Willow: A Novel (No Series)

by Linda Lael Miller

  Willow straightened her spine, then raised her chin a notch. “You heard me, Steven. I was going to marry Norville. I was even standing at the altar. Then Lan-Gideon walked in and proceeded to inform the whole community that I couldn’t be married because I was already his wife.” Willow stopped the account there, closing her eyes, bracing herself for the inevitable explosion.

  Instead, Steven gave a ragged burst of laughter. “I owe our Lancelot a debt of gratitude, it appears. That was brilliant!”

  For a moment, Willow was puzzled. But then she realized that Steven thought Gideon had merely been bluffing. “I don’t think you understand,” she said quietly. “Steven, I really am married to Gideon. Truly.”

  Steven’s mouth fell open; for once in his dashing and completely misguided life, he was speechless.

  “It happened two years ago, Steven, when I visited San Francisco with Evadne,” Willow rushed to explain. “You remember, don’t you, when she decided to dress me up and present me to society?”

  Most likely, Evadne had hoped to marry Willow off. Leave her behind in San Francisco when she returned to Virginia City.

  “I remember,” Steven rasped, his aristocratic face completely devoid of color.

  Painfully, knowing that it had to be done, Willow explained the prank Gideon had played on her, the prank that had turned out to be a documented reality.

  At the end of the account, Steven shot to his feet, towering against the morning sun like an angry Adonis. “I’ll kill him!” he bellowed.

  With what she hoped was a calming demeanor, Willow stood up and approached Steven, then caught his muscular arms in her hands. “Gideon could have made love to me that night, Steven,” she said rationally. “I thought it was our wedding night and I would have allowed him to. But he didn’t. H-he said it was all a terrible mistake and brought me back to the mansion . . .”

  Steven wrenched free of her grasp, then paced back and forth in the deep, windblown grass, his face murderous. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?” he demanded, after some time.

  Willow ached with embarrassment and residual pain. What a bumpkin she’d been, back then. How Gideon and Zachary and the others must have laughed at her gullibility.

  “I didn’t want you to know, Steven. Surely you can understand how stupid I felt!”

  Before Steven could reply to this, one way or the other, the hoot of a night owl rang through the bright June morning. It was a signal, of course; Coy or Reilly warning Steven that someone was coming.

  Steven gave Willow one beleaguered look and disappeared into the cottonwood trees farther up the hill.

  Two minutes later, Norville rode out of the brush on horseback, looking very pleased with himself. Dressed in black trousers and a smudged white shirt that was stained under the armpits, he was even less appealing than usual.

  “Well,” he drawled, his tone scathing. “Fancy meeting you here!”

  Willow was in no mood for an encounter with Norville, and she stalked over to Banjo, who was grazing nearby, and took his dangling reins in hand. “You followed me,” she accused, swinging up into the saddle, ready to flee if Norville came any closer.

  “We need to have a talk, you and I,” Norville reiterated, still in the saddle, placing his hands on his hips.

  “About what?”

  Norville flushed furiously. “About our bargain, Miss Gallagher. We had an agreement. Surely you didn’t think I was simply going to pretend that didn’t happen?”

  Willow swallowed hard but made no move to ride away, though she longed to. This, like the confrontation with Steven just past, was unavoidable. “I can’t very well marry you now,” she said lamely.

  “Of course not,” conceded Norville. “Think what it would do to the Pickering name. Your reputation wasn’t exactly pristine before; now, of course, it’s probably unsalvageable. I couldn’t marry you even if—especially if—you were divorced.”

  Fresh relief swept over Willow in such an intense wave that she nearly swayed out of the saddle. A previous marriage was a definite disadvantage when it came to matrimony; there were many men who would be unwilling to wed a divorcee, and thank God, Norville Pickering apparently numbered among them. “I see,” she managed to say.

  Norville gave her a speculative look that made her uncomfortable all over again. “I don’t think you do see, Willow. If you don’t want me to go to Vancel Tudd or the marshal with what I know about your brother, you’ll have to, er, accommodate me.”

  A cold sickness welled in Willow’s stomach. “A-accommodate you?”

