Scandal at the Cahill Saloon

chapter Four




“Bowie.” Leanna clasped her hands at her waist, breathing deep and forcing her temper to cool. “This is Cleve Holden. He’s not the villain you mistook him for. I was simply giving the ladies an example of how not to act and Cleve was my model.”

“I’ll accept that for now,” Bowie said. “But he looked too comfortable in his part, if you ask me.”

“Well, I didn’t ask you.”

Leanna noticed Cleve glancing between her and Bowie with intense interest. Every now and again he opened his mouth, then closed it. His complexion looked flushed; frown lines sliced his forehead.

“A pleasure to meet you, Marshal Cahill,” he said.

Unless she missed her guess, and she doubted that she had, Cleve’s smile was forced.

Cleve extended his hand. Bowie looked him over, head to toe and back again. Her brother grasped the offered palm.

“If Annie claims that you are upstanding, I’ll accept that.”

“I’ll accept your distrust.” The handshake ended. “I had a sister once.”

Cleve’s voice cracked on the word once. More than likely his sister had passed on.

Poor Cleve! She wanted to offer a comforting gesture but he stepped away.

“You and your brother must have some catching up to do.” He nodded at her without a smile, then glanced toward the corner of the saloon. He tipped his hat. “Ladies.”

He stepped out of the front door and down the stairs, bracing his hat against the wind. A whistle blew, announcing the arrival of the train.

Once again, Cleve had gone without discussing the business that had brought him to her in the first place. Since she didn’t like wondering what it could be, she would make sure that next time nothing interfered with what he wanted to say.

Unless he had given up on the matter and was boarding the train. That had been his plan, after all. What on earth could he have wanted with her?

She might never see him again. That thought made her feel a bit gloomy. Surprised, too. Was it possible to pine for a man she had known such a brief time?

“Annie?” Bowie’s voice called her back from staring at the empty doorway.

“Would you like to meet your nephew?” She rallied her wits back about her.

“It’s not right that you won’t say who he belongs to, Annie, but yes, I do want to meet him.”

“He belongs to me. That’s all you need to know.” She tucked her hand into the crook of Bowie’s arm. “Walk me home and we’ll talk.”

“Can’t believe I’m an uncle. Does he look like me?”

He did, in fact, a little bit, with his dark hair and blue eyes. Cabe could easily pass for a Cahill to the casual observer.

If one looked close enough they might notice the small gold fleck in his left eye. It was in the shape of a half-moon with a star at the tip. It was subtle, impossible to see unless Cabe held still and you looked real close. Most folks would not even take note of it, but Cabe’s father and grandfather had the identical marking.

She knew she had taken a risk bringing Cabe home. Both of those men lived in Cahill Crossing. Still, the odds were against either man paying a dot of attention to the baby—and Cabe never held still for long. Toddlers and grown men didn’t travel in the same social circles.

Her little one was safe. If she didn’t think so, she wouldn’t have brought him here.

As much as she wanted to tell her brother who Cabe really was, that in fact she hadn’t shamed the family with an illegitimate birth, she wouldn’t. As a lawman, Bowie would feel bound to look for Cabe’s mother’s family, if there was one. They might be cheats, lairs and criminals for all she knew.

Her son might have a dozen relatives wanting him, and Leanna would fight each and every one of them. Cabe was hers in every way that really mattered.

Arden Honeybee, her dear friend from Deadwood, and a prostitute, had entrusted him to her care. It had been Arden’s final wish for Leanna to raise her child, and to love it. During their short but close friendship, she had never mentioned a relative.

Arden’s last breath had been Cabe’s first. Leanna’s ears had been the first to hear his newborn cry, her arms the first to hold him. She’d sobbed tears of grief and of welcome at the same time.

Arden had also entrusted her with a secret. The identity of her child’s father. She had made Leanna vow never to reveal it.

Sometimes promises made on a death bed could be reconsidered later. This one could not.

Cabe’s father was like opium, charming and seductive, and in the end the ruin of the most trusting of souls.

If he knew that sweet and lovely Arden had born him a son he might take him, turn him into someone like himself. Leanna would die before she let that happen.

As much as she wanted to reveal her secret to Bowie, she didn’t dare. In spite of the fact that she had brought shame on the family, she knew that any one of her brothers would put themselves in harm’s way to protect a nephew, a blood relative. She’d already lost Mama and Papa; she couldn’t stand to lose a brother, too. Cabe’s daddy was a warped man and he had warped friends.

