by Carol Arens
He reached the window in time to punch the guard in the face. He yanked Leanna’s skirt free while the man ran bellowing down the hall, sounding an alarm.
In the seconds it took to get down the ladder and gather up Leanna and Aggie, the alley door flew open and Preston dashed out.
“You’ve got no right to abduct that woman.” He strode forward with a self-assured gait. “She and the owner of this establishment have a contract.”
Was it a contract that had kept Arden from coming home?
He set Aggie on her feet and Leanna rushed forward to support her.
“Hand her over, Miss Cahill…if you please.” Van Slyck was not making a request.
Standing in the glow of the back porch lamp stood a man who nodded his head with a pair of double chins flapping. This must be the owner of Hell’s Corner Saloon, the man who wanted to hurt Cabe.
He would deal with these men later. Right now, getting Aggie out of here was urgent.
Cleve intercepted Van Slyck’s move toward Leanna and Aggie. He glowered and bunched his fists.
The coward took a hasty step backward.
“You may have a contract,” Cleve stated. “What Miss Cahill and I have is a moral obligation.”
“Enforce that.” Van Slyck snickered.
Cleve grabbed his lapels and jerked him off balance. His eyes grew wide. Moonlight glinted off a gold fleck in one of his eyes.
Cleve punched the smirk off his face with a well-placed blow to the gut. He grabbed Van Slyck by his expensive lapels again.
“Cleve, let’s go.” Leanna tugged on his sleeve.
“Never, ever let Miss Cahill’s son’s name come out of your mouth again…and tell the same to the fellow who just skedaddled back inside.”
Cleve shoved, sending the natty Mr. Preston Van Slyck butt-first onto a mud puddle. That, he figured, was where the swine belonged.
Chapter Eight
A rifle shot cracked over the meadow behind the house, followed by another and then three more. Five cans tumbled from a boulder in the distance.
Sweat dampened Leanna’s collar but she didn’t unbutton it. If she could manage an accurate aim with her clothes feeling like a furnace against her skin, she could easily bring down anyone threatening Boodle, be it in the pits of Hades or Cahill Crossing.
At eight in the morning, the sun was scorching and the air so humid that breathing felt like sucking hot mist instead of air.
She inhaled a lungful of late-August misery, then fired another shot.
The remaining can spun through the air. It landed in the grass beside the others. The very last thing she wanted to do was walk all the way to the boulder and set them straight again, but she did it, four more times.
Years ago, following Chance about the countryside, watching him shoot and copying him, had been fun. Never in her life had she expected to wound more than a tin of beans.
Today, her aim was as true as it had been back then. Chance would be pleased to know that his instructions had held over time. But shooting a can was a different thing from shooting a man. If the moment came, would she be able to do it?
She stroked the polished butt of the Winchester, feeling the smooth wood slide over her palm.
Without a doubt, if her son were in danger. She wouldn’t waste a heartbeat on regret. Her aim would be deadly.
Last night she had come home, knelt beside her bed and prayed that the owner of Hell’s Corner Saloon hadn’t meant what he’d said about harming Boodle. She’d prayed that Preston had actually been horrified that the man would consider it.
But he had laughed, and callously, so she hadn’t slept a wink the whole livelong night. With every fading star she’d mentally cleaned her dusty rifle, sighted an imaginary evil poking its head up here or peeping around a corner there, and fired at it…over and over.
“I reckon you could shoot down that butterfly dipping over the meadow if you tried.”
“Cleve!” Leanna spun about. “I didn’t hear you coming.”
He walked toward her across wilted grass. Funny, just the fact that he was nearby made everything feel not quite so alarming. The shadows and worrisome thoughts that had plagued her during the night scattered at his smile.
“It’s been a while since I held a weapon like that one,” he said. “Mind if I have a go?”
She handed him the rifle. He held it for a moment, turning it this way and that, as though becoming reacquainted with an old ally.
“Years ago, back on the homestead, I kept a weapon like this one close at hand…couldn’t have been more than twelve.” He aimed, shot a can off the rock, then grinned at her. “I suppose there are some things you don’t forget.”
“Like love of the land,” she said, reading the pensive look on his face.
He nodded. “Like the soil prepared for planting…the way it feels when you rub it between your fingers.”
“And the dust cloud that lifts from the ground when a herd of horses is running free,” she added.
Cleve was silent for a moment, gazing at her and probably lost in memories, the same as she was.
“I challenge you to a contest,” she said to break the spell of the past. “Let’s see who misses a tin can first.”
“I’ll take that challenge.” He handed her the rifle. “If you win, I give you a kiss.”
“If you win, I give you—” she began.
“Two,” he countered.
“All right…two kisses if you win.” She aimed the gun and shot her can off the boulder.
“The first one, sweet.” His grin flickered at her in a not-so-sweet way. “And the second…let’s just say that your brothers won’t approve.”
He fired and knocked his can from its perch.
He was nearly her match with the weapon, but his shots tended toward the top or bottom of the can while hers went straight through the middle.
If she won this competition there would be only the one sweet kiss. She was far past telling herself that it was enough.
