by Carol Arens
The poor woman kept ahold of her elbow, tugging her down the steps. Her trembling made it impossible for Leanna to refuse her.
“We could just talk over there…on the other side of the road.” She anchored her blowing red hair with her free hand while she gripped Leanna’s elbow, tugging her along. “There’s that big bush. We can stand behind it and no one will see me. I won’t take but an instant of your time.”
“If someone is threatening you, we can help.” Standing behind the shrubbery out of sight of the saloon was not a position she would have chosen, but apparently there was no help for it.
“I’m sorry.” The girl spun about. She ran, her hair blazing behind her, a flicker of crimson in the night.
“Really, Leanna, you’re wasting your time.”
Preston stepped into view, his grin feral for all its attractiveness.
“You won’t be able to help them. They’re mine, even Aggie…especially Aggie.” He drew something from his suit pocket. “I’ll have her back and soon.”
“Not against her will, you won’t.”
She watched him twirl her bracelet around his thumb. It glittered in the moonlight.
“She and the other whores sold their free will the first time they opened their legs for a dollar.”
“If that’s what you came to say, you’ve wasted your breath.” She turned to go back inside, being careful not to look overlong at the bracelet.
Preston snatched her wrist and dropped the gold circle in her palm.
“It’s very pretty, but I doubt you came to offer me a gift. Not that I would accept one from you, anyway, the way you treat those unfortunate women across—”
“It’s yours and you know it. You dropped it behind the bank the other night.”
“Someone may have, it wasn’t me.”
“Your initials are on it.”
She peered closely at it as though she had never seen the lovely bangle.
“L…C,” she read slowly. “It might be Lonnie Carter’s, or maybe Libby Cole’s.” She prayed that Preston didn’t feel her pulse racing in her wrist. She was frightened being alone with him. There was no telling what he might be capable of. “They would have lost it during daylight hours, though.”
Boldly, she picked it up with her free hand and dropped it back into Preston’s coat pocket. Regret nearly made her pluck it out again. Chance’s gift had always been special to her. More than a common piece of jewelry, it represented the bond with her brother.
“You ought to ask Libby. She would be heartbroken to lose such a pretty thing.” Sadly, Libby was the sort who would claim it as her own in a heartbeat.
“You’re quite the pretty liar, Leanna.” He squeezed harder on her wrist. “Tell me, what the hell were you doing? I know the Cahills aren’t so destitute that little sister needs to break into the bank.... So, what, then?”
“That’s a question for Libby…or Lonnie.” She shrugged as though she didn’t care. “Let go of me.”
“Or what? You’ll call your husband to come and rescue you? I’m shaking in my boots now.”
She kicked her foot and connected with his shin.
He made an arrogant tsk-tsk sound so she aimed for his groin but only snagged the crotch of his trousers.
“Now, now, no need for violence.” He squeezed harder. “Although, I do enjoy a hellcat on occasion. Another time, maybe. For now, all I want to know is what you were up to behind the bank.”
“Leanna!” Cleve’s voice carried across the road from the front porch.
Preston released her. He took a long backward stride.
“Watch the little things you hold dear,” he hissed.
Her breathing stilled. She flushed head to toe with cold dread because, very clearly, he did not mean the bracelet.
She ached to run across the road toward Cleve and safety but she would be damned if she would let Preston see her fear. She took slow, measured steps even though her back ached with the venom being stared at her from behind.
What felt like a hundred years later she reached the safety of the steps.
“What were you doing alone in the dark?” Cleve’s voice sounded relieved.
She stepped into the arms that he held out to her. She pressed her cheek against his chest and felt his solid body wrap her up.
“I wasn’t alone.”
“Van Slyck?” Cleve spoke the name like it was refuse in a garbage heap.
She nodded against his silk vest. “He’s going to give my bracelet to Libby Cole.”
“Go inside and close the door.” Cleve let go of her and turned as though he meant to dash back across the road.
“Wait!” She latched on to his sleeve. “I know you want to give him what he deserves. But right now he only suspects we were up to something. If you go after him, he’ll know it.”
“He’ll know not to approach my wife again.”
“Please, Cleve, wait just a little longer.”
“All right, for now…” He slipped his arm about her waist and ushered her into the saloon. “For the sake of finding out if he and his father know anything about your parents. But one day soon, Leanna, I’m going after that man and I’ll ask you not to stop me.”
“I won’t want to.”
Chapter Twelve
Agreeing to allow Van Slyck to slither away, a serpent in high grass, had been difficult. That decision ate at Cleve and left him restless through the night.
“Take Boodle out riding,” Leanna had suggested to him as they finished breakfast. “He could use some fresh air.”
“Come with us. We’ll make it a family outing.”
“Papa always said that men need time to just be with men, even if the men are pint-size.”
Since she was right, he had saddled up Fey, who according to his wife also needed an outing, and taken his son on a ride.
The wind had blown away with the dawn leaving behind a perfect day to show off Cabe’s new home to him.
Sunshine touched Cleve between the shoulder blades. He stretched, easing some of the tightness out of his back.
