Scandal at the Cahill Saloon

chapter Five




Leanna sat alone at a poker table wearing her favorite gown. This pink dress of fine silk had earned her a bucket load of tips over the past couple of years. It was seductive enough to keep a gentleman’s attention not wholly on his game while modest enough that he wasn’t fully aware why.

She shuffled a deck of cards, then shuffled them again. It would be nice to blame the fact that she had only one customer on the persistent drizzle that had been falling all day, but the establishments on the other side of the tracks were as busy as fleas on a dog.

Her one patron, the young man who had delivered her goods from the train depot, was well into his fourth beer and a deep conversation with Massie. Even if the room were alive with gaiety and music he would be too smitten to notice.

At least Hearts for Harlots was a success. It was plain as a penny that Massie would soon be returning home with a husband and a bright, shiny ring to lead the way.

It was for the best, really, that the opening of Leanna’s Place was off to a slow start. Her mind wasn’t as sharp as it ought to be this evening.

It hadn’t been for a couple of nights. The daytime hours passed easily enough, full of things to keep her mind focused. But when the sun set, so did sound thinking.

As soon as Cleve arrived for work, moths flipped about in her belly, the same as they battered the lamps hanging on the porch.

Every time he looked at her, and it was often, she felt his kiss warm her lips all over again.

The blush heating her cheeks was not the worldly image she sought to portray. How was she to play the part of a world-wise saloon keeper when it wasn’t only her mouth growing warm when he glanced at her with a secret and a smile.

She really ought to stop reliving that kiss in her mind, nurturing and polishing it as though it were a gold nugget.

Cleve had wanted a job, and had been very persuasive in applying for it. She ought to leave what had happened between them as simply that. A simple kiss, a onetime kiss.

The man was a flirt to the bone, she understood that, and still she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was quite a bit more to the kiss than “Won’t you hire me?”

In case the kiss hadn’t been enough to sway her, he had pointed out that Leanna’s Place needed a man for the sake of the ladies. He would watch over them in ways she might not be able to.

He’d taken on the role of champion to her girls. Maybe that is what made her feel so tenderly toward him, that made her long to kiss him again.

Just now Cleve leaned against the frame of the open front door with his arms folded across his chest, gazing out at the drippy night. His black suit and white shirt indicated that he was ready for business. His necktie was knotted in a bow of the latest fashion and his boots reflected the light of the lanterns hanging on each side of the door.

He looked polished, suave, a professional gambler to the core.

She and Cleve were alike in some ways. They weren’t fully what they appeared to be. How many women knew that beneath the natty clothing his muscles were firm and warm? How many knew that one of his kisses could melt the most tightly bound corset strings? How many guessed that the quick-fingered man of cards had an honest heart and that he cared for the plight of helpless women?

She didn’t want to guess how many women knew those things, but she knew them and they touched her. Cleve Holden was quickly winning a piece of her heart.

Cleve straightened away from the door, then crossed the room. He pulled out a chair at her poker table and sat down.

“It’s early,” he said. “Things are bound to liven up.”

“What do you think of the young man with Massie?”

Cleve plucked the cards from her fingers. He shot her the smile where one side of his mouth lifted slightly higher than the other and a pair of creases flashed in his cheek. “Let’s draw high card to see who gets to have a word with him.”

He shuffled the deck, then set the cards between them.

Leanna drew a jack of spades; Cleve claimed to have picked a queen of hearts.

“I’ll catch him on his way out.” Cleve shuffled again. “One more round?”

“What are we playing for?” She drew a card and left it facedown on the table.

“I draw high, you go riding with me.”

“And if I drew high?”

“I go riding with you.”

Leanna turned over the ace of clubs.

Somehow, Cleve pulled out the ace of diamonds.

“Imagine that?” he said with a lift of one brow.

“We go riding with each other,” she answered with her mind full of visions of a day alone with Cleve.

“You have a lovely blush.”

“I don’t…” How could she? She had never been the blushing type before.

