Mackinnons #02 For All the Right Reasons (27 page)

“No. I was waiting until you came.”

Karin threw her hands up. “Lord preserve us! Why, for heaven’s sakes? You know Alex and I are finished. You’re the one who’s been writing him. Why didn’t you read it before now?”

Katherine didn’t say anything.

“You’ve got the patience of Job, you know that? Sometimes that smiling, inexhaustible patience drives me mad. I couldn’t let a letter sit five minutes without opening it.”

“You would if it was from Alex.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. I would.” Then giving Katherine a look that was a little put out, she said, “Aren’t you going to open it?”

Katherine slapped the envelope against her palm a time or two, thinking. “Yes,” she said, “I guess I am.” With a smile, she hurried to the sofa and sat down. She studied the envelope, then turned it over, suddenly feeling the strangest attachment for everything about her—all the things she had always loved—things Karin hated with a passion. The white frame house with its story and a half, now gray and weathered and needing paint, the surrounding yard, trampled hard and washed with winding gullies when it rained, the dilapidated fence covered with fragrant woodbine. Beyond, where the farmyard began to slope down toward the creek, the fields in between now green with a stand of corn, and down near the creek a small sorghum patch. But strangest of all was the feeling that this was all slipping away from her, and soon the things that had meant so much to her and her mother before her would be beyond her sight.

Katherine opened the letter with the strangest conviction that something monumental was about to happen. She shifted in her chair, holding the letter up to the lamp to have better light, her eyes skimming over the words. “Oh, God! Oh, my God!” she gasped. The letter fell to her lap and her hands flew to her astonished face.

“What’s wrong? Has something happened?” Karin crossed the room, taking a seat beside Katherine and picking up the letter from where it had fallen.

My Dearest Katherine,

Can’t wait any longer to ask you to marry me. Will arrange passage to San Francisco and meet you there. Please don’t disappoint me.

I’ve come to my senses at last.

Alex

Katherine, her face paper-white turned toward Karin. “There must be some mistake.”

Karin stared at the letter. She wanted to scream. She had thought herself over Alex, that much was true, but seeing her sister’s name—seeing the offer of marriage—she felt angry and jealous that Katherine had managed to do what she had been unable to do.

Katherine had Alex. Alex had a great deal of money.

Her anger wasn’t born so much over the loss of Alex. She had already given up on him, and now she had feelings for Will, deep feelings. Her anger wasn’t over the fact that Alex had money. Ben was wealthy beyond her wildest imaginings, and unlike Alex, he had the social position, the prestige of old, accepted family. He was the stable hand of maturity and security that she had always needed. He treated her like a queen. Alex would never do that. It wasn’t in him to put a woman on a pedestal. He would want a woman to work right along beside him, someone to share with and be his partner. With Will, things were different. Nothing was too good for her. Karin liked being loved when it had an element of worship to it.

Karin didn’t really know why she was angry. Just the shock of it, she guessed. She looked at Katherine’s anxious face, knowing that behind all that innocence, she had wormed her way into Alex’s affections. She remembered the way Katherine had paled and said, “There must be some mistake.” Karin wanted to break something. “Oh, I think not,” she said. “I think you’ve been very busy since Alex has been gone, writing to him with the faithfulness of an old hound, pouring your heart out to a man eaten up with loneliness. Well, you always wanted him. Now you’ve got him.”

The shock of Karin’s words held Katherine speechless for a moment. “No,” she whispered. “That’s not the way it was at all. I never said anything in those letters that could be taken as personal. I only told him what was going on around Limestone County. I thought he’d like to hear about the news from home.” Karin saw her sister’s face twisted with pain and remembered how careful Katherine had always been to hide her feelings for Alex. She couldn’t help the fact that she loved him, no more than Karin could help loving Will. She felt the anger slipping away. She knew her feelings for Alex had passed a long time ago. She had no reason to be angry with Katherine. She knew that as well as she knew her sister. Katherine would have never stooped to undermine things between herself and Alex, if she had thought there was anything there to undermine. She had told Katherine herself that things were over between them. Why shouldn’t Katherine believe it? It was true. Katherine was welcome to Alexander Mackinnon with her blessings. If she had her way about things, she would be married to Will before a body could say,
scat
!