Out on the street, summer wind blew hot against her back. It snapped the ends of the ribbon in her hair forward. She brushed the blue satin away from her mouth and held on to Bowie’s arm while they walked past the general store. It felt good to lean into his strength for a moment.

Not longer than that, though. Two years had passed and she’d learned to rely on her own strength; she didn’t want to give that up.

Just for this moment, though, she needed her brother. She rested her head on his arm.

He smiled down at her.

“That man is sweet on you,” Bowie announced.

“Cleve?” She blinked at her brother, taken by surprise. “No, he isn’t.”

“I saw the way he looked before he figured I was your brother. He wasn’t happy.”

This was a silly conversation. What difference did it make if a man leaving town had feelings for her or not?

And in the end, she didn’t want to spend this time with her brother discussing a flirtation.

She frowned, feeling the weight of what she had to discuss with Bowie settle upon her. She wanted to run away from it and not feel the pain, but it was there, always there.

“Murder? Truly?” She had trouble saying that awful word even though it replayed in her head time after time. “Couldn’t that be a mistake?”

“It’s not.” Someone coming out of the general store sneered at her but retreated back inside when Bowie shot a fierce glare at him. “I’m sorry, Annie, the crash was staged to hide what really happened.”

“Who would do that?” A lump swelled in her throat. She thought she was done with weeping, but maybe she never would be. “Why?”

“That’s what we aim to find out.” Bowie’s jaw ticked. He clenched his fists. “Damned if I’ll believe it’s some Cahill Curse. Someone will answer for this.”

Leanna stood away from him to wipe her face with both hands. She straightened her back and walked beside him.

“Tell me what I can do. This is what I came home for.”

“I will, once I know.”

“Promise me, Bowie.” She grabbed his arm, squeezing tight. “I won’t be left out of this.”

“I promise.” He covered her fingers with a return squeeze. “What about Chance, have you heard from him?”

“Not for a while. Bounty hunting keeps him busy and usually out of touch. Luckily, he was planning a visit to Deadwood when he finished the job he was on. I left a letter, and Quin’s telegram, with my landlady. She’ll make sure he gets it.”

“You think she’ll remember?”

“You can count on Mrs. Jameston—she is a dear. I used to bring harlots home to the boardinghouse, the ones who were trying to change their ways, and she never once looked down her nose at them, or me. But she is curious…and talkative. As sure as anything, she’ll be watching out her window just waiting to give Chance the news. She’ll try and console him, though, with a hug and a hot meal.”

They turned right, walking past the church.

“Does Chance know who Cabe’s pa is?”

She shook her head. “The last time I saw our brother he tried to force me to tell.” She paused, and gave a short laugh. “I wonder how long it took that black eye to heal?”

They strolled past the school in the blessed shade of a cottonwood grove. A few hundred yards beyond that sat the house that Leanna had rented. It had a wide front porch that she would sit on one day when she had time. Trees growing on the east and west side blew in the wind. Leafy branches twisted their arms, waving a welcome.

“I hardly know you anymore, Annie.” Bowie reached out to catch a leaf drifting down from a tree. “I can’t figure you out. According to the town, you’re a blight on the family name.... I wonder if you’re the best one of us all.”

“From what I hear, the Cahill Curse has claimed me.”

The front door of Leanna’s house opened. Dorothy walked outside with Cabe in her arms. She set him down.

“Mama!” Cabe raced toward her.

Her heart swelled watching his short legs pumping and his tiny boots stirring up a trail of dust.

“That’s him?” Bowie crouched down at the same instant that Cabe slammed into her skirt. “I swear, Annie, I’ll lay the man flat who says the boy is a curse.”

Bowie reached out a finger to Cabe, but he leaned into flapping yards of blue calico and all but disappeared.

Bowie reached into his pocket. “Mind if I give him a peppermint stick? It always worked with you.”

“You just happen to have one with you?”

“Just happen to.”

Leanna was certain that mama was smiling down. Bowie didn’t just happen to have candy in his pocket. He’d planned to accept his nephew all along.

I’ve got one of my brothers back, Mama, she said in her mind. I might need some help with Quin, though.





At sundown, the wind blew even harder. Trees cast long shifting shadows over the railroad tracks. Leaves skittered across the ground. They caught on the rails, twisted, shivered, then broke free and scurried toward town.

