Willow: A Novel (No Series) (39 page)

Steven interjected an angry sound. “Right. Provided we don’t stand around
here
all night, flapping our jaws.”

“Steven,” Devlin said firmly, “shut up.”

“Where are they?” Gideon demanded in a rasp.

“Up in the hills; Steven knows where,” answered Devlin quietly.

“Yes, and I wish I’d done something about it, instead of depending on you old ladies for help!” raged Steven, reddening to the roots of his hair. “Could we ride now, or do you have to tat doilies?”

To the surprise of everyone in the room, Devlin drew back his hand and slapped his son soundly across the face. “Enough, Steven,” he said, in level tones. “If you can’t calm down, I swear to God I’ll leave you here.”

Steven subsided, but grudgingly, and the men began to make the necessary plans.

*   *   *

It was dawn again, and Vancel Tudd allowed the women to go outside, though only one at a time. When Willow’s turn came, she stumbled obediently into the woods, her
throat dry, with no idea of rebellion in her mind. She’d slept fitfully during the night, plagued by curious, frightening dreams, dreams that strengthened her conviction that she had been in this place before.

“Hurry it up,” complained Vancel Tudd, who was standing only a few feet away. At least, Willow reflected, he’d had the good grace to turn his back.

She washed her face and hands in the narrow little creek and this, too, touched her memory. She had a fleeting recollection of coming here, long, long ago—with her mother.

Willow stood up, then wiped her hands on the skirts of her rumpled dress. Her hair was straggly and tangled and her face, despite its recent washing, felt sticky. She bit her lower lip and followed Vancel Tudd back toward the cabin.

The nearer they came, the more she remembered. A rising excitement quickened Willow’s step.

Reaching the cabin, Tudd moved to open the door and was stopped cold by a shout from the tree-lined ridge nearby.

“You’re a dead man, Tudd!”

Vancel Tudd turned slowly, ignoring Willow, scanning the ridge for some sign of Steven. “Show yourself, Gallagher!”

“Tudd!” This voice, to Willow’s intense relief, was Gideon’s. “Let the women go!”

The bounty hunter caught a hank of Willow’s disheveled hair in one hand and jerked. She flinched, closed her eyes, and bit back a cry of pain. Tudd shouted an obscene
and patently defiant response, then hurled his captive through the cabin doorway.

A moment later, Willow was again imprisoned in the back bedroom, with Daphne and Dove.

“They’re here,” she whispered, once Tudd had left them to go outside and carry on his hopeless argument with Steven and Gideon.

Hope leaped in both women’s weary eyes. “Then all we have to do now is wait,” said Daphne.

“That would be a serious mistake,” responded Willow crisply. “Tudd is cornered now, and he’s more dangerous than he ever was. He could decide to tie us up again and set fire to the cabin, or any number of other things.”

Daphne made a little whimpering sound, probably imagining the horrific scenario, and Dove embraced the younger woman, trying to lend courage from her own obviously dwindling store. “We’ll be all right,” she said, in hollow tones. “They’ve come for us, the men have. We’re as good as saved.”

“Yes,” agreed Willow brightly, kneeling on the floor and beginning to pry at the aged, filthy boards with her hands. “We’re as good as saved. But we’d damn well better save
ourselves
, because Tudd might be outnumbered, but he still has the upper hand.”

“What are you doing?” marveled Daphne.

“We used to live here,” Willow answered, in a low voice. “I was sure I remembered this place, and that’s why; Mama and Jay Forbes hid out here sometimes. One night, some men came, on horseback—they must have been vigilantes—and we hid under the floor until they went away.”

She shivered, reliving the fear. The men had cursed something awful, breaking the few dishes, overturning what little furniture there was.

But they’d left without finding the family.

Daphne simply stared at Willow as though she’d gone daft, but Dove was mobilized. “A tunnel,” she whispered, excited. “There’s a tunnel, isn’t there?”

Willow was kneeling, peering under the old bed. “I wouldn’t call it a tunnel,” she replied softly. “It’s more like a rabbit hole. There ought to be space enough to crawl to the edge of the house, though—that’s how we got out, Mama and Jay Forbes and the rest of us. And once we’re clear of the house, we can run for the trees.”

