Willow: A Novel (No Series) (17 page)

Remorse swept over him, displacing the fatigue of tracking Steven Gallagher for days, without avail. She’d been here all the time, this girl—Christ, why hadn’t he thought about her before? If she was close to her brother, she would eventually meet with him, and all Vancel would have to do would be to follow. He’d assuage his wounded pride and collect the bounty from the railroad, all in one easy move.

She turned then, saw him, and the almost imperceptible curl of her lip convinced Vancel that he’d been right. She knew him, and despised him, and that meant that she probably saw her brother on a regular basis.

The scrawny, simpering storekeeper was trying to divert the woman’s attention from Vancel. “Will that pattern serve, Mrs. Marshall?”

“It will do just fine, Mr. McCullough,” the whiskey-eyed scamp answered, with a Gallagher-proud lift of her chin. “Will you send the entire set, along with my other purchases, out to our house as soon as possible, please?”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied the shopkeeper, darting one nervous look in Vancel’s direction. “Will there be anything else?”

“Not today, thank you,” she answered crisply, and then she was leaving the store, shifting her skirts aside as she passed Vancel.

Tudd was not a prepossessing man, and he knew it,
but the woman’s casual snobbery sealed his determination to use her to find the Mountain Fox.
They all thought they was better than the next one, them Gallaghers
.

“What’ll it be, Vance?” the shopkeeper asked politely as Vancel approached the long, dark-wood counter. “Tobacco, maybe?”

Vancel laid a sizable bill on the countertop. “That woman that just left—she’s Judge Gallagher’s girl, ain’t she?”

Surreptitiously, McCullough swept the bill into one hand. “Willow? Sure, but her name’s Marshall now—she got married a while back. Damnedest ceremony you ever saw! Why, there was ol’ Norville Pickering, standing at the altar and all ready to tangle some blankets with her soon as the two of them were alone . . .”

Vancel’s throat was dry and his head ached. No, sir, he just wasn’t the man he’d once been; he needed to get out of this business and get himself a place in Mexico, soon as he could. The high bounty on Steven Gallagher’s head would make that possible. “Shut up!” he rasped, catching McCullough’s starched shirt in his hands and lifting the little man several inches off the floor. “I’ll ask you what I want to know!”

McCullough sputtered and turned bright red. “Why, ’course, Vancel. I just thought—”

“Don’t think, McCullough. You might hurt your head.” Vancel eased the man back down to stand on his own feet. “This Marshall fella she married—who’s he?”

McCullough tugged his vest and his dignity back into place, but he had an aggrieved air about him, too. “That’s
what I was fixin’ to tell ya, Vance. He’s got shares in the Central Pacific, and the talk is that he’s out to get Judge Gallagher’s boy, just like you are.”

“Is he a fast gun, this Marshall yahoo?”

“I ain’t seen him shoot, but he’s a big ’un, like you, Vancel. Shoulders like a bear. No, sir, I wouldn’t want to tangle with that one.”

Vancel couldn’t help smiling. So Marshall was big, was he? Most likely he was tough, too. But he had a weakness Vancel Tudd didn’t share—a fondness for that saucy scrap with the brandy-colored eyes. “Where did these newlyweds set up housekeepin’?” he asked.

“They bought the Baker place, and for cash money,” grumbled McCullough. No doubt the Marshalls paid cash for their goods, too, thus depriving him of the exorbitant interest rates he charged for credit.

In a fine mood, Vancel turned and left the store. He’d have himself a bath, a woman, and a good meal, though not necessarily in that order. By tomorrow morning, he’d be ready to start keeping a much closer eye on Judge Gallagher’s girl.

Yes, sir, if he watched that little bit of a thing long enough, she was sure to lead him right to Steven Gallagher.

*   *   *

Leaving the horse and buggy at the gate, Willow ran up the walk to her own house and burst through the door. “Gideon?”

There was a distant answer, and she followed the sound through the parlor and the big kitchen and finally out onto the narrow, weathered back porch.

Gideon was standing just a few feet away, at the wash bench, wearing only trousers, his bare chest and back glistening with little beads of spring water. He gave Willow a sidelong grin and flung the soapy contents of the basin into the tall grass. “Where have you been, wife?” he demanded, with mock annoyance.

