Mackinnons #02 For All the Right Reasons (13 page)

“Kiss me, Alex. Kiss me and don’t stop.”

His mouth covered hers again, harder this time. In response, her arms came up to slide around his neck as she pressed forward, aligning her body fully against his. His tongue was in her mouth now and she kissed him with all the unleashed passion she felt. It was so good to be with a man again, a real man, even better to be with Alex, for there had been no one like him, hadn’t been and probably never would be. Her thoughts vanished like vapor when she felt his heart pounding so fiercely against her own. His manner wasn’t gentle now, but wild with yearning, his tongue tangling with hers, teasing, daring, showing her what he felt. Her body swayed. The blood pounded painfully in her head. His hand came up to squeeze her breast and she wanted nothing more than to guide his other hand to its mate. Her last thought, before she broke away, was,
Oh Alex, Alex. Why can’t you be a rich man?

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She didn’t want to get into another discussion about the future. She didn’t want to be reminded of the past. For just a little while she wanted to be young and free and in love. “Nothing,” she said, giving him a playful shove and darting around the buggy. He caught her before she got very far. She was laughing and so beautiful it hurt him to look at her. She took his hand in hers. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s walk before it’s too dark to see anything.”

“Walk?” he croaked.

“Walk,” she said, laughing. “Honestly, Alex. Have you forgotten how to behave around a lady?”

He laughed, feeling a little sheepish. “I guess I have. It’s been a while since I’ve been around a real one.”

“I’ll not pursue that vein, for fear of what I’ll hear. Do tell me about your travels…about the war too, if it isn’t too painful for you to talk about it.”

They walked around the top of the tank and he talked, telling her of his short time with the Rangers, the longer time with General Taylor. She asked questions and seemed interested, but when he began to talk about New Orleans, or Mexico, her face lit up. She fired questions at him until he finally said, “Whoa there, little filly. You’re asking questions faster than I can take it all in.” She laughed. He noticed she slowed down a bit, but she didn’t stop asking questions. For over an hour they walked and talked, until it was growing too dim to see.

“I guess we’d better find our way back to the buggy.”

“When we get back home, I’ll give you a slice of sweet potato pie.”

“I’d rather have a bite of you,” he said taking her in his arms and kissing her.

She kissed him back, but not before she said in a breathless whisper, “I believe you.”

“Do,” he said, “for it’s the gospel truth.”

Chapter Six

Katherine sat at the kitchen table the next morning, feeling as wrung out as a piece of chewed twine. She didn’t know why.

The sun was warm and shining through the window as bright as polished brass. The peach tree near the back porch had burst into bloom overnight, a flush of rosy white, blushing like a bride and the object of worship for a dozen adoring bees. Earlier this morning a tour of the garden had shown her the row of turnips she had planted were coming up, and the black-eyed peas were already sprouting a few blooms.

A smart rap at the back door did little more than turn her head in that direction in time to see her nearest female neighbor, Fanny Bright, step through the door.

Fanny was an institution of sorts in these parts—a woman with a keen, perceptive mind and a quick wit who said what she thought and damn the consequences. She had the patience of Job, the luck of the Irish, talked up a blue streak, had a remedy or a bit of advice for everything, and never met a stranger. She was a short, plump woman, all curves and no angles; her brown hair was streaked with gray and was always braided into two braids that crisscrossed over the top of her head and were secured with two or three wire hairpins that looked like they had been poked there in a hurry. She had a sweet round face and two of the merriest blue eyes a body could ever hope to see. The loveliest things about her were her mouth that always smiled and the most jovial words that were always coming out of it.

For it could be said that Fanny Bright didn’t have a pessimistic bone in her body. With a name like Fanny Bright, how could she?

Fanny stopped dead in her tracks and took a ponderous look at Katherine. “Bless my soul! You’re looking as dazed as a duck in thunder.”

“I don’t know how you can say that,” Katherine said with a dejected sigh. “I’m feeling as sharp as a briar.”

