Scandal at the Cahill Saloon

Prologue

Central Texas, early 1880s

Leanna Cahill closed the front door on the most awful hour of her life. Folks from neighboring ranches would soon be showing up with food, wanting to tell stories about Mama and Papa and trying to console the family’s grief.

She wanted none of that. No amount of food or socializing could ease a whit of the emptiness she felt. The one and only thing she wanted was to drag herself upstairs and never come down.

Apparently, her oldest brother, Quin, had other plans.

“All right, Ma and Pa are gone, but they’ve left a legacy for us.”

The signs of Quin winding up to a speech were all there. Leanna sat down on the couch in a flounce of black silk.

“We need to step up and run this ranch as a family, because that’s what they would want. Pa talked about expansion and that’s what I’m aiming for. We’ll pour the profits from the ranch and the town rents back into the 4C. Bowie, your place is here now, with your family. I’m assigning you the raising, breeding, training and sale of the horses.”

“I have a job, in case you’ve forgotten, brother.”

What had gotten into Quin? He knew how set on law enforcement Bowie was. Leanna rubbed her puffy eyes. Sorrow weighed her down with the effect of a sedative. As soon as she could, she’d escape upstairs.

“You’ll oversee the livestock and the hired hands, plus the daily running of the ranch operation,” Quin continued as though Bowie hadn’t even spoken.

“Annie, you’ll be in charge of the household. Meals, staff, and supplies…everything that Ma did.”

Since Quin was grieving, too, Leanna would allow for the fact that he might not be thinking straight. If, later on, the boys wanted to throw a party at the 4C she had the skills to play hostess. And really, Mama wouldn’t exactly be proud of her domestic skills. She’d laugh a seam open in her brand-new heavenly gown if she looked down and saw her only daughter in charge of chores.

Mama left some big shoes to fill. Leanna would be lost in them.

“Chance,” Quin went on, apparently unaware of the rising resentment in the room. “You’ll be second in command, working under me.”

“So, I’m your hired hand?” Chance shoved his hands in the pockets of his suit pants and rocked back on his heels.

That would never work. Quin had to know that.

“Now, just hold on.” Bowie stood beside her, his knee propped against the arm of the couch.

He didn’t have time for Quin’s job assignment and he told him so.

“Why do you have to go and change everything, Quin?” she asked. “We haven’t even dried our tears yet. I need to go upstairs and bawl my eyes out, not go fix you something to eat. I don’t want to be your housekeeper any more than Bowie or Chance want to be your hired hands.” Leanna stood. She plucked at a wrinkle in her skirt. “Don’t think I’m going to order the staff to get your supper, either. You can drag them from their grieving and order them yourself. Honestly, Quin, I’d rather move out on my own than let you take advantage of me.”

“This isn’t about what you want, Annie. It’s about what’s best for the 4C. We are a family and we stick together.”

Quin didn’t see it but his attitude was about to tear the family apart.

Bowie’s scowl deepened by the second. Quin went on and on about duty and how Bowie should give up his calling since it was an unworthy one, anyway. A tick pulsed in Bowie’s cheek, never a good sign.

Chance paced the room like Quin had shut him up in a cage.

“I’m a lawman,” Bowie stated. “I’m not quitting my job to come back here and be your errand boy.”

“Man up and do your part,” Quin gritted out between his teeth.

Bowie shoved Quin against the wall. A bowl from Mama’s wedding set fell on the floor and shattered. Leanna felt it slice her heart.

Quin shoved back at Bowie. He tumbled backward over the big leather chair that Papa sat in every night.

Bowie scrambled to his feet. “Go to hell and take your orders with you!”

Leanna stepped between them. She felt like she might be sick.

“Stop it!” She latched on to Bowie’s flexing arm, then Quin’s. “What do you suppose Mama and Papa would think of us? Can’t this wait until—”

“Stay out of this, Annie,” Quin ordered, then he railed at Bowie again, making all kinds of accusations.

Chance stepped away from the fireplace where he had stopped his pacing to watch the set-to between his brothers.

“We all have our dreams and they aren’t the same as yours, Quin.” Chance marched over to stand nose to nose with Bowie and Quin. “You aren’t Pa and you never will be.”

“We are doing what is best for the 4C,” Quin enunciated slowly. He glared at his brothers, clearly daring them to say otherwise.

“Life has got other things for me,” Chance declared, throwing back the challenge.

“Brother—” Bowie held Quin’s gaze without flinching “—I don’t answer to you anymore.”

The three men Leanna loved most in the world were half a second from ripping the family apart. In the heat of grief and anger they could do and say things that might never be healed.

She stepped into the middle of the circle. Anger pulsing from each one of them struck her like a physical blow.

“No one made you ruler over us all, Quin!” she shouted, and hoped her desperation penetrated the violence ready to erupt.

It didn’t. It only added fuel.

“Grow up,” Quin growled at her. “You’re not fit for anything other than looking pretty and playing games.”

Bowie and Chance lurched into motion at the same time.

She said the one and only thing left to say. She uttered it barely above a whisper but it echoed like a gunshot. “I say we sell the ranch and each take our share.”

Chance froze, his shocked gaze locking on her.

Bowie’s head jerked toward her.

“Have you lost your damned mind?” Quin gasped.

Chances are, she had, but who in this room hadn’t?

Quin was crazy with guilt, so were Bowie and Chance, for not having been with Mama and Papa that day. One of them should have been driving the wagon because of Papa’s injured hand. His hand had to be the reason he lost control of the wagon. Any one of her brothers could have prevented that.

She tried not to judge them, but she couldn’t…quite, even though her sin was just as great. At least her brothers hadn’t done anything intentionally.

Leanna had been in control of every hateful word she had spoken to her mother when she and Papa had ridden away in the wagon that awful day. What kind of spoiled, shallow girl called her mother a… It hurt too much to bring up the word but it burned into her brain and seared her heart.

And all because Mama had said no to a new dress.

It had seemed so important at the time, to go to Wolf Grove with her parents and buy the prettiest gown in the dress shop for the family portrait.

If only she could throw herself into any one of her brothers’ arms and let him make it all better.

Nothing would make this better, though, and she knew it. She probably did need to go her own way in order to heal and grow.

“Ma and Pa are buried on this land, you spoiled brat,” Quin said in a soft, steel-laced tone.

Every one of them knew what that tone of voice meant. Quin had reached his limit.

Even though selling the ranch was the last thing she really wanted, Quin was right: she was a spoiled brat.

Now she had to get away, to show herself and Mama that she could make it on her own.

As it turned out, leaving wasn’t as hard as she thought it might be. Quin, facing a mutiny, had given in to his temper and kicked them out. They each took only what they were wearing and their favorite horse.

Not a blessed one of them tried to get their oldest sibling to change his mind.

So Leanna rode away in a black silk gown on her black horse, Fey.

A hundred yards from the house, she kissed Bowie’s cheek. After he rode away she kissed Chance’s and gave him a hug. She promised to let both brothers know where she settled.

There wouldn’t be much more communication than that, though. She needed to stand alone if she was to become a person she respected. She turned to look back at the house.

Quin stood on the porch alone. She wept then, for Bowie and Chance and even herself. Most of all she wept for Quin. All he’d wanted was to keep things the same and they had turned on him. He couldn’t understand that nothing would ever be the same again.

Well, she couldn’t turn back now, even if she wanted to.

“Let’s hurry, Fey.”

Clouds spread across the sky. A storm was coming.