Willow: A Novel (No Series)

by Linda Lael Miller

  Gideon’s face gentled, and he held her just a little closer. “Oh, you look a lot better than rather nice,” he assured her.

  “Then, why—?”

  He reached up and touched the tip of her nose with an index finger. “Hush,” he interrupted quietly. “I’m trying to explain my churlish and reprehensible behavior, here.”

  Willow only looked at him, waiting, praying that this cruel and foolish game they played could be ended.

  Gideon smiled, maneuvering her toward the open door and the privacy outside the dance hall. Gripping her hand, he led her across the shadowy porch and toward a familiar buggy. Reaching that, he lifted Willow into the seat and climbed up beside her.

  “Willow, I know that one person can’t own another,” he said raggedly. “I know it and yet I try to own you, and I’m sorry.”

  “What does that have to do with my dress?” she asked, truly confused and still a little hurt.

  She loved that dress.

  Loved the way she looked and felt wearing it.

  Gideon caught one of her hands between both of his own, there beneath the dark canopy of the buggy. “Everything,” he confessed. “Willow, I try to be objective about you, I really do. But when you wear something like that and other men are looking at you, seeing everything but your tonsils . . .”

  Willow blushed and swallowed hard. “You were jealous,” she said, and though that had been her end, there seemed to be no satisfaction in the knowledge that she had achieved it.

  “Jealous?” he drawled. “God, that is a pitiably inadequate word for what I felt! The only time I had any peace this whole night was when you were dancing with your father.”

  Having said that, he took up the reins, released the brake with a motion of one booted foot, and urged the single horse into motion.

  He drove in silence until they were out of town, hidden in a copse of trees. The creek flowing past—Willow had always known that creek—seemed strange and somehow magical.

  Willow was conscious of Gideon, more conscious than she’d been even on the dance floor, when he had held her so close. “I’m sorry,” she said, and the tears on her face were audible in her voice.

  “Why?” chided Gideon in a tender whisper.

  “I was hoping to make you jealous.”

  Gideon smiled. “I guess we’re even, then,” he said. He hooked a finger in the neckline of her velvet dress—which was suddenly a bit too warm for comfort, just as Daphne had warned it would be. “It’s a wonder you didn’t fall right out of that thing,” he teased. “Half the town was probably praying you would.”

  Willow gave an involuntary, sniffling laugh. “Were you hoping that, Gideon?”

  He chuckled. “Yes. But I was going to shoot the first man who looked.”

  “A-are you really going to tear up my dress?”

  “Ummm,” he replied hoarsely, considering. “Definitely not. I want you to wear it for me. And not wear it for me.” Gideon set the brake lever again, then let go of the reins. The patient old horse bent its head to graze on sweet grass sprinkled with stray shards of moonlight.

  “W-what about Daphne?” Willow asked.

  “What about her?” retorted Gideon, his right hand coming to rest on the full softness of Willow’s left thigh.

  “You can’t just go off and leave her at the dance—”

  “Seems to me I’ve already done that,” Gideon said. He seemed to be looking at her mouth with great interest, as though it had qualities he’d never noticed before. Then, mumbling, he added, “Don’t worry. Devlin will see Daphne home when the dance is over.”

  Unaccountably nervous, Willow intertwined her fingers in her lap.

  Their house was in the opposite direction.

  Gideon smiled and took in the dancing leaves of the cottonwood trees all around them. They were completely alone, but because they faced the broad spring moon, the interior of the buggy was filled with silver light.

  “Fall out of your dress, Mrs. Marshall,” he said quietly.

  Willow sat very still, transfixed, staring at this man who had such incredible power over her.

  “Now,” he added, in companionable tones.

  Fingers trembling with desire and with a rebellion that would not quite come to life, Willow reached up and took hold of the daring neckline of her gown. A slight downward pull made her lush breasts spill out, milky white in the moonlight.

  Gideon drew in his breath and tentatively touched one of the crimson buttons that awaited him with the tip of one finger. “Mine,” he said, and he sounded wonder stricken rather than proprietary.

