Mackinnons #02 For All the Right Reasons (29 page)

Alex’s reaction
.

Of course that was it. Adrian knew the depth of Alex’s feelings, because of the way Alex reacted. Adrian knew his brother well. There was a part of Alex that was mystically a part of him because of their being twins, and that meant there were some things about Alex that Adrian understood, when there was no logical or reasonable reason why. He simply understood. Adrian knew Alex was much more easygoing than he was, but Alex was more stubborn. Even when backed into a corner, he would fight to the death for something he believed in.
If
Alex felt strongly against Katherine, if he abhorred her, if he had no interest, no inclinations toward her at all, no one could force him to marry her, come hell or high water. He looked at Alex. He had balked at the idea for sure, and he was still kicking, but that wasn’t the same as a point-blank refusal. Adrian knew as certain as he knew his own name that Alex would have busted his face the first time he mentioned marriage to Katherine—if he had found the idea as unpalatable as he let on. No, the idea wasn’t wholly unsavory to Alex; he just hadn’t had time to adjust to such an unexplored idea.

“So, you think I have deeper feelings for Katherine than friendship?” Alex said. “Maybe I do. I’ve always known you did, but me?” He laughed, but there wasn’t a damn thing funny going on here. “Hell! Maybe we’re both in love with her. Now, wouldn’t that be a hoot? It runs in some families, you know, and I’m feeling a bit fetched right now. How about you?” He looked at Adrian, seeing the serious expression. Alex sighed and shoved his hands in his back pockets, palms facing outwards. “What are you trying to do, Adrian? Soften the blow? Stir up more trouble by trying to convince me I’m in love with her so I won’t feel the slightest bit of remorse if I marry her?”

“Oh, you’ll marry her. Rest assured of that. I’ll see to it.”

Alex’s features tightened. His fists clenched. The muscles of his neck bulged. He knew what Adrian said was true; he knew that Adrian would keep on and keep on until he hit upon the one thing, the one reason for this marriage that Alex could not deny. He was going down, and in his anger, he reached out to deliver one more blow. “And will you see to it that I find her as fuck-some as you do?”

He never saw Adrian’s fist, but he sure as hell felt it. Out of nowhere it came, swift and hard, slamming against his jaw with all the force of a thunderbolt, knocking Alex’s head backward, and the rest of his body along with it. It could be said here that it knocked a little sense into him as well. Two seconds later Alex sat in a crumpled heap rubbing his aching jaw. He looked at Adrian a bit sheepishly, unable to remember a time when he looked as angry as he did now. Ordinarily Alex would have lit into him for all he was worth, but he was a fair man. He knew he had delivered a low blow, and he knew he deserved what he’d gotten. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. We both know I like Katherine. I admire her. I care about what happens to her. She’s pretty enough and woman enough that I could easily make love to her. But it wouldn’t be out of love. Bastard that I am, I couldn’t see myself doing that to her. She deserves more than that—more than me. She’s a decent woman, and she’s always been an honest sort. It pains me to think what she’d be getting here…a husband who was in love with her sister.” He paused and looked thoughtful. “I don’t love her in a husbandly way. If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re imagining things.”

“Am I? Am I imagining that you know the minute she steps onto the deck, or the minute she goes below? Do you know how many times I’ve caught you watching her, or how I’ve noticed the way your hands clench into fists every time some other male on this ship stops to talk with her? She has come up on deck three times, and three times you have sent her below. Why? Because you’re jealous?”

“What are you doing? Conducting some sort of survey? Stop reading false interpretations into things. I know the minute Wong goes to the kitchen to start breakfast, but I’m not in love with him. I used to clench my fists anytime someone tried to ride my horse, but it wasn’t out of love.” He threw his head back and closed his eyes as if he were already tired. “You’re a lousy matchmaker, and you don’t know shit about love. Maybe that’s why you’re out behind the shed when it comes to knowing what’s going on here.”

Adrian shrugged. “I may know more than you think. And no, I’m not conducting surveys. I’m merely pointing out that you, my self-righteous brother, are nothing more than a hypocrite.”

Alex shrugged. “Think what you want. You always do, no matter what I say.”

“An attribute I share with my twin, only he’s more stubborn and less subtle than I am.”

Alex shrugged again.

“You’ll have to marry her, Alex. She’ll be ruined if you don’t,” Adrian said.

Alex, his dark head bent, was still sitting on the deck, only now his arms rested on his updrawn knees. Adrian had just delivered the deciding blow, just as he knew he would do eventually. He felt tired, drained. This had all been inevitable, and he had somehow known that from the beginning, from the moment he had seen it was Katherine walking off that ship. He lifted his head slowly, the breath he released coming out of his mouth like a vapor. “Another broadside,” he said, turning his face into the wind which was steadily increasing.

Adrian offered his hand, pulling Alex to his feet. Alex looked up as the windlass began to spin, the ropes groaning as the ship rose and plunged with each successive wave. Alex was looking too, aware of the dizzy pitch of the ship, finding it nearly overpowering to think at a moment like this. Too much attention had been given to Katherine. What about him? What about Karin?

Right now he was so sick at heart over the loss of Karin that he couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t Adrian see that? But Adrian only repeated his last statement. “If you’re honest, you’ll have to admit I’m right. You have to marry her, Alex. You know I’m right in saying she’ll be ruined if you don’t.”

