Willow: A Novel (No Series) (19 page)

Zachary, for his part, was the charmer, the bon vivant, the good-natured but spoiled womanizer, of whom little or nothing should be expected. His mother, always and forever doting on Gideon, had merely tolerated him, often remarking that he was more like his father’s side of the family than her own.

He shook off the troubling thoughts and took a seat
in the chair he suspected would be Gideon’s favorite. He eyed the piano in a surreptitious glance and again felt envy, imagining Willow playing soft ballads at the instrument for the pleasure of her husband. “My name is Zachary,” he insisted, “
not
Mr. Marshall, and I want, to be honest, to get to know my new sister-in-law, that’s all. You’re not afraid of me, are you, Willow?”

She seemed to be weighing him again. “No, I’m not afraid of you,” she answered, after several moments. “You do get your way with the ladies as a general rule, I rather think. No doubt you depend on flattery and the like, though, instead of force.”

A muscle in the pit of Zachary’s stomach knotted tight and then leaped. Sweet triumph washed over him, only to be instantly displaced by the sound of boots on the front porch.

As Gideon entered the house, Zachary sank down deep in the chair and devoutly wished that he’d spent the morning hunting rabbits—or doing just about anything else.

*   *   *

Willow’s throat constricted as she looked into her husband’s face. She had known a moment of hope that they might be able to talk. God knew the night before had been a miserable and lonely one, with them sleeping in separate bedrooms, but the cool flash in Gideon’s eyes boded ill. There would be no tender reconciliation this day.

“I wasn’t expecting you until dinnertime,” she said, because someone had to make an effort. Besides, they had company, even if it was only Zachary, who was not, in her opinion, a person of substance.

“I can see that,” said Gideon, his gaze fixed on the slouching Zachary and then slicing back to Willow herself.

It was a moment before she realized what he was implying. When she did, she was furious, but before she could give voice to her outrage, Zachary rose diplomatically out of his chair and faced his brother.

“Gideon, calm down. I came out here to see you, not to court your wife.”

Gideon’s broad shoulders relaxed just a little, though there was no change in his face. “Who is that fool hiding by the pond?” he asked, giving Willow a cool inspection.

Willow lifted her chin high. Gallagher high. For Lord’s sake, did the man think she had a lover lurking on the property? “Unless you’ve been there yourself, I wouldn’t know,” she replied.

Zachary gave a snort of laughter and then wisely recovered himself.

Gideon was seething. Without a word, he strode to the closet in the hallway and pulled a pair of holstered .45s down from a high shelf. He strapped on the gun belt and then calmly loaded each pistol.

“Christ,” breathed Zachary, “you hunting bear, or what?”

Gideon’s answer was double-edged and sharp as a new razor. “Nobody creeps around on my land without giving me an explanation,” he said. “A damned convincing explanation.”

Zachary paled a little. “Damnit, Gideon, it’s probably just some poor yokel watering his horse. You mean to gun down a man for that?”

A muscle in Gideon’s hard jawline twitched ominously. “You’d be surprised at what I’d gun a man down for, Zach. Or maybe you wouldn’t.”

The warning wasn’t lost on anyone in the room—it sent an ominous chill skittering down Willow’s spine—but when Gideon walked out of the house to investigate the trespasser, Zachary followed him.

When the time came, Willow would be furious with her husband; for now, she was quietly afraid for his safety. The man by the pond would feel called upon to defend himself, and surely he was armed. What if he shot Gideon?

The very possibility made Willow’s blood run icy cold through her veins. Gideon was a rake and a rounder, but she loved him too much to see him die.

Let him live, God
, she prayed, as she ran for the back door.
Please. Even if he means to leave me and go back to San Francisco with Daphne, please, please don’t let him be hurt . . .

Zachary and Gideon were walking toward the pond with long strides, both of them unaware, it seemed, that Willow was scrambling through the high grass behind them.

She froze when Vancel Tudd came boldly out of the trees, his gun hand at the ready, his spindly Indian pony walking obediently along behind him. Tudd was a huge man, with a bulbous, misshapen nose and wild brown hair that hung almost to his shoulders. His clothes were of filthy buckskin and his reputation as a marksman was unmatched. He’d sworn to collect the bounty on Steven by whatever means necessary; everybody knew that.