On her next turn she sharpened her aim…a quarter inch past the edge of the can. The bullet buried into the hillside behind the boulder with a puff of dust.
“Looks like you lose,” Cleve said, the crease in his cheek lifted.
“Then I’ll be forced to pay my debt.” She stepped close to him and set the rifle down in the grass.
“I won’t go easy on you.” He cupped her face.
She sighed against his lips.
If there was a first, sweet kiss, she failed to notice it. The second kiss made the world fall away. His mouth claimed her, deep and hard. It twirled her belly. It made parts of her twist and throb that had never twisted and throbbed before.
She moaned when she feared he might pull away. His mouth stole her breath, but it kidnapped her heart.
The heart, that for so long had beat lonely and vulnerable, felt safe for the first time since her parents’ deaths.
Cleve made her feel that way. He might not feel for her the way a husband ought to, but he would provide sanctuary for her and her son.
He’d promised and she believed him.
“Cleve,” she whispered against his cheek. “Ask me to marry you.”
He took her face between his big hands, gazing down at her. His eyes shimmered with the morning heat. Even though he didn’t love her, his expression said that she had just handed him the world.
“Will you marry me, Leanna? Be my wife and you’ll never be sorry. You won’t need to shoot cans off a rock. I’ll be here to watch over you and Cabe…I promise to give you that. I know I can’t offer you everything you want…not now, but I will cherish you, and I’ll be faithful. I’ll be the best man I can be.”
“I’ll marry you.” Cleve looked as pleased as a man who had just won a woman he really did love. She could nearly pretend…
“You won’t be sorry. We’ll build a good life, you, me and little Cabe.”
“Let’s buy a ranch, a pretty piece of ground to be our own?” He would want that as
much as she did, she was certain.
“I’ll give you anything that’s in my power to give, Leanna.”
“I won’t expect you to— I’ll understand that you can’t—” She sighed. A woman couldn’t very well ask for future love. It had to come on its own or not at all. “I’ll ask you for honesty and for respect. I reckon a marriage can begin with that, then who’s to guess where it might go from there?”
His smile faded. He looked suddenly somber.
“I’ll be the best husband I can be. We share a dream, and this…” He kissed her until she couldn’t breathe. “It’s a bond as strong as any other.”
“I’m coming to believe that, but still, give me the truth and I’ll give it to you. It shows, at least, that we respect each other.”
That would mean she would have to tell him everything. In exchange for his protection, in the hopes that passion would sow the seeds of love, she would trust him with her future and her secrets.
He answered by drawing her close and burying his face in her neck. She replied by turning her head and finding his mouth.
She did love Cleve. With every moment, she felt that certainty settle more deeply in her heart. One day, he might love her with his heart as well as his hands. But for this very instant his hands gave her what she needed.
“This might be enough,” she admitted.
Then he took her down into the dry scratchy grass where they celebrated in a tangle of sweat and heavy breathing.
A week later, heat still smothered the earth. It was all anyone could talk about. Crops wilted without rain. Birds perched in trees with their small beaks hanging open. Dogs lay in the shade panting while, from one end of town to the other, folks grumbled.
Cleve paced behind Leanna’s house, the house he would be moving into tonight. His jacket hung on a tree limb so that it wouldn’t be soaked with sweat the way his shirt was. With the ceremony only moments away, he wanted to look presentable for his bride. He couldn’t give her much, but he could give her a decent appearance.
He longed to take a dip in the stream, but walking beside it would have to do.
A movement from Leanna’s bedroom window caught his attention. Cassie carried something frothy and cream-colored across his line of sight. Leanna’s wedding veil.
Exclamations of feminine delight floated down to him.
In the seven days since Leanna had accepted his proposal, he had asked himself the same question a hundred times.
The argument always went: Was he doing the right thing? He didn’t know, but he was doing the best thing. Were his motives for giving his bride less than she dreamed of good enough? It was her own son, more or less, that he meant to protect by reciting the vows. That counted in his favor.
The last thing he had intended when he came to Cahill Crossing was to take a wife. He’d only wanted to take a child.
Wasn’t it better this way? He cared for Leanna too deeply to take the boy away, and little Cabe had never known another mother. Any other course of action would cause hearts to be broken beyond repair.
Cleve crouched down at the stream bank to let the water trickle around his fingers.
His internal argument always ended the same way. He was doing the only thing he could for the good of everyone, particularly himself. Cabe Cahill was his flesh and blood and he meant to raise him, no matter what.
As reasonable as his arguments were, one thing continued to plague him. In a few moments Leanna Cahill would become Leanna Holden, his flesh and blood as much as his nephew was.
Truth was the one thing his bride had asked of him. He should have given her that from the first moment she asked it, but he had been a coward. Had he told her then who he was and why he’d come to Cahill Crossing, the odds were heavy that she would not have married him.
The time might well come when she made that discovery.
He stood to lose everything if she did.
He wouldn’t think about that now because when he’d told Leanna that he might be able to love her, it hadn’t been idle words to get her to say yes. Quite honestly, he was halfway there now. His admiration of her had settled deep in his heart.
