Willow: A Novel (No Series) (40 page)

“Daphne!”

Daphne covered her face with both hands and wept softly for long moments. Then, with a sniffle, she looked up at Willow. “I think, I think I’m going to have a child,” she confessed. “Whatever will I do?”

Willow ached with sympathy and with a need to strangle Steven Gallagher. “Then you must stay here with Papa and Dove, or at the ranch with Gideon and me. We’ll look after you and the baby for as long as necessary. And Steven
might
come to his senses . . .”

“I couldn’t bear to be so beholden to all of you,” sniffled Daphne, though pride flashed in her beautiful eyes. “Besides, even if Papa does disinherit me, both grandmothers left me sizable sums, and I’ve done some investing of my own. I can take very good care of my child.” She paused, thinking, and shook her head. “No,” she said decisively, “I am
not
going to wait about for that arrogant man like some, some concubine!”

Secretly, Willow respected her friend’s pride, though she was certainly going to miss her if she left. Besides Daphne, she’d miss the baby, even though it wasn’t born
yet. “You’re not the only one, you know,” she confided gently, “who is going to have a baby.”

Daphne looked into Willow’s eyes, gave a delighted cry, and hugged her. “Then one of us will be happy, Willow. I’m so glad for you, and for Gideon, too.”

“Thank you,” said Willow, with dignity, and then she and Daphne fell into each other’s arms and wept shamelessly at the prospect of parting.

*   *   *

“Son of a bitch!” bellowed the engineer to the brakeman, grasping for the whistle cord. “Stop the train!”

Somewhat stupidly, the brakeman peered out. Seeing the blazing bonfire on the tracks, maybe three hundred yards ahead, he put his full weight into the lever, muttering an oath of his own.

*   *   *

Daphne was nearly flung from her seat, even though her father was quick to put out an arm to protect her.

Worried murmurs broke out all over the railroad car; passengers peered out of soot-blackened windows, trying to see what was happening.

“It’s another train robbery,” Daphne told her father and, for all that little prickles of alarm poked at virtually every inch of her flesh, she was strangely excited, too. Everything within her quickened.

“Probably just a dead cow on the tracks or something,” Jack Roberts assured her. “These things happen, Daphne. We’ll be on our way again in no time.”

“I wouldn’t count on that, mister,” allowed a rundown cowboy, turning from his window. “There’s a fire
on the tracks up ahead. I can see the smoke.” He shifted in his seat, drew a pistol, and brandished it, causing the other passengers to gasp. Some even ducked behind the seats in front of their own.

A lone rider passed the windows on the side of the train opposite where Daphne sat. He wore a long canvas coat, gunslinger style, and his hat was pulled low over his eyes.

Daphne would have known him anywhere.

Seeing her—she had crossed the aisle and was struggling in vain to open the train window—he smiled and got down off the horse. Then he climbed the outside steps and entered the car.

No one spoke. Even the cowboy with the pistol seemed awed.

Daphne turned and watched as Steven Gallagher moved between the rows of seats until he was beside her. He took off his hat and held it against his chest, his honey gold hair rumpled and much too long, his eyes full of hope and amusement and the combined blues of every sky since the beginning of time.

Mr. Roberts, Daphne’s father, finally found his voice. “Here, here, now,” he said. “This is—”

“This is a marriage proposal,” Steven said, never taking his eyes off Daphne’s face. “I’m a man of some means, you’ll find, and I’m willing to buy a ranch, or a business in town, or whatever else suits you, Daphne,” he went on. “I’ll be the best man I can, the best husband, and the best father, every day of my life, if you’ll
just leave with me now. I’ve got a preacher waiting over at the church.”

An incomprehensible joy rose up within Daphne, something she could barely contain.

“Oh, Steven,” she said, putting out her hand.

He took that hand, bent his magnificent, tawny head, and brushed his lips very lightly across her knuckles, sending sweet shivers through her entire body.

“Daphne,” her father interjected, but the stern note in his voice was faltering. “Do not give in to wanton impulses.”

Daphne ignored Jack Roberts, looking straight into Steven’s impossibly blue eyes. “We’re going to have a child,” she told him, very gently.

The look on Steven’s face was priceless; Daphne knew she would remember his expression forever.