  Willow quivered as keen pleasure shot through every part of her. “Yes,” she answered. “Yours.”

  Gideon bent, scraped the pulsing morsel with gentle teeth. “Only mine,” he prompted.

  Willow felt her body preparing itself to accommodate, to welcome him. “Yes,” she conceded, breathing the word instead of speaking it. Dear God, how was it possible to want a man so desperately, against all reason and good sense?

  Swiftly, Gideon positioned her so that she was facing him, kneeling, astraddle his lap, on the narrow buggy seat. With another motion of his teeth, he claimed the untested bud, stirred it to a fiery hardness. “Let your hair down,” he ordered.

  Willow shivered, and when she reached up with both hands to unpin her heavy hair, he caught the nipple he’d been toying with between his lips and attended it with his tongue. With his left hand, Gideon caught her wrists together at the back of her head.

  “Gideon,” she whimpered, deliciously vulnerable.

  He worked her hair free of its pins, somehow, but retained his firm hold on her wrists. “Lean back, little pagan, and let me feast.”

  Willow groaned, resisting.

  But Gideon’s hand had found its way under her voluminous skirts, inside her satiny drawers. With a gentle thrust, he claimed her. “Lean back,” he repeated.

  And this time Willow obeyed.

  Gideon bent his head to take suckle at one breast, delved deep with his fingers, and plied her to a brutal, scalding release with the pad of his thumb. Her throaty cries obviously pleased him.

  Soon enough, though, it came Willow’s turn to rule. Kneeling on the floor of the buggy, brazenly undoing the nearly bursting buttons of his trousers, she had her way with Gideon Marshall, and had it well.

  And afterward, they went home to their little house.

  The night was long and sweet and neither Gideon nor Willow slept a wink.

  13

  Maria greeted Willow in the Gallagher kitchen the next morning, her smile as bright as the sunlight streaming in through the windows. “What are you doing here so early?” she asked, in kindly surprise. “Last night, the judge told me you’d gone home with your husband when the dance was about to be over.”

  It didn’t surprise Willow that her father had taken note of her departure the night before.

  “I’m here because Gideon had business in town, and I wanted to see Daphne—and Hilda, of course.”

  Maria, seeming a little distracted, took a cup and saucer down from the cupboard and poured coffee for Willow.

  Willow blushed a little and sat down at the kitchen table. It struck her, not for the first time, what an odd thing it was to feel like a visitor in this house, this dear house that had been, until Gideon, the only real home she’d ever had. Even with Evadne there, the place had been a refuge.

  “Papa did bring Daphne home from the dance last night, didn’t he?” Willow asked. It was her understanding that shy and reticent Hilda had preferred to stay behind, reading in the guest room she and Daphne shared.

  “Sí,” replied Maria, but there definitely was a perplexed shadow in the depths of her dark eyes.

  “What is it, Maria?”

  Maria sighed and shrugged her thick shoulders. “It is Señor Steven. He was here, chiquita.”

  Willow set her cup back in its saucer with a nervous rattle. “Here? In this house?”

  “No.” Maria shook h
er head ruefully, and her blue-black hair glinted in a shaft of sunlight from the windows. “He came to the stables. And the señorita—Miss Roberts—I believe she went to him there.”

  Worried for Daphne, angry that Steven would take such a brazen chance, Willow bit her lower lip and paled. “Oh, Maria, you don’t suppose—”

  “Sí,” said Maria sadly. “Something must have happened between them. The señorita cries much when she is back in the house.”

  “Did you go to her, Maria?”

  “No. What was there for me to say, little one? I could not tell the señorita that things would be all right, because I know that they won’t. Not if she throws in her lot with an outlaw.”

  Now it was Willow who shook her head. Her coffee forgotten, she rose out of her chair and started up the back stairs. Moments later, she was knocking softly at Daphne’s door.

  “Come in,” said Daphne, in a thick, miserable voice.

  She sounded nothing like her normal, confident self.

  Willow opened the door and paused uncertainly just inside. Where was Hilda? Probably out for one of her early-morning constitutionals.

