Willow: A Novel (No Series) (16 page)

“That’s the difference between us,” Gideon answered shortly. With a baleful glance at the suit of armor, he wondered what your average, everyday, run-of-the-mill knight would do in circumstances like these. Chivalry aside, his impulse was to grovel.

“There aren’t as many differences between you and me as you would like to believe,” Zachary replied, with an insight that was both uncanny and fundamentally disturbing. “The sooner you admit to that and act accordingly, little brother, the better off you’re going to be.”

“Go to hell,” muttered Gideon.

“Good morning,” sang Maria, from the sitting room doorway and, even though she was smiling, her velvet-brown eyes fairly snapped with malice. Gideon knew that he had ruffled her chick, and he was going to be
pecked severely for the indiscretion. “You will have breakfast, no?”

“No!”
chorused Gideon and Zachary in unison.

Maria’s smile grew broader. “But is eggs!” she crowed, knowing full well how she was tormenting them, “scrambled eggs, still warm from the nest, with nice peppers and many onions to give flavor!”

Zachary slapped one hand over his mouth, groaned, and ran for the nearest exit.

Maria’s vengeful gaze was fixed on Gideon now. “Eggs are funny things, señor,” she commented. “Once, I get one that is all rotten and runny inside—”

Gideon made a strangled sound and bolted after Zachary.

*   *   *

“Weren’t Gideon and Zachary hungry?” asked Willow brightly, as she sat down at the kitchen table to enjoy a hearty breakfast. Now that it was morning and the sun was warm in the summer sky, she felt optimistic again.

Maria, standing at the stove, chuckled, the sound vibrating through her great bulk. “No, they are not hungry, little one. They are, I think, looking at the petunias we planted by the fence.”

Willow frowned. Neither Gideon nor Zachary had struck her as the type of man to be particularly fond of flowers. She shrugged. Later, she would show them the white lilacs and the rose arbor. “Did Papa come home last night?”

“No,” replied Maria.

“Do you think he’s with Dove Triskadden, so soon after—?”

Maria shook her head firmly. “No. The judge took a bedroll with him. Food and a coffeepot, too.”

“I wish he would come back,” said Willow. “I don’t like the idea of going to live in Gideon’s house without telling Papa first.”

Maria’s smile was fond as she came to the table and poured hot, fresh coffee into Willow’s cup. “Your papa will not be angry. He knows that a bride must live with her husband.”

“I’ll miss you when I go, Maria.”

Bright tears glistened in Maria’s kind eyes. “You will not be far away,” she said, possibly as much for her own benefit as Willow’s. “And perhaps I can come and work for you there, on the ranch.”

Her fork poised halfway between her plate and her mouth, Willow was immediately cheered. “I’m going to speak to Gideon on your behalf at the first opportunity,” she said.

But Maria looked sad now. “I was forgetting my duties here. Who will look after your papa, if I leave?”

Willow had no doubt that Dove Triskadden would be ensconced in this house as soon as propriety allowed, but then Dove probably wasn’t the kind to devote herself to baking bread and scrubbing floors, and it wasn’t as if there were a lot of unemployed housekeepers in Virginia City, just waiting to be offered a job. Willow conceded Maria’s point silently and concentrated on eating her breakfast.

When that was done, the two women turned to gathering linens and cooking utensils and extra curtains, all to be taken to the house outside of town, the house that would now be Willow’s home. Despite the fact that she had had Maria to look after her all these years, and was thus not only somewhat spoiled but also domestically inept, she was eager to try her hand at homemaking.

Willow was humming as she folded blankets and quilts, but she stopped abruptly when she sensed Gideon’s presence in the bedroom doorway. Considering his treatment of her the night before, she stiffened, unwilling or unable to speak first.

“I seem to be apologizing to you at every turn,” he said, from just behind her, his voice husky and low.

His very nearness made Willow ache inside. “You were out all night,” she said. There was no accusation in her words, no anger.

“I was out
most
of the night. I slept in the sitting room.”

Willow felt a sudden urge to whirl around and slap her husband soundly across the face, but she suppressed it. Her knuckles, though, turned white where she grasped the wedding-ring quilt she had been folding into a linen chest. “Why didn’t you come to my room?”

There was a short silence, “Would you have welcomed me, Willow?”

She spun to face him, pulling the quilt with her, her eyes shooting golden flames. “No!”

Gideon shrugged and spread his hands. “I rest my case,” he said. He hesitated, then thrust a hand through his hair. “Forgive me?”

The room seemed to be filled with the scent of white lilacs, flowing in through the open window. “Are you going to be a good husband, Gideon Marshall,” she countered, “or a shameless rounder?”

“My fate hinges on my answer, I presume?”

Willow reddened. “It does,” she confirmed.

He smiled wanly. “Then I’m going to be a good husband,” he answered.

Against her better judgment, Willow believed him.

Perhaps because she wanted to so much.

7

When Devlin Gallagher returned from his sojourn in the mountains, it was to find Juan and Pablito, the stable workers, loading various trunks and crates into the bed of a buckboard. Understanding immediately, Devlin was filled with a sweeping loneliness.

Willow was leaving home. His little girl was all grown up now, and married—for better or for worse.

Wearily, Devlin waved away Pablito’s quick offer of help and stabled his horse himself, seeing that it had water and a little extra feed. He was just bolting the stall door when Gideon Marshall approached him, looking nervous and determined, both at once.

“You’d best be good to my daughter,” Devlin said gruffly. There was no point in mincing words, especially when the discussion concerned Willow. The girl was
strong and spirited, even wild at times, but she had a fragile, innocent side, too.