Leanna gathered the hem of her gown in the crook of her elbow and hurried after them. She ought to have left the red-light part of town an hour earlier but a woman had clutched the flyer that Leanna had given her to her breast. She’d wept over it.

After spending an hour at the tawdry Hobart Hotel and Café, sipping stale coffee and nibbling staler pie, she’d convinced the woman to give Leanna’s Place a try. The weary-looking prostitute promised to do it…as soon as she found the courage to leave her employer.

“Watch over that one if you can, Mama.” Leanna stepped across the tracks, hugging the remaining flyers to her chest so they wouldn’t blow away after the leaves. “It might not be safe for her once she walks away from that awful Hell’s Corner Saloon. And she’s so young, although she doesn’t look it. Her name is Aggie.”

Talking to Mama was something that Leanna couldn’t quit doing. Just because Mama had passed over to the other side didn’t mean she didn’t hear what was going on in Leanna’s mind. Some folks might laugh if they knew she did it. But she and her mother had been so close. What was between them couldn’t have just gone away. The love existed somewhere.

The sun was dipping below the horizon by the time she walked between the train depot and the freight office. In a few minutes dusky shadows would give way to full dark.

A dog howled in the distance and someone yelled at it. She quickened her pace. Being out alone after sundown in this part of town was an invitation to danger. At home, the ladies would begin to worry.

Behind her, the freight office and train depot stood dark and vacant. Before her, lights from the Château Royale flickered in the twilight.

Footsteps pounded the earth behind her, coming fast and heavy.

A light shone from a rear window of the telegraph office so she hurried that way.

The footsteps thudded beside her and then passed her. She stopped suddenly to avoid running into the man blocking her way.

“Preston.” He looked down his straight and perfect nose at her, his smirk apparent in the flash of his white and perfect teeth. “You gave me a fright.”

His snicker rustled the starched shirt beneath his evening coat.

“Forgive me. I wouldn’t want to frighten Miss High-and-Mighty Cahill.” He bent toward her, close enough that she smelled the cologne on his skin.

This was no cheap fragrance. For a bank clerk, he had expensive tastes.

“Not so high-and-mighty now, are you?” He caught a loose strand of her hair that blew toward him in the wind. He rubbed it between his thumb and fingers. “I’ll bet you’re good and sorry you turned me down, way back when. Who knows, you might be an honest woman right now if you hadn’t.”

It wouldn’t do to make an enemy of Preston, at least more than he already was, so she lifted her hair from his hand and tossed it back over her shoulder instead of slapping him.

“We never would have suited.” She tried to step around him but he blocked her way.

“You damn Cahills.” He propped one fist on his hip and arched a finely shaped eyebrow at her. “Damn you most of all. Still think you’re better than everyone else? Even though folks snicker when you pass by?”

She would point out to him that the snickering was partly his fault. He was the one who had returned from Deadwood several months ago to gleefully spread the news that she was a mother with no wedding ring, but the less he thought about her child, the better. Besides, she was a mother with no wedding ring. She could hardly argue that.

“I don’t want to keep you from your business across the tracks, Preston. No doubt the Fitzgerald boys are wondering what’s keeping you.”

“What they’re wondering is what you are up to.” He snatched the flyers from her and held them high in his pale, slender fingers. Wind snapped and nipped the paper. “Looks to me like you’re trying to stir things up, deprive hardworking women of their livelihood.”

While Preston deprived them of much more than that. She had never trusted him and, she had come to discover, with good cause.

He snickered again, deep down in his chest. He opened his fist and let go of her flyers. They fluttered away like pale moths, tumbling and colliding in the dark.

“How ill-mannered of me!” He spread his hands wide, wiggled his fingers. “I do hope you will take offense, Miss Cahill.”

“Grow up, Preston, before it’s too late.” She shook her head and took two steps around him, toward town.

He gripped her elbow and spun her back to face him.

“Don’t dismiss me with your whiny little threat.” He dug his fingers into her arm and shook her. “You pitiful whore!”

“Unless you want your face smashed in you’ll let go of the lady,” a voice spoke from behind her, its tone uncompromising. “Just to be clear, that was a threat.”

Preston let go of her with a backward shove. She would have lost her balance but Cleve placed a steadying hand on her shoulder.

The fact that he hadn’t left town relieved her nearly as much as seeing him in this very spot in the very instant that she needed an ally.