  Biting her lower lip, Willow wondered how to broach the subject of her brother in a diplomatic way.

  Daphne, her eyes swollen and red, sat up in her bed and blurted out, “You know what happened—don’t tell me you don’t, because I can see it in your face.”

  “Yes,” answered Willow, frozen in the doorway. “I think I know.”

  At this, Daphne burst into tears.

  Willow was able to move again; she hurried to the bedside, sat down, and pulled her friend into her arms.

  Daphne sobbed, childlike, into the shoulder of Willow’s calico dress.

  “Go back to San Francisco, Daphne,” she whispered, when she was sure the worst of the outburst had passed, feeling this other woman’s pain and confusion as keenly as if they were her own. “Buy a train ticket and go home, while you still can.”

  “I couldn’t,” Daphne sniffled. “Oh, Willow, how could I bear to go, after-after . . .” A great shudder went through her, and she began to cry again, harder than before.

  “After Steven?” Willow asked gently.

  Daphne nodded into Willow’s shoulder, sniffling. “Oh, Willow, I love him and I . . . last night—”

  “I know,” said Willow, in complete sympathy. Lord knew, Daphne’s obvious assignation with Steven had been ill-advised, but after her own experiences with Gideon, Willow Marshall was in no position to stand in judgment. “But you must leave, Daphne. If you don’t, this will happen again. And what if there was a child?”

  Daphne looked up, her wet eyes flashing now, darkened to purple by the intensity of her feelings. “I don’t care. I won’t go—I can’t!”

  Willow felt rage, not toward Daphne, but toward her handsome, charming, and totally irresponsible brother. What had he been thinking of to do something like this? Weren’t his notorious women enough? “Did Steven ask you to meet him again?”

  “Yes,” Daphne admitted, after a few moments of moist hesitation. “Tonight.”

  “Where, Daphne? Tell me where.”

  “Do you mean to tell Gideon?”

  “Of course not. But I’ve got a few things to say to that brother of mine, and say them I will!”

  Daphne drew out of Willow’s embrace and covered her face with both hands. “It was so wonderful, Willow, and leaving him was so awful . . .”

  Some of Willow’s angry impatience spilled over in Daphne’s direction. “Awful? If you think it was awful after one night, Daphne Roberts, just think how awful it will be if it becomes a way of life. Do you really want to wait in some shack, while Steven robs your father’s trains, knowing all the while that he might never come back? Do you want to be alone all the time, and hunted, possibly even named a criminal in your own right? Do you want to share all that sorrow and misery and danger with an innocent little baby, Daphne?”

  Willow knew, of course, what that sort of life was really like, because she’d lived it, in the years before Steven brought her to their father’s house.

  “It wouldn’t be like that,” moaned Daphne, but her wide, hollow eyes belied her words.

  “It would,” Willow insisted, “and worse, too. Steven carries on with half a dozen different women, Daphne, although I’m sure he’s sworn his undying devotion. You would have to share him, sooner or later.” At the look of protest rising in her friend’s face, she went on. “And even if that didn’t bother you, what about the danger you yourself would represent to him?”

  “Danger?” Daphne frowned, dashing away her tears with the back of one hand. “What-what do you mean?”

  “I mean, Daphne, that a lot of people are looking for Steven. There’s a bounty on his head. And that means that every time you came to town, for any reason, someone would try to follow you back to him.”

  Daphne paled. “My God.”

  “Go home, Daphne,” Willow pleaded earnestly, taking her friend’s hands in her own. “For your sake and Steven’s, I beg you to get on today’s train and go home to the life and the people you know.”

  “I won’t,” Daphne reiterated, tight-jawed, after a brief period of solemn reflection. “Hilda wants to leave—she says this is the back of beyond, not a fit place for civilized people—but I’m staying right here.”

  “Daphne!”

  “I’m staying!”

  Willow sighed and stood up to leave the room. “Then there isn’t anything more to say, is there?”

  “Will you still be my friend, Willow?”

  Willow paused in the doorway. “It’s because I’m your friend that I begged you to leave, Daphne. I want you to tell me where you’re supposed to meet Steven tonight.”