Once a friend of her late stepfather, the outlaw Jay Forbes, Tudd was a feature in Willow Gallagher Marshall’s private nightmares.

“Mornin’, little lady,” he said, with a tip of his battered hat.

Though Gideon stiffened at the revelation of his wife’s presence, he did not look back. “State your name and your business,” he said, his tone frigid.

Tudd smiled. “No need for trouble now,” he said, and then he spat a stream of brown tobacco juice into the shifting green grass. “The name’s Vancel Tudd and I was hopin’, to tell ya the truth, for a glimpse of the lady’s brother.”

Willow shuddered to think that this vile man had been so near her house, watching. Waiting.

What if Steven had gotten wind of her move to the ranch and had taken it into his head to pay her a visit?

“I’ll thank you to stay off my land in the future,” Gideon said, in a hard voice. But there was no sympathy in him for Steven, Willow knew. He wanted to make that enviable catch himself, that was all.

Tudd shrugged, and despite his easy manner, Willow was afraid. In six years this man hadn’t given up seeking Steven and he wasn’t about to throw in his hand and call it quits now. “Didn’t mean to offend,” he said.

Some instinct made Willow draw nearer. Gideon had turned his back on Tudd, apparently satisfied that the matter was closed. And the bounty hunter’s gnarled hand was moving, almost imperceptibly, nearer and nearer the knife in his belt.

“Gideon!” Willow screamed, and he whirled to face Tudd. One of the .45s seemed to leap into her husband’s right hand of some volition all its own.

Tudd slowly lowered his hands, still grinning, his manner so falsely obsequious that Willow’s revulsion grew. “You’re mighty fast, Mr. Marshall,” he observed, spitting again. “Mighty fast.” The small eyes darted to Willow’s flushed face. “Maybe even faster’n Steven Gallagher himself.”

Cold dread washed over Willow’s spirit in a crushing cascade. In that moment, she knew what was most likely to happen when and if her brother and her husband met. Steven would not willingly be captured. There would be a gunfight and one of them would be grievously wounded, perhaps even die.

She stood there in the middle of that grassy expanse of ranch land, one hand clutched to her mouth, watching as Vancel Tudd swung onto his paint pony and rode away without looking back.

“Willow?” The strong, gentle hands that came to her shoulders were not Gideon’s, as they should have been, but Zachary’s. “Willow, are you all right?”

Willow pulled herself free of her brother-in-law’s concerned grasp, staring in frustration and consternation at the cold and unforgiving face of her husband. She made a strangled sound deep in her throat, lifted her skirts, and whirled to run toward the house. Gideon caught up to her in a few strides, grasping her elbow and staying her flight.

Frantic, half-hysterical in the full realization of what
this man could do to her family, Willow bared her teeth like a cornered animal and kicked at him as she twisted in his unbreakable hold, trying to break free.

“Gideon,” protested Zachary, from somewhere just outside the range of Willow’s vision. “For God’s sake, what’s come over you? Let her go!”

Gideon loosened his grip, but his eyes never left Willow’s face. “Get out of here, Zachary,” he said. “My wife is in no danger from me and you damn well know it.”

Willow sensed Zachary’s reluctance, but she also knew he was about to leave.

She stared at Gideon, imagining him facing Steven in a shoot-out. The picture was so real that it might have been happening right then; the reports of the bullets thudded against her eardrums and she could actually smell the acrid scent of gunpowder.

“I won’t let you kill my brother!” she cried.

Something moved in Gideon’s hard face, but his grasp on her arm, though still not painful, tightened a little. “Stop it, Willow,” he ordered. “Get ahold of yourself.”

But Willow was seeing new visions now—crazy, kaleidoscopic visions. Steven, dangling at the end of a dirty rope. Both of them, her brother
and
her husband, lying dead and bleeding in the street. She screamed again, and Gideon gripped her shoulders and shook her, firmly albeit gently.

She pulled free, stumbled backward, toppled to the grass, and when she lost her footing, accidentally bit her lip. She tasted blood on the inside of her mouth.

Terrible pain played in Gideon’s face as he crouched
on the ground and reached for her hand, then gasped her name.