She glanced up at his face. Handsome, even when it looked set in stone, his expression spoke authority. He ordered Preston away like he was disciplining a disobedient dog.

Preston snorted. He brushed his coat with both hands. Stiff legged, he walked ten feet, then straightened his shoulders. Without a backward glance he strode toward Hell’s Corner.

Hopefully, poor Aggie wouldn’t be the one he took his anger out on tonight.





“Mercy me, you gave us all a fright!” Dorothy declared, standing prim and proper on Leanna’s front porch. She folded her arms across her apron and frowned down at her and Cleve, each with one foot on the bottom step. “Staying across the tracks until well after dark. I can’t think of what might have happened if Mr. Holden hadn’t come to call and gone looking for you.”

“I’m in your debt good and deep, Cleve.” She glanced up to see him grinning.

The crease in his cheek lifted his smile and nearly made her miss the next step. He was beyond attractive in his white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows and his jacket slung across his shoulder.

“A girl could get used to having a man like you around. I’m half-sorry you won’t be staying in Cahill Crossing.”

“Only half?”

All right, more than half, but she could hardly admit that when he had stated his intention of leaving.

Besides, he was a charmer and a flirt. No doubt he’d lost track of the number of women he’d enchanted over the years.

“Since you came to call and ended up having to go in search of me, I believe I owe you dinner. Won’t you stay?”

She hoped his answer would be yes. It had been forever since she’d truly enjoyed a man’s company, and truth be told, she did enjoy this man’s company.

“I’d be delighted,” he answered.

“The two of you will have to eat alone. The rest of us supped an hour ago.” Dorothy studied them for a moment, looking first at Leanna, then at Cleve. A ghost of a smile teased her lips, which for Dorothy amounted to an earsplitting grin. She opened the screen door and waved them inside. “I’ll warm up some supper but you’ll have to eat it out back. It’s bedtime for the boys and I don’t want any distractions.”

It seemed that the boys were already distracted. Cabe darted across the front room with Melvin in pursuit, hooting, laughing and swinging an invisible rope.

Years peeled away and memories of playing roundup with Chance flashed in her memory.

Leanna scooped up her son an instant before he plowed into Dorothy on her way into the kitchen.

“Mama loves her Boodle.” She buried her nose in his dark curls and breathed in the precious scent of him. Becoming his mother was the finest thing that had ever happened to her. Silently, prayerfully, she thanked Arden for the gift.

When she looked up she saw Cleve gazing at her with the most peculiar expression on his face.

“Say good-night to Mr. Holden, baby.”

Cleve stepped forward and took Cabe’s small hand in his big one. He shook it, kissed the chubby little knuckles. “Good night, little man.”

Leanna would bet a silver coin that something about saying good-night to Boodle had moved Cleve. Maybe he had a child himself, or perhaps his sister had been a baby when he lost her.

“Would you like to carry him upstairs?”

He shook his head and let go of Cabe’s hand. “Some other time. I’ll meet you out back.”

Curious. Judging by the tender look on Cleve’s face, she’d have wagered his answer would have been yes.

Twenty minutes later, after she had sung Cabe his lullaby and tucked his worn and favorite blanket around him, she went downstairs to the kitchen.

Dorothy stood in front of the stove, scrubbing a spot of something from it.

“Well,” Dorothy said, wiping her hands on her apron. “The girls and I are turning in early tonight.”

She walked across the room, then paused in the doorway.

“We like that man.”

Dorothy winked. She went up the stairs.

Leanna liked him, too, more than a little. But he wouldn’t be around long enough for the gossips to sink their teeth into.

She stepped onto the back porch, grateful that the wind had, at last, settled to an easy breeze.

Cleve sat on a blanket with one leg bent and the other stretched out. He rested one elbow on his knee, seeming to appreciate the scene before him. It was lovely and soothing behind the house with a stream that flowed at the property’s edge and the big, lush trees growing beside it.

He tipped his head, apparently listening to leaves scratching and whispering against one another. They had that in common. Wind-ruffled leaves was among her favorite sounds.

A pair of lanterns illuminated a golden circle around her guest. Soft light shimmered in his rich brown hair. It defined the muscles of his forearms where his sleeves were rolled up.

He must have heard the rustle of her skirt when she came down the stairs because he turned his head and smiled. That simple gesture warmed her. A smile was a simple thing, really. One didn’t realize how precious that common act of friendliness was until it was taken away.

