Scandal at the Cahill Saloon

chapter Thirteen




Monday arrived along with the first day of fall. Cleve stood on the front porch of Leanna’s Place with a mug of coffee between his palms enjoying the crisp air nipping at his face.

Leanna sat in one of the rocking chairs with a shawl across her shoulders. She appeared a bit pale but she smiled up at him.

“Summer left in a hurry,” she said. “Boodle, stay away from those stairs.”

Cleve blocked a possible tumble with his knee and directed the toddler toward his mother. She scooped him up and settled him on her lap, wrapping the ends of the shawl around him.

“Here comes the wind.” She turned her face into a fledgling gust and took a deep breath. “There’s something exciting about the weather changing, don’t you think?”

“There’s something exciting about watching you become excited.”

If he could steal her away to the broom closet right now, he would. But inside the saloon, the place was a hum of activity. The ladies, Aggie included, dusted, swept and scrubbed the main room in preparation of the coming week.

“Looks like you’re feeling better…hungry, even,” she murmured with a seductive arch of one brow.

“Starved, in fact.” He hadn’t made love to Leanna since his belly issues, just to make the lie more convincing. “You look like you might be catching it, though.” Not from him clearly, but she didn’t seem quite herself.

“I’m taking Melvin to the bank this morning,” he said. He set his coffee mug down on the porch rail and traced his thumb along the curve of her cheek. No fever, at least. “The boy earned a dollar the other day and wants to save it for a horse. We’ll take Boodle along with us so you can get some rest.”

“I’d rather keep him here with me.” Leanna stood, tucking the shawl tighter about Cabe.

“Let him come.” Leanna rarely took Cabe into town. It was time his world expanded. “The boys will have a good time.”

She shook her head. “He’ll only get fussy.”

The wind gusted harder by the second and the temperature dipped with it. To Cleve it was invigorating after the long, hot summer, but maybe she was right. Cabe would be better off staying here where it was warm.

“Let’s go inside, then. I’ll gather up Melvin. As hard as he’s scrubbing the floor, he might have another dollar to go toward that horse.”

Half an hour later, Cleve walked into the bank with Melvin hopping up and down beside him. The boy was clearly proud of opening an account of his own. Every tenth step from home to here, he had suggested a new name for the steed he would own someday.

“I reckon Black Ace would suit him,” Melvin declared, reaching up and sliding two dollars across the counter.

By a stroke of luck, Willem worked alone this morning. Cleve might have had a hard time not leaping over the counter to finish his business with the younger Van Slyck.

Involved at his desk, Willem dipped his pen in an ink bottle, scribbled something on the bottom of a sheet of paper. He looked up, smiled, then rose from his desk and crossed the room.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Holden? This isn’t your usual banking day.”

“Melvin would like to open a savings account.”

“Someday I’m going to buy me a horse.” He would reach that goal, if the eager expression on his face was anything to go by.

“That’s a fine thing, young man. Start now and when you’re ready you’ll be able to.”

The banker’s smile at Melvin was as cordial as any he would give to a grown customer. He didn’t look like a killer, just a common businessman with a son who might or might not be one.

He would dismiss Van Slyck as a decent man stuck with a detestable son, but he’d learned something over the past couple of months. Looks could be deceiving. A ruined reputation might hide virtue and a respectable facade might disguise wickedness.

He glanced about the bank as if a clue to what had happened to Leanna’s parents might leap into the palm of his hand.

It didn’t. Polished desks sat upon waxed floors. The place smelled like old leather and almond. To all appearances nothing questionable took place between these walls.

The big iron safe in the back was locked as tight as the secrets that the Van Slycks might keep.

With the transaction completed, Willem shook Melvin’s hand, then Cleve’s.

“Until this evening, then, Mr. Holden.”

A shaft of morning sunlight shot through the front window and illuminated the banker’s face. It glinted off his eyes.

Cleve’s heart stopped. His stomach heaved. Damned if his soul wasn’t writhing on the well-kept floor.

Preston’s eye, blue and gold… Willem’s eye, the same. Father and son, both with identical half-moons with a star at the tip.

Breathe, he told himself, in and out, even and steady. Stand straight…smile…act as though the world hadn’t just quit spinning.

“Is there something wrong?” Van Slyck withdrew his hand from Cleve’s. He flexed his fingers.

He must have clamped too hard on the older man’s hand without being aware of it.