She wasn’t able to argue against the telltale color in her cheeks because in that instant customers walked into the saloon.

Leanna stood. She tweaked the silk gathers of her skirt, then walked forward to welcome Willem Van Slyck, Cahill Crossing’s banker.

From the corner of her eye she saw Lucinda and Cassie taking note of how the greeting was performed. Massie looked away from her young man with a sigh.

Leanna was more than half-surprised to see the banker. She had invited him last week when she’d opened the account for Leanna’s Place, but to Van Slyck, social appearances meant a great deal.

The banker was tall, like his son, Preston. At one time he would have had Preston’s good looks but the years had dimmed them. His graying hair, neatly trimmed along with his mustache and beard, announced his age, but it was the shadows and puffiness under his eyes that hinted of a soft, indulgent life. Still, his suit, precisely pressed, was the height of fashion.

The senior Van Slyck had been unmarried for as long as she could remember. There had been rumors of a wife who had run out on him. The story was, the woman had returned for the instant of time it took to leave the infant Preston on his doorstep.

Cleve shook the banker’s hand and invited him to a game of cards. Van Slyck declined, saying that he hadn’t come to gamble but to spend a quiet evening in a place that wasn’t tainted by loose women and dodgy dealings.

A few moments later, Lucas Burnett, the owner of a ranch that bordered the 4C, came in combing away raindrops from his black hair with his fingers. He nodded a greeting to her, then to Cleve. He strode toward the bar.

The next patron to come through the door was another neighbor of the 4C—Don Fitzgerald.

“Leanna?” He made to pat her shoulder like she was still the little girl who lived next door. Seeing her shoulder bare, he hesitated, then nodded his head instead. “Fine place. Good luck with it.”

At the bar, Fitzgerald had a short conversation with Lucas Burnett. He shook Burnett’s hand, took the drink he had ordered, then went to sit with Willem Van Slyck.

The rancher was a rugged-looking man, even in his evening clothes. He wore his mustache full and long enough to curl at the tips. He had sharp eyes that looked as though they had never crinkled in humor.

From his stool at the bar, Burnett watched his neighbor chat with the banker. He finished his drink and went out the front door.

An hour later Arthur Slocum, Cahill’s longtime lawyer, joined Willem and Don.

Things were looking up. If men of their social standing spread the word that Leanna’s Place was not a viper’s nest, perhaps the wives of other respectable citizens would allow their husbands a night out.

Several customers came and went. The last three were not who she had hoped for.

Preston swaggered through the open door with a woman squeezed between his ribs and underarm. Ira and Johny Fitzgerald strolled in behind him. Like their fathers, Preston and the Fitzgerald boys seemed an unlikely alliance.

While Preston appeared as well-heeled as Willem, Ira and Johny looked as wild as a pair of tumbleweeds.

All three of them were trouble. Preston only looked more civilized, which, she supposed, made him all the more dangerous.

“Good evening, Father.” It was early and already Preston’s words were slightly slurred.

Willem shot his son a frown. “That woman doesn’t belong here, Preston. If you want to stay you’ll have to send her back.”

Ira Fitzgerald bumped the girl with his hip and ogled her mostly exposed bosom with pale blue eyes.

“Aggie is the reason we’re here.” Preston slashed a handsome smile at the clearly frightened woman. “It seems that Miss Cahill has been troubling the ladies across the way. Filling their heads with hopes, dreams…lies. Isn’t that right, Aggie?”

Johny Fitzgerald spun Aggie out from under Preston’s arm. He pinched her breast.

“Whores only dream of men and money, isn’t that right, Ag?”

“That’s right, Johny.” Aggie stared at the floor.

“Don’t disgrace me, Preston. You’re drunk.” Willem scowled at his offspring.

“Just a little, Father. Never fear, we’ll be on our way as soon as Miss Cahill hears what Aggie came to say.”

