Willow: A Novel (No Series) (5 page)

“Sit down,” prompted the judge, indicating a leather chair facing the fireplace.

Confused, Gideon sat. Good Lord, a man would almost think that Gallagher was
pleased
that his daughter’s wedding had been spoiled, and in such a scandalous fashion, too.

“I ought to have horsewhipped you in the street,” observed the older man, in companionable tones, as he settled his powerful frame in the chair opposite Gideon’s.

Gideon took a sip from his whiskey. “Why didn’t you?” he asked.

“I was too goddamned relieved,” Gallagher replied, lifting one booted foot to rest on his knee.

“You didn’t want your daughter to marry?”

Devlin Gallagher flashed Gideon a quelling look. “Damnit, would you want that pimply squirrel Pickering to marry
your
daughter?” he demanded.

The groom had been rather unprepossessing, but Gideon hadn’t thought much about it until now. He’d been too intent on averting the complications of bigamy for that. “She must care for him, if she agreed to the marriage—”

The judge interrupted with a snort. “Care for him? Willow despises Pickering!”

“Then why in God’s name would she consent to becoming his wife?”

Gallagher shrugged. “That’s what I’d like to find out. My guess would be that it has something to do with my son.”

Gideon was reminded of his other business in Virginia City—railroad business that had nothing whatsoever to do with stopping Willow’s marriage to the squirrel. “Steven,” he said cautiously. Admire Devlin Gallagher though he did, he couldn’t afford to tip his hand now.

“No doubt, my dear wife has regaled you with an account of Steven’s many sins,” the judge said wearily, his blue eyes faraway and full of pain.

Gideon paid little attention to his mother’s opinions of other people, as a general rule. She was inclined to look for the worst and keep searching until she found it, regardless of the effort involved. “She mentioned him,” he said, in classic understatement.

The judge sighed again and took a drink of his brandy. “I suppose it’s my fault. Steven is an outlaw, after all, and Willow—well, Willow is a constant reminder of my first wife. I know Evadne finds the resemblance trying.”

Gideon sat back, remembering. Evadne had been delighted at the prospect of raising a daughter, when Willow first joined the Gallagher household. After Willow’s ill-fated visit to San Francisco, however, her attitude had changed. Ever since the two women had returned to Virginia City, his mother’s long letters had been filled with
bitter references to Willow and the shameful circumstances of her birth. It seemed that Devlin and his former wife, Chastity, mother of the notorious Steven, had engaged in some sort of tryst later on, and the girl with amber eyes had been the result.

But Evadne must have known the truth about Willow’s conception, Gideon reasoned. Apparently, she’d been able to overlook her husband’s obvious infidelity—she’d tried to launch her stepdaughter socially, after all. When that effort failed, Evadne had turned on Willow. Permanently.

Recalling that made Gideon feel even worse, if that was possible, about the prank he and Zachary and their friends had pulled on the girl.

“Willow and Steven are close then?” Gideon dared, pretending an interest in his drink. He was uncomfortable with his thoughts; besides, he had important business in the Montana Territory beyond ruining a wedding.

“Very close. They were together until Willow was nine. Steven brought her to me then.”

Gideon treaded carefully onto sensitive ground. “As Mother tells it,” he began, “it came as something of a surprise, Willow’s existence, I mean.”

The judge’s still handsome face tightened. “I knew I’d sired a second child,” he said, “a daughter. But I couldn’t find them. God knows I tried.”

“My mother’s reaction to Willow’s arrival must have been interesting,” observed Gideon quietly.

“It was,” the judge allowed, with a sound that was part sigh and part chuckle. “But Evadne is a good woman, and she forgave me, as far as possible anyway. She tried
to be a mother to Willow, and I will be forever grateful for that, but, well, things just didn’t work out. It isn’t as if Willow hasn’t contributed to the problem—she’s high-spirited and impulsive. I suppose it’s natural that the two of them would butt heads.” He paused and made a rueful sound. “Once Willow came to live with us, there was a lot of talk, and that made things even more difficult for your mother.”

“I can imagine.”

Devlin’s blue eyes came to Gideon’s face, their expression shadowed. “You didn’t come all the way to Virginia City to stop Willow from marrying Pickering, did you?” he asked evenly. His was the tone of a man who already knew the answer to his question.

“No, sir,” Gideon admitted. Virginia City was a small community, and Devlin Gallagher was a prominent citizen. He wouldn’t be able to keep his intentions secret for long.

“Railroad business, you said?”

“Yes.”

“Concerning Steven?”

Gideon got out of his chair, moving to stand at one of the heavily curtained windows near Devlin’s cluttered desk. There was obviously no point in lying to the judge; the man was nobody’s fool.

“Yes.”

The judge gave an unsettling burst of laughter. “You’ll never get him,” he said, with relish. “Do you know what the Indians call Steven, Gideon?”

The liquor was easing some of the tension in Gideon’s
shoulders, though they still ached. He remained silent, too stubborn, he guessed, to admit that he knew the enormity of the task that had been set for him.

Devlin Gallagher was only too happy to elaborate. “They call him the Mountain Fox,” he said. “And not without reason, my friend. Not without reason.”

“He’s wanted,” Gideon said spiritlessly, not bothering to turn from the window and face this man who was, oddly, both his stepfather and father-in-law.

“By the railroad?”

“By the law. The railroad has a vested interest in his capture, of course. Steven has been robbing trains, Judge Gallagher. We can’t afford to overlook that.”

