by Carol Arens
Leanna urged her horse past a new hotel in town on the way to her destination, Marshal Bowie Cahill’s office.
The front door of the Château Royale opened and stylish Minnie Jenkins, who owned the place with her husband, Oscar, stepped out.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Jenkins.” Leanna nodded her head and smiled.
In years past, Leanna had been a welcome guest at the Jenkinses’ home. Their daughter, Ellie, had been her closest friend. How many times had Mrs. Jenkins encouraged Leanna to set Quin or Bowie in Ellie’s path? It would have been quite a social coup in Minnie’s estimation for Ellie to land a Cahill.
Recently, Leanna had heard rumors about both of her older brothers being madly in love. That left Chance as the only Cahill male available. Minnie would have an apoplexy if Ellie ever took up with him. As a bounty hunter, his social standing might be almost as low as Leanna’s.
Well, not quite, if the expression now crossing Minnie’s face was anything to go by. The woman sniffed and pointed her dainty nose in the air.
Half a second later she noticed the reforming harlots in the buckboard. She pressed her hand to her chest as though she might faint dead away, but the scorn in her expression had enough starch in it to hold anyone upright.
Upstairs, second floor, in the corner window, a curtain moved. Ellie peeked out. Her friend was as pretty as ever, although she would never believe that of herself. Ellie waved her hand, but before Leanna could return the greeting the curtain dropped.
If Minnie had any say in it, and she would have, that was as close to Ellie as Leanna was likely to get.
Minnie Jenkins’s rejection stung, but that was something she would have to get used to from her former friends.
Thanks to Preston Van Slyck gleefully spreading the word about her illegitimate son, Leanna’s fall from grace had occurred well before she returned home. It was unlikely that she had a single friend remaining in a town that used to adore her.
She couldn’t hide from that situation so she rode on, sitting as proud as she knew how and wearing her most dazzling dress.
As she had expected, not-so-secret glances from behind curtains and turned backs greeted her passing. One pinched-faced woman even spat on the sidewalk. As far as the citizens of Cahill Crossing were concerned, she was no better than the women following her in the wagon.
It was a lucky thing that little Melvin Wood, an abandoned boy that her fallen friends had taken in, slept soundly on the buckboard floor. A child of eight did not deserve the mean-spirited glances coming the way of the wagon.
Leanna led her entourage past the livery and the dry goods store, gathering ill wishes along the way.
She passed the law office of Arthur Slocum, the attorney who had handled the Cahill legal matters for as long as she could remember. Arthur, sitting outside and smoking a cigar, shot her the oddest look. It wasn’t antagonistic, exactly, but it was something and it was not welcoming.
She had chosen her route and her attire for a very good reason. Gossip and whispers were bound to spread; at least by making her entrance a public spectacle she directed most of the attention to herself and away from her innocent little son.
The circuit through town was her announcement: here he is, a Cahill as worthy as any other.
Still, the ride couldn’t end soon enough. Her cheeks ached with the strain of her forced smile. Her heart ached with the rejection of former friends.
With Bowie’s office only steps away she let her expression fall.
She cast one more grin back at the ladies, but that one was real, to give them encouragement. They needed to believe that she believed that their return to respectability was possible. Her show of reassurance was important even though it was all show.
Now, facing Bowie’s front door, she had nothing left. Her heart beat triple time in her chest. Her palms grew damp gripping the horse’s reins. Would he look at her as everyone else had?
If he did, her heart would split down the middle. She might begin to sob and thoroughly ruin her grand and scandalous parade through Cahill Crossing.
The front door opened and Bowie’s deputy stepped out. He squinted at her through the bright sunlight.
Glen Whitaker arched his brows. His chin jutted out so that his narrow beard pointed at her like an accusing finger.
“Well, look here! See who’s come home with her tail between her legs.” He spat on the ground, but the effect of that gesture had long since lost its shock.
“Please send my brother out.” She smiled as sweetly as she could manage. In the past this expression had sent men running to fulfill her merest whim.
“He’s not here.” Whitaker dragged his sleeve across his sweating brow. “Even if he was, he wouldn’t want to see you or your bas—”
“Don’t say one more word, Glen.” She leaned forward in the saddle. She covered her son’s ears with her fingers. “It’s been a difficult day. Don’t test me.”
“I’m scairt now.”
“You ought to be.” This time she glared at him. In the recent past, this expression had gamblers backing away from her poker table, ashamed of suggesting that she might want to make some extra money upstairs. “This little fellow is a Cahill, just like me, just like my brothers. I’d be careful about insulting him.”
Glen opened his mouth but Leanna cut off whatever he had to say since it likely wasn’t “Welcome.”
“Have you ever run across an angry mama bear, Deputy?” He nodded and shrugged. “She can’t shoot a bug out of the air, but I can. I learned that from my brother, Chance, in case you hadn’t heard.”
Evidently, he had heard. He tugged at his shirt collar and backed into the office, slamming the door behind him.
Leanna led her horse and her ladies away from the business area of town, toward the residential area where she had rented a secluded home for her and her son.
“We’re home, Boodle.” She hugged him closer. “Heaven help us.”