Daphne was wringing her hands. “Run?” she fussed. “Tudd has a rifle, and we’re wearing skirts—”

“Shut up and help us,” breathed Willow. Moving the bed was a risk, considering the inevitable noise, but Tudd was still shouting back and forth with Gideon and Steven and there was a chance that he wouldn’t hear what was going on in the room behind him.

Beneath the bed were two loose boards, easily displaced to reveal the cobwebs and dense darkness underneath.

“There are spiders down there!” protested Daphne as Willow helped the intrepid Dove Triskadden into the hole in the floor.

“And there’s a raving maniac outside!” Willow reminded her, grabbing Daphne’s elbow and thrusting her into the pit. “Thunderation, Daphne, get moving—we don’t have all day!”

Traversing those dark, cramped environs was not an
easy thing to do, even for someone as adventurous as Willow. There were rats scuttling through the shadows and cobwebs covered the women’s faces like smothering sheets. The ground was fraught with other hazards, too; broken glass, old boards, nails—all these things tore at their clothes as they crawled toward the light.

At the edge of freedom, they paused. Willow drew a deep breath. “I’ll go first,” she said finally. “If Tudd doesn’t shoot at me, you two follow after. Catch your skirts up as high as you can and run like hell!”

Daphne stayed Willow’s departure with a tug on her elbow. “Willow—”

“It’ll be all right, Daph,” she said softly. “I promise it will.”

Daphne’s eyes were brimming with tears, but she bit her lower lip and nodded bravely in response. Willow crept out from under the cabin, bunched her skirts in both hands, and ran at top speed for the trees a dozen yards away. Just as she reached them, a bellowed curse from inside the house made her turn and beckon frantically to Daphne and Dove. Vancel Tudd had discovered their escape; within moments, he would be rounding the house, rifle in hand.

Daphne and Dove scrambled for their lives at Willow’s signal and reached the trees just as Tudd bounded around the side of the house, shouting.

They scrambled up the rocky side hill, the three women, praying that the trees would hide them, slipping and falling, rising again. There was no time to look back
and see if they were being pursued; escape called for everything they had.

At the top of the ridge, they lay on their stomachs, chests heaving, as they tried to regain their breath. A smile curved Willow’s lips when she looked up and saw Gideon, Steven, and her father, all on their bellies, with rifles at their shoulders.

Remarkably, they hadn’t seen—or heard—the women’s escape.

“They’re a hell of a lot of help, aren’t they?” rasped Dove. “Good God, if Tudd had come this way, he’d have them dead to rights.”

Daphne was about to call out, but Willow stopped her by clamping a hand over her mouth. Dove grinned mischievously and winked, and the three women rose as quietly as they could to their feet.

“I think we should rush him,” Steven was saying. “Christ, he could keep this up from now till the snow flies.”

“Yeah,” answered Gideon gruffly, “but if we scare him, he might do something stupid.”

“He’s already done something stupid,” countered Steven hotly. “I’ll tear his balls off for this!”

“The hell you will,” put in the judge. “I meant it when I told Tudd he could ride out if he let the women go.”

“Maybe you could smoke him out,” said Dove clearly, her smudged face split by a wide grin.

The three would-be rescuers whirled, all at once, to stare at the ragtag trio of tired women who had been standing behind them for several moments by then.

Devlin was the first to move; he made a low, joyous sound in his throat and set down his rifle to bolt toward Tudd’s escaped captives, kissing both Willow and Daphne, lifting Dove up in his arms and whirling her around.

Steven came and embraced Daphne, tangling his hand in her hair, muttering soft words. Gideon remained on the ground, sitting up now, his rifle resting across his knees.

Willow was stung by his reaction; despite their differences, she had been sure that he would be glad to see her again, to know that she was safe. She stood stubbornly in the bright sunlight, her hands caught together behind her back.

“Come here,” Gideon said, in a stern tone that did not befit the occasion.

Willow responded with a bit of memorable advice. “I’d rather go back to Vancel Tudd than come to you!”

The rapid retreat of a single horse echoed up the ridge; Tudd was making an escape of his own, and not one of the men moved to stop him.

Gideon stood up, however, and favored Willow’s father and brother with a grim smile. “If I might be alone with my wife . . .”

To Willow’s amazement, they deserted her readily, grinning at each other, ushering their women down over the hill, in the opposite direction of the cabin. No doubt, the horses were tethered there.

“Come here,” Gideon said again.

Willow took in his unkempt clothes—his shirt was
open almost to his waist and half untucked from his trousers, his vest was unbuttoned and smudged with dirt—and stood her ground. “I would like a divorce,” she said.