But quite honestly, there was no denying that Cleve’s smile was anything but common. It made heat simmer low in her belly. It coiled and fluttered to her fingers and toes.

She most definitely liked Cleve Holden more than a little, for all the good it would do her.

“Your friend knows her way around the kitchen.” Cleve moved over a foot to give her room to sit down. “This smells good.”

“Mrs. Jameston, my landlady in Deadwood, taught Dorothy to cook.”

“I was in Deadwood not long ago—that’s a rough place for a woman. Can’t quite picture you there.” He picked up a fried chicken leg. “Gossip has it you worked a saloon. I’m not sure I believe that.”

“Gossip has it right. I dealt cards and flirted with men.”

“We’re kindred spirits, then. I play cards, a gambler by calling. Not much for flirting with men, though.”

She laughed, and Cleve smiled. It had been too long since she had spent a pleasant time with a handsome man.

“If the timing had been different we might have met earlier.” He took a bite of chicken, chewed, then swallowed. “Tastes even better than it smells. Dorothy has a gift.”

“It just goes to show.” Leanna gestured with a fried wing. “If you give someone a hand, who knows what they might accomplish?”

Cleve rolled the clean chicken bone between his fingers; he stared at the red-and-gold weave of the blanket. For some reason, he sighed.

A silver moon hung in the sky like a cradle. Lightning bugs darted about, their small lights blinking here and there. Maybe tomorrow night she would let Cabe stay up late enough to see them.

“You’re such a puzzle, Leanna.” Cleve wiped his mouth on a cloth napkin, set the bone on top of it and leaned toward her. Lines creased his forehead. Clearly, he wanted to put the pieces in order.

“I’m just your common, grown-up-spoiled, destined-to-become-the-fodder-of-gossip girl…and I have a weakness for pretty clothes.”

He laughed. The rumble came from deep in his chest. A shiver tightened her belly.

“That’s what folks believe. I’d wager there’s a lot more to you than that.”

“Why did you come to Cahill Crossing, Cleve?” She crossed her arms over her bent knees, rested her head on top of them and glanced at him sideways. “I know you have some kind of business to discuss with me. It’s time you did.”

A lightning bug buzzed her face. Cleve brushed it off but his finger lingered near her skin long after the bug had flown away. She turned her head an inch. He traced the curve of her cheek. The only reason she didn’t kiss that finger was because she’d be mighty embarrassed if he didn’t feel the same attraction to her as she did to him.

“For a gentleman, you have rugged hands.”

“For a fallen woman, you have a blush the prettiest shade of pink.”

Leanna hopped up from the blanket. A blush! How humiliating. She kicked off her shoes and peeled down her stockings. “Even after dark the air’s a blister. Let’s cool our feet in the stream.”

Cleve stepped into the water a moment after she did with his pant legs rolled to midcalf.

“If you’re scandalized by a woman’s bare feet you’d best look away.” Not just bare feet but ankles and shins, as well. She kicked a spray of water at him. “I’m afraid that growing up with three older brothers dulled my social sensibilities.”

He glanced at her feet and shrugged. “Too much importance is placed on social sensibilities.”

He aimed a spray of water back at her.

“Oh, this feels good.” She wiggled her toes over smooth, cold stones.

Cleve reached down. He cupped water in his palm. “Not as good as this.”

He dribbled a few drops on his neck.

He flicked the rest on hers. His fingers glistened with moisture. He held her gaze for a moment, then touched her throat, smoothing liquid heat from her jawline to the hollow of her throat and up again. Cool water dripped down her neck. A single drop slipped between her breasts and tickled.

A firefly blinked between them. Its light flashed, reflecting in the earthy shimmer of his eyes.

His weight shifted toward her.

Cleve Holden intended to kiss her. His breath, warm and scented with their recent meal, skimmed her lips. Long seconds passed while he seemed to wait for her to accept the kiss or move away.

The decision would be hers.

A mere inch forward would give her what she longed for, to taste Cleve, and to feel him.

But at what cost?

He was leaving town, and very soon. What if every kiss she got from here to forever came up short?

She stepped away and Cleve let her. Half of her wished that he had pulled her back and into his arms, consumed her lips until she didn’t care about tomorrow.

She walked south, nudging pebbles with her toes. He kept pace beside her, silent, with his hands shoved in his pockets.

Moonlight shivered in the current. Frogs croaked from the muddy bank.