  Norville rolled his colorless eyes heavenward. “Spare me the innocent amazement, Willow. You understand exactly what I mean and we both know it. I want you to be my mistress.”

  At some unconscious urging from Willow, Banjo began to dance backward, nickering and tossing his head. “I am a married woman,” she reminded him.

  Not that he appeared to care in the least.

  “You are also the sister of a wanted man. Do you want to see your beloved Steven imprisoned, maybe even hanged, Willow?”

  Just the image of Steven struggling at the end of a hangman’s rope before that final, inevitable stillness made Willow squeeze her eyes shut. Grief seared the back of her throat, and she couldn’t have spoken for anything.

  Norville was editor of Virginia City’s newspaper, having inherited both the business and the family home when his father, Mance, passed away, and there was no denying that he had a way with words. “It’s a terrible death, you know, strangulation. Most hangmen are quite inept. Sometimes the poor fellow just flails a few feet above the ground, slowly spinning round and round, turning blue. Often, the tongue protrudes, and the bowels open.” He paused, grinding the image into Willow’s mind. “Would you like to see that happen to your precious Steven, Willow?”

  She shook her head, sicker than ever, and forced herself to open her eyes.

  “Of course you wouldn’t!” exclaimed Norville, spreading his hands in an expansive, generous gesture. But then his eyes moved over Willow’s full breasts and trim hips like the slithering passage of a snake. He shifted in the saddle, about to dismount. “Get down from the horse, my dear.”

  Would pleading save her? Looking at Norville, Willow knew that it wouldn’t. She lifted one suddenly weighted leg over the horn of her saddle and slid despondently from Banjo’s back.

  She took one step toward Norville, then another. And the only thing that kept her from screaming in revulsion and fear was the thought of Steven with a noose tightening around his neck.

  Norville, looking like the proverbial cat that ate the canary, simply leaned back against the trunk of a cottonwood tree, folded his arms, and waited.

  Willow was within his reach when all hell broke loose. Suddenly, it seemed, there were horses everywhere.

  Coy and Reilly were there, both of them excited.

  His face taut and brutal, Steven sprang from the bare back of his sorrel gelding, a rifle dangling from one hand. Within seconds, he’d swung the rifle sideways and pinned Norville to the trunk of the tree with its cold steel barrel.

  Norville’s eyes were the size of Maria’s tortillas.

  Steven favored his captive with a blood-chilling grin. “Hello, Norville,” he said.

  “Cut off his ears,” suggested Coy, Willow’s half brother, in an affable tone.

  “Yeah,” Reilly agreed.

  “Shut up, both of you,” Steven ordered, his eyes never leaving Norville’s alternately crimson and snow white face.

  Coy flung one beleaguered look at Reilly and shrugged. Willow noticed then that there was another man with them, a man she had never seen before. He was tall, with coloring much like Steven’s, but there was an emptiness in his eyes that was vaguely disturbing.

  Norville finally managed a strangled “For God’s sake, Willow, call them off!”

  Steven gave the rifle barrel an eloquent thrust into Norville’s twitching neck. “One more word, my friend,” he breathed, “and my brothers wil
l have your ears—among other things.”

  Norville’s gaze swung to Willow, pleaded with her piteously.

  “Steven,” she ventured. Lord knew she had no great love for Norville Pickering, but if Steven killed or injured him, bad matters would certainly become worse, and in no time at all.

  Her brother gave no indication that he had heard Willow at all, but he did loosen the pressure of the rifle barrel, allowing Norville to breathe a little more freely. Steven’s broad shoulders moved in a deceptively casual shrug.

  “You wanted me, Pickering,” Steven said. “Here I am.”

  Poor Norville didn’t know whether to reply or not. Wisely, he kept his peace.