Willow’s insides pulsed in unison with the beat of her heart, just to remember how they had made love the night before. And she was remembering with a lot more than just her brain.

“I went to town,” she said, as color seeped, warm, into her cheeks. “To buy china.”

He grinned again. “China? Did you buy Siam, too?”

Willow swatted at him and laughed. “That was a very bad joke. I hope I can expect better in the future, Gideon Marshall.”

Gideon wrenched a snow white towel from a peg on the porch wall and began to dry his arms, his back, his shoulders. Willow felt such delicious discomfort that she had to look away.

“What else did you buy?” he asked, aware of her sweet distress and clearly enjoying it.

Willow managed a shrug. “Flour, sugar, coffee—all those things.”

His voice was low, reaching out to Willow even though she knew that he had not drawn a step nearer, and he was toweling his hair with motions that made the muscles in his chest and stomach ripple. “Are you a good cook, Mrs. Marshall?”

Willow lifted her chin. “Fair to middling,” she replied
honestly. “Maria does most of the cooking herself, but she taught me a few things, like how to brew tea and make tortillas.”

He grinned. “Tea and tortillas? I’m even luckier than I thought.” His warm eyes swept over her breasts, her stomach, her hips, turning to a deep green as they passed. “Let’s make love in the grass, Mrs. Marshall.”

Willow’s crimson cheeks not only burned, they ached, too. “In broad daylight?”

Gideon laughed. “I think I’d like to see you bathed in sunlight,” he commented, and he set aside the towel in a measured motion that made the pit of Willow’s stomach leap and gyrate like a circus performer dancing on a high wire.

She stepped backward into the kitchen. “But we haven’t—we haven’t had any breakfast,” she stammered stupidly.

Gideon followed her inside, stalking her like some magnificent mountain beast, his eyes teasing her as he came nearer and nearer. “I am ravenous,” he said, in a gruff voice.

Only too aware that he wasn’t talking about food, and more than a little frightened by the reckless intensity of her own desire, Willow wrung her hands and managed a nervous smile. “Gideon, I-we—”

He caught her hand in his, pulled her against his chest, and won the victory in that moment. His mouth came down to cover Willow’s, to take it, and he tasted of spring water and sweet grass and sunlight. Her heart spun inside her and her traitorous loins leaped to life with a force
that was almost painful. She wrapped her arms around his neck and succumbed to his kiss, to him.

Somehow, without breaking the astounding depths of that kiss, Gideon maneuvered his wife outside again, into the sun. They fell together into the lush grass near the back porch, bruising it with their bodies, stirring its scent to mingle with those of pitch and fresh air and wild honeysuckle.

He covered both her legs with one of his own, pinioning her to the soft ground, but not in restraint, for there was no shade of resistance in Willow. In fact, she whimpered and strained to be bared to his touch even as he undid the tiny buttons that closed her calico dress.

Willow felt the cool summer breeze on her breasts as her muslin camisole was unlaced, and Gideon’s mouth left hers, at last. Sitting up, he smiled, and his fingers deftly worked each succulent nipple into readiness for his taking. When the peaks were pebble hard, he bent to taste them, one at a time and at his torturous leisure.

In the meantime, his hand smoothed Willow’s skirts up over her knees and her thighs, trespassed into the satiny confines of her drawers, unerringly found the very core of her need. Ruthlessly, he plied her until she thrashed and whimpered and reached blindly for him.

He laughed tenderly and removed her drawers with a slow motion of both hands. That done, he undid the strained buttons of his trousers and fell gently to her, seeking her with fire and quiet majesty.

Willow arched her back and cried out as he took swift, forceful entry. He was filling her and she clutched at his bare shoulders and his muscle-corded back.

Mischievously, he held back, watching her, savoring his dominion, and Willow’s passion was suddenly shot through with a singular sort of rage. She grasped his taut buttocks and forced him to drive deep inside her.

Gideon groaned and closed his eyes and his magnificent features tightened as he struggled to withhold the full heat of his own need. “Wench,” he rasped, and there was a hoarse tenderness in the word. It almost sounded like love.

