Scandal at the Cahill Saloon - By Carol Arens Page 0,41
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.