“You mean what you dragged her here to say.” Leanna was trying her best not to make an enemy of Preston, but poor Aggie was frightened. “Aggie, you don’t have to leave with them.”

“Say your piece, Ag.” Johny patted her on the rear.

“Miss Cahill,” she murmured. “I know you mean well, but we don’t want you making trouble. I like what I do, the men and the money. Just stay away, that’s what I came to say.”

Flanked on one side by Preston, Johny on the other and Ira at her back, Aggie spun away and pushed through the men toward the door.

Her escape was blocked by Cleve, who filled the doorway, his legs braced. He caught her by the upper arms and stared down at her.

“Miss Aggie, don’t go with them,” he said in a low, firm voice. “You’ll be safe here.”

“I’m safe with the boys.” Leanna saw Aggie’s eyes glisten looking up at Cleve. “They take real good care of all the girls.”

She wrenched out of Cleve’s grip and dashed into the night. Preston, Johny and Ira followed, laughing.

“We’ve got us some wild sons, Willem,” Don said, his voice carrying across the room. He twirled his mustache and propped his boots on a table.

“You proud of that?” Willem waved to Massie, ordering another drink. “I’ll be relieved when Preston learns to act like a man.”

“A man like you?” Don laughed low in his chest and swirled the whiskey in his glass.





The next morning, summer was at its most well behaved. Not too hot or windy or too extreme of anything, except beauty.

Weather-wise, it was a perfect day to go riding with Cleve, but a storm brewed in her belly.

The confrontation that she had dreaded for two years was coming upon her before she had emotionally prepared for it.

Bowie had informed her only an hour ago that Quin was leaving town to visit his new wife’s estate in the East. If Leanna wanted to resolve her estrangement with her brother, it would have to be now.

For the better part of an hour poor Cleve rode beside her, probably wondering why she was so distracted.

In the end, she told him about Quin. How, growing up, he had been her protector, her champion against one and all, only to have their bond shattered on that horrible, miserable day of her parents’ funeral.

Cleve admitted that he understood shattered bonds.

A short time later, crossing the yard of the home she had grown up in, her knees felt like jelly. Cleve walked close to her. It was silly, but it almost felt as if he had taken on the role that Quin had abandoned.

“Even though Mama is in the family plot, I see her everywhere, Cleve.” She clasped his hand and felt his strength flow into her.

“When I left the homestead—” Cleve squeezed back “—I thought I saw my mother weeping. I can understand your brother wanting to hold it all together.”

“I wonder if he still hates me.”

“If you are Leanna Cahill, he never hated you.”

Leanna and Cleve turned toward the voice coming from behind them.

A beautiful woman with pretty chestnut-colored hair and clear green eyes hurried forward wearing a stylish traveling gown. She kicked the skirt, then snagged the hem up in her fingers. She appeared annoyed that the pretty thing got in the way of her quick firm steps.

“You must be my sister-in-law,” the woman said. “The rumors I’ve heard of your beauty are all true.”

No doubt she’d heard many more rumors than that. Quin’s wife must be a rare woman for not insulting her on the spot.

“I’m Leanna and this is Cleve Holden. You have to be Mrs. Cahill.” Mama’s name, she thought with an ache in her heart.

“Not to you, certainly.” Mrs. Cahill’s hug was firm, her smile bright. “If you don’t call me Addie K., I’ll be distraught.”

“I’ve come to visit my brother, Addie K., if he’s willing to see me.”

“Come inside.” Addie K. preceded them up the front porch steps, clearly comfortable as lady of the house. “I’ll have Elda bring you tea while I send Quin down.”

She took three quick strides away, then turned and dashed back.

“Welcome home, Annie.” She gave her another quick hug, then dashed up the stairs to the second story two at a time.

“There’s Mama’s bowl on the mantel.” She walked forward and touched it. She took it down and pressed it to her heart. “Quin must have glued it back together.”

“That’s all I ever wanted, Annie,” came Quin’s voice from the top of the stairs. “To be the glue, to hold things together.”