She began scooting back from him—
get away, get away—
rocks and twigs clawing at the palms of her hands. “Don’t touch me, Gideon Marshall.
Don’t you touch me!
”

Gideon gave a ragged sigh and lowered his hands to his sides. “Willow,” he pleaded, in a tormented whisper. “You’re hurt. Let me help you.”

Shaking her head, Willow scrambled to her feet, desperate to flee this man and the awful, dangerous mistake she’d made by falling in love with him. But as she turned to run, he grabbed her skirts in one hand and hauled her back down so that she toppled into his lap.

“You’re not going anywhere until you calm down,” he said, in a gruff and quiet voice.

She raised both fists to assault him; he caught them in his hands and held them fast.

“Willow,” he said again.

Tears were trickling down Willow’s face by then; she wondered distractedly how long she had been crying. “You can’t shoot Steven!” she sobbed. “I’ll never, never let you shoot Steven!”

“Who says I want to do that?” Gideon asked, still holding her.

Fresh hysteria filled her. She’d seen more than her share of gunplay before she’d gone to live with her father, and the terror was almost overwhelming. “I saw the way you drew that pistol just now—it was as if the thing was already a part of your hand!”

Gideon sighed again and drew Willow close, holding
her in his arms as though she were a child. “I promise that I won’t shoot Steven,” he said, very slowly and very clearly. “I won’t even go after him.”

Willow pulled back to look up into his face. Was this man telling her the truth, or was he simply a liar? God help her, since he wasn’t really Lancelot, she had no way to know. She tried to speak, but words were beyond her.

Gideon stilled the impotent motion of her lips with the touch of an index finger. “You have my word, Willow. Unless it means my own life, or yours, I won’t shoot Steven.”

“A-and you won’t look for him?”

Clearly, this last was not so easy for Gideon. Still, his hand came, tender, to cup Willow’s cheek, the thumb smoothing the corner of her mouth. “He has to give me something in return if that’s going to be the agreement, Willow. When you see him again, you tell him that I won’t come after him if he doesn’t stop any more trains.”

With another man, Willow would have denied having any access to Steven, but there would have been no use in it with Gideon. He knew the truth. “I’ll tell him.”

“When you do, make damned sure Vancel Tudd isn’t trotting along behind you.”

Willow nodded, but there was deliberate warning in her eyes, too. “You’d better be telling me the truth, Gideon Marshall. I’m trusting you, though God knows why, and if you betray me . . .”

He arched one eyebrow, and there was a mischievous light in his eyes. “Do you really think I would do that?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” countered Willow. “That’s why you came to Virginia City in the first place, isn’t it?”

“I came to Virginia City for a closer look at my bride,” he said, caressing her cheek.

“Just because you say a thing,” she protested, “that doesn’t make it the truth!”

Gideon sighed philosophically, his arms still tight and strong around her. He propped his chin on top of her head and gave a second sigh. “I guess I have a lot to prove,” he said, after a long time. “And a lot to make up for.”

Willow bit her lower lip and swallowed. It would be so easy to trust him.

But he was still the man who had played a thoughtless trick on her, back in San Francisco. And he was still a railroad magnate, with a vested interest in putting a stop to her brother’s career as an outlaw.

“Gideon—”

His lips touched the tip of her nose just briefly, and there was tenderness in his gruff “What?”

She swallowed. “What’s going to happen when Daphne arrives?”

For a moment, Gideon stiffened, and Willow thought that he was going to thrust her away from him. Instead, however, he held her closer. “She’ll scream at me, slap my face, probably, and then she’ll get back on the train and go home, her honor avenged.”

“You won’t go with her?”

Gideon’s hand came to Willow’s chin, lifted it. “Is that what all this was really about? You thought I was going to
let Daphne take me by the hand and lead me back to the straight and narrow?”

Miserably, Willow nodded. “It did cross my mind,” she said.

Gideon gave a raucous, startling shout of laughter and fell backward into the grass, pulling Willow with him, rolling onto his side to look down at her. And when his amusement had abated a little, he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her thoroughly. “Was that the kiss of a man who wants to leave his wife?” he teased.

“It surely wasn’t.” Willow smiled through her tears, and then she wrapped her arms around Gideon’s neck and pulled him downward, so that their lips met again.

*   *   *

Willow lay wide awake in the darkness, her head resting on Gideon’s shoulder. Far off in the distance, she heard the wail of a train whistle. Or had it been the cry of a night owl?