“I suppose not,” said the judge, in a sad voice. “I don’t believe Steven’s your man, for what it’s worth. His robberies are invariably designed to hurt me, you know. Steven inherited a great deal of money when my mother passed away. The funds have been held in trust for him, and he has full access to them, no questions asked.”

Gideon turned from the window at last. After the events of this day, he’d thought that nothing could shock him, but Devlin Gallagher’s words had. “And you truly believe his only aim is to cause you trouble?”

“My son hates me—and rightfully so, I’m afraid. I’ve never known him to waylay a train or a stagecoach that wasn’t carrying something of mine—like one of my payrolls, for instance.”

Beyond the window glass, the skies rumbled. The clouds that had been gathering in the distance all day were closing in.

“Two months ago Steven Gallagher and his men held up the Central Pacific. They took twenty-five thousand dollars.”

Devlin nodded. “Twenty-five thousand dollars of my money and not one damned thing else. I didn’t hold the railroad responsible and I wonder why they’re so all-fired anxious to see Steven prosecuted.”

“The passengers were terrified, for one thing,” Gideon said, albeit with less force.

“None of them was hurt,” argued the judge.

“That still doesn’t excuse your son—the man cannot be permitted to stop the Central Pacific at will!”

“They’ll figure out a way to hang Steven if you bring him in. You know that, don’t you?”

The whiskey was suddenly roiling in Gideon’s stomach, and he set his glass aside with a thump. “He’ll be tried fairly, Judge Gallagher.”

Devlin gave a hoot of laughter. “God, you have a lot of confidence in yourself and your railroad, boy. Vancel Tudd’s been after Steven for six years, and he’s never even come close. Do you know who Tudd is, young fella? Well, I’ll tell you. He’s the best goddamned bounty hunter in the territories. How the hell do you expect to find my son if he can’t?”

Gideon thought of the golden-haired, wide-eyed young woman upstairs. Thanks to all he’d done to her, here and in San Francisco, she would be seen as a scarlet woman from now on. And yet she was, he sensed, the key to finding Steven Gallagher. “I don’t know,” he lied, in answer to the judge’s question.

Suddenly, he was bone tired, even though it was only midafternoon. He still had to write a letter to Daphne; certainly, some sort of explanation was in order, since he was supposed to marry the woman the first week in September.

Gideon went to the coat tree just inside the study doors and took down his dusty, travel-rumpled jacket. Under the circumstances, he couldn’t very well stay under this roof. “I’ll be at the Union Hotel,” he told the still and thoughtful figure of Judge Devlin Gallagher.

“Your mother will be furious,” replied the judge. He spoke wearily.

Gideon shrugged and opened one of the double doors. “Your Honor?”

Gallagher rose from his chair and turned to face Gideon. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

The look in the judge’s eyes was incredibly patient. “I know,” he answered.

Gideon went out into the rain, raising his collar against the wind.

2

The storm pounding at the single window in his hotel room, Gideon opened the packet of writing paper he had purchased at the mercantile next door and took up a pen. “Dear Daphne,” he wrote. “I’m in the Montana Territory . . .”

He crumpled that page and began again: “Dear Daphne, you will never guess where I am.”
Oh, and by the way, I’m already married . . . it was a joke, you see
.

Gideon took yet another fresh sheet of paper and scrawled, “Dear Daphne, I may not be back in time for the wedding—”

He stopped. It went against his grain, lying to Daphne, but how could he tell her the truth? Before their wedding could take place, he’d have to have his marriage to Willow Gallagher annulled. That shouldn’t be too difficult, he reasoned, given that they’d never consummated the union.

But still.

Resolute, Gideon dipped his pen in the ink bottle and forged on, explaining that railroad business might keep him away from home longer than expected.

Even after appropriate pleasantries had been added, the letter to Daphne was very short. It seemed to Gideon that there should be more to say.

With a sigh, he signed the missive and set it aside so that the ink could dry. He didn’t love Daphne Roberts and he was certain that she did not love him; his reasons for becoming engaged to her were far more practical than that. By aligning himself with Daphne’s father, also a major stockholder in the Central Pacific, he would create a financial empire.

Until he had walked into the rustic church that afternoon and seen Willow Gallagher, Gideon’s plans to marry for power and position, not to mention a vast increase in his personal fortune, had not bothered him in the least. Now, however, they weighed heavily on his mind and spirit. He couldn’t help considering the fact that this topaz-eyed hellcat was his wife, legally if not morally. He could bed her and be well within his rights.

The thought roused an unfortunate anatomical response, and Gideon rose out of his chair, stretched his arms high above his head, and muttered a swearword. It was bad enough that he planned to use Willow Gallagher to locate her outlaw brother, Steven, bad enough that he had probably ruined her reputation forever. To seduce her in the bargain would be reprehensible.

And yet Gideon wanted her as he had never wanted
Daphne or any of the dozens of more adventurous women he had enjoyed over the years of his manhood. Willow was beautiful, with her lush figure and that head of golden hair that seemed to invite his fingers to stray within it.

Gideon brought himself up short. The world was full of beautiful women; there was no need to let this crazy attraction to the lovely Miss Gallagher disrupt his well-laid plans.

Methodically, he folded the letter he’d written to Daphne, tucked it into an envelope, and penned a San Francisco address. Then, telling himself that Daphne Roberts was indeed the right woman for him, he put on his coat and left the room.

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