“In that case,” Mr. Roberts put in, “let’s get back to that church so you two can stand in front of the preacher and make this right.”

Steven just grinned, never looking away from Daphne’s face.

She gazed at her father, though, hopeful. Even a little amused. “I thought you wanted to disinherit me,” she said.

“That was before I knew I was in line for a grandchild,” Roberts said. “Go on, with your fellow,” he added. “I’ll figure out how to get back to Virginia City, too. This is one wedding I don’t want to miss.”

“Wedding?” an old woman trilled, three rows back. “You mean this isn’t a train robbery?”

Steven grinned and reached for Daphne, then scooped her easily up into his arms and smiled at all the passengers. “I’m stealing this woman,” he said. “And nothing else.”

With that, he carried Daphne down the aisle and out of the train car. His horse waited a short distance away, and Steven hoisted his stolen bride up into the saddle before climbing up behind her and wrapping his strong arms around her as he took the reins.

He bent his head and nibbled lightly at her earlobe once before nudging the restless horse into a trot.

“Is there really a preacher waiting to marry us?” Daphne asked, when they were well away from the train, sheltered in a copse of cottonwood trees with shimmering leaves forming a moving canopy overhead.

“Yes,” Steven said, but he climbed down from the saddle and stood beside the horse, holding his arms out to her.

“S-Shouldn’t we go and get married, then?” But she let Steven take her by the waist and bring her down off the horse’s back.

“We’ll be married before the day is out,” he told her, his voice husky as he drew her close. “I promise.”

“And in the meantime?” Daphne asked, looking up at him, her heart going a little faster with every new beat.

“In the meantime,” Steven said, “I want to make slow, sweet,
gentle
love to the woman who is carrying my baby.”

Daphne slid her arms around his neck, then stood on tiptoe to kiss the cleft in his chin.

The bride and groom, as it turned out, were quite late for the wedding.

*   *   *

The Gallaghers’ parlor was filled with well-wishers that afternoon, and even though the windows were open, it was insufferably hot, in Willow’s opinion. Oh, to be in the pond at home, naked and cool.

Gideon squeezed her hand and smiled, as though he’d heard her thoughts and wanted to suggest a few touches of his own. When the pastor took his place in front of the hearth, however, he looked dutifully in that direction, as did the other guests.

At that moment, Devlin appeared beside Gideon’s chair, looking distracted and impatient. “Steven isn’t here!” he said.

Gideon smiled. “I’ll fill in for him, Judge,” he volunteered cheerfully. “Where’s the ring?”

Frantically, Devlin delved through every pocket in his suit coat and finally found the requested item and brought it out. With a nervous laugh, he stretched to plant a kiss on Willow’s forehead and then followed Gideon to the front of the room.

Lot Houghton’s Alice sat down at the small organ under the windows and began to play, while her husband escorted a beaming Dove Triskadden into the room, resplendent in scarlet and dripping with pearls. When she had taken Devlin’s arm, the ceremony began.

Willow listened in delight as the words were spoken, and felt tears of love burn in her eyes as Dove and her father drew closer together.

Finally, the pastor came to the part of the service that had proven so momentous the day Willow had almost married Norville Pickering. “If anyone here can show just cause,” he boomed warily, no doubt remembering himself, “why these two should not be joined in marriage . . .”

Devlin turned and assessed the congregation of guests in comically dire warning, raising a twitter of amusement from the assemblage.

“Let him,” the pastor finished, bracing himself, “speak now or forever hold his peace.”

There was no answer, and the preacher actually sighed with relief, bringing soft laughter from the congregation. Reddening, he rushed on to demand the vows from the bride and groom and to pronounce them husband and wife.

Despite the fact that she was sitting at the back of the room, nearest the open windows, Willow was among the first to reach Devlin and fling her arms around his neck in congratulations. After kissing him soundly on each cheek, she turned and hugged Dove, too.

Later, in the kitchen, Willow pumped cold water into a basin and repeatedly splashed her face. Her tears, however, would not be washed away.

“Willow,” Gideon said softly, from beside her. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing is the matter,” lied Willow, in petulant tones, trying to turn away so that he wouldn’t see her face. He turned her back, easily.