“Oh?” Gideon arched one eyebrow, then bent to pluck a blade of grass from the rocky ground and ply it between his fingers. “Why?”

“I can’t live with a man who would destroy my family, that’s why!”

“I see.”

“You don’t see!” cried Willow, suddenly too tired to hold in her emotions. “How long will it be,
Marshal
Marshall, before you arrest Steven? Now that you’ve finally found him, how long until you get him thrown in jail for the rest of his natural life, or make sure he hangs?”

Gideon took a folded paper from the inside pocket of his vest and held it out. “Here,” he said. “Read this.”

“Is that a warrant?” Willow asked suspiciously, unwilling to advance so much as a step toward Gideon.

“It’s a pardon, signed by the territorial governor.”

Willow stared at him. “F-for Steven?”

“It isn’t for you, hellcat, you’re still in major trouble. And I’m not Marshal Marshall any longer, remember? Lot Houghton is wearing my badge.”

“You’ll go back to San Francisco now,” Willow mourned, forgetting her determination not to let this impossible man know how deeply the loss of him grieved her.

He executed a Lancelot-like bow. “With your permission, fair damsel, I will remain here, minding my ranch and cattle, siring a respectable number of children, storming the occasional castle wall . . .”

Willow stared at him, unable to speak for the dry lump of hope widening in her throat.

“I love you, Willow,” Gideon said.

Willow flung herself at him and felt his arms close around her, strong and yet gentle, too. He kissed her, his lips sipping at hers, and then laughed and swatted her rounded bottom firmly. “You are a harridan, Mrs. Marshall, covered with cobwebs and all manner of dirt. What am I going to do with you?”

“Might I say that you are something less than clean yourself, sir?” challenged Willow, smiling up at him. “As for what you’re going to do with me . . .” she paused, letting one teasing fingertip stray inside his shirt and trace the circumference of a nipple, “it just so happens that I have a few things in mind.”

“Beginning with a bath, I hope,” said Gideon, his mouth close to hers again, drawing her lips to his, kissing her thoroughly. His hands were on her bottom again, pressing her close, forcing her to feel and acknowledge the extent of his desire.

“Beginning with a bath,” confirmed Willow breathlessly. “Am I still in trouble?”

He bent to nip at her earlobe briefly. “Ummmm—dreadful trouble, Mrs. Marshall. But I think a pardon can be negotiated.”

Willow trembled, but with anticipation, not fear. “Are the terms equitable?”

“Oh, yes,” he breathed, “but you won’t get off easy, hellcat.”

Willow laughed. “I never do,” she replied.

Gideon grinned, swept her up into his arms, and carried her down the hillside to his horse. The other riders, Devlin and Dove, Steven and Daphne, were far ahead. After settling Willow in the saddle, Gideon swung up behind her. Brazenly, he lowered her dress so that her full breasts were bared, and cupped them in his hands for a long, exquisite moment of very welcome mastery. He teased the straining nipples with the sides of his thumbs thoroughly before releasing her and righting her bodice again.

“To the castle,” he said, into the tingling flesh of her neck. “Lancelot would bed his lady.”

*   *   *

Daphne looked patently miserable, for all that she’d spent two full days resting and being fussed over by the proprietary Maria, who regarded her as a part of the family. “Papa insists!” she wailed. “If I don’t go home with him and start behaving like a proper lady, he’s going to disinherit me!”

Willow came to sit beside her friend on the stone bench in the judge’s garden. “Your father knows about Steven’s pardon—knows Steven is wealthy in his own right. Didn’t those things make any difference at all to him?”

Daphne’s lavender eyes brimmed with angry tears. “It might have made a difference to Papa, but it certainly didn’t bother Steven!
He
doesn’t seem to care one whit that I’m leaving for home today. I haven’t seen him since . . .” she paused and blushed profusely, “since the day we were rescued.”

Willow took one of Daphne’s hands in her own. “We rescued ourselves,” she reminded her friend archly. “And do you plan, Daphne Roberts, to leave without even talking to Steven?”

“It appears that I’ll have to, doesn’t it?” snapped Daphne. “That reprehensible outlaw! Now that he’s free to live like a decent man, hold his head up high, and go where he pleases instead of hiding out, he’s probably gone and found himself a not-so-decent woman!”