by Carol Arens
Cleve nodded because his voice failed him.
“I took her home with me to Mrs. Jameston’s boardinghouse. I tried to get her to eat and take care of herself, but she only got weaker. We were close. I loved Arden like I would have loved a sister. She didn’t think she would survive the birth. I told her she would, even though we both knew she wouldn’t. She begged me to love her baby and raise it as my own.... Cleve…I tried so hard to get her to live.”
Leanna wiped her cheek, dashing away tears. His throat cramped with a sob but he couldn’t do a blessed thing about it.
“In the end she didn’t survive long enough even to hold her child. She died the very instant he came. Her last cry was his first. I can’t tell you how I felt in that moment. A life gone and a life begun…such loss and joy all at the same time.”
Leanna turned her face into his shoulder and wept. After a moment she looked at him with red-rimmed eyes.
“I might have been the one giving birth that night for all the love and pain. And I do love Arden’s boy that much.”
Cleve tipped his head, resting his cheek on Leanna’s hair. “Thank you for telling me.”
“You would have discovered I wasn’t anyone’s mother on your own.”
She snuggled into him and, amazingly, the ache in his soul eased. It hurt to know the truth, but the shadows that had plagued him for years began to lift.
“I knew you weren’t Cabe’s mother.”
“What?” She pushed away from him with small, warm hands. “How could you?”
“Fallen women don’t blush. You, my love, have the prettiest pink one, right there, just across the bridge of your nose.”
He traced the rosy-tinged flesh with his finger, down her neck and over the swell of her chest.
“It’ll be daylight soon.” She sighed.
He tugged her down to the mattress.
“Not for a while, yet.”
Chapter Ten
Leanna sat on a chair in Doc Lewis’s waiting room gazing through the open window at the sunny afternoon. Warm air drifted inside carrying the scent of jasmine from a vine trained around the window frame. The voices of children playing nearby filtered in with it.
The examination room door opened. Doc Lewis stepped out. He glanced behind him, then closed the door with a quiet click.
“I’m glad you brought Aggie in, Mrs. Holden,” he said.
“I’m worried, Doctor.” Doc Lewis pulled a chair from against the far wall and sat down across from her. “It’s been close to two weeks and she seems the same as the day Cleve and I…well, what we did is we—”
“Rescued her?” Doc supplied, arching his brows over friendly brown eyes.
“Not everyone calls it that.”
“Miss Aggie does.” The doctor rested his elbows on his knees and linked his fingers together. “You shouldn’t pay any mind to what a few folks have to say.”
Leanna sighed. She used to care. Somehow, the opinions of busybodies didn’t matter so much anymore. That’s what she needed to teach her girls.
Especially Aggie. Her rescue had not been cheered by most of the residents of Cahill Crossing. Preston had used his vicious tongue to drop a word here and a rumor there, saying that Aggie was vile and ruined beyond redemption.
How odd that no one thought badly of Preston for being in a position to be familiar with Aggie’s ruin. No doubt his dashing looks and his engaging smile forgave him. The fact that he was the banker’s son gave him an aura of respectability no matter what.
“Thank you for seeing Aggie, Doctor.” Leanna opened her bag to pay him but Doc Lewis stayed her hand.
“Aggie can pay me when she is able.”
“Hopefully, one day she will be able to. Right now, I hardly know what to do for her. She barely eats. She jumps at every noise and only speaks when she is asked a question.”
“She’s been wounded inside. Being treated like she has, and for a good many years, it’s going to take time.”
A baseball sailed through the open window and Doc Lewis caught it easily, then tossed it back as though he had done it dozens of times before.
“Thanks, Doc,” called a young boy’s voice.
“Keep her mind stimulated. Try not to let her close up on herself. Her body is healing fine but the brain and the heart work in ways that we simple doctors don’t understand.”
Leanna stood; so did Doc Lewis.
“Don’t hesitate to bring her back if you need to.”
“I’ll do that, and thank you again.”
“Married life must agree with you, Mrs. Holden. You look the picture of health.”
He was right, marriage did agree with her. August had turned into September and still, two weeks later, the days were wonderful and the nights were too sultry even to think about in front of good Doc Lewis.
“If you need my services on your own behalf, I hope you won’t be too shy.”
Leanna nodded, even though she was no doubt turning six shades of crimson.
“Good. It’s important to be seen once a month during your time. Most mothers only call me when the child is coming, but regular care is vital. A lot of heartache could be prevented…well, there I go preaching again, but it is important.”
“If that time comes, you’ll see me,” Leanna vowed, and meant it. Would Arden be alive today had she been in the care of Doc Lewis?
Doc Lewis opened the examination room door and escorted Aggie out. She avoided his touch and stared down at the floor.
Leanna took her arm and led her across the room.
“If you need anything, Miss Holt, I’ll be here, day or night.” The doctor opened the front door. “Good afternoon, ladies.”
“Thank you, Dr. Lewis,” Aggie murmured without lifting her gaze from the polished floorboards.
Outside, the afternoon was sunny, full of birdsong, laughing children and hope.
“Aggie, we’re going by the bank on the way home.”