“What is it about my little Cabe that draws you?” She stopped walking. Sand and water tickled her feet. “I see how you look at him. Do you have a child, or do you see your sister in him? Or maybe you want to tell me to mind my own business.”

“Yes…and no. I don’t have a child, and yes, I do see my sister in him.”

“You don’t want me to mind my own business?”

He shook his head, snatched her hand and led her along while they shuffled through the shallow stream. The gesture nearly brought her to tears. Folks touched hands all the time but his fingers twining through hers made her imagine that she was special to him.

Maybe she ought to have let him kiss her.

“Was she young, then, when she passed?”

“She was seventeen when she ran away from home, but probably a hundred hard years old when she died,” he murmured.

“Are you saying…?” She shook her head; now she was asking things that were too personal. “You don’t need to talk about her if it’s too painful.”

“It is too painful, but I think you are the one person I ought to talk to.”

They strolled through the water in silence. The battle inside him was plain to see. Keep his demons inside, or let her help him battle them.

“Our folks died when I was seventeen, my sister was fourteen,” he said at last. “We didn’t have any family to go to but we had the ranch that our folks left. I didn’t know what else to do but keep the place going.”

“Just like my oldest brother, Quin.” She would ride out to the ranch soon. He probably didn’t want to see her but he had a nephew to meet.

“It was a hard life, trying to do it on my own and raise a kid sister, but ranching is what I knew…what I loved.”

She ached for Cleve.

She ached for Quin. It couldn’t have been easy trying to keep Papa’s dream alive all by himself.

“We got by for a couple of years, but little girls grow up. She took a fancy to a fellow passing through town. He was a real sweet-talker. He was no good and I told her so. She got angry with me. Said I couldn’t judge someone I’d never even met. She ran off with him and I never saw her again. I got a letter from her, just once, saying that she was sorry…she was…she was in a tough situation. The— Sorry, any word that suits that man wouldn’t be fit for your ears.”

“Bastard?” she put in helpfully.

He nodded with his eyebrows disappearing under the hair that dipped over his forehead.

“Chance wasn’t shy about what he said around me.”

“All right, then. The bastard left my sister without a word and she was determined to make it on her own.”

“I’m sorry, Cleve, truly. That’s a common story and horrible every time. If only Hearts for Harlots could have helped her.” He squeezed her hand. “What happened to the ranch?”

“Once my sister ran off, I lost the heart for it. I guessed the kind of work she would be doing so I took up gambling in the hopes that I’d come across her one day.”

“It’s not so difficult for a woman to disappear if she’s set on not being found.”

“I wish…” He stopped walking, gripped her shoulders, then pivoted her to face him. He lifted her chin. He did not mean to kiss her this time. While his expression was intense, it was not romantic. “You are doing a good thing, Leanna, with Hearts for Harlots.”

“What was your sister’s name? If she passed through Deadwood, I might remember her.”

“That’s what I came…” He stared into her eyes for a long time. He gazed so deeply that she thought he might see clear to her soul, to her secret. But then he shook his head.

“Tell me what’s on your mind, Cleve.”

“It’s late…I’ve got to go.”

And he did, just like that.

She watched him cross the yard in long strides, put on his shoes and disappear into the night.





Nothing would be gained by postponing, yet again, what needed to be done. This morning would be the last time Cleve would walk from the hotel to Leanna’s Place without confronting her with the fact that he had come to take her son from her.

He would do it now or not at all. If he couldn’t find the gumption to speak his mind, maybe he didn’t deserve the boy.

Before stepping off the train in Cahill Crossing, he had been full of conviction. Right was right. That meant raising his sister’s son.

It meant giving up the life of a gambler and buying a little ranch.

It meant settling down and finding the boy a suitable mother.

The hell of it was, Cabe already had a suitable mother who clearly loved him as much as Arden would have.

Heat pressed in on him as soon as he stepped off the porch of the Château Royale. He took off his coat and loosened his tie but it wasn’t enough. Clouds hovered close to the earth, making the air thick and uncomfortable to breathe.

By the time he reached Leanna’s Place he felt prickly with sweat and as edgy as a gambler on a losing streak.

The very last thing he wanted to do was break Leanna Cahill’s heart. She was probably the finest woman he had ever met. She didn’t deserve what he was about to do to her.

As far as that went, neither did innocent little Cabe. Losing the only mother he’d ever known might scar him. That thought made him stop. He started to turn around…to forget the whole thing and go back. But in the end, blood was blood. Arden would want him to raise her son.