“I know you didn’t do anything. I don’t know what got into me. I was just jealous, I guess, sort of like, I don’t want him, but I don’t want anyone else to have him. That’s a foolish way to be, I admit. I know you’ve always loved Alex. Longer than me, I think. You’re better suited to him than I ever could be.”

“I’m not.”

“Oh, yes you are. The two of you will have a grand time making mudpies in all that land you love so much.” Karin shuddered and made a face. “I prefer tea parties.” She came to Katherine, giving her a hug. “Marry Alex. It’s what you’ve always wanted. Remember how Mama always said opportunity didn’t knock twice.”

“But Alex always loved you.”

“Even Alex can come to his senses. I guess he began to see through your letters that you were the right one for him. Alex—even Alex with money wasn’t the right man for me. Now that I’ve met Will, I see that.”

Karin kissed her quickly, then turned, walking through the door.

“Karin…” Katherine called after her. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. Do what you’ve always advised me to do,” Karin called over her shoulder. “Follow your heart.”

“But what if Alex is still in love with you?”

“Then it’ll be up to you to convince him he isn’t. You’ve always been a scrapper, Katherine. I have full faith in your ability.” With a swish of lavender taffeta, Karin was gone, the musical notes of her trilling laugh passing over Katherine like bubbles of happiness.

Chapter Thirteen

Karin
.

Her name had been in his mind like a song he couldn’t stop humming, coming to Alex with the habitual ease of breathing.
Karin. At long last. Karin
.

Beneath the hazy sunlight of overcast skies, Alex and Adrian stood side by side at the water’s edge, watching the hull of the tall-masted ship wend its way silently through the cold gray waters of San Francisco Bay, its canvas sheets dropping to bare the skeleton of its triple masts; a great hulking carcass stripped to the bone.

It had been a cold journey by ship all the way down from Humboldt Bay, and it seemed even colder when they reached San Francisco, because of the penetrating wind that had suddenly come up, blowing across open water. Alex turned up the collar of his greatcoat and stuffed his hands into his pockets, feeling the bite of wind on his face as he glanced around the docks where everything looked dark and inhospitable, as if it were covered with black frost.

“It’s been a long time,” Alex whispered. “A long, drawn-out wait.”

Adrian was standing next to Alex, but the keening cry of a gull overhead drowned his brother’s words and he didn’t catch what he said. “What?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking out loud,” Alex said.

Adrian looked at Alex, wondering at the almost melancholy cast to his appearance. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking I’ve been waiting a long time for my woman,” Alex said.

“Well, old man, cheer up. You’re not the first man to wait a long time for a woman,” Adrian said. “Jacob waited seven years to marry Rachel…”

“And was tricked into marrying her sister…”

“And had to work seven more years to get Rachel,” Adrian finished, then laughed. “See? Compared to fourteen years, your wait doesn’t seem so long.”

“But Jacob got two wives out of the deal,” Alex said.

Up went Adrian’s brows. “Is that what you want? Two wives?”

Alex laughed, the melancholy that gripped him suddenly gone. “Hardly. It’s too much trouble just getting one.”

It seemed an eternity before the ship,
Leah
, came around and drew even with the dock, her wood wet and glistening darkly. The harbor was crammed full of ships, their bare masts like so many charred Lucifers with heads pointed toward heaven from whence they had been cast.

Alex closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of a ship coming to sudden life as the
Leah’s
crew made ready to dock. He opened his eyes, able to make out the captain standing on the quarterdeck, seeing only a big face and a prominent hawk nose.

He saw two women come up on deck, one of them too rotund to be Karin, while the trimmer one was almost hidden behind the immense form that stood beside her like a great gray iceberg. His eyes strained to see more of the smaller woman—although he was looking straight at her, he could not see any detail of her face—no more than a shadow beneath her green bonnet. The rest of her was blurred too, a vague patch of green and gold, yet she looked warm and comfortable, and although he could not see the direction her eyes were cast, he felt they were upon him.

