was still wearing yesterday’s clothes.

  “She’s gone,” Devlin said raggedly, as the last of the night gave way to morning.

  Willow swallowed hard and managed a nod. Then, with a strangled cry, she flung herself into her father’s arms.

  He held her close and they shared a silent sorrow, totally in accord, and then they broke apart. Devlin went slowly down the stairs, his shoulders straight and strong, and Willow turned and forced herself back into the bedroom she had just left.

  “Gideon,” she said, touching his bare shoulder, wishing that she didn’t have to tell him. “Gideon, wake up.”

  * * *

  It rained the day of Evadne Gallagher’s funeral, but almost a hundred people came to mourn, including Gideon’s brother, Zachary, who had arrived by train just that morning, after receiving a summons by telegram.

  At the graveside, standing between her husband and her father, her face shrouded by the thick black veil Maria had provided, Willow studied Evadne’s elder son. Zachary was dark, an inch or so shorter than Gideon, and his clothes fit his well-made frame with tailored perfection. His eyes were a deep, compelling green.

  Knowing that this was the man who had arranged the prank that had changed both her own life and Gideon’s, Willow wavered between anger and heartfelt gratitude. Though Zachary Marshall was clearly grieving as deeply as his brother was, he still managed to fling an occasional speculative look in Willow’s direction.

  It was much later, at the Gallagher house, when he finally approached her. “My brother’s wife?” he asked, in a smooth, deep voice.

  Willow was very conscious of Gideon, even though he was on the far side of the room, enduring the gushy condolences of one of Evadne’s friends. Not since the night of his mother’s death three days before had he shared her bed, touched her, or spoken more than a few words.

  “Yes,” she said, though the word was, in many ways, a lie.

  “You’ve changed,” Zachary remarked, in flat tones that betrayed neither approval nor disappointment. “I wasn’t sure you were the same person we knew in San Francisco.”

  “The same gullible, smitten schoolgirl, you mean?” Willow retorted evenly, for it was easy to be angry now.

  Zachary winced good-naturedly and his straight white teeth flashed in a brief, boyish smile. “It was a shameful thing to do,” he confessed. “How can I make it up to you?”

  Willow was aware of this man’s fundamental charm and totally unresponsive to it. “Can such a thing ever be made up?” she asked, with a coldness that she couldn’t help, even though she knew it was entirely out of keeping with the mood of the day.

  Zachary was about to respond to this when Gideon suddenly intruded, and the look he gave his brother was decidedly unfriendly.

  “Zachary,” he said.

  Zachary nodded in response. “Gideon,” he replied.

  To Willow’s intense surprise, Gideon slipped an arm around her waist—an almost proprietary arm—and drew her close. “You’ve met my wife?” he drawled sardonically.

  The dark-haired brother nodded again. “Under different circumstances, it would have been a pleasure.”

  Gideon’s jaw went taut, and his grip on the glass of liquor he held in his free hand whitened his knuckles. In contrast, his voice was flat when he spoke, asking Zachary when he had arrived and where he was staying.

  Zachary made some reply; Willow didn’t take note of it, because all her attention was fixed on Gideon’s face. The play of emotions she saw there was unsettling, even considering the loss he had just suffered. His hostility toward his brother went beyond the justified resentment of a childish jest, it seemed to Willow.

  Finally, Zachary went off to another part of the crowded parlor, probably in search of more amicable company, and Gideon surprised Willow again by turning to her and muttering, “I’ve got to get out of here—I can’t breathe.”

  Willow felt the impending loss of him, even for a few hours, like a blow, but she managed a comforting smile. It was a peculiarity of funerals that people insisted on clustering together just when the grief-stricken wanted most to be alone. “I understand,” she said.

  He caught her elbow in his hand and ushered her through the mingling friends of Evadne Gallagher’s, toward the front doors. “Will you come with me, Willow?” he pleaded, somewhat after the fact, as he took her cloak from the coat tree and draped it over her shoulders.

  There was nothing Willow wanted more, but she was conscious of her father, somewhere in the crowd, distraught and trapped among the mourners in the parlor, many of whom would take sanctimonious delight in dropping Dove Triskadden’s name wherever possible.

  “But, my father—”

  Gideon looked at once broken and annoyed. “Your father left half an hour ago,” he pointed out brusquely. “No doubt Miss Triskadden is soothing his tortured brow even as we speak.”

  Willow flushed but did not speak in defense of Devlin Gallagher, for with this man at this moment, it would have been a waste of breath. Lifting her chin, she allowed her husband to escort her out of the house and down the walk to a waiting horse and buggy.

  After lifting Willow into the creaky seat, Gideon rounded the rig and climbed in beside her, taking the reins into practiced hands. His smile was given with an effort that tore at Willow’s heart. “I bought this the other day, Mrs. Marshall. How do you like it?”

  Willow only shrugged, for a horse was a horse and a buggy was a buggy and there were weightier matters on her mind anyway. “What would you be wanting with a rig when you don’t plan to stay in Virginia City?”