“Not at all.” He forced a friendly, casual smile. “It’s just… I hope I’m not being forward in asking, but you and your son have the same unique eye coloring.”

“That’s how I know he’s mine.” Van Slyck shrugged. He smiled, lifting one side of his mouth. “Couldn’t disown him even if I tried to. All the Van Slyck men carry it, for as long as anyone can remember.”

“It’s a handsome mark,” he managed to say when all he wanted was to puke on his boots.

He clasped Melvin’s hand, crumpling the receipt that the child held proudly. He turned for the door and placed one foot deliberately in front of the other.

It made sense now, why Leanna usually left Cabe behind when she went to town.

The family mark was handsome, at least on Cabe.





Leanna sat at her dressing table absently brushing her hair. Looking in the vanity mirror she watched Cleve’s reflection while he sat on the bed.

Something fascinating must be happening on the floor. He’d been staring at it for a good long while. He claimed to be healed of his bout of stomach trouble, but he didn’t look it.

Walking home from work in the wee hours this morning, he’d held her close, just like always, but now he was silent, brooding even.

Cleve never brooded.

All at once, his reflection stood and walked toward her. Bare feet whispered against the carpet while wind rattled the shutters that had been closed against the violent gusts. Twigs from the tree outside hit the slats, scratching and splintering.

From behind, Cleve kneaded her shoulders with strong fingers. He smelled like seduction, warm and male.

She leaned back into him; her purr of pleasure whispered through the room.

He gazed down at her in the glass. “You look like a goddess in that nightgown.”

He flicked the straps off her shoulders, then plunged his hands between the sheer lace and her flesh.

“Goddesses are cold creatures.” She covered his hands and pressed them closer to her heart. “I’m not a bit cold, Cleve.”

“You know that I love you.” He held her gaze in the mirror. He slid his hands out of her sleeping gown and pressed her shoulders. “That no matter what happens, I will always love you?”

“That sounds ominous.” She pivoted away from the mirror to look up at him. “But yes, I know you love me. No matter what happens I love you, too.”

He strode to the middle of the room and turned his back on her. He studied the ceiling, which, to her, looked the same tonight as it had every night. He scrubbed his hands through his hair, then spun about to face her again.

Leanna set her brush on the vanity; she folded her hands on her lap. Cold air seeped through the window frame.

“I think you need to tell me what’s bothering you,” she said.

“I know that Preston is Boodle’s daddy.”

“Oh!” She stood, her stomach and her head in a spin. She rushed across the wool roses on the rug. “I’m sorry, Cleve.”

She pressed her head to his chest and his arms came about her shoulders, hugging her tight. A tremor shivered through him.

“I should have told you, you had a right to know. But I made his mother a promise.”

“I understand that.” She felt his voice rumble under her cheek. “You were right to give his mama that respect. I’m grateful for it.”

“Grateful? Why would you be?”

She peered up at him. His eyes had misted over but he shook his head, clearing them.

“Because she… I need to…” He took a long breath and let it out slowly. “I’m about to tell you something—to do something—and you won’t like it. Hell, you’ll hate me for it. But even then, try and remember that no matter what happens, I won’t let Van Slyck take Cabe from you.”

“I know that. I married you for it, remember?” She touched his cheek. “I haven’t regretted that choice for an instant.”

“You might… You will, dammit!”

She took a step back but held on to his waist. “Cleve Holden, what’s gotten into you? I know you are upset that it’s Preston, but it doesn’t matter. Cabe has as much of his good mother in him as he does the man who fathered him. Besides, the man who did Arden wrong is not his father. You are his father.”

“I’m his uncle.” His eyes closed tight; he lifted his face to the ceiling. “Arden’s last name was Holden. She was my sister.”

All of a sudden, she needed to run to the outhouse and be sick. The floor seemed to shift beneath her. Why had he kept such a secret from her?

A sickening dread settled in her belly. She dashed away a searing tear streaking down her cheek. “Why did you marry me?”

It hurt to have her husband touch her tenderly and break her heart at the same time. She shoved him away, then inched toward the window, coming up against the vibration of the tempest against her back.

“Leanna, you are the best person I know. I reckon I owe you the truth.” He sucked in a breath and held it for a moment. When he exhaled, it sounded like a groan. “I came to Cahill Crossing to take my sister’s son.”

Aching silence inside pressed against the fury outside.

“Why didn’t you?” Anger, pure and hot, consumed her.

