Mackinnons #02 For All the Right Reasons (28 page)

Alex glanced at Adrian, to tell him his thoughts, but Adrian shot him a silencing look. Adrian looked mad enough to kill. Alex was baffled. He had expected Adrian to help, or at least understand. “I can’t marry Katherine, Adrian. You of all people should understand that.”

Adrian’s face was a cold, hard mask. “Why not? You’ve already committed yourself. You don’t have any choice now.”

“I can’t marry someone I don’t love.”

“You should have thought about that before you wrote that letter when you were too drunk to stand.” Adrian finished his reply with a strong left to Alex’s jaw that almost leveled him as Adrian said, “You sorry, drunken bastard! I ought to kill you!” And he did his best to try, until a large, burly stranger pulled them apart.

“Here now, let’s have none of that,” the stranger said. He was a well-dressed, giant of a man with mutton chops. As soon as he pulled them apart, he stepped between them. When Adrian lunged at Alex again, the man collared him, giving him a good shake as he said, “Try it again and I’ll toss you in the drink. You want to fight, you take it away from here. My wife is on that ship, and terrified of coming to a place as uncivilized as this. I’ll not have the likes of you undoing all the convincing I’ve been doing for months.”

By that time, Adrian’s rage was slowly being replaced by common sense. He didn’t want Katherine to see them like this. Besides, if Alex didn’t see things his way, he could always do this later.

Stunned at the intensity of Adrian’s anger, Alex wiped the blood from his mouth. “What are you acting like this for? It was a mistake, that’s all. An honest mistake.”

Adrian was feeling enough rage to kill Alex at that moment. For a brief moment he considered telling Alex that he would take her for his own wife, when the thought froze like ice stabbing into his heart. Katherine had come out here to marry Alex, the man of her heart. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—settle for him any more than he could turn his affections to Karin. His eyes rested on his beloved Katherine as she drew closer. Seeing the smile, the light in her eyes, the look of complete and utter satisfaction and sublime joy on Katherine’s face was more than he could take. Without a doubt Adrian knew with a painful twist to his stomach that she would never look at him like that, that she would never, ever love him like she loved his brother. There was only one thing left for him to do.

His face twisted with pain and anger, his voice bitter and cold, Adrian spoke carefully, saying each word, with the deadly intent he felt. “If you ever tell her, if you ever let her know, I’ll kill you,” Adrian said. “If you ever so much as make her regret becoming your wife, I’ll make your life a living hell.” He straightened Alex’s greatcoat, taking the handkerchief from his hand and tucking it in his pocket. “Take care brother, or you’ll come to wish you had never been born.”

“Adrian, listen…”

“No! You listen. You aren’t going to back out of this now. It’s too late for that.” He grabbed Alex’s face, twisting it to look in the direction of the ship. “Look at her, damn you! Take a good, long look at her face! What do you see? Joy? Happiness? Elation? She’s in love with you, you poor stupid bastard. She’s always been in love with you.”

But Alex turned his head away, refusing to look at Katherine. “It isn’t anything she can’t get over.”

“She won’t have to now. When you wrote that letter, damn you, you gave her the answer to her lifelong dream.”
And in doing so you shattered mine
. “You better watch yourself from here on out brother. For what you’ve done, I could easily kill you without blinking an eye.”

“Adrian, listen to me. How can you expect me to marry someone I don’t love?”

“It’s too late to be asking that question now, brother.” Adrian grabbed Alex by the shoulders and jerked him around in time to see Katherine coming toward them, her face radiant. “Tell me, can you hurt her like that? Can you tell her you made a mistake? Do you have any idea what it would do to her?”

Alex opened his mouth, but the words never came out. He looked at Katherine, the familiar face, the lively step he remembered so well. Katherine, laughing, happy Katherine. Always his adoring friend. But she was like a stranger to him now, a beautiful woman he was seeing for the first time.

He remembered the time she had come downstairs wearing Karin’s dress, and how pathetic she had looked, the back misbuttoned, the sash dragging, and how Karin had embarrassed her until she ran up the stairs crying. His heart had gone out to her that day. “You shouldn’t embarrass her like that,” he had said.