  “When did I say I didn’t plan to stay?” Gideon retorted as he guided the vehicle away from Devlin Gallagher’s house.

  Hope leaped in Willow’s heart, then sank again. Gideon, as deeply as she loved him, was an enemy, and she must not allow herself to forget that in the emotional upheaval of the day. “Once you’ve found my brother, there won’t be much reason to remain here, will there?”

  They were leaving town, jolting and jostling over the cattle trail that was generously referred to as a road.

  “I bought a house,” Gideon announced, his eyes on the far mountains, with their craggy, snow-traced peaks. “And several hundred acres of land.”

  Again hope surged in Willow’s confused heart. “Why?” she demanded.

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t know,” Gideon answered, and then they drove in silence for a long time.

  The house, a spacious, wood-framed structure with two stories and a porch that nearly encircled it, had belonged to the widow of a prosperous rancher until her death a few months before. It was surrounded by tall cottonwoods and willows, and there was a pond within easy walking distance.

  Willow felt a surge of delight as she took it all in. “You bought Mrs. Baker’s place!” she cried, forgetting, for the moment, that there had been a funeral that day.

  Gideon smiled a slight, bruised smile and nodded.

  “I used to come here for piano lessons,” Willow said, suddenly shy and quite at a loss. “Did you buy the furnishings, too?”

  “Yes,” Gideon answered, as the horse splashed through t
he rain-filled ruts on the driveway leading toward the house. “But you can replace them, if you want to, with things of your own. Mrs. Baker’s daughter has already been here to collect her mother’s personal belongings—pictures and the wedding china and things of that sort.”

  Willow gaped at this man who was and yet wasn’t her husband as he drew the rig to a stop at the base of the house’s front steps. “I?”

  “If you’ll live here with me,” Gideon said quietly. “Will you do that, Mrs. Marshall?”

  Willow was totally confused. For how long did he mean? For a day, a week, a year? Until after he had found Steven and seen him tried and imprisoned?

  She stiffened.

  Gideon caught one hand under her chin. His flesh felt warm and pleasantly roughened, an indication that he worked with his hands, if only sometimes. “What is it?”

  A single tear welled up and trailed down Willow’s cheek. “You want to put my brother in prison,” she whispered, reminding herself as well as Gideon. “You might even want to see him hanged.”

  Gideon looked away for a moment, wrapped the reins around the buggy’s brake lever, and sighed. “I’m not certain that I even want to look for Steven now,” he admitted. “God help me, I’m not sure of anything, except that I need you very much, Willow Gallagher Marshall.”

  Willow studied him. “You could have had me,” she pointed out, in her confusion, all too aware of how vulnerable she’d been to this man ever since that morning in the hills. “You slept in my bed, Gideon Marshall, and you didn’t so much as touch me. Exactly what is it that you need me for?”

  Gideon laughed. “You’re angry,” he marveled hoarsely. “Good God in heaven, you’re actually angry because I didn’t make love to you, aren’t you?”

  “I must admit,” Willow said loftily, “that I don’t understand.”

  “It’s simple, hellcat. I couldn’t let you give yourself to me that way just because you wanted to comfort me. And knowing that your father and-and my mother—who happened to be dying at the time—were under the same roof didn’t exactly help.”

  Again, Willow was confused. What an enigma this man was, first planning to use her to find her brother, then denying his own physical needs to protect her virtue.

  Gideon smiled at the bemusement in her face, leaped to the ground, and helped Willow down after him, his hands strong and sure around her waist. Neither of them noticed the drizzling rain as they hurried up the wooden walkway and into the tall white house that awaited them.

  The neat, uncluttered rooms inside Mrs. Baker’s house smelled of lemon verbena and cinnamon, and Willow was delighted to see that the piano still stood near the parlor’s bay windows. She paused before it, lifted the cover, and idly played two bars of a favorite song. When she looked up, Gideon was watching her with quietly mischievous eyes.

  “Can you play ‘My Love Lies Dead on a Sawdust Floor’?” he teased.

  “I’m afraid not,” Willow replied, with a sniff of disdain. As Gideon caught her hand to pull her through the other rooms, though, she vowed to learn the piece as soon as she could find the sheet music.

  * * *

  The rain beading on his long canvas coat, Devlin Gallagher rode into the hills that were his solace whenever life became too much to bear.

  This day, however, Evadne’s spirit seemed to follow him, accusing and full of hate.

  Finally, when his horse was on the verge of collapse, Devlin stopped before a cave in the mountainside and solemnly began to make camp. As he gathered wood for a fire and assessed the dark skies, he thought of Dove and wished that he could be with her now, as the whole town of Virginia City probably thought he was.

  Love Dove Triskadden though he did, there was no room for her on this particular day. He had taken Evadne for granted, had never expected her to die before he did, and now he needed time and silence to deal with the reality of her passing.

  Had he loved Evadne after all? Devlin didn’t think so, but she had been his wife, there for him in every way except one, and the bond between them had run far deeper than he had ever imagined.

  No, Evadne hadn’t shared his bed.