  Daphne blanched and bit her lower lip. “The p-pond. The one near your house.”

  Willow trembled. “God in heaven, that fool! Gideon will be—”

  Daphne stiffened, and her eyes were wide with alarm. “You must keep Gideon from knowing. Willow, he mustn’t get word of this, no matter what!”

  “How do you expect me to do that, Daphne?” snapped Willow, in a whisper. “Steven may be an idiot, but believe me, Gideon isn’t. If Steven sets foot on our land, he’ll know it. And if I try to distract him, he’ll guess instantly what reason I have for doing that!”

  “Then what are we to do?” choked Daphne, in near panic. “Steven will come to that pond, Willow!”

  “Yes, he’ll be there,” Willow conceded, in exasperation. “But he won’t find you waiting. No, I’ll meet Steven, and it will be up to you to keep Gideon away.”

  Daphne sucked in a breath. “However will I do that?” she demanded. “It isn’t as if Gideon Marshall does my bidding, you know.”

  “The ‘how’ part is your problem, I’m afraid,” Willow answered succinctly. And then she left the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  Back in the kitchen, she related the essentials of the problem to Maria.

  “You must go to your papa without delay and tell him everything!” advised the housekeeper, every bit as frantic as Daphne had been minutes before, and as Willow felt in that moment, although she hid it well. “The judge would never betray Steven, and he is wise—he’ll know what to do.”

  “I hesitate to do that, Maria. Papa and Steven don’t get along at all—”

  “If you do not tell your father,” Maria warned, “I will. This is the choice I am giving you—either you ask for the judge’s help, or I do.”

  Willow knew by Maria’s tone and manner that she’d made up her mind, and no power, either on earth or in heaven, could change it. She took a few moments to absorb the realization; then, with her shoulders slumping, she started toward the door. Another time, she might have been angry with Maria, might have felt that the woman was betraying her trust. Now, however, she knew her dear friend was right. Cursing Steven, Willow went outside, reclaimed her horse and buggy from Juan, and turned the rig toward the main part of town.

  She found her father i
n his office, immersed in a stack of documents.

  Seeing her standing in the doorway, he pulled off his reading glasses and assessed her solemnly.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, straight out. Willow did not often visit her father’s office and, besides, he probably saw something in her face.

  She was so very worried.

  Judge Gallagher stood, rounded his desk, and took his daughter lightly but firmly by one elbow, squiring her to a chair and sitting her down. She wondered if he’d felt the trembling she couldn’t seem to suppress.

  “Tell me,” he ordered gruffly, once he was seated in his own chair again.

  Willow blushed a little as she alluded to Steven and Daphne’s assignation in the stables the night before, and went on to say that the two had planned a second meeting for that very evening, beside the pond on Gideon’s ranch.

  In truth, Willow hated revealing all this, because it was so embarrassingly personal, but she knew Maria hadn’t been bluffing. If Willow hadn’t told her father the truth herself, the housekeeper would have done it.

  “Great Zeus,” Devlin exclaimed hoarsely, when Willow had related the situation in its entirety. “Your brother must be suffering from brain fever or something.”

  Willow bit her lip and nodded in teary-eyed agreement. She had always been uncomfortable in her father’s downtown office, mainly because it was situated above the jailhouse. Now that Gideon was the marshal, having taken over poor Mitch Kroeber’s job for the present, her unease was worse. “Papa, what are we going to do?”

  “I’ll tell you this much,” blustered the judge, pacing the length of his small, cluttered office, “it won’t be either you or Daphne who meets Steven by the pond tonight. By God, he’ll find me there, and he’ll give an accounting for all of this!”

  “Papa, you know how stubborn he is,” Willow protested. “You could lecture him all night long and he’d just go right on doing as he pleases!”

  The judge stopped and gave a despairing and ragged sigh. “You’re right,” he conceded, after a time, “but I’ve got to try.”

  Suddenly, they heard the sound of boots pounding up the outside stairs from the street below. “Judge! Judge Gallagher!” shouted a masculine voice. “Judge Gallagher!”