“Heaven knows why you’re so eager to champion her cause,” Karin had replied. “She’s always making a fool of herself in front of you and we both know the reason why. She’d give her eyeteeth to have you for a beau.”

And there were other memories too: the time she fell while watching from the tree; the rope burns she got climbing to spy on them in the hayloft.

He recalled the day in the pasture when he found her crying over the dead fawn, and the way she had looked at him and cried. And after that, the vision of her standing on the porch the first time he saw her after the war, and the way she had looked at him in welcome. They came back in a flood, the day he found her hoeing the garden; the afternoon he taught her to use blood bait to catch more fish; the day Clovis tore down all the laundry; her catching him with Karin down by the creek. But most of all he remembered leaving for the gold fields, the memory of Katherine’s kiss burning like a brand upon his lips.

Memories weren’t reason enough to marry. He opened his mouth to tell Adrian that, when suddenly she was there, in front of him, and his eyes locked with hers. The breath drained out of him, the words he was about to speak withering in his throat. It was so clear to him now, he marveled at how he had never seen just how deep her feelings for him ran—the love, warm, tender, and unmistakable that was shining in the depths of her eyes, the same look he had seen a million times before, only then he had been too blind and insensitive to see.

Katherine stopped in front of him and looked into his face, so deathly pale, that she wondered if he had been ill. He was still incredibly handsome, but he looked much older than she had expected him to, and drawn, as if he had recently experienced some deep emotional sadness. But this was Alex, the man she had loved since she was a child, the only man she would ever love, the man she thought she would never have, the man who granted her the dream of a lifetime, along with the sun, stars, and the moon.

“Katherine,” he said, taking her gently in his arms and kissing her lightly on the forehead before he released her.

She smiled up at him, thinking this wasn’t the welcome that she had expected, but they had the rest of their lives together, and there would be time enough for that. She greeted Adrian with a kiss on his cheek, thinking he was looking as pale and strained as Alex, but she didn’t have much time to reflect upon that, for Adrian announced he had some business with the captain of the
Mermaid
, and that he would tell him they would be ready to set sail soon.

Later that afternoon the
Mermaid
headed north, toward Humboldt Bay, pitching and wallowing in an angry sea, balking like a sullen mule every inch of the way. It was raining now, with such violence that nothing could be seen farther than five feet away. His clothes were soaked, if not from the rain, from the deluge of spray sweeping the deck, but Alex could not make himself go below. Not yet.

Katherine was below. The thought terrified him.
Dear God! What can I say to her?

She was in a small cabin, but she was dry and as happy as she could ever remember being. She was sitting on the small bunk thinking about the way Alex had greeted her with a kiss more suited for an aging grandmother than the woman he was about to marry. Moments later, his expression empty and without meaning, he had looked into her upturned face for a full minute before he said, “Welcome to San Francisco. How was your trip?” And that was it!
Strange creatures, men. You spend your life knowing one only to wake up one morning and find you don’t know him at all.

Chapter Fourteen

As quickly as it had come, the rain had stopped. Seeing Alex make his way up to the deck, Adrian followed him.

“I want to talk to you,” Adrian said.

Alex scowled and stepped behind some crates stacked on deck. Adrian was itching for an argument and he wanted to be out of earshot of the deckhands. Adrian was staring at him, and Alex said, “Did you want to talk, or stare holes through me?”

“If I thought staring holes would let some of that stubbornness out, I’d give it a try.” Alex shrugged and Adrian decided to be more direct. “What are you going to do about Katharine?”

“Careful, brother, you’re about to scald your tongue in someone else’s broth.”

“Isn’t that what brothers are for?”

“You’re meddling because of Katherine, not because you’re my brother.”

“I’m meddling because I think you’re in love with her.” He shook his head. “Unfortunately, you’re too stupid to realize it.”

“Like hell!”

“You can’t tell me that you aren’t a little interested in her,” Adrian said, “that you don’t find her appealing.”

“I find a steak dinner appealing, but I sure as hell don’t jump up to propose marriage!”