“Willow,” he said, not to be put off.

She stiffened. “I’m just happy for Papa and Dove, that’s all.”

“I would have sworn you were thinking about our wedding,” mused Gideon, and though his face was solemn, his hazel eyes were dancing.

“Our wedding!” scoffed Willow angrily, sniffling just a little. “Norville Pickering was the groom at our wedding!”

Gideon laughed. “So he was, if you don’t count the other ceremony, back in San Francisco.”

The memory of that was still painful to Willow. “I most certainly don’t!”

“In that case, hellcat, we’re living in sin.” He paused, his lips twitching, and wedged his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “I’d better stop the preacher before he leaves and demand that he marry us.”

Willow’s face was warm. “Oh, Gideon, would you do that? Could we have a real wedding?”

“Certainly. Provided we have a real honeymoon afterward.”

“We’ve already done more honeymooning than marrying, Gideon Marshall!” Willow scolded. “Besides, we can’t go on neglecting our ranch any longer.”

He lifted one eyebrow; clearly, his thoughts were straying away from the subject at hand. “Speaking of neglect, have you seen Zachary?”

Remembering what had happened in front of her father’s house, the night she and Daphne and Dove had been kidnapped, Willow blushed. Some instinct warned against telling Gideon, just yet, what had taken place. “No.”

Gideon shrugged and drew her close. “Maybe he finally
took my advice and went home. Go upstairs and change into that ivory dress you were wearing the day I stole you from Mr. Pickering, my dear. We’re about to be officially married.”

*   *   *

She looked so damned appealing, standing there at the stove, with a wisp of tarnished-gold hair moving against the back of her neck. Her dress was of simple calico, properly modest for a rancher’s wife, and yet Gideon wanted her so badly that he wondered how in hell he was ever going to get any work done.

He paused, for if he said her name, she would turn to him and he would end up leading her off to bed or to the piano bench or somewhere, and having her. Even though it was suppertime, the chores that awaited him in the barn were far from completed, and he needed to speak with the range foreman he’d hired before leaving town that day.

“It’s about time you got home,” Willow chimed, surprising him. “I was beginning to think you were planning on spending your wedding night in a hurdy-gurdy house.”

Gideon laughed. It
was
their wedding night, as much as it was Dove and Devlin’s. Hell, a man couldn’t go off and jaw with the foreman on his wedding night, now could he?

“I accomplished a lot after we parted at your father’s house,” he said, kissing the back of her neck and flinging aside the newspaper he’d bought from Norville Pickering in the same motion. “I hired a foreman, for one thing.”

She purred at his sampling of her nape, pressing the full firmness of her delectable backside into his groin and wriggling slightly. “Good,” she said, and Gideon didn’t know whether she was talking about the foreman or about what he was doing.

“You should have waited there for me,” he remonstrated gently, letting his hands slide up over her trim middle to her breasts.

“I had things to do here,” she said, whimpering a little as he teased the pert nipples covered in calico.

“What things?” he whispered hoarsely.

“Just wifely things—cooking, dusting, that sort of—Gideon, stop that.”

He began unbuttoning her dress, then slid his hands inside to fully possess the sweet mounds hidden there. “Come upstairs with me, Mrs. Marshall, and do something wifely.”

She groaned. “Gideon, supper . . .”

Gideon turned her slightly and bent to nip and then suckle at her breast. “Supper be damned,” he drew back to say, “that is good enough.”

With that, he sat down, pulling Willow close, drawing up her skirts. After baring his manhood, he lowered her gently onto it. She sheathed it with a cry that made Gideon’s spirit soar within him, moaned and nuzzled his mouth with her breasts until he supped.

It was much later that he showed her the newspaper article on the front page of the
Virginia City Sun
, evening edition.

STEVEN GALLAGHER
ROBS LAST TRAIN

Word reached this reporter, just in time for today’s final edition, that the notorious bandit stopped the Central Pacific as it began the journey southward early this afternoon. The recently pardoned outlaw demanded the hand of one Daphne Roberts, late of San Francisco, and witnesses report that her father gave her over willingly, on the condition that Mr. Gallagher would marry her posthaste. He agreed, it is said, to see to this pleasant duty before nightfall.