Leanna set the bowl carefully back in its place.

“We knew that, Quin. I loved you for it, but…”

“It’s all right.” Quin came down the steps showing no signs of the wound he had recently recovered from. “I was as wrong as anyone else.”

Quin spoke all the right words, but he was distant, not the same brother she had known. But which one of them could honestly say they were the same?

Not Leanna by a far shot. She had come home an unwed mother. Quin would have a hard time getting over that.

“You’ve grown up, Annie.” He faced her, unsmiling, with his hands stiff at his sides. From four feet away she felt his pain.

“Not the way you had hoped, though.”

“I shouldn’t have kicked you out the way I did. Whatever awful things happened to you are my fault.”

“Nothing awful happened to me.”

“But you have—”

“One of the most perfect children the good Lord ever made.” That would need setting straight from the get-go if she and her brother were to reconcile.

“His name is Cabe Quin,” Cleve put in. Oddly, Leanna thought he sounded as proud and defensive of Cabe as she did. “After his uncles. I’m Cleve Holden, by the way.”

Wasn’t she the social ninny? With the high emotion of seeing her brother she had neglected to introduce Cleve.

“My employee and friend,” she added, grateful that he didn’t seem offended by her lapse in manners.

She hadn’t noticed Addie K. come back down the stairs but she stood beside Quin, her love for him apparent.

Quin crossed the distance between them to shake Cleve’s hand. He stood close enough that Leanna would be able to touch her brother if she reached out.

“The house looks different, but I still feel Mama here and there.” Her brother didn’t move, unless you counted the welling moisture in his eyes. “I missed you every day, Quin.”

Addie K. nudged Quin in the ribs with her elbow. He shot his wife a frown.

“He missed you, too,” Addie K. stated. “He’s just too stubborn to admit it.”

“My wife, as always, is right and not afraid to let me know.” Quin took Mama’s bowl from the mantel. He placed it in her hands. “You keep this…forgive me, Annie.”

With great care, she handed the bowl to Cleve.

“If you forgive me.” She flung her arms around Quin’s neck; he lifted her up and she wept silently on his shoulder.

An hour later Leanna rode away with Cleve while her brother and his wife waved them goodbye. She was beyond grateful that they wanted to meet Cabe the moment they returned from the East Coast.

Leanna felt lighter than she had in some time. Her son now had two uncles who would watch out for him.





Cleve breathed in a lungful of summer air, held it, savored it and let it go. Afternoon sunshine grazed his shirt. It warmed his skin clear to the bone.

He’d met another Cahill brother, this one as powerful a man as Bowie. The Cahills, he was coming to discover, were a tight family, in spite of their recent estrangement. Even had he followed through with his plan to take Cabe away, he realized now he’d have met with a good deal of resistance. Probably in the form of drawn weapons.

But he would have faced that threat in order to raise his nephew and honor Arden. The thing he could no longer face was breaking Leanna Cahill’s heart…and Cabe’s in the bargain.

He glanced at her riding beside him. She sat in the saddle with her back arched, her face lifted to the sky.

He would need to figure out another way to be in his nephew’s life, to teach him things that a boy needed to know, to protect him from gossips and to avenge him the loss of his mother.

His job working at Leanna’s Place gave him a good reason to stay close. Even more, watching over Leanna’s doves made grieving his sister more bearable. In a small way it made sense of her loss, in that something meaningful might spring from tragedy.

He owed Leanna too much to heartlessly rip the boy from her arms.

Leanna sighed and he had to glance away to keep from rudely staring at the rise and fall of her chest. That particular vice was quickly becoming a habit.

Out of the blue an idea came to him. To be honest, it wasn’t the blue. It was more likely out of the depths of his being that the plan came to him.

It was a good idea, one that might achieve his goal without anyone being hurt.

The odds of her agreeing to it were slim, but he was a persistent fellow. The land had taught him that out of rock-hard soil came the most amazing abundance.