  But she’d stood straight and proud at his side, whenever they were together in public. Evadne had been a gracious hostess, often entertaining both friends and business associates, and although she’d probably never been truly fond of Willow, she had tried to mother the girl, especially early on.

  Willow, so young and so frightened, wanting Steven, her protector, and finding herself among virtual strangers, hadn’t made things easy.

  The rain didn’t let up but it did not hinder Devlin, for the cave he’d chosen as his refuge for the rest of the day and the long night that would follow was sheltered by the tall mountain pines. He built his fire, staked out his horse to graze, and sat down on the ground to think.

  Memories of Evadne roiled in his mind, prickling like splinters. Dear Lord, what a comfort she’d been to him in those early days of their marriage. He’d been in jagged pieces after Chastity’s departure, and very slowly and with gentle care, Evadne had put him back together again, hope by hope, dream by dream.

  Evadne had longed for another child, at first anyway, and Devlin would gladly have given her one, but no baby was ever conceived.

  Devlin did not ask himself when things had changed between them; he knew. He’d encountered Chastity and succumbed and Willow had been conceived. He didn’t regret that, for the simple reason that he couldn’t begin to imagine a life that didn’t include his daughter, but he did regret the pain his betrayal had caused Evadne.

  Why, he wondered, couldn’t Willow have been Evadne’s child? Chastity hadn’t wanted her. Evadne, on the other hand, would have adored, cherished, a daughter.

  Things might have been so different.

  At first, Devlin had tried to reach his heartbroken wife, to earn her forgiveness. She had given that, after a fashion, and tried even harder to be a mother to the confused and rebellious little girl who had quite literally been dropped on her doorstep, but Evadne had drawn the line at letting Devlin share her bed.

  For a time, he had managed to deal with that, too. But there came a day, or more properly, a night, when his loneliness and his needs could no longer be subdued by copious doses of whiskey and self-directed anger. He’d still been a young man, and a virile one, and into the void that was his life then came Dove Triskadden. Soft, willing, admiring Dove.

  She’d been a rancher’s widow, back then. She’d come to Virginia City simply because she’d longed to live in a town again.

  When had he grown to love her? He wasn’t sure, but one day the feelings he bore toward Dove were more than liking, more than desire. Devlin Gallagher had realized that the woman could stop the universe, realign the stars, and spin his world on the tip of one carefully manicured index finger.

  Now, sitting at the mouth of a mountain cave, before a crackling fire, Devlin wept for all that he had not been to Evadne, for all his wrongs, for all the tears he had caused her to shed. Because he believed himself to be alone, he gave free rein to his grief, sobbing hoarsely, shouting the occasional broken curse word.

  The tall man came boldly to the fireside, sank to his haunches, and helped himself to a mug and coffee from the small pot simmering in the embers.

  Devlin dragged one arm across his face, offering no verbal greeting even though he was glad, very glad, to see Steven.

  Steven drank cautiously from the metal mug to avoid burning his mouth. “Willow is all right?” he ventured, after a long interval designed to let his father recover his composure.

  Devlin nodded. “Your sister is fine.”

  Steven sat down on the ground, crossing his legs like an Indian. The silence that ensued was more soothing to Devlin than any words of consolation his son might have offered.

  When the time came to end that silence, the older man said, “Evadne died four days ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” Steven replied. He must have heard about the death; he didn’t s
eem surprised. But then, Steven was a hard man to surprise. He’d grown up tough, learned to play his cards close to his chest.

  Devlin sighed, his head down. “I’m afraid I wasn’t any more of a husband to her than I was a father to you.”

  Steven said nothing. Having heard secondhand the story of Jay Forbes’s hanging and the way Chastity had died trying to protect him, he’d always blamed Devlin for his mother’s death. It still amazed Devlin that, feeling the way he did, Steven had entrusted him with the person he loved better than anyone in the world—his sister.

  There was another long silence, again broken by Devlin. “I want you to stay away from Willow, Steven,” he said, recovered. “You’re a danger to her now, and she to you.”

  Steven’s blue eyes were intent and narrowed. “Why?”

  “I think you know, but I’ll explain it anyway. The law is after you, Steven, and so is Vancel Tudd. Eventually, one or both are going to catch up with you. Do you want Willow to be there when that happens?”

  Steven tilted his head back, sighed wearily, and then met his father’s gaze again. “Of course I don’t,” he answered finally. “I would do anything to keep her safe and you know it.”

  There, perhaps, was the explanation for Steven’s bringing Willow to his father that long-ago night. He’d known that a little girl couldn’t be raised to womanhood among outlaws, and he had done what he thought best for his sister.

  “Willow is married now.”

  Steven’s jaw tightened. “I heard about that,” he said, after a long, charged interval. “Gideon Marshall tricked her into it, she said.”

  “That he did,” admitted Devlin presently. “But he loves her.”

  “She doesn’t seem to believe that,” remarked Steven.

  Devlin chuckled gruffly, despite the thickness in his throat and the gnawing ache in his heart. “Gideon doesn’t think so, either, but he does. It isn’t safe to use any flammable substance around those two.”