Devlin would not see her hurt, and he wanted to make sure his son-in-law understood that.

Gideon smiled somewhat weakly. It wasn’t hard to guess that he didn’t like knowing that he was putting Willow between her husband and her brother, and that comforted Devlin in an odd sort of way. Most likely, the man had a conscience.

“I’ll see that Willow never wants for anything,” Gideon promised.

Devlin was quiet for a few moments, absorbing that. “Thought you’d be gone by now,” he observed, rubbing the back of his aching neck with one hand as he strode out of the shadowy barn and into the bright sunshine. He was getting old; too old to go trekking around in the mountains like some young buck with the sap still flowing through his veins, cooking for himself over a campfire, and sleeping on the ground.

Gideon’s hands were wedged into the pockets of his trousers. “Willow didn’t want to leave without speaking to you first.” He paused, cleared his throat. “Neither did I, as a matter of fact.”

Devlin eyed his son-in-law with wry appreciation. “Thank you.”

Gideon only nodded; there was a muscle leaping in his jawline and his eyes kept straying away from Devlin’s face and then being drawn firmly back again. Clearly, there was more the man wanted to say, but he was having a hell of a time coming out with it.

“I believe I’d enjoy a cup of Maria’s coffee right about now,” Devlin commented mildly. “Join me?”

Again, Gideon nodded, and color seeped up from his open collar to pulse in his ears.

Devlin, understanding, or at least figuring that he did, smiled to himself.

In the kitchen, Maria silently served coffee and left the room. Gideon and Devlin sat at the table, cupping their hands around their mugs.

Presently, Gideon cleared his throat again. “Sir . . .”

Devlin waited, biting his lower lip to keep from smiling or, worse, laughing out loud. “Yes?” he prompted when he dared, unable to resist arching one eyebrow.

Gideon squirmed miserably in his chair. “I—well—Willow and I have already been . . . together.”

Devlin feared for the mouthful of hot coffee he’d just taken. It burned as he swallowed it. “You must have some reason for telling me that, boy, but I can’t rightly think what it would be,” he finally managed to say.

“You had a right to know that this isn’t some kind of sham, this marriage, I mean,” Gideon blurted out, looking defensive and once again red at the earlobes.

“Isn’t it?”

Gideon shook his head forcefully. “I can’t honestly say that I love your daughter—that is, I don’t know if I do or not. But I’ll be good to Willow, I promise you.”

“That’s a promise you’ll want to keep,” warned Devlin quietly. “There’re two things I won’t tolerate, Gideon, and the rest is your business. Don’t lay a hand on that girl, ever, for any reason, in anger. And don’t betray her with another woman.”

Gideon’s strong jaw tightened and he started to speak, but Devlin cut him off briskly.

“I know what you were going to say—that I’m a fine one to be advising a man to be faithful to his wife. But I’ve got the right, because it’s my daughter who would be hurt and because I know better than anybody how much pain and trouble that kind of self-indulgence can bring on.”

“Are you saying—?”

Again, Devlin interrupted. “I’m saying that I’m sorry for what I did to your mother, Gideon. I said it to her and I’m saying it to you. Bring shame to Willow in that way and I’ll horsewhip you for it, and if you think that’s an idle threat from an old man, you’d damn well better think again.”

Gideon averted his eyes, absorbing in silence what Devlin had said.

“Not long before she took sick, your mother said something to me that’ll be carved into my memory, no matter what I do, until the day I die,” Devlin went on quietly. “She said it wasn’t the straying that she couldn’t forgive me for, but the fact that my actions made other people pity her. Evadne despised me for that, and I don’t blame her.”

The younger man’s gaze sliced back to Devlin’s face, unreadable and slightly narrowed. “When you married my mother, did you ask her to leave my brother and me behind in San Francisco to attend boarding school?”

Devlin was taken aback by the directness of the question, but he recovered quickly. On some level, he’d expected it to be asked a long time ago, though he hadn’t spent much time in the presence of Evadne’s sons. “Of
course I didn’t. And she didn’t want to, either—she cried for weeks.”

“She could have challenged my grandfather’s will,” Gideon said.

Devlin sighed, sitting back, remembering. “There were still a lot of Indian raids out here then, Gideon, and the only law we had was the vigilante kind. Your grandfather’s lawyers convinced Evadne that the two of you were better off in San Francisco, for a great many reasons. As for the will, it was ironclad. I went over it myself, at Evadne’s request, of course. You and Zachary would have lost your inheritances if she’d defied the terms of that will.”

Gideon looked away for a moment and, in that brief space of time, Devlin realized how much alike Steven and this young man really were. Again, he was comforted.

Into the silence came Willow, looking flushed and happy. As she thrust herself into Devlin’s arms, nearly toppling his chair in the process, he laughed and hugged her. For now, he smiled and shared her obvious joy; later, though, he knew that he would grieve at the loss of her.

Willow was like music, filling the house.

When she was gone, there would be silence.

*   *   *

Some instinct made Vancel Tudd turn away from both his favorite saloon and the room he kept at Mrs. Porter’s boardinghouse that late June morning, despite the fact that he was hot, thirsty, and very discouraged. Annoyed with himself, he went instead to the general store for cigarette papers and some tobacco.

The very fetching face of the Gallagher girl brought
him up short as soon as he entered that mercantile. She was there alone and immersed in the inspection of a set of china. This afforded Vancel the option of watching her freely, without her taking immediate notice.