“The 4C reminds me of my ranch, but a whole lot bigger,” he said. And more profitable. He had to admire Quin for being able to hold everything together when his life had fallen apart.

“There’s something about the land,” he added a moment later.

“It calls you home.” Leanna pointed out the very feeling nibbling at his soul. He had never wanted to give up his little ranch, but fear for Arden had forced his hand.

“Every now and again.” He gazed at the gentle slope of the earth with bluebonnets nodding their petals at the matching sky. “I feel like a tree that got chopped down and hauled away for this or that, but my roots stayed put where they were.”

“That’s almost poetic, Cleve. Are you as good a rancher as you are a gambler?”

“No. How about you?”

“My brothers did all the work. I just tagged along after them having fun. I’ve made money—quite a bit of it, really—dealing cards. You might guess, Quin isn’t overly pleased by it,” she said.

“Would you want to try ranching again one day?”

“I will, one day. I want that for Cabe.”

So did he. Raising Cabe on a ranch had been his intention since the day he’d ridden away and left his land behind.

“You love that boy like he was your—” Cleve nipped his tongue. He’d come within a word of revealing that he was wise to her secret. “Your very own heart.”

He’d nearly ruined everything with a single careless moment. He could never let her know who he was. She would see him for who he was—a deceiver. He would end up in a more difficult situation than he was now. Those brothers of hers would be tough in a fight.

“My little Boodle is all that and more.”

That was no secret, but something else was.

“Why won’t you tell who his daddy is?”

Raising Cabe was only one of the things he needed to do. He would not draw an easy breath until he made the man who had ruined Arden pay.

“Some things are better left unknown.” Leanna dismounted Fey and led the horse to a pool of clear water several yards away. “When a woman makes a mistake, the child shouldn’t have to pay the price of that.”

Cleve slid off his horse. It followed Fey to the water.

He sat down beside Leanna in the shade of an aspen. Its leaves twisted and whispered against one another; they shimmered in the sunshine. Arrows of light shot through and glimmered in her hair.

“He’s a good-for-nothing, I gather?” He forced his voice to be casual when he wanted to tear the man apart word by word. If he blurted out his anger, though, he might never discover who the bastard was.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Think about that a minute. What if he decides he wants Cabe and tries to take him from you? It would matter then.”

Pity the man who tried to take Cabe from the good and decent woman who loved him. That change of attitude would have stunned Cleve, even yesterday.

Life, he was quickly learning, had a way of shuffling a fellow’s goals and dealing him a new hand.

“I’ll tell you one thing about him, Cleve. And that’s more than anyone else knows.” Leanna leaned back against the tree bark and closed her eyes. Black lashes skimmed fair skin. “He doesn’t even know he’s Cabe’s father. I didn’t tell him.”

“The boy is going to need a father.”

Her eyes came open slowly. Her gaze rested on him. She was by far the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

“You’ve met two of my brothers. The other one is every bit as devoted to family as Quin and Bowie are. He’ll have all the fathers he needs.”

“Those are uncles. They’ll have children of their own one day. Cabe needs a pa who is all his.”

“The next time you see a respectable man with respectable intentions coming toward me, point him out.” Leanna drew her knees up to her chest and locked her arms about them. “I won’t settle for anything less for my son.”

Well, dammit, neither would he.

Cleve pounded his chest with his thumb.

“Marry me, Leanna. I’ll treat you and Cabe with all the respect you need.”

“What? Cleve, I can’t marry you!”

He’d stunned her for sure. Her pretty mouth fell open. She blinked like a blue-eyed owl.

Maybe he ought to have worked up to the proposal, wooed her a bit.

Marriage, though, was the perfect solution to his problem.

It would be good for her, as well. As her husband he would be able to protect both Leanna and Cabe, day and night. It wasn’t right, but there were those in town who did not wish Cabe’s lovely mother well.

Leanna’s reputation might take another slide if she married a gambler, but in the end how much worse could it get? As far as he could tell, the benefits would be greater than the cost.