The next day, Leanna decided she was blessed, helped by heaven, to be sure.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered, standing alone in the street, gazing up at the three-story building she had purchased sight unseen before she left Deadwood.
The Realtor had promised that the structure, a former home for railroad employees during the rail line construction, would suit her needs to perfection.
“Wonderful,” she added in awe, still amazed at how well it did suit her needs. “All we need is a big, fancy stained-glass window right here in front.”
The porch would fit half a dozen chairs. Inside, the ground floor was one big room, open wall to wall. The second floor contained five bedrooms. The next story was smaller to accommodate the slant of the roof but it had two more bedrooms and another open area between them.
Hearts for Harlots would be its unofficial name, though the sign over the door would read Leanna’s Place, Gaming and Spirits for Gentlemen of Refined Taste.
“There’s enough dust in here to stuff a pillow!” Lucinda Callet’s voice carried through the open window on the first floor.
Lucinda was the first of her harlot friends from Deadwood to decide to change her life. She was a determined lady. Leanna was convinced that with the aid of Hearts for Harlots, she would succeed.
“That’s to be expected.” This voice belonged to pretty Cassie Magill. Only twenty-three years old, her new life stretched out before her full of hope. “Sweep it up and be grateful.”
Leanna skipped up the steps of the front porch, her spirits much improved over yesterday. Grateful did not begin to describe how she felt.
The dream that she had held close to her heart for the past couple of years was coming true. Giving women a place to work and heal would be healing for her, as well. The ache in her soul that had never quite mended after her parents’ deaths might ease.
During her time in Deadwood she had become another person. Grown from a child to a woman, really, in many ways.
Before Deadwood, before her parents died, life had been
a party. Which new dress would she buy? Which boy would she charm? Which brother would be best for Ellie? Quin or Bowie?
But the family, as a loving unit, had died along with her parents. Angry words had cut wounds into broken hearts until the only thing left to do was flee. Everyone had done just that except Quin, who bore the responsibility of keeping the 4C going.
She had fled to rowdy, sinful Deadwood, and nothing would ever be the same for her again. She’d met women who, in her earlier life, she would have shunned, just as the folks in Cahill Crossing now shunned her.
She had learned to understand those women, to care for them, to respect them. Had it not been for the money that Chance had stuffed in her saddlebag while she kissed Bowie goodbye that last day, she might have been one of them.
The biggest change in her life had stolen her heart, every blessed beat of it. She had become a mother. She’d watched Cabe draw his first breath; his newborn cry had captured her. She would raise him to be as fine a Cahill as the family had ever known.
She could accept the loss of her good name. Her little baby Boodle and her crusade to save women that society rejected made everything worthwhile.
A good reputation wasn’t so much, anyway. It could mask all manner of deplorable behavior.
Preston Van Slyck was a perfect example of that. Here was a man who had the smile to charm. As the banker’s son he was a social catch, every woman’s dream. Leanna had good reason to know that underneath it all he was not.
Massie Monroe met her at the front door. Young Massie’s story was a common one, as far as Leanna had been able to tell. She’d run away from home with a man her parents had disapproved of. When he’d left her high and dry she was too ashamed to go home and did what she could to keep from starving.
It was Leanna’s personal goal to see that Massie did go home. It might take some time for her to gain the self-respect to do it, but with the help of Hearts for Harlots, she would.
“There’s a load of goods just been delivered from the freight yard,” Massie declared. Blond curls framed her face. She seemed the proper angel with her fair coloring and her soft voice. “There’s a fellow out back who wants you to sign for it.”
“This place is beginning to shine, ladies. At this rate we’ll be open for business next week,” Leanna said.
Out on the back porch two wagonloads of goods were being unloaded. She signed for them and watched while lamps, tables, chairs and chandeliers were carried past her and into her new saloon.
It was a lucky thing she had decided to dress like a man today. With all the heavy work, skirts would only get in the way. Years ago, on the 4C, she had often worn pants. Tagging along with Chance, or riding alone on the open range, it made sense. She had always respected her mother’s wishes and never worn menswear to town, but her mother was gone and so was her reputation. There was nothing really to be lost by dressing sensibly.
Massie stepped onto the back porch and exclaimed over an exquisite red carpet being carried by two men. She followed them inside, admonishing them to have a care with it.
The young man waiting to take the papers from her hand stared after Massie.
“When are you opening?” he asked, not able to take his gaze off the door Massie had closed behind her. “I’d like to be the first for that one. I’ll pay real good.”
“You are welcome here anytime, but if you want those kinds of services—” Leanna pointed across the railroad tracks that ran a couple hundred yards behind her building “—I’m sure you know where to go. Pearl’s or Monty’s will take care of you. If you want a respectable game of cards, dealt by respectable women, you come back next week.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be here.” He shrugged his shoulders, took the signed papers and gave one more longing glance at the back door.
So far there was every indication that Hearts for Harlots would send Massie home to her parents not only respectable but married.
Sunset rolled in with a clap of thunder. Another wagonload of crates had been delivered that afternoon, half of which remained unopened on the back porch.
