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

sensed, the key to finding Steven Gallagher. “I don’t know,” he lied, in answer to the judge’s question.
    Suddenly, he was bone tired, even though it was only midafternoon. He still had to write a letter to Daphne; certainly, some sort of explanation was in order, since he was supposed to marry the woman the first week in September.
    Gideon went to the coat tree just inside the study doors and took down his dusty, travel-rumpled jacket. Under the circumstances, he couldn’t very well stay under this roof. “I’ll be at the Union Hotel,” he told the still and thoughtful figure of Judge Devlin Gallagher.
    “Your mother will be furious,” replied the judge. He spoke wearily.
    Gideon shrugged and opened one of the double doors. “Your Honor?”
    Gallagher rose from his chair and turned to face Gideon. “Yes?”
    “I’m sorry.”
    The look in the judge’s eyes was incredibly patient. “I know,” he answered.
    Gideon went out into the rain, raising his collar against the wind.

2
    The storm pounding at the single window in his hotel room, Gideon opened the packet of writing paper he had purchased at the mercantile next door and took up a pen. “Dear Daphne,” he wrote. “I’m in the Montana Territory . . .”
    He crumpled that page and began again: “Dear Daphne, you will never guess where I am.” Oh, and by the way, I’m already married . . . it was a joke, you see .
    Gideon took yet another fresh sheet of paper and scrawled, “Dear Daphne, I may not be back in time for the wedding—”
    He stopped. It went against his grain, lying to Daphne, but how could he tell her the truth? Before their wedding could take place, he’d have to have his marriage to Willow Gallagher annulled. That shouldn’t be too difficult, he reasoned, given that they’d never consummated the union.
    But still.
    Resolute, Gideon dipped his pen in the ink bottle and forged on, explaining that railroad business might keep him away from home longer than expected.
    Even after appropriate pleasantries had been added, the letter to Daphne was very short. It seemed to Gideon that there should be more to say.
    With a sigh, he signed the missive and set it aside so that the ink could dry. He didn’t love Daphne Roberts and he was certain that she did not love him; his reasons for becoming engaged to her were far more practical than that. By aligning himself with Daphne’s father, also a major stockholder in the Central Pacific, he would create a financial empire.
    Until he had walked into the rustic church that afternoon and seen Willow Gallagher, Gideon’s plans to marry for power and position, not to mention a vast increase in his personal fortune, had not bothered him in the least. Now, however, they weighed heavily on his mind and spirit. He couldn’t help considering the fact that this topaz-eyed hellcat was his wife, legally if not morally. He could bed her and be well within his rights.
    The thought roused an unfortunate anatomical response, and Gideon rose out of his chair, stretched his arms high above his head, and muttered a swearword. It was bad enough that he planned to use Willow Gallagher to locate her outlaw brother, Steven, bad enough that he had probably ruined her reputation forever. To seduce her in the bargain would be reprehensible.
    And yet Gideon wanted her as he had never wantedDaphne or any of the dozens of more adventurous women he had enjoyed over the years of his manhood. Willow was beautiful, with her lush figure and that head of golden hair that seemed to invite his fingers to stray within it.
    Gideon brought himself up short. The world was full of beautiful women; there was no need to let this crazy attraction to the lovely Miss Gallagher disrupt his well-laid plans.
    Methodically, he folded the letter he’d written to Daphne, tucked it into an envelope, and penned a San Francisco address. Then, telling himself that Daphne Roberts was indeed the right woman for him, he put on his coat and left the