One benefit to the marriage was obvious. Sharing a bed with Leanna Cahill would be… The thought distracted him so thoroughly that he nearly forgot the true purpose of his proposal.

“I’ll be a good husband to you. I’ll love your boy as my own flesh and blood.”

“Why?” Leanna stood and brushed blades of dry grass off her skirt. “We’ve known each other barely more than a blink. Why would you settle for a ruined woman and her child when you ought to be looking for a family of your own?”

She paced around the trunk of the tree. After three revolutions she stopped to gaze down at him.

“You don’t love me,” she pointed out.

“That could change.” He stood and backed her against the tree trunk. He twined his fingers in hers, then lifted her hands and kissed each one. “I admire you with all my heart. You are one of the finest women I have had the pleasure to meet.”

“I have four very dear friends working for me who feel the same way.”

“Not the same.” With their fingers joined, he drew them behind her back and tugged her to him. Her heart beat against his ribs. He breathed in the scent of her flesh where it was tender, just between her ear and her jaw. He tasted it with a slow flick of his tongue.

She melted against him. He kissed her hard…ardently.

“There’s this between us and you know it,” he whispered in her ear.

She tipped her head so that the curve of her ear met his lips. Her hair tickled his nose with the echo of meadow flowers.

“I expect you’ve kissed a passel of woman this way. I’m far from the first to share this dalliance with you.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “As lovely as it is.”

“I’ll admit, I’ve dallied with a few, but I’ve never proposed to one of them.” He nipped her earlobe and she sighed.

“Here’s the truth, Leanna.” And it was. No matter what else might be lies, this was true. “There is something between us. You know I feel it, and I know you feel it.”

“It’s not enough.” She sighed, but the protest was weak. He’d show her that she didn’t mean it.

“Let me prove it.”

“You can’t prove a feeling.” A bee buzzed about her hair and he blew it away.

“I’ll wager that I can.”

“A night’s pay, then.” Her wager came in quick, shallow breaths. “You win, you make double. I win, you work for free.”

“Deal.” While she sounded breathless he had all but choked on that one word.

He let go of her hands so that he could slide open three buttons at the collar of her dress. He cupped the back of her head in his palm, loosening neatly coiled curls and letting them slide between his fingertips. He pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat, tasted woman and velvet flesh.

A tremor skittered against his mouth.

“Did you feel that?” He figured that alone would prove is point.

“I did not.” She blinked her eyes, wide and certain.

Well, then, she’d have to notice that he’d slid open the buttons of her gown to the waist. He trailed his fingers over the curve of her breasts where they swelled over the top of her corset.

“What about that?”

“I might have, just a little,” she whispered with her eyes dipping shut.

His heart tripped. She liked pretty underthings. Ivory lace and satin ribbons parted under his fingertips.

“Marry me,” he croaked because the sight of her full, pink-tipped breasts spilling out, bare to the dappled sunshine, stole his breath and nearly buckled his knees.

He longed to take them in his mouth, to taste and tug at the summer-berry flesh. But this was a wager, not a wedding night.

“You’re trembling.” Damn, so was he! “That proves my point.”

When he looked up, he found that she had been watching him watch her. Their gazes held for a long time, then she turned around and began buttoning her dress.

“You’re so damn beautiful, Leanna. This could be enough for a start.”

“I’ll double your wages for one night.” She spoke firmly. But glancing over her shoulder, her eyes looked soft and languid. “That does not mean I will marry you.”

She turned about, her clothing restored but the blush-colored cheeks as vivid as a moment ago.

“Tell me you’ll consider it.”

“I’m not the woman you want,” she murmured, her voice no louder than the leaves rustling in the tree overhead. “I can’t marry you.”

“Maybe not today.” He kissed her again because he wanted one that had nothing to do with proving a point and everything to do with the sweet seductive flavor of her. “But you will and then I’ll do a whole lot more than look at you.”