“And you’re lying like a rug when you say that,” Fanny said, then made herself at home. First she went to the cupboard and got herself a cup, then moving to the stove, she poured herself a cup of tea. When she reached the table she put her teacup down then dropped into the chair across from Katherine with a plop. “Whew! It’s hotter than two fires out there.” Fanny looked around the cheerful kitchen that was flooded with early morning sunshine, then at Katherine who sat glumly in the only spot the sun didn’t touch. “You distrustful of sunshine?”

Katherine thought about that. “Maybe I should be—anything that irresponsible can’t be trusted.”

“
Irresponsible?
” Fanny dwelt on that for a minute before deciding the sun could be called irresponsible, for it was just as apt to shine as not, and it wasn’t too particular about who it shined upon. “Lord! You’re sour as clabber this morning. And here I thought you’d be grinning like a fool now that the Mackinnon boys are back.”

“They’re
not
boys.”

Fanny’s brows went up and her lips twitched in understanding. “Oh, ho! So they’ve grown up, have they? I must say I’m mighty relieved to see you noticed.”

“A body would have to be blind not to.”
Or at least refuse to peek through the woodbine down at the creek.

“Now don’t go getting your tail over your back. I ain’t taking no shots at you.” Her head tilted sideways as she studied Katherine thoughtfully. “I think you need a good shot of castor oil.”

“I need something,” Katherine said, “but it isn’t castor oil.”

“Well, like you said, a body would have to be blind not to notice those Mackinnons.” She saw Katherine wasn’t softening up much, so she said, “So you noticed. What’s wrong with that? It’s springtime and in the spring you know what a young man’s fancy turns to.”

Yes, my sister
, Katherine thought, but she said, “No, what?”

“Why, courting and all that.”

“All that what?”

“All the things that go with courting—making eyes, holding hands, kissing…”

“Humph!”

Fanny laughed. “Don’t tell me those rascally Mackinnon twins are back and you haven’t been kissed yet?”

Katherine shot her a glare. “Kissed? Me?”

“Of course
you
. What’s so strange about that?”

“Fanny, I haven’t been kissed in so long I don’t remember if you’re supposed to suck or blow.”

When Fanny’s laughter subsided a bit, she wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron, then said, “Don’t worry your pretty little red head about that none. It’ll all come back to you I reckon, when the time is ripe.”

“If it gets any riper I’ll go to seed.”

“My, what an obstinate, bull-headed creature you are. And when you have so much to be thankful for. Shame on you, Miss Pessimist.” At that moment the sun seemed to shift and come into the room more fully, striking Katherine and bathing her in light. “Give up, my girl. This isn’t going to be a bad day, in spite of all you’re doing to make it so.”

Katherine shrugged, feigning indifference.

“Well, have it your way for as long as you can, but I’ll lay you money this is going to be a good day.”

Fanny Bright was still sitting at the kitchen table having her third cup of tea and talking up a blue streak when Karin walked in looking as fresh and fashionable as a display in the front window of the seamstress shop where she worked.

“Good morning, Fanny,” Karin said, walking to the tea kettle and pouring herself a cup, favoring her right hand a bit.

Fanny nodded. “Top of the morning to you, Miss Priss.”

“What’s the matter with your hand?” asked Katherine.

Karin shot her a look and mumbled something Katherine couldn’t quite understand.

What?” asked Katherine.

“I said it was Clovis.”

“Clovis?” repeated Fanny Bright. “You mean that mule? The one that bites?” She eyed the purple place on Karin’s hand. “Rub a little horse liniment on it and it’ll be good as new.”

Karin wrinkled her nose. “That stuff smells terrible and it reminds me too much of Clovis the biting mule.”

“Clovis the biting mule,” Katherine said slowly, remembering how Karin had come after Clovis with the shovel last evening.

Karin put the teacup down and plopped her hands at her waist, her eyes hot upon her sister. “Sometimes I would swear that you put that mule up to it.”

Katherine looked flabbergasted. “How can you say something like that?”

“Because he never bites you,
that’s
how come.”

“He would if I gave him the chance. Clovis bites anything that doesn’t move fast enough. You just have to be more careful.”

“Maybe you just need to mend that fence so he won’t get out. Next time I’ll just let him eat your stupid old irises.”

“I thought you said he already ate them.”