In response, Adrian exaggerated the lift of his brows and looked at him as if he had just dribbled food all over his shirt-front. It was a look Adrian used now and then—with ease and results. It was a look that drove Alex wild. “You aren’t being sensible, Alex. That isn’t like you.”

Alex felt his eyes bulge with anger. “You’re not either!” he shouted, knowing he was losing control and unable to do anything about it. He hated it whenever Adrian shifted positions with him like this. Here Adrian was sounding mild-tempered and controlled, when anyone who knew them at all knew Adrian was the hothead of the two.

“‘You’re not either?’ Now
that’s
a powerful statement.” Adrian’s laugh was mocking—a mocking laugh being another effective tool Adrian used at will. Alex found he wasn’t any more immune to this laugh now than he had been at fourteen, when he busted Adrian’s nose for that same offense. “Why should I be sensible, brother? I’ve never been known as the sensible twin. That honor has always been bestowed upon you,” Adrian said in the softest, most controlled tones. “Although there are times I question why.”

These controlled tones sent Alex into a red rage. Whenever Adrian chose to speak this way, straining to speak with dignity and using quiet repose, Alex always felt like a deer who was run to the ground by a cougar. Like that deer, Alex felt winded and unable to run anymore.

His brother’s statement had been a disquieting one. Alex stood motionless, letting Adrian’s words soak in a bit, feeling on the one hand the slightest pinch of truth to what he had said, yet on the other hand never having wanted to punch his brother out half as badly as he did this very moment.

For a long while he didn’t reply. Adrian saw the weary look, the dregs of struggle still upon his face, but that didn’t keep him from asking, “It’s a bit of a teaser, isn’t it?”

“A bit.”

“You’re either interested, or you aren’t. It’s that simple,” Adrian said.

“Speaking of
powerful
sentences. There isn’t
anything
simple about Katherine and you know it.” He spoke naturally, as if the words came without being forced. “There’s no need to bring out the heavy artillery,” he added, a trapped look on his face. “I don’t think you have any idea what you’re asking of me.”

How typical of Alex
, Adrian thought,
to be down, but still struggling
. He was like a grizzly that kept on coming at you, even after you had pumped three rounds of lead into him. Some people never knew when to give up and call it quits. Alex was one of those. His refusal to yield, to call truce made Adrian edgy. Adrian was close to losing his control, and that was something he couldn’t do around Alex because Alex would use it like a second wind to close in for the kill. Like that grizzly one thought dead, he might rise up the moment you nudged him with your gun barrel, and strike the fatal blow. He strove to keep the conversation on target, to keep the upper hand. This was critical. He had to use Alex’s emotional confusion to its utmost. “Why can’t you admit it? Why is it so hard to admit you’re interested?”

“Admit it?” Alex repeated as if he were musing over the words. He shook his head. “You say it like that’s all I have to do. Admit it and everything will be smelling like roses. Maybe I’m still in shock. Maybe this has all been more than I can handle. I’m not going to solve a damn thing by admitting I’m interested in her. If anything, it complicates things more.”

“You think so?”

Alex showed signs of irritation. “Is that all you want, then? My confession? If it is, that’s easily enough given. All right. I’m interested in her,” Alex replied. “Does that satisfy you? We’ve been friends since we were children. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Adrian crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know. You tell me. And while you’re at it, tell me why it is that the way you look at her isn’t the look of a friend. Katherine has always been more than that to you. You’re a complete fool to have never realized it before.”

Alex rounded on him. “And you, of course did. Tell me,
brother
, just why it is that you never mentioned this before now? Surely
you
knew it all along, since you’ve always been in love with her yourself.”

Adrian opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Alex was right. It had never occurred to him before now that Alex’s feelings for Katherine ran deeper than either of them realized. He wondered why it had suddenly come to light now. To give himself time to consider, he addressed Alex’s other statement, the one concerning his own feelings for Katherine. That Adrian had always cared for Katherine was immaterial, since Alex and everyone else had always known he was sweet on her. “We aren’t talking about my feelings here. I’m not the one who lured her out here with rainbow-colored hopes,” he said. As for Alex’s other comment—why hadn’t he realized before now that Alex had deeper feelings than friendship for Katherine? And what caused that knowledge to surface now? The answer came swiftly.