Aggie stiffened beside her. “Folks will stare. I can’t do it.”
“They might stare, they might do worse.” Leanna tipped Aggie’s chin so that sunlight shone on her pale frightened face. “Shoulders square, my friend, I’ve got you. Besides, I’m the one who gave my son a gambler for a father. Those stares will likely be at me.”
“But, Miss Cahill, Preston might be there.”
“That is precisely why we are going. Preston preys on weak women. You and I are going to show him that we are not weak.”
“I am. All I want to do is run home and lock my bedroom door.”
Leanna squeezed Aggie’s arm, relieved to hear her voice an opinion at last. For nearly three weeks she had done nothing more than nod and mumble.
“So do I, but locking ourselves away is no way to live.”
The walk from Doc Lewis’s office to the bank was short, just around the south side of Town Square and past the town hall. Along the way she spoke to Aggie about calico dresses, hair ribbons and hatpins.
A few rude stares greeted them and Leanna had to remind Aggie to look up, not at her shuffling feet.
Entering the bank was a relief, even though Preston sat behind his desk looking like the answer to every mama’s prayer.
“Mrs. Holden.” Willem Van Slyck stood up from his desk. He strode forward to greet her, speaking through the bars that separated the back room of the bank from the lobby. “It’s a pleasure. How may I help you?”
“Let me, Father. I’d be delighted to assist the ladies.” No one could have missed the sneer in Preston’s voice.
“Sit down, Preston,” Willem ordered, slashing a frown at his son. “How can I help you, Leanna?”
He could help her by revealing what he knew about Mama’s and Papa’s deaths. She looked Willem hard in his gold-flecked eye; she glanced at Preston, but if they kept secrets it didn’t show. Willem appeared to be the soul of civility and Preston hid his malice behind a handsome grin.
The office, though, was full of files. If she could get to them, paper and ink w
ouldn’t lie. She had no idea what she ought to search for, but that wouldn’t keep her from looking.
“Miss Holt would like to open an account.” Leanna drew twenty dollars from her reticule and placed it on the counter.
This was Aggie’s first step away from her old life. It had been Leanna’s intention to have Preston witness that step. No matter what, he would not have the poor girl back. He would not have any woman who came to Hearts for Harlots for help.
If Leanna wasn’t mistaken, Preston had just bitten his tongue. Even the congenial crinkle of his eyes couldn’t hide his attempt to smother his anger.
She smiled sweetly at him and he scowled back.
A challenge issued and accepted.
Cleve knelt before a bush in front of the house with Cabe squatting beside him. He pointed at a blinking spot on a leaf.
“Look there, son, that’s a firefly. Tomorrow night I’ll show you how to catch them and put them in a jar.”
“Fly,” Cabe repeated. He reached a chubby fist toward the bug but it flitted away out of reach. He pointed at Cleve’s nose. “Papa.”
“That’s right, little man. I’m your papa and no one else.”
The rustle of a silk skirt and the squeak of the screen door drew his attention up to the porch.
“Thank you for that, Cleve.” Leanna leaned over the railing. “Mama and Papa have to go to work now, Boodle. We’ll see you in the morning.”
Leanna came down the stairs, picked up Cabe, then carried him to Dorothy, who waited on the top step.
Cleve stood and straightened his jacket. He took Leanna’s hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm while they walked past the school.
“I love September,” his wife said, gazing up at the dark sky all speckled with stars. “Fall’s on the way and a body can nearly smell it. Maybe Chance will come home soon.”
“Leanna, don’t thank me for being a daddy to Cabe. He’s a fine boy. I thank you for trusting me with him.”
“It wasn’t easy for me, marrying for the reasons we did, but now that it’s done, I’m glad. I don’t know who I would want to raise him more than you.”
At the edge of the schoolyard Cleve stopped and kissed her.
“I didn’t marry you just for Cabe’s sake.” He tucked her hand back into the bend of his arm and walked on with his lips bent down to her ear. Not that anyone would hear him, but because of the feeling of intimacy that came with the whisper. “How late are we working tonight?”
“One o’clock, or until the customers are gone.”
“Too long. Meet me in the back room closet at ten?”
“Nine forty-five.”
He picked her up, hugged her tight, then twirled her around once with her feet and skirt flying.
“Cleve, there’s something I want to do tonight and I’ll need your help,” she said when he set her down.
“Anything,” he answered.
“I want to break into the bank.”
“Anything but that.” He tucked her hand once more into the crook of his arm and quickened his pace toward the gambling hall.
“But, Cleve,” she panted, trying to match his long strides. He needed to get to the saloon quickly, before she hoodwinked him into some sort of scheme that would get them both thrown into jail. “I need to find out if those Van Slycks did something to Mama and Papa.”
“What do you expect to find?” He slowed his pace. This was important to her even if breaking into the bank was the last thing he would allow her to do. “Even if they did have something to do with it, they wouldn’t have left clues in the bank.”
“They might not think they did, but I’m sure going to find that out for myself.”
“No, you are not.” With his mind spinning, he came upon the back door of the saloon with no sense of time passing. “If I have to tie you to a chair.” A sudden erotic picture flashed in his mind, distracting him for an instant. Leanna, secured to the chair wearing nothing but a scowl. He shook his head to clear the image. “You are not breaking into the bank.”