Leanna’s back ached; her hands had grown red and blistered. Sweet heaven, if her legs weren’t as weak as a newborn colt’s.
Inky clouds toward the west snuffed out the last rays of light. She lit a lantern beside the back door, then plunked down on the stoop with a thud.
Crickets chirruped in the lilacs growing beside the back wall of the building, fast and loud because of the heat. A humid wind whistling in ahead of the storm brushed her face and throat. She lifted a tangled hank of hair off her neck to feel the air whisper over her skin.
With darkness falling, the brothels and saloons across the railroad tracks came to life. Lanterns blinked on and pianos tuned up. Women’s voices, sometimes laughing, sometimes cursing, carried over on the breeze.
How many of them, she wondered, hated their lives? Mentally, Leanna designed the broadsheets she intended to pass about in the red-light district advertising Hearts for Harlots. Leanna’s Place would be a haven, an escape for any woman who wanted it.
Her fledglings—Lucinda, Cassie and Massie—had gone to spend the night at the house Leanna had rented in the proper part of town, just until their own rooms above the saloon would be ready to live in.
Dorothy Wilmont had been at the house all day, caring for Cabe and setting the house to rights.
Dorothy was another whore from Deadwood. Older than the rest, she wanted nothing to do with saloons or the men who frequented them. Leanna had hired her to care for Cabe and keep house. She would need the help with all the hours she would have to spend getting her business running.
Rain pattered the back porch roof. It dripped off the eaves onto the dirt only a foot or two from where she sat.
Leanna filled her lungs with the fresh scent of damp earth.
Mama had loved the rain. It made everything cozy inside, she used to say. Papa hated it. Taking care of a ranch in the wet and mud made it a chore instead of a joy. He used to stare out the parlor window and growl about it until Mama took him by the hand and led him upstairs.
When they came down an hour or so later, Papa wasn’t growling anymore.
“I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t need that dress.” Leanna dug her fingers into her sore palms, regretting for the millionth time the argument she had had with her mama when they’d last parted. She wouldn’t cry. She hadn’t in some time.
But murder, Quin had said in his telegram. That made the grief fresh again, crueler and worse than before. Bowie, Quin and Chance would be itching to find out who did it, to make them pay.
They might try to keep her out of it, believing that she was still the baby sister who needed to be protected and coddled. They might try, but she had come home to see justice done for her parents and they would not be able to keep her from it.
“I know you can hear me way up there, Mama. I miss you.”
Rain drummed on the roof harder now; it poured from the eaves, making pools in the mud. Lightning tripped over the buildings across the tracks, illuminating them one by one.
Smoke lifted from a kitchen flue on the roof of Landry’s Boardinghouse. Wind blew the scent at her.
Apple cinnamon cake. The aroma drew her back over the years, into the kitchen of the 4C. She saw Mama smiling while she took a cake from the oven. Leanna was four…she was nine…she was fifteen, always bouncing up and down for the first slice of that warm cake.
Tears welled in her eyes. If she started to cry now she might not stop. She had a life to live. She needed to make Mama proud of her.
Leanna stood and dashed her sleeve across her eyes. She grabbed a metal bar to pry the lid off of a wood crate.
The bar slipped. Her thumb jabbed the lid and a splinter gouged her thumb. Blood welled. Blood had streaked Mama’s face in the mortuary in Wolf Grove.
Leanna braced her hands against the crate; she bowed her head, watching the crimson drops leak from her thumb. She cried as though the news of the deaths had just now
been delivered. She sobbed her grief, her anger, while a red glob gathered on the porch.
“Miss Cahill?” came a man’s voice from out of the dark, its tone deep and smooth.
She swallowed hard to smother her hitching breath.
Footsteps mounted the stairs. Wind groaned under the eaves as though it continued the mourning that she had abruptly halted at the sound of the stranger’s voice.
“Here now…give me your hand,” the voice said, seeming very close by.
“I’m fine.” Leanna shoved her hand behind her back and turned to look up at the stranger on her porch.
Lightning flashed revealing a tan derby dripping water past warm brown eyes. The concern she read in them kept her from running into the building and locking the door like she should have. Like she would have, had her common sense not been bound up in grief.
Thunder stomped across the sky and vibrated the wood porch under her boots. The man reached behind her and drew her injured hand around front. He uncurled her fist, squinting at the wound in the dim light. He didn’t seem to care that the cuff of his shirt absorbed a red smear.
He arched a brow at her. He might have been touching a wounded bird, his fingers were that gentle.
Drawing a handkerchief from his nicely tailored suit pocket, he wrapped it around her thumb and pressed.
She winced and he let go. He unwrapped the handkerchief and held her thumb up to the lantern.
“Nasty splinter,” he announced, turning the wound this way and that. He tilted his head, taking a close look at it, probing gently with his thumb.
Who was this man? She couldn’t ask just yet; her throat still ached with emotion. But he was handsome.
The light swaying across his face by the swing of the lantern revealed dark brown hair with raindrops collecting at the tips. His clean-shaven chin was pleasantly shaped. No doubt, if he smiled, he would have the kind of mouth to captivate a woman, to make her sigh out loud. She’d seen the like before.