From this day forward, his life would never be the same. Whether he loved his wife or not, the world would be a cold place without her.
“Mr. Holden, may I have a word?”
“Dorothy,” he said, standing and shaking the water from his fingertips. “That wedding feast you’ve been working on smells fit for President Chester Arthur.”
“Don’t try and flatter me out of what I’ve come to say.”
“That wasn’t flattery. Just the plain truth.”
“Be that as it may, Cleve Holden, I’ve a thing or two to say.”
“Words of advice for a nervous groom?”
“Words of warning, more like.” Dorothy wiped the perspiration from her brow with the back of her hand. “Miss Leanna doesn’t have her mama here to speak for her so I’m doing it.”
“I’m glad you are.”
“Well, we’ll see about that. I hear her speaking to her mama at night so I know what’s in her heart. She wants to be loved, more than most anything. Poor thing can’t see how that will ever happen, though. She talks to her mama about you. She’s marrying you but she wouldn’t be if it weren’t for her child—that’s not what she says, just what I think. A woman, especially that one, ought to have what she wants.”
“I’ll make her as happy as I know how.” He promised this to himself as well as to Dorothy.
“I told her she ought to marry you, true love or not. I even said that her mama would want that. Don’t make me sorry.” Dorothy’s mouth set in a firm line, her arms crossed over the bodice of her respectable gray gown, made fancy for the ceremony by a wilted flower pinned to the collar.
“I intend to make Leanna the envy of Cahill Crossing.”
“I hope that’s enough.”
“It had better be.” Bowie’s voice came from behind them. His boots crunched the dry grass. “Wedding’s ready to begin.”
“I’ll leave you to your men talk, then.” Dorothy turned and hurried for the house.
Cleve plucked his jacket from the tree branch and put it on. Silently, he walked beside Bowie toward the back door.
“Here’s what I have to say,” Bowie declared before they mounted the back steps. “I may be giving my sister away to you, but treat her wrong and I’ll damned well take her back.”
“You’d have to fight me for her.”
Bowie grinned and slapped him on the back.
Leanna stood at the top of the parlor stairs with Bowie, watching the scene below through a veil of ivory gauze.
The sun had set. Lamps cast a romantic glow over the parlor. Curtains fluttered inward on a breeze, damp with the promise of rain.
Cassie plunked out the wedding march on the slightly off-key piano that had come with the house.
In front of the hearth, Cleve stood beside the preacher. Only his smile, warm with promise, kept her from dashing back to her bedroom.
Maybe she ought to have revealed that she was a virgin before she recited her vows. She’d tried, a dozen times, but the words had remained stuck in her mouth, and her such a preacher for the truth.
Standing now at the top of the stairs, she wasn’t certain if she was making the best decision of her life, or the worst. Marrying Cleve with this secret between them might doom the young marriage from the start.
Whether or not she descended the stairs on Bowie’s arm came down to one decision.
How much did she trust Cleve?
Enough to let him discover the truth about her son? To put their fate in his hands?
The best thing might be to call the wedding off this very moment while there was still time. He didn’t love her so he wouldn’t be crushed. Maybe disappointed for a while, but he’d get over it. He’d find himself a decent woman.
He winked up at her. The crease in his cheek lifted with her smile.
And there it was… This truth hit he
r smack in the heart. She didn’t want him with a decent woman.
Glancing up at Bowie, she nodded. He escorted her down the stairs.
The parlor was speckled with people who loved her. And one who admired her…greatly.
They stood in a half circle around Cleve and the preacher. Massie leaned shoulder to shoulder with Sam Webber. Lucinda and Dorothy dabbed at their eyes. Cabe and Melvin shuffled from foot to foot, sweating in their Sunday best and their attention focused on the wedding cake in the corner.
She was relieved to see Merritt Dixon with the group. They had not been friends in the past. Merritt had been a grieving widow while Leanna had been busy in her shallow world of parties and pretty gowns. How, she wondered, would Bowie’s future wife feel about being her sister?
This concern flashed through her mind quickly. Her attention was all for her groom, grinning and waiting for her beside the preacher.
The holy vows took only a few moments to recite, but looking into Cleve’s eyes, she meant each and every one of them…for a lifetime.
She would love Cleve with all her heart, even if he never loved her back.
Standing here before God and all these witnesses, she silently prayed that her groom had been right. That love could grow.
She was pretty sure she hadn’t loved him last week, but right now, kissing him the second the preacher gave consent, she did. With blessings from above, and maybe a little help from Mama, her brand-new husband might come to feel the same way.
Dorothy rushed forward as soon as Cleve gave her a breath. With one hand still twined in her husband’s, she hugged her friend.
“Your mama would want this,” Dorothy whispered in her ear.
“I think so, too,” she whispered back, and kissed Dorothy’s cheek.
Next, Massie and Sam offered their good wishes. Lucinda and Cassie took turns embracing her while they sniffled and smiled.
Cabe and Melvin inched closer to the cake.
Last of all Bowie came forward with his intended.
Clearly, Merritt was no longer grieving. She was radiant with her hand tucked into the crook of Bowie’s arm, as if that’s the place she had belonged all her life.