A niggling voice in his head reminded him that, were that the case, she would have told him where she was. He wouldn’t have had to sleuth about, searching town after town, tracking Arden’s baby.

It struck him that perhaps his reasons for taking Cabe from Leanna might not be as noble as he told himself. In the end, was he just trying to get his sister back through the boy?

He stepped through the front door of Leanna’s Place prepared to do what he had to, but not thinking much of himself for doing it.

The saloon was finally polished and shining. Carpets lay over gleaming wood floors, a piano sat beside a big fireplace that was filled with cut sunflowers. Bar stools, with cushions that matched the carpets, were placed before a long counter. A mirror on the mantelpiece reflected it from wall to wall. Poker tables took up most of the big room but there was space for dining tables near the piano and the fireplace. Chairs and couches had been scattered about the perimeter in arrangements that invited conversation.

Leanna’s Place breathed elegance and welcome. The ladies ought to be proud of their hard work, smiling instead of sniffing and dabbing their eyes.

Lucinda wasn’t sniffing, though. She paced from one end of the long room to the other, cursing Cahill Crossing and everyone in it.

Leanna stood near a window that faced the street, sweeping glass off the floor.

“Our new window will be here soon,” she said, while shoving a shard of glass with the toe of her boot. “It’s prettier than this one, anyway. It’s a big stained-glass picture of a pasture and grazing horses.”

“What’s this?” Cleve must have bellowed because the women who hadn’t noticed him enter jumped.

“Cleve!” Leanna leaned her broom against the wall and hurried toward him. She tugged the bow at the back of her apron, straightened it. She wiped her hands on the front. “It’s good to see a friendly face.”

“What happened here?”

“Someone threw a rock through our window,” Lucinda spat. “A second sooner and it would have hit Miss Leanna.”

Cleve closed his eyes. He sucked in a clammy breath. If Leanna chose to expose herself to ridicule for no good reason that he could figure out, that was her choice.

But physical danger? That was all the more reason to take his sister’s child and get out of this town. A pretty little ranch seemed better by the moment.

Why couldn’t he banish that nagging voice in his mind? It wasn’t his fault that Leanna would be left brokenhearted in a place that reviled her.

Still, whatever decisions she’d made in her life had nothing to do with him. If those decisions put her in danger, he wasn’t her brother or her husband…hell, he wasn’t even her lover.

A man who had never even kissed a woman had no obligation to act as her protector. He had one obligation and he’d come to take care of that.

“Is there someplace we can talk privately?” He needed to settle this and in a hurry, before he got caught in the dewy blue glow of her eyes and ignored, once again, the reason he had come.

“I’ve only got a moment.” She walked before him out of the back door, then closed it behind them. “I promised Cabe we’d spend the whole day together. Maybe you’d like to come riding with us?”

That careless thinking alone was reason for him to take the boy. Where was the woman’s common sense? Riding alone after the threat she had just received?

“No, I—” All of a sudden his tongue wouldn’t work. It lay against the roof of his mouth thick as a wadded-up playing card. “It’s time to settle that business I’ve been putting off.”

“It’s high time. I’m sure it can’t possibly be as dour as the expression on your face.”

She smiled at him and his heart shot straight to his gut. She had no idea that he was about to leave her bereft.

It would be easier if he didn’t have to discuss it right here in the very spot he had first seen her weeping her heart out. He’d thought then that she looked like an angel.

It turned out that she was an angel…and a mystery.

What other woman would sacrifice her reputation to be a mother to an orphan and a friend to the fallen? He couldn’t think of a single damn one.

“What is it, Cleve?”

She looked up at him with damp ringlets sticking to her forehead and temples. Sweat moistened her upper lip and glistened on her neck. Pink lace stretched across her bosom, rising and falling with her breathing.

“I’ve been meaning to speak with you.... There’s something…I… It’s about—”

Oh, hell and damn!

He wrapped both hands around her snip of a waist and lifted her. He drew her against his chest. Her breathing, quick and fast, matched his.

He kissed her deeply, thoroughly and, he feared, with his heart.

There! Now, he had the right to protect her.

He set her down and watched her eyes slowly open. It was like the sun rising on a bright clear morning. Like an old dream dying but a new one on the rise.

“I’m a gambler. I’m good at it.” He let his hands linger on her waist because something about it felt right. “The thing I’ve been meaning to talk to you about is a job. I’d like you to hire me.”