“Fshn.” Cabe sat in him front of him with his boot toes tipped toward the sky. He pointed to a stream.
“As the years go by I expect you’ll spend a lot of time sitting beside that stream, my little man.” He ruffled Cabe’s dark hair with his palm. “We’d take a ride over and thank your uncle Quin for that, but he and your auntie are still away.”
“Fshn,” Cabe repeated.
“All right, but your mama says no hooks until you’re a mite older.”
Cleve dismounted and lifted Cabe from the saddle. He found a reed and tied a string that he found in Fey’s saddle pack to it.
With the boy settled between his knees next to the flowing clear water, Cleve allowed some of his anger from the night before to wash away with the current.
A reckoning time would come, but it wasn’t this fine sunny morning with Boodle chatting happily at the string bobbing about in search of hidden fish.
“Arden would be pleased to see you here.” Someday, when Cabe was older and able to understand, he would tell him about her.
Arden had made the right choice in giving her son to Leanna. With every day that passed, he was more thankful for his sister’s decision.
Cleve hated the fact that he had come to Cahill Crossing with the intention of taking the child away from Leanna.
He tried to imagine Arden’s face smiling down at the pair of them sitting here. It was easier than he would have thought. One day he might speak with her the way Leanna did with her mother.
The no-good man that his sister had been involved with still needed to be dealt with, but not on this fine day.
Besides, he didn’t know who the man was. Trying to force Leanna into telling might earn him a bed in the pantry behind the kitchen.
For as long as she wanted to keep the secret of Boodle’s daddy, he wouldn’t force it from her.
That didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to find out on his own.
/> “Come on, son, let’s go sit up on that great big rock and see what there is to see.”
“See!” Cabe leaped up and dropped his crushed willow pole.
Cleve lifted him and carried him on his shoulders up the boulder. It was an easy climb with deep chunks of rock hacked out for easy assent.
Apparently, this place had been visited before, many times. He supposed Leanna knew of it.
He pictured her as a child, maybe skinny with knobby knees, her hair in braids while she tagged about after Chance. It could be that the two of them sat in this very spot.
Chance and Leanna had been close; he’d heard story after story of them growing up.
She worried about this brother. Chance ought to have picked up the letter from Mrs. Jameston in Deadwood by now. Too many times he’d caught his wife listening for the train whistle, or watching the road.
“Horsee!” Cabe pointed to a herd running in the distance.
He wiggled, trying to launch his small self off Cleve’s shoulders.
“It’s a long fall from here.” He secured both arms about his squirming son.
Son…it was a good word. Day by day, that’s how he felt. Less of an uncle and more of a father.
Cabe looked up at him with sunshine falling full on his face.
“Go horsee!”
His eyes, wide and pleading, were as blue as his mother’s. Leanna might have given birth to him, the shade was so close. What was all his own was the gold fleck in the blue. It resembled the moon when at its half, with a dot at the tip that looked a bit like a star.
Cleve liked to think that he got it from a Holden ancestor. He wouldn’t allow that his son had gotten a single trait from the bastard who hadn’t stayed around long enough to know that he was a father.
“Lets go, then, Boodle. Let’s see if Fey can catch up with that herd and give you a better look.”
Leanna watched the pulse tick in her brother’s cheek.
“I’m in charge of law and order around here.” Bowie drummed his fingers on his desk, glaring at her, then at Cleve. “You can’t just waltz in here and announce that you didn’t have any luck breaking into the bank.”
Leanna leaned forward in the chair across from him. “I don’t know why you are so upset. It was you who asked me to gather information.”
Sitting beside her, Cleve shook his head.
“You can’t blame your brother. What he asked is that you listen, not gather.”
She shot her husband a severe frown.
“As I recall, you were already breaking into the bank when I got there.”
“Only to keep you from doing it.” He smiled at her, of all the nerve! “Besides, I’m not the one who promised to stay out of trouble.”
“The only reason you know about that promise is because you were eavesdropping.” She could scarcely believe that Cleve was taking her brother’s side.
Bowie slammed his fist on his desk. “The pair of you are lucky you didn’t get inside the bank. I’d have had to arrest you.”
Annoyed, she snatched her glare from Cleve and settled it on Bowie. “You wouldn’t arrest your own sister.”
“I’m the law. I’d be obligated to.”
“In that case you…” Leanna bit off her words. She had nearly blurted out that, as the law, he was obligated to find out who killed Mama and Papa and had failed to do so. She had come within a breath of reverting to that selfish girl who had argued with Mama that last day.
It wasn’t that Bowie didn’t need arguing with, but he didn’t deserve to have hurtful accusations hurled at him.
“Here, now.” Cleve smoothed open her clenched fingers. “We can discuss this and settle some things, or we can argue and not.”
Bowie nodded.
Leanna shrugged because while she was willing to listen calmly, and even discuss some things, she was not willing to stop doing whatever she could to find the murderers.
“Bowie was right,” Cleve said to her. “It was a mistake to break into the bank.”
He turned his attention on Bowie. “But I have to tell you, brother, listening for clues is worthless. Van Slyck sits in his chair and chats with his buddy Fitzgerald most evenings but they don’t talk about anything more revealing than the weather or the charms of widow Greenly.”
