Scandal at the Cahill Saloon

chapter Three




Because Leanna Cahill was not coldhearted, selfish or dishonorable, not any of the things he had prejudged her to be, Cleve had lost sleep again last night.

Dammit if he hadn’t risen from bed, lit the lamp and practiced shuffling cards. Cards were predictable when one knew how to play them. It was easy to be in control when all that was needed to fall into place were hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades.

Over time he had found that there was something about the muffled sound of the deck—aces sliding over jacks and queens mingling with kings—that soothed him.

Usually.

He’d left the hotel again this morning just after breakfast, knowing that the business he had with Miss Cahill could not wait any longer.

Neither would the noon train.

While he walked he tried to come up with a plan to bring up the business. Unfortunately, the only plan that his mind seemed capable of forming had to do with kissing Miss Cahill.

Pretty kissable lips haunted his nights and disturbed his days.

Cleve slammed his hand on top of his hat. Weather in this part of Texas was fickle. Today, the wind blew. He strode with his head down, leaning into a gust.

A woman walked several yards ahead of him carrying a bucket. Some rotten, awful stench from the pail blew back at him.

The woman stopped in front of Leanna’s Place. She glanced left, then right. Had she looked behind her she would have seen Cleve stepping double time.

She hurried up Leanna’s front steps. He dashed up after her and grabbed the bucket an instant before she would have dumped the disgusting contents on the porch.

“Let go of me you…you…cur!” the woman, dull of hair and dress, yelped.

“Your kind isn’t welcome at Leanna’s Place,” he told her.

It might not be his place to stand up for Miss Cahill, but she was doing a good and honorable thing by helping the helpless. He couldn’t make himself turn a blind eye and mind his own business.

“My…kind?” The woman blinked at him, not seeming to comprehend that the thing she had intended to do was wrong.

“A judgmental…” He smiled down at her. Anyone passing by might think they were in involved in friendly conversation. “Narrow-minded…shrew.”

He closed her fingers around the handle of the stinky pail.

She huffed, puffed out her chest, then stomped down the stairs, the stench of her refuse trailing behind.

There were worse names he should have called her but just inside the open door a boy sat on the floor shooting marbles. The child couldn’t be more than eight years old.

“Nice shot,” Cleve said to him, striding through the doorway.

“Thanks, mister.” He looked up, his face covered in freckles and hope. “I’m Melvin. Like to play?”

“Maybe later, son. Miss Cahill looks like she needs some help with that lamp.”

“Miss Cahill needs help,” she cried out. “And in a hurry!”

Miss Cahill stood on a bench trying to hook a large glass lamp onto a chain dangling from the ceiling. Her arms strained with the weight of the ruby-red globe.

Crystal bangles clinked together. She slowly tipped backward. Apparently, she wasn’t going to let go of the lamp even if she ended up on the floor sitting in a heap of shattered glass.

Cleve sprinted forward for the second time that morning. He leaped upon the bench, caught her about her waist with one hand and rescued the lamp with the other.

“Mr. Holden,” she said. “You have a knack for turning up at the right time.”

“I aim to be of service.” Most of the time, at least.

Not today, though. Today he would set matters straight between them. No more being swayed by her charm, her beauty and, there was no denying, her good heart.

First, though, he needed to take his hand off her. Curse it, she was firm and warm under his fingertips. It felt nice to have her weight leaning into his palm.

This was a mistake, but he drew her closer…just an inch…to breathe in the fresh, clean scent of her. She was like a summer storm when the earth begins to get wet.

She tipped her head and arched a brow at him; one slender hand pressed his chest, maybe in protest or maybe for balance. Since she made no move to step off the bench, he lingered just a bit to watch her cheeks blush the most charming shade of pink.

If Miss Cahill was a fallen woman he was still a sodbuster back in Nebraska.

“Lucky thing for me.” She placed her free hand under the globe. “I paid a pretty price for this fancy piece.”

He lifted the lamp, and she pushed it up. The movement shifted her left breast. He couldn’t help but notice since it was only an inhalation from his chest. The heat of her sizzled through his coat and shirt.

A trance must have taken hold of him. She smiled and everything went away. If life went on beyond the two of them, toe-to-toe on the bench, he didn’t notice much.

If it weren’t for the boy playing marbles on the floor and the woman weeping in the corner, he might do the one thing sure to cause him grief. He would claim the kiss he had been thinking about and for that one moment he wouldn’t be sorry.

But there was a woman weeping in the corner.

“I’ll need to see to that,” Miss Cahill murmured, but made no move do it.

“May I call you Leanna?” He was a fool. It would be much easier to confront Miss Cahill than Leanna.

“That would be lovely.” Like her smile. “I’d like to call you Cleve.”