“Oh, do be quiet. You’re just trying to get me flustered and the Good Lord knows I’m flustered enough as it is. Here I’ve got miles and miles of lace to sew on a dress for that crabby old Mrs. Witherspoon and I can’t even hold this teacup, much less a needle.”

“You want me to come with you? I could sew the lace,” Katherine said.

“No, thank you. I’ll manage. If you want to do something helpful, keep that blasted mule away from me!”

Katherine started to say that she didn’t remember forcing Karin to have anything to do with Clovis, or that there was some unwritten rule that said she had to mend all the broken fences, but Fanny must have sensed the tension, for she said, “My, you’re a sight for sore eyes this morning, all gussied up pretty as a teapot and looking as anxious as a pullet expecting her first egg.”

Karin perked up, forgetting her injured hand. “Why, thank you, Fanny. I am rather expectant this morning, but not for eggs,” Karin said very seriously, not realizing how laughably grandiose she was acting.

The table began to shake with Fanny Bright’s half suppressed laughter, but Karin didn’t notice as she looked at her sister, and said, “If you have any more plans of ruining my day, I will ask you to kindly refrain. I plan on having a good day.” She looked at the watch pinned to her bodice. “Oh dear, if I don’t hurry I’ll miss my ride with Mr. Carpenter,” she said, then walked from the room closing the door a little harder than usual behind her.

“She might be planning on having a good day, but she won’t. At least not in that dress, she won’t,” Fanny said. “It’s sticking to her tighter than bark to a tree. She’ll be purple faced and passed out in the back of Mr. Carpenter’s milk wagon before she gets halfway to town. A body can’t breathe in a dress that tight. And a body needs to breathe.”

But Katherine wasn’t so sure. Karin always wore dresses with the bodice and waist so tight she looked constricted, but it never seemed to bother her.

Things settled down rather tranquilly after that day, Karin up each morning wearing a brand new dress and hurrying off to the dress shop, Katherine busying herself with housework, tending the garden and the few animals they possessed. When summer finally came it was hot as a furnace and even Clovis seemed somewhat mellowed by the force of it.

Often Katherine would be bent over a basket of freshly washed laundry, or stirring a pot of simmering squash on the stove when suddenly Alex Mackinnon’s tantalizing features would swim before her very eyes. She would soon tell herself that it would do her no good to dwell upon the features of a man in love with another woman, no matter how handsome or beloved he was.

Life was growing harder for them day by day. Katherine began selling more and more of the produce she grew in the garden, and more of the eggs and butter she normally kept for herself and Karin. When Karin complained, Katherine reminded her that since the Mackinnon brothers had returned she hadn’t given one bit of the money she earned for their upkeep. “The way I see it is you can have food on the table or new dresses on your back, but you can’t have both,” Katherine said.

Karin was eating the same thin vegetable soup they had had for supper for the past three nights, but when Katherine spoke, she slammed her spoon down and leaped to her feet. “You’re being spitefully mean,” she shouted. “And I know why. Just because Alex is paying court to me is no reason to starve me to death. There are ten women to every man in town and none of them are as fine as Alex. I have to look nice, I thought you of all people would understand that. I shouldn’t have to suffer because you’re so jealous!” Karin left the room and Katherine, having lost her appetite, threw the rest of her soup into the slop bucket for the hogs and went outside to work the garden while it was cool.

It was dark almost an hour later when Alex rode up and dismounted, tying his horse to what was left of the dilapidated fence that had, at one time, circled the house. He was about to go inside when he saw the faint outline of someone in the garden. He headed that way, seeing Katherine chopping weeds like her life depended on it. “It’s a little late to be working out here isn’t it? How can you see what you’re doing?”

Katherine jumped and turned toward him. “Great gobs of goose grease! You shouldn’t sneak up on a body like that! What are you trying to do? Make me faint?”

Alex grinned. He had a mental picture of Katherine fainting. Karin, maybe. But not Katherine. She had too much mettle for that. “Why don’t you go on up to the house?” He stepped closer and put his hand on the hoe to take it from her. “You can do this tomorrow.”

But Katherine held on firmly. “I’ve other things to do tomorrow,” she said. “Now kindly go fetch my sister and leave me to my work.” She gave the hoe a yank, but Alex seemed as determined as she.