  Steven dropped the rifle; it clattered to the rocky ground at his feet. Instantly, however, his hands were at the front of Norville’s shirt, gripping the fabric, lifting the object of his ire completely off the ground. “I will warn you one time,” the outlaw rasped, between perfect white teeth. “If you ever touch my sister or even speak to her in a manner I consider ungentlemanly, I will find you, Pickering, and I will kick your scrawny ass up between your shoulder blades, for a start. Following that, I will let my younger brothers—bless their hearts, they’re not all there, never have been—I will let my younger brothers cut away any part of your anatomy they so desire. Do you understand me?”

  Looking sick, his skin a greenish gray, his brow beaded with sweat, Norville nodded.

  Steven released him and his head swung in Willow’s direction. “Go home,” he ordered his sister. “Right now.”

  Willow lifted her chin. Norville had reason to be scared of Steven. She didn’t.

  “No,” she said flatly.

  Norville was scrambling toward his own horse, left to graze nearby. The poor man was red to the ears he probably believed he had come so close to losing, struggling into the saddle, fleeing ignobly. The delighted laughter of both Coy and Reilly rang in the air.

  The other man remained silent and watchful, the brim of his hat pulled down over his face, hiding his features.

  Steven, meanwhile, strode toward Willow, his blue eyes blazing. He stood toe to toe with her. “You were actually going to give in to him!” he yelled.

  Coy and Reilly reined their horses around and rode discreetly away, followed somewhat reluctantly by the silent stranger.

  “It didn’t seem that I had much choice!” Willow shouted back, standing her ground.

  They were nose to nose now, brother and sister, one’s will every bit as strong as the other’s.

  “I can take care of myself!” bellowed Steven.

  “Like hell you can!” screamed Willow.

  With monumental effort, Steven calmed himself. He turned and walked away. “No more, Willow,” he said hoarsely. “Damnit, no more. I won’t have you bargaining with your virtue to protect the likes of me. I’m not worth it.”

  Suddenly, there were tears in Willow’s eyes. She couldn’t help thinking of all the times he’d defended her against Jay Forbes and others, the small gifts he’d somehow managed to present, on her birthdays and at Christmas, the way he’d reassured her when she was small and frightened. “But I love you, Steven—”

  “No more,” he repeated, in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper.

  There was something so final in the words that Willow shivered. “Steven,” she began, but he was striding toward his horse, mounting it, bending to catch the dangling reins up in his hands.

  “Sometimes I think it would be better for everyone if I turned myself in,” he said.

  Before Willow could find words to refute this rash statement, Steven was riding away, soon to vanish into the trees.

  Tears burning behind her eyes and aching in her throat, Willow caught and remounted her horse, which had wandered some distance away during the confusion surrounding Steven’s unexpected return. Dispiritedly, she rode toward home.

  Not surprisingly, Evadne was waiting in the doorway when Willow reached the rear entrance to the house. “How dare you disappear like that, after the scandal you’ve unleashed on us all?” she demanded. “Willow Gallagher, how dare you?”

  There was no point in reminding her that Gideon had been the one to ruin her wedding to Norville.

  Too spent emotionally to defend herself, Willow simply stood there, in her trousers and her shirt and her boots, her hair slipping from its hasty braid, and awaited her stepmother’s lecture.

  It was not forthcoming, for, just as Evadne opened her mouth to give vent to her obvious umbrage, Devlin rounded the western corner of the house. His blue eyes touched Willow with much sympathy, then swept, in rare warning, to his wife.

  “I’ll have a word with my daughter,” he said flatly, mounting the porch steps.

  Evadne flushed and then turned in a swirl of crisp sateen skirts to disappear into the house. The only outward rebellion she allowed herself was the distant slamming of the kitchen door.

  “You’ve seen Steven,” Devlin guessed aloud, the moment he and Willow were alone.

  Despite the fact that she’d been almost ten years old before even meeting Devlin Gallagher, or knowing that he was her real father, Willow found it impossible to lie to the man. Like Steven, he’d always been good to her, unfailingly generous. A firm but loving father.

  She nodded miserably.

  And Devlin looked uncommonly stern. “I don’t want you to go near your brother again, Willow—do you hear me? Steven is a marked man, and when justice catches up with him, I won’t have you caught in the crossfire!”

  “Justice!” cried Willow. “You know as well as I do that Steven isn’t really a criminal!”