“I’d like to hear it.”

The wailing from the corner grew louder.

“I’ll need to get down…Cleve.”

He stepped off the bench first, making sure that both of his hands cupped her waist for the five seconds it took to lift her down. It might have taken only one second had a button on her dress not snagged a button of his coat.

Three seconds passed when she had to press into him in order to free herself.

At second number four, she pushed away but slowly, all the while looking into his eyes as though trying to see deeper than flesh would allow. He shouldn’t want her to look so deeply but he watched her eyes the same way.

Both of them kept secrets.

Leanna turned all of a sudden. She hurried across the room.

“What is it, Massie?” She crouched down, eye to eye with the tearful dove who sat on the floor.

All of a sudden, the thought of breaking her heart made him feel hollow inside. For the first time he wondered if he was making a mistake.

“People hate us.” Massie sniffed. “I’ll never get to be respectable and go h-h-home.”

“Of course you will!” Leanna stroked a lock of blond hair back from Massie’s blotched face.

“But that awful woman was about to dump rotten potatoes on our porch. If Mr. Holden hadn’t stopped her we’d have stunk to high heaven.”

“Cleve? Did you do that?” Leanna blinked clear, dark-lashed eyes at him. Why did his name have to sound so special coming from her lips? He felt like a cad.

“Mr. Holden called her a shrew and sent her on her way, and her stinky bucket with her,” young Melvin, still sitting on the floor with his marbles, declared. “I saw it all.”

“Thank you, Cleve. That was kind of you.”

“Anyone would have done the same.” He’d do it again, a dozen times for Hearts for Harlots.

“Not around here, they wouldn’t.” Leanna helped Massie to her feet, frowning. “I’m afraid you’ve cast your lot with us. When Mrs. Busybody spreads her righteous tale, your reputation won’t be worth much.”

“I’ll be taking the train this noon. I won’t be here long enough for it to matter.”

He was a cad. He’d be gone, putting her firmly out of his mind, while she and the ladies dodged rotten potatoes.

“All the same, I’m sorry, Cleve.”

She wouldn’t be, though, once he told her what he had come for. He shouldn’t feel guilty for doing the right thing. And he wouldn’t if only she had been the woman her reputation claimed her to be.

Cleve wrestled with his conscience while Leanna sent Melvin home to play with Cabe, then gathered the ladies for a lesson.

If things were different, he’d pursue Leanna Cahill. Maybe even court her. He couldn’t recall ever being so drawn to a woman. Forbidden fruit and all that, he reckoned.

“Cleve, will you act as our gentleman for this session?”

What he had come to do could wait half an hour. Who was he kidding? He knew he wouldn’t be on that train.

He walked past the open front door and through a beam of sunlight. A leaf from the tree shading the front porch blew inside.

Leanna’s students waited for him in the corner where Massie had been weeping.

“Ladies, always a pleasure,” he said. Something inside him twisted, burned. If Leanna had been able to help his sister the way she was helping these ladies…well…life would be very different. He’d have no cause to be here now.

The sad fact was, she could not now be saved, but maybe these women could.

He would play their gentleman to the best of his ability, even though some would say he was no more a gentleman than Leanna was a lady.

“We practiced formal greetings yesterday, but I think we need a bit more work in that area,” Leanna said. “First impressions are crucial. Lucinda, you go first. You are meeting Mr. Holden for the first time.”

“Hello, mister.” Lucinda arched her back and settled her shoulders. She rocked slightly side to side leading with her hips. Her dark gaze raked him, head to toe, then settled where it shouldn’t.

“I think you got that all wrong, Lucinda,” Cassie argued.

She tried the greeting herself but only succeeded in looking more a lady of the night than her friend.

“It’s more like this,” Leanna explained. “You stand an arm’s length from the gentleman and extend your hand.”

She demonstrated. Cleve took her hand and bowed just slightly over it. He didn’t feel much like a gentleman, but he acted the part, anyway.

“You’ll be wearing gloves during this greeting. If you aren’t, don’t offer your hand. Just nod to acknowledge the gentleman.”

Leanna withdrew her hand from his slowly, flesh to flesh with no annoying gloves to get in the way. Her skin was warm, smooth, and damned if he hadn’t felt a spark kindle between their palms.

Well, then, she’d noticed it, too, if the sudden widening of her blue eyes meant anything.

“Like this?” Lucinda tried the nod.

“It’s more subtle. You want to let the gent know you are interested, if you are. If you’re not, we’ll discuss how to handle that later. But in this instance, you do want him to know that you are, without him realizing that you know that you are.”

“That sounds tricky, Miss Leanna,” Cassie moaned.

“It is, a bit. Watch, I’ll show you the difference.”