“I tried…I never could find the words.”

“Since you were too cowardly to speak up, you married me? To take control of my son?”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t as coldhearted as all that. The situation was so damned complicated, and Cabe was only part of the reason I married you.”

“What’s so complicated about telling the truth? I didn’t ask for more than that.” She heard the voice of a stranger coming from her mouth, catlike and hissing. Anger had never taken her so completely. “Cabe is a Cahill. I’ll never give him to you!”

Why couldn’t the earth just open up and swallow her? She stood at the brink of such pain and scandal that she didn’t think she would recover from it.

“Here’s the truth,” he said, his voice sounding raspy in his throat. “I needed to marry you because of him…I wanted to marry you because of you.”

How had she reached into the vanity drawer and pulled out her revolver without being aware that she did it? Luckily, it wasn’t loaded because at this instant she really did feel like pulling the trigger.

“No more lies, Cleve.” She pointed the weapon at him, anyway.

He sprung forward, then plucked the useless metal from her fingers. He tossed it on the bed, then pinned her between the window and his chest, his fingers firm on her shoulders.

“Listen to me.” His hateful words hit her in the face. “I didn’t marry for love, you knew that. You didn’t marry for it, either. But something happened between us and you damn well know it. I love you, Leanna. I will love you forever.”

“Never say that to me again.” She pushed against him but it was like shoving a boulder. “Next time I’ll load that pistol.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that Arden was my sister. You can’t imagine all the times I tried. But once I got to know you, I couldn’t take your boy away. What could I do but marry you? I couldn’t leave him…I couldn’t take him.”

She beat his chest with both fists. “Get out of my house!”

This time he had the decency to stand aside.

She ran to the bedroom door and flung it open. The wall behind it shook.

Her life shook, coming down around her with the knowledge that the man she had trusted more, even, than a brother was not who he had seemed.

Cleve Holden was a liar, a cad…and the father of the child growing innocently in her womb.





“Leanna!” Cleve stood below the bedroom window, bellowing. He cursed because the infernal wind snatched the sound away as soon as he opened his mouth.

All at once the shutters opened and she peered down at him through a rectangle of light. Midnight-black curls whipped about her face. Her breathing, angry and fast, made her bosom rise against her lacy gown. The very last thing his wife brought to mind was a cold goddess.

No matter how she cursed him, or rejected him, he would win this woman back.

She tossed something out of the window. His coat tumbled through the night to land at his feet.

He deserved every bit of what she gave him, but that didn’t make it any easier to shiver out here in the dark.

An avalanche came out of the window. Shoes, shirts and undergarments fell on his head, then joined the coat on the ground.

“There’s something you need to know!” he called the next time she popped her head out of the window.

“I’ve heard all I want to from you.”

Now wouldn’t be the time to tell her that he was going after Van Slyck. That he would see justice done for his sister’s death.

Whatever knowledge Van Slyck had regarding Leanna’s parents’ deaths would be lost once he did what needed doing. She would hate him more than she did now once that had happened.

If there were another way he would take it, but sometimes in his dreams he saw Arden’s tears. He heard her crying. He had no choice but to settle the score for his sister.

Since his wife didn’t shut the window, but continued to glare down at him, he said, “I love you, Leanna.”

“I told you before, no more lies.” She clutched something in her fist but he couldn’t see what it was. “You’re going to need this.”

She leaned out of the window and opened his money pouch. Bills tumbled out to be snatched away by the wind. Come morning, folks in town would find an unusual treat.

“And—” she cupped her mouth to make sure the words reached him “—you’re fired!”

“You can’t fire me from being your husband.” A flying twig struck him on the head.

“I can when I divorce you.” She began to slide the window closed. “Get out of my yard, get out of my life.”

“I won’t agree to that. You are my wife and Cabe is my boy. I’ll get out of your yard, for now, but I promised to watch out for him and you, and hell if I won’t do it.”

“He’s my boy, not yours! I managed fine before you came along. I’ll do it, and quite nicely, again.”

“Only a few minutes ago you said you’d love me no matter what.”

“I said I’d love you. That doesn’t mean I ever want to see you again.”

“Well, by damn, you’re going to!” he shouted.

She slammed the window closed and an instant later the bedroom lamp went out.

He gathered up his clothes, a one-dollar bill and his determination to reclaim his family. He walked toward the hotel listening to the loose shutters over Leanna’s bedroom window banging in the wind.