  Devlin suddenly seemed very old, and his eyes were fixed on the distant hills. “It may be that we delude ourselves, you and I, because we love Steven and want him to survive.”

  Willow had considered this possibility—and discarded it. Having lived nine years of her life in the company of Steven Gallagher, she knew him better than his father ever would. “Steven is not an outlaw,” she insisted stubbornly.

  The weary blue eyes came searchingly to Willow’s face. A beat passed, and during that fraction of a moment, the conversation changed course. “You will be careful of Gideon Marshall, won’t you, Willow?”

  Willow was taken aback; for a moment it seemed that her father surely knew of the illicit pleasures Gideon had revealed to her that morning in the quiet hills. “What do you mean?” she asked, as a diversionary tactic.

  “I mean that Gideon is on the board of directors of the Central Pacific Railroad, Willow. He’s a major stockholder. And he’s here to find Steven and see that he’s charged with train robbery, and most likely a whole slew of other things, too.”

  Willow felt as though she’d been slapped. Inwardly, she reeled, but soon enough she accepted the truth in her father’s words. Gideon had shown a marked interest in Steven, now that she thought about it. And she’d thought he was curious about her.

  A mingling of shame and rage turned her dirt-smudged cheeks crimson. To think she’d let that man take such unconscionable liberties with her person, to bare her breasts, to know her in ways only a husband should. Probably her surrender, such as it was, was just another joke to him.

  Like their “wedding” two years before, in California.

  Quickly, her father was there, drawing her into his strong arms, holding her. “I’ll have this farce of a marriage annulled, Willow,” he promised earnestly, “if you can just tell me that-that you and Gideon haven’t . . .”

  Willow wept harder, overcome by this second betrayal of Gideon’s, and her father took this for an admission that the marriage had been consummated.

  Still, he was patient. “There’s no annulment, then,” Devlin said bleakly. “I’ll make up the papers and we’ll go to the territorial legislature—”

  Willow broke away from her father, ran sobbing into the house, and locked herself in her bedroom. She wanted more than anything in the world to be free of Gideon Marshall, but she also wanted to be his wife. God h
elp her, she wanted more—much more—of the heated ecstasy that she had known with him that morning. Instinctively, she knew that she would never, in all her life, love another man as she loved Gideon, never feel such brutal, sweeping satisfaction unless it was he who gave it.

  The knowledge filled Willow Gallagher with despair.

  * * *

  Gideon had lain on his lumpy hotel room bed all day long, staring up at the ceiling and wishing that he’d never been born. Though he considered it time and time again, he could not bring himself to find a whore and end the torture.

  Finally, though, as the sun began to set, he rose from the bed, washed, and brushed his hair. There was still time to send the wire the board of directors was waiting for, and then he’d go to one of Virginia City’s dozen saloons and get blind drunk.

  Five minutes later, he entered the Western Union office and, feeling like Judas reincarnated, dictated the message that had to be sent:

  HAVE FOUND THE MEANS TO LOCATE GALLAGHER. G.M.

  It was that means, that whiskey-eyed, passionate means, that haunted Gideon as he left Western Union and entered the noisy, well-lighted saloon directly across the street. Gideon Marshall hadn’t cried since he was four years old; now, at thirty-one, it was all he could do to keep from it.

  * * *

  Wielding her sponge, Maria scrubbed Willow’s back with a ferocity born of love.

  Willow, her single braid wound into a coronet on top of her aching head, sat stolidly in the ornate tub in the special bathing chamber just off the kitchen, enduring. “I want to die,” she said distractedly.

  Maria spared her the lecture such a remark invited. “Pooh,” she said, scrubbing harder. “You will live to be a hundred.”

  And every minute of it loving a man who would sell out my brother, mourned Willow in silence.

  Finished scouring Willow’s back, Maria deftly undid the thick golden braid and began the process of shampooing by reaching for an enamel pitcher and dunking it into the tub. “You must look especially pretty tonight,” she said brightly.

  Willow groaned. “Why? I’m staying in my room from now until three years after the Second Coming.”