Karin
. Deep within his pockets, his hands clenched as he fought the fierce, wild eagerness that tore at his heart. It was all he could do to keep from running down the dock like some wild, mad animal, shoving and trampling all those who stood between him and his beloved.

The
Leah
drew closer, coming to dock against the wharf like a great groaning whale, her decks alive with the excitement of passengers pushing forward, crowding the crew who lashed the
Leah
to her berth. Alex watched several men secure the plank, his body suddenly too warm beneath his coat, his palms damp with sweat. The passengers surged forward, spilling down the gangway, and Alex lost sight of her, the woman in gold and green.

And then he saw her, coming toward the gangplank, her feet on it now, moving toward the wharf, coming closer, the smiling face beneath the green bonnet no longer a shadowy blur.

“My God! It’s Katherine!” Adrian whispered.

Cold as a piece of granite, Alex felt his heart crack, then shatter. He looked away. He could not look until he was once again master of himself.

The cold drizzle fell all about them and the sickening smell of wet jute, fish, and damp gull feathers rose like steam in his nostrils. He felt himself weave on his feet as Adrian’s words rolled over and over, endless waves throwing themselves upon a lonely beach.
It’s Katherine… It’s Katherine… It’s Katherine…

Alex felt his world encase itself in silence, broken only by the thud of the ship bumping against the wharf, the soft lap, lap, lap of the water pushing against her hull, as if it was trying to push the
Leah
away.
Leah
. The name had sudden meaning.
Leah
, sister of Rachel.
Leah
, whom Jacob was tricked into marrying after working seven long years for his Rachel.

Across the water, the sound of voices danced around his ears, teasing and whispering, their words too faint to comprehend above the words still ringing in his head.
It’s Katherine… It’s Katherine… It’s Katherine…

The sound of Adrian’s dry laugh was what brought him back. “They’re up to their old tricks,” Adrian was saying. “Katherine must have come with Karin, and they’re trying to pull a fast one on us.”

The world seemed to pull away from him, and Alex felt as if he were a million miles away, looking down upon this moment with dazed detachment. “No,” he said at last. “It’s no trick. It’s Leah.”

“Leah?” Adrian’s head whipped around to stare at Alex. “You aren’t making sen…” His words died in his throat. “Leah,” he said, looking at his brother with a sickening sense of shock. “Leah,” he repeated, seeing Alex’s face blanch, the muscle knot in his clenched jaw. “Not Rachel.”

But Alex didn’t hear. Something had been tugging at his mind since the night he and Adrian fought, the night he wrote that fateful letter. A knot twisted inside his stomach. An agonized expression froze the features of his face. He would never understand how he had done it, but it was enough that he knew that he had. He had written to the woman he loved. He had asked her to marry him. But he had written her sister’s name instead.

The keening shriek he heard was not that of a gull, but the anguished cry of his sorrow as Adrian’s hands whipped out to clutch the collar of his greatcoat, jerking him against a face twisted with rage. “You bloody bastard,” Adrian said. “What have you done?”

Dead inside, his senses numbed, Alex looked at his brother for as long as a minute with his expression sealed. “I’ve asked for the wrong sister, I’m afraid.”

Another anguished cry. Alex felt himself released and shoved backward, Adrian’s look saying he found the sight of him as repugnant as his touch. But his brother’s eyes still burned into him as fierce as coals, his words coming sharp and precise as pistol fire. “She will be off that ship in a few minutes. What are you going to do?”

“Do?” Alex said. “I have only one choice.”

“You’re exactly right. One choice and one choice only,” Adrian said through clenched teeth. “You’re going to marry her, you bastard.”

Marry her?
Alex frowned.
Marry Katherine?
That wasn’t the one choice he was thinking about. He had always liked Katherine of course, but enough to marry her? Impossible. Out of the question. The whole idea was unthinkable. It was Karin he loved, not Katherine. He would simply have to tell her the truth about what happened. Katherine was an understanding sort, and she had always been his friend. She would understand. She had to. For the only thing to do, in Alex’s mind, was be man enough to tell the truth and admit the mistake was his, telling Katherine as gently as possible.