Leanna sighed and frowned. “I suppose I did vow to obey you. Very well, then, I won’t break into the bank.”
“You can listen in on Van Slyck all evening if you want to. He’s bound to let something slip.”
“No doubt, since he hasn’t come close to revealing a thing the whole livelong time I’ve been spying on him.” Leanna smiled. She patted his cheek. “Tonight is surely the night he’ll let something slip. Why bother with the bank?”
Her agreeable attitude sent a chill clear to his bones.
Waiting for Cleve to go upstairs and take his nightly break felt like waiting for water to boil; the longer she anticipated it, the less likely it seemed.
She strolled past a table that was a few feet from what had come to be known as Willem’s chair. Van Slyck sat in it night after night, from exactly eight-thirty until precisely eleven-thirty.
More often than not Don Fitzgerald visited with him.
Like every other evening, the pair discussed the weather and a dozen other topics that had nothing to do with her parents.
What was Bowie thinking, asking her to listen in? The very last thing Van Slyck would talk about was how he had murdered the Cahills. That was even less likely than leaving an account of it at the bank.
Hearing nothing of interest beyond September being especially cool this year, she crossed the room and sat down in a chair beside Aggie.
She had hoped that the sunflowers in the fireplace might cheer Aggie, or watching people come and go might ignite a spark of interest in her eye.
But no—the woman sat gazing at the rug as though her future might be revealed in the weave, and if it were, she didn’t much care.
Leanna’s attempted conversation with her amounted to a few nods and one-word answers to her questions. How she longed to march her over to Willem and Don and declare, Look what your sons have done!
She couldn’t, of course. Chances are the men had no control over their offspring, anyway.
Leanna glanced up. Cleve had taken his break. She should have been paying attention! He would be upstairs for less than an hour. That barely gave her the time she needed to get to the bank, search it and rush back.
Casually, she walked into the back room. She rooted through the box of tools beside the door, then dashed down the steps. She wished she had taken the time to bring her wrap; the late-summer night had a nip to it.
She gathered her hem above her knees with one hand and the metal bar that she used for opening crates in the other.
Then she ran.
Even though, at this time of night in this part of town, no one was about, she was glad she had chosen to wear a black dress to commit her crime. She ought to look like a mere shadow drifting through the night.
She formed a plan as she hurried across the Fort Ridge Road. She paused to catch her breath behind lawyer Slocum’s office.
Drat Cleve for not agreeing to help her. The only way of breaking the lock on the back door of the bank was with the metal bar. Her husband would have the strength to make quick work of it, but she was in for a struggle.
She gripped the bar in both hands and crept forward with her unwieldy skirt shoved between her elbow and ribs.
Her plan was simple. Break the lock or break the window.
Shattering glass might make noise but would anyone hear it? Someone working late at the newspaper office, perhaps. This undertaking was not without risk. Still, she needed to find out what Van Slyck, be it father or son, knew.
She dearly hoped to discover Preston worthy of some crime that would put him behind bars. She longed to make him pay for what he had done to Arden, Aggie and who knew how many others? Locked in jail tight as a rusted screw, he’d never discover the secret she had been keeping from him.
Tap, tap, tap.
A noise pinged close by. She froze, listening.
Tap…tap…tap, the sound came again, and unless she missed her bet it was coming from the rear of the bank, maybe
even the back door.
She hadn’t anticipated a bank robber, but if he broke the lock first she could simply wait until he had finished his business, then go in after him.
She let go of her skirt but held on tight to the bar. On tiptoe, she trotted the short distance between the back of the lawyer’s office and a tall bush only yards away from the bank’s back door.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
She parted the shrubbery and saw the thief kneeling in deep shadow beside the door, holding a hammer and a pick. This might take some time.
The lock wouldn’t be as heavy as the one on the safe, but still, her bar would be more efficient than that constant tapping.
The thief paused in his work. He drew a watch from his vest and peered closely at it.
Perhaps he had another business to rob in a timely manner. Perhaps he… Leanna poked her head out of the shrub. She peered hard at the man.
“Cleve Holden!” she growled. She broke through the branches and stomped across the clearing, swatting dried leaves from her skirt and hair. “What are you doing here?”
He pivoted on his knee. “More to the point, what are you doing here?”
“Move over, Cleve.” She nudged him aside. “You’ll never get anything done with that little tool.”
Leanna pried at the lock with her bar.
“Give me that.” Cleve grabbed the bar and delivered the lock a good bashing.
Lantern light flared to life in the bank’s rear window. Footsteps crossed the floor.
Cleve snagged her waist and rolled with her around the corner of the building half an instant before the back door banged open.
“Who’s out there?” Preston’s voice shot into the dark. “Show yourself!”
Praise everything that the moon was hidden behind clouds tonight. Cleve crouched in front of her, bar and pick at the ready.
“Is it my uncle?” a woman’s voice came from inside, sounding fretful.
“Lilly Mae, I can hear your uncle snoring in his bed from a block away.”
