Willow: A Novel (No Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

asked.
    “I was too goddamned relieved,” Gallagher replied, lifting one booted foot to rest on his knee.
    “You didn’t want your daughter to marry?”
    Devlin Gallagher flashed Gideon a quelling look. “Damnit, would you want that pimply squirrel Pickering to marry your daughter?” he demanded.
    The groom had been rather unprepossessing, but Gideon hadn’t thought much about it until now. He’d been too intent on averting the complications of bigamy for that. “She must care for him, if she agreed to the marriage—”
    The judge interrupted with a snort. “Care for him? Willow despises Pickering!”
    “Then why in God’s name would she consent to becoming his wife?”
    Gallagher shrugged. “That’s what I’d like to find out. My guess would be that it has something to do with my son.”
    Gideon was reminded of his other business in Virginia City—railroad business that had nothing whatsoever to do with stopping Willow’s marriage to the squirrel. “Steven,” he said cautiously. Admire Devlin Gallagher though he did, he couldn’t afford to tip his hand now.
    “No doubt, my dear wife has regaled you with an account of Steven’s many sins,” the judge said wearily, his blue eyes faraway and full of pain.
    Gideon paid little attention to his mother’s opinions of other people, as a general rule. She was inclined to look for the worst and keep searching until she found it, regardless of the effort involved. “She mentioned him,” he said, in classic understatement.
    The judge sighed again and took a drink of his brandy. “I suppose it’s my fault. Steven is an outlaw, after all, and Willow—well, Willow is a constant reminder of my first wife. I know Evadne finds the resemblance trying.”
    Gideon sat back, remembering. Evadne had been delighted at the prospect of raising a daughter, when Willow first joined the Gallagher household. After Willow’s ill-fated visit to San Francisco, however, her attitude had changed. Ever since the two women had returned to Virginia City, his mother’s long letters had been filled withbitter references to Willow and the shameful circumstances of her birth. It seemed that Devlin and his former wife, Chastity, mother of the notorious Steven, had engaged in some sort of tryst later on, and the girl with amber eyes had been the result.
    But Evadne must have known the truth about Willow’s conception, Gideon reasoned. Apparently, she’d been able to overlook her husband’s obvious infidelity—she’d tried to launch her stepdaughter socially, after all. When that effort failed, Evadne had turned on Willow. Permanently.
    Recalling that made Gideon feel even worse, if that was possible, about the prank he and Zachary and their friends had pulled on the girl.
    “Willow and Steven are close then?” Gideon dared, pretending an interest in his drink. He was uncomfortable with his thoughts; besides, he had important business in the Montana Territory beyond ruining a wedding.
    “Very close. They were together until Willow was nine. Steven brought her to me then.”
    Gideon treaded carefully onto sensitive ground. “As Mother tells it,” he began, “it came as something of a surprise, Willow’s existence, I mean.”
    The judge’s still handsome face tightened. “I knew I’d sired a second child,” he said, “a daughter. But I couldn’t find them. God knows I tried.”
    “My mother’s reaction to Willow’s arrival must have been interesting,” observed Gideon quietly.
    “It was,” the judge allowed, with a sound that was part sigh and part chuckle. “But Evadne is a good woman, and she forgave me, as far as possible anyway. She triedto be a mother to Willow, and I will be forever grateful for that, but, well, things just didn’t work out. It isn’t as if Willow hasn’t contributed to the problem—she’s high-spirited and impulsive. I suppose it’s natural that the two of them would butt heads.” He paused and made a rueful sound. “Once Willow came