Willow showed no mercy; instead, she began to rise and fall beneath Gideon, increasing his pleasure as she increased her own, demanding, commanding that he give up his seed. And he moaned in joyful anguish as he moved upon her, captured, forced to surrender as she was surrendering.

Finally, driven to be fused to this man at the deepest possible level, Willow cried out and flung her legs around his powerful hips, holding him in final conquest.

Gideon called her name and shuddered violently upon her and she replied with a shout of mingled triumph and defiance, her own body quivering in the soft grass.

Presently, Gideon left her to lie still on the ground, his breath rasping in and out of his lungs, his manhood still proud and strong in the bright sunlight.

Willow was suddenly angry, with him and with herself. She sat up, blushing and fumbling with the laces of her camisole and the buttons of her dress. Laughing gruffly, Gideon grasped her arms and hauled her on top of him, so that she sat upon the already swelling rod that had conquered her so completely.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.

“Inside the house,” Willow whispered, wretched with embarrassment, squirming.

Gideon held her fast. His smile flashed white in his tanned face, and for some reason she noticed that his beard was growing in. “Keep doing that. It feels good.”

“Why, you reprehensible lecher,” Willow retorted, but she nearly laughed.

His hands were firm and strong on her hips. “You’re not going anywhere, hellcat. Not yet, at least.”

Willow made to rise from him and he allowed it, to a point. Her cheeks flared again as she realized that he had only wanted to get a grip on her skirts, which he promptly lifted to her waist.

She glared at him in furious triumph, even as a heat that would not be denied surged through her. She was astraddle him, after all, and there was the small matter of her drawers. What did he intend to do about them?

The answer came in the form of a soft, ripping sound; he’d torn the appropriate seam, and now was prodding her, seeking sanction. Willow groaned helplessly as Gideon entered with a fierce upward thrust, then clutched him as he pitched beneath her like a raging stallion, muttering raspy, senseless words in the delirium of his own quest.

Finally, they convulsed together, their cries intertwining into one shout of desperation and victory.

Even when it was over, and their breathing had returned, somewhat, to normal, Gideon would not free her. He lay there, under her and yet wholly in command of her, body and soul, his hands kneading the firm plumpness of her bare bottom.

“Are you going to fix my breakfast or not?” he asked finally, grinning.

Willow reached out and slapped his smug face, though not with much force or purpose.

*   *   *

Willow saw the buggy coming a long time before it reached the far gate and the driveway leading up to the house, and she was very pleased. Gideon had gone to town and she was done with her cleaning and baking and eager to have a visitor.

When the horse and buggy came to a stop at the small picket fence bounding the yard itself, Willow drew in a startled breath and stepped back from the window. She had no woman friends, with the exception of Maria, as the ladies of Virginia City viewed her background with jaundiced disapproval, but she had not, in her wildest dreams, expected this particular caller.

Still, she was lonely—the house seemed big and empty without Gideon there—and she was used to living in town, where there was a lot of coming and going. Willow hastily dusted her floury hands on the apron she wore over her calico dress. Then, with decorum, she walked to the door to admit Dove Triskadden.

Dove was not a young woman, but neither was she old; Willow discerned that she was somewhere in her early forties. And yet, standing there, with her curly mane of pale blond hair, wearing a tailored dress of mint green silk and nervously twirling a parasol to match, she was as attractive as any lady in town. Her waist was narrow and her bosom was full; it was disturbingly easy to
understand why Willow’s own father found Miss Triskadden so attractive.

Poor Evadne, Willow thought as she summoned up a questioning smile and greeted her father’s mistress politely.

Dove’s dark green eyes danced as she stood there on the front porch, resplendent in her splendid dress and a dramatic hat with long feather plumes for accent. “Hello, Mrs. Marshall,” Dove responded, in a voice that was sweet and somehow lush.

“W-won’t you come in?” Willow asked, stepping back and wondering what on earth one served to such a guest? Tea? Brandy? Something frivolous, like sherry or a fruit cordial?

Alas, Willow had none of those things on hand; she could offer nothing but tea.

Dove smiled and stepped inside the house, tugging at her fine kid gloves as she came. “This is a right nice place,” she said, in that musical voice of hers, looking around. “Of course, I’ve never been inside before.”

Willow didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing at all. She simply started toward the parlor and assumed that Dove Triskadden would follow.