“We came here this morning to inform you of our progress,” Leanna said. “I just want to let you know that there is none.”
Bowie stood, his arms anchored across his chest. “And I want you to know that you’re off the case.”
“Bowie, I respect your right as a lawman to say so.” Cleve stood, as tall as her brother, engaging him eye to eye. “But Leanna has a right to know what happened. I’ll do my best to keep her out of trouble, but we are going to continue to try and find out.”
Leanna rose. She presented her back to her brother and her smile to her husband.
“I love you, Cleve.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek, then walked around the desk to Bowie.
She kissed his cheek. “I love you, too. Even if you are more like Quin every day.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Think about it, King Bowie.”
Cleve touched her waist and guided her to the open door.
“Annie, you are second in command here and when I say your job is to… Oh, hell.” Bowie was silent for the moment it took them to cross the threshold.
“Holden, if anything happens to my little sister I’m taking it out on your hide.”
Thanks to Massie, Cleve’s hide remained safe from Bowie, for the time being, at any rate.
He stood outside the church this crisp Saturday morning relieved that a wedding had kept Leanna too busy to hunt killers.
Scarcely an hour after they had left the marshal’s office last week, Massie and Sam had paid them a call. Sam had begged Cleve’s permission to marry his one and only true love…the very next day.
He had given his blessing without hesitation. Leanna had not.
According to Leanna, Massie would be wed with music, flowers and a gown to make her groom weep. Not in a hasty rush like they had something to be ashamed of.
With the ceremony just finished, Sam’s eyes were damp, along with Leanna’s, Lucinda’s, Cassie’s and, he couldn’t deny, his own.
At one time Massie may have been labeled a fallen woman, but with Leanna’s help she had learned to stand. This morning she emerged from the front door of the church a glowing bride.
Only one person equaled her for radiance. Leanna followed her fledging, showering her with flower petals as she came down the church steps with her new husband.
The newlyweds stopped to kiss.
Leanna snatched up the lacy hem of her skirt and hurried across the grass to him, her face flushed pink with victory.
He couldn’t recall when he’d seen her more beautiful.
“Hearts for Harlots did this!” She hugged him about the middle, then leaned back to gaze at his face. Her eyes reflected the pure September sky.
“You did this.” He ran his thumb along the curve of her smile, as proud of her as she was of Massie.
“In two hours our Massie is going home. I feel like dancing a jig.” She spun about. A froth of violet lace whirled about her. “We still have a couple of hours to celebrate before the train leaves.”
“I spent half of last night thinking about the reception at Steven’s Restaurant.” He smacked his lips. “Nice rare steak, mashed potatoes, succulent berry pie.”
“Oh!” Leanna covered her mouth with both hands. She looked suddenly pale. “I’ll meet you there.”
She hurried around the side of the building. She must have remembered some important wedding detail that she had forgotten, some decoration or frill in Steven’s dining room.
Cleve lifted Cabe from Dorothy’s arms and carried him the short walk to the restaurant. Happy chatter surrounded him. For a couple of hours he would try and forget that his own young marriage was based on a lie and very possibly doomed as a result.
/>
“Melvin Wood!” Dorothy called. “You leave that pup be and come back here!”
Melvin dashed into a stand of trees behind the church trailing a big shaggy mutt.
“Oh, that boy,” she huffed.
“If he catches it will you let him keep it?”
“That would be your decision, Mr. Cleve. It’s your house he would be bringing it to.”
“A house needs a dog.” The more he considered it, the better he liked the idea. Dogs wagged tails when family approached. They bared teeth and snarled at strangers.
When they reached Steven’s Restaurant, Leanna waited for them on the front porch, her smile bright and welcoming.
The feast, joyous with many toasts, was halfway finished when Melvin dashed in the front door. He glanced at Cleve, then Leanna. His unhappy expression indicated that he had not caught the dog.
He hurried to a shadowed corner of the room where he slid onto a chair and slumped, staring at the floor until a whistle announced the arrival of the noon train.
The wedding party grew silent for a moment. Leanna looked at Massie, Massie looked at Leanna. Everyone stood because the train wouldn’t wait on their goodbyes.
As a group they escorted the newlyweds the short distance to the station. Tears streamed down the women’s faces to puddle in the creases of brave smiles.
It might be a long time, or forever, before Massie saw her friends again.
The groom twisted his hat in his hands and apologized to Leanna for being one of the folks who had scorned her upon her return to town.
Leanna hugged Sam and Massie, one arm about each of them. She whispered something in Massie’s ear.
The whistle blew again, a signal that the locomotive was ready to pull away from the station.
The Webbers boarded the train only a moment before the big wheels moved on the rails and a rush of steam poured out from under the engine.
As one, they waved and watched until the train was a speck of smoke in the distance.
“Mr. Cleve.” Melvin tugged on his arm. “There’s something I’ve got to tell you.”
“What is it, son?” The child looked miserable.
Leanna touched his forehead the way women do when they are hunting a fever.
