How many times had Mrs. Jenkins encouraged Leanna to set Quin or Bowie in Ellie’s path? It would have been quite a social coup in Minnie’s estimation for Ellie to land a Cahill.
Recently, Leanna had heard rumors about both of her older brothers being madly in love. That left Chance as the only Cahill male available. Minnie would have an apoplexy if Ellie ever took up with him. As a bounty hunter, his social standing might be almost as low as Leanna’s.
Well, not quite, if the expression now crossing Minnie’s face was anything to go by. The woman sniffed and pointed her dainty nose in the air.
Half a second later she noticed the reforming harlots in the buckboard. She pressed her hand to her chest as though she might faint dead away, but the scorn in her expression had enough starch in it to hold anyone upright.
Upstairs, second floor, in the corner window, a curtain moved. Ellie peeked out. Her friend was as pretty as ever, although she would never believe that of herself. Ellie waved her hand, but before Leanna could return the greeting the curtain dropped.
If Minnie had any say in it, and she would have, that was as close to Ellie as Leanna was likely to get.
Minnie Jenkins’s rejection stung, but that was something she would have to get used to from her former friends.
Thanks to Preston Van Slyck gleefully spreading the word about her illegitimate son, Leanna’s fall from grace had occurred well before she returned home. It was unlikely that she had a single friend remaining in a town that used to adore her.
She couldn’t hide from that situation so she rode on, sitting as proud as she knew how and wearing her most dazzling dress.
As she had expected, not-so-secret glances from behind curtains and turned backs greeted her passing. One pinched-faced woman even spat on the sidewalk. As far as the citizens of Cahill Crossing were concerned, she was no better than the women following her in the wagon.
It was a lucky thing that little Melvin Wood, an abandoned boy that her fallen friends had taken in, slept soundly on the buckboard floor. A child of eight did not deserve the mean-spirited glances coming the way of the wagon.
Leanna led her entourage past the livery and the dry goods store, gathering ill wishes along the way.
She passed the law office of Arthur Slocum, the attorney who had handled the Cahill legal matters for as long as she could remember. Arthur, sitting outside and smoking a cigar, shot her the oddest look. It wasn’t antagonistic, exactly, but it was something and it was not welcoming.
She had chosen her route and her attire for a very good reason. Gossip and whispers were bound to spread; at least by making her entrance a public spectacle she directed most of the attention to herself and away from her innocent little son.
The circuit through town was her announcement: here he is, a Cahill as worthy as any other.
Still, the ride couldn’t end soon enough. Her cheeks ached with the strain of her forced smile. Her heart ached with the rejection of former friends.
With Bowie’s office only steps away she let her expression fall.
She cast one more grin back at the ladies, but that one was real, to give them encouragement. They needed to believe that she believed that their return to respectability was possible. Her show of reassurance was important even though it was all show.
Now, facing Bowie’s front door, she had nothing left. Her heart beat triple time in her chest. Her palms grew damp gripping the horse’s reins. Would he look at her as everyone else had?
If he did, her heart would split down the middle. She might begin to sob and thoroughly ruin her grand and scandalous parade through Cahill Crossing.
The front door opened and Bowie’s deputy stepped out. He squinted at her through the bright sunlight.
Glen Whitaker arched his brows. His chin jutted out so that his narrow beard pointed at her like an accusing finger.
“Well, look here! See who’s come home with her tail between her legs.” He spat on the ground, but the effect of that gesture had long since lost its shock.
“Please send my brother out.” She smiled as sweetly as she could manage. In the past this expression had sent men running to fulfill her merest whim.
“He’s not here.” Whitaker dragged his sleeve across his sweating brow. “Even if he was, he wouldn’t want to see you or your bas—”
“Don’t say