Adrian was right. In his heart Alex knew that. But he had lost so much today and he felt so damned, so trapped. He might be forced to marry Katherine, but he sure didn’t have to lower his head and be led like a blind man. He spread his feet farther apart to brace himself for the next wave. “Ruined is a bit severe, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t think it’s severe at all. She has traveled halfway around the continent to marry a man who proposed to her…”

“Now wait a minute,” Alex interrupted, “I didn’t propose to Katherine, not intentionally. You know that.”

“In this instance, intentions don’t count—only what’s written on paper. In the eyes of the law, you proposed. Now, can you imagine what it would do to her, what it would be like if she had to go back home now? She would be ruined and humiliated and it would be all your fault. Can you do that? Can you stand there and look me in the face and tell me you can do that to Katherine?”

Alex didn’t say anything.

Adrian’s voice became more demanding. “Answer me, damn you! Can you?”

Alex stared across the bow of the ship seeing nothing but gray water and gray skies. He was thinking what strange tricks the mind plays upon a person. Here he was at a crucial point, making a decision he would have to live with for the rest of his life, a decision that not only affected his life but that of Karin, Katherine, and in some ways, he supposed, Adrian as well. And what came into his mind? Here he was, needing sharp mental acuity for a major decision and for some odd reason he was remembering a time years ago when he had come upon Katherine working in the flower beds that ran in a complete circle around her home.

She had been on her knees, her hands in the rich, black soil, breaking apart the bulbs and tubers to thin them out and replant cannas, lilies, and gladiolas scattered all about her, a small bucket nearby. He had stopped, watching her separate a long earthworm from a clod of dirt and drop it into the bucket, covering it with a little soil. He had asked her what she was doing, “planting bulbs or harvesting worms?” Katherine had jerked her head around to look at him, her hands caked with dirt, her eyes alive and oh, so warm. She looked up and saw him standing just a few feet from her, her eyes telling him how happy she was to see him. “If I could only grow flowers as big as these worms,” she said. “Alex, do come have a look at them.” Something about his expression must have made her self-conscious, for she lifted her hand and took a swipe at a trailing curl on her forehead that had escaped her bonnet. Her face was damp and her hand left a smear of mud. She was totally unaware of the seductiveness of the way she moved, the soft, sultry expression in her eyes. Funny thing. He hadn’t been aware either. Until now.
This is how people go crazy
…

“Are you listening, Alex?” Adrian asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, can you do that to her?”

He shook his head, feeling the creeping sadness that had threatened since San Francisco slowly consume him. “No,” he said, “I can’t.”

“Then you agree you can’t cry off?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know…a fine answer. Evasive as hell.” He threw up his arms. “That’s what Katherine deserves, more beating around the bush!”

“It’s an honest answer, Adrian. I really don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing in a mess like this. I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.” Alex sighed, his hand coming up to massage the tight muscles at the back of his neck, then tenderly touching his sore jaw. “You didn’t have to hit me so hard.”

“Yes, I did. I wanted to knock some sense into you. Now, tell me if you agree you can’t cry off?”

“I suppose you’re right—at least the way things look now—I can’t cry off, until I think of something else. I’m sure in time…”

Adrian slammed his fist against the railing. “Dammit! Time is something you don’t have. You’re already running on borrowed time as it is. You should have married her in San Francisco, but it’s too late now to worry about that. At the moment, your only option is to have the captain marry you before we reach Humboldt Bay.”

“Hell’s bells, Adrian! What are you trying to do to me?”

“I’m trying to make you see things as they are, Alex, in black and white. Katherine is a beautiful woman. She can’t live in a logging camp with a rough, woman-hungry bunch of men in an unmarried state. We both know what would happen to her if she tried. And you can’t send her back. There are no other choices. You’ll have to go through with the marriage, and you’ve got to do it now. There’s no one to perform the marriage in camp.” Adrian sighed, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and looking very much his brother’s twin at that moment. “You’ve always been a fair man, Alex. I know, in the end, you’ll do what’s right…”

What is right. What is right. What is right?

A deadly calm settled over Alex. Adrian was right. In his heart he knew it. He would have to marry her. He didn’t love Katherine. He didn’t want to marry her. But he had always liked her. She had always been a friend. He didn’t want to hurt her. When Adrian had joined him a few minutes ago, Alex had been standing at the bow of the ship searching his mind for a way to escape the lifetime of bondage that was being forced upon him. He had gone so far as to consider putting the marriage off under the pretext of getting to know each other better, then making life so miserable for her she wouldn’t want to marry him, wouldn’t want to do anything except return to Texas.

You will do what is right
. He hadn’t counted on the rightness of what Adrian was saying, or the way his troubled mind agreed. He was responsible. He couldn’t argue with that. He was the only one who could set things right. He had forgotten for a time that Katherine had been a vital pan of his life since childhood. A man couldn’t be a man and turn his back on things like that. And he could never be happy knowing he had.
You will do what is right.

Yes
, he thought.
I will.

His eyes were drawn toward the helm where Katherine had just come on deck. She stood talking to the captain, the wind in her hair, the sparkle of the sea in her eyes, the enthusiasm of a young girl in her expressions as they talked. She had come to California to be his wife because he had written a letter asking her to. With one slip of the pen he had ruined any chance she might have of finding another husband or living a life free of humiliation and disregard if he turned his back on her and sent her home.

Seeing he was looking at her, Katherine smiled radiantly and waved. It was the face of a child on Christmas morning, or a woman who looks at her newborn for the first time; a face alive with belief in magic. He