Scandal at the Cahill Saloon - By Carol Arens Page 0,40

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