Leanna swaggered up to him, her model. Her hips moved toward him with an exaggerated sway. Her breasts seemed to reach for him and her eyes, well, what was a man to say to that invitation?

She paced a slow circle around him, inhaling and taking his measure.

“Good evening,” she purred.

A shadow blocked the light filtering through the doorway.

“Leanna Cahill, what the hell are you doing?” a voice thundered. “Mister, take a big step away!”

A man stomped into the room and, rather than wait for Cleve to step away, strode forward…arm swinging.

Leanna rushed between Cleve and the balled-up fist.

“Bowie!” She launched herself at the fellow and the swinging arm changed course to curl about her back.

The lawman, with his badge shining like a mirror, lifted Leanna off the floor and buried his face in the crook of her neck.

For half a heartbeat Cleve wanted to throttle him, as if he had any right to. Then he recalled the gossip. Leanna had three brothers, and one was a lawman.

This brother, Bowie, finally set her down and held her at arm’s length, looking her over. “You okay?”

She nodded.

Apparently assured that she was hale and sound, he let his next emotion out.

“By hell, little sister, what was that?” He jerked his head toward Cleve, then slammed his hands on his gun belt, glaring at her. “I didn’t believe what folks were saying. But here you are, bold as the devil, opening a hellhole, and on this side of the tracks! I ought to—”

“Hearts for Harlots,” Cleve interrupted.

The marshal swung his angry gaze from his sister to Cleve. “Keep out of this, stranger.”

“I would, but for some reason Miss Cahill seems too overcome to speak at the moment.” And she did; her eyes were wet and her voice appeared to have dried up. She’d find it soon enough, he guessed.

Damned if Cleve would hold his tongue, though. “Hearts for Harlots is a charity. Leanna’s Place is not a brothel.”

“Annie?” Bowie frowned at Leanna.

Quite honestly, Cleve was surprised that the man did not know his sister better than he did.

After being acquainted with Leanna for only a few days Cleve knew that there was not a dishonest bone in her. Well, there was…but only one.

“Fair gambling and some drinking is all that will be going on here,” Cleve pointed out while Leanna managed a silent nod.

“That’s not what it looked like when I walked in.”

“Lesson in decorum.” Cleve smiled at Lucinda, Cassie and Massie, who huddled together in the corner, apparently terrified of the glowering lawman. “For the employees. How to properly meet a respectable gentleman,” he added in the face of Bowie Cahill’s disbelief.

“Is this so, Annie?”

Cleve walked up to Leanna and stood beside her. He thought about clasping her hand in support, but brother Bowie’s gun wasn’t just for show.

“Why are you so determined to believe the gossip about your sister? These ladies—” Cleve indicated the fallen doves in the corner “—know the truth. Leanna has nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’m not determined to believe anything. I just want Annie to tell me herself what’s going on.”

Massie took two steps toward Marshal Cahill.

“Miss Leanna saved our lives,” she declared. Cleve wanted to applaud her show of courage. It couldn’t have been easy for the former whore to stand up to a lawman.

Again, the twisting in his gut. If only Leanna had been able to save his sister. Maybe, though, no one could have. He sure hadn’t been able to keep her from running away from home with some man who had promised the moon and then—

“I suppose Van Slyck was lying about a kid?” Marshal Cahill looked as if he wanted to believe it, but Leanna had paraded through town with the child on her lap.

That one would be tough.

“What about the boy? Is he yours?” her brother demanded.

Ah, there was the Leanna he had come to admire in such a short time. She flashed to life, glaring a dozen kinds of defiance at Bowie.

“Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh,” she admitted, her bearing that of a proud lioness. “His name is Cabe Cahill. Named after his uncles and Granddaddy Earl.”

“Who’s the father?” Bowie demanded.

Cleve presented a show of mild curiosity when in fact he wanted the answer to that question as badly as Bowie did.

“That is no one’s business but mine.” Leanna lifted up on her toes with her hands planted on her hips. She stared her brother down, glare for glare. “Don’t ever ask me that again.”

“Oh, hell, Annie.” Bowie shook his head, dragging one hand down his face. “Quin’s going to have a mouthful to say about you shaming the family name.”

“If you ever utter the word shame with reference to my son again, Bowie Cahill, I’ll slice up your tongue for dinner.”

She would, too—maybe not literally, but he wouldn’t want to be Bowie.

Hell, he didn’t want to be himself.

There was something that only he and Leanna knew. It is what he had come to Cahill Crossing to set straight.

He reached into his pocket to touch his sister’s letter.

The A in Cabe’s name was not a fill-in letter. It stood for Arden.

Arden Holden, Cleve’s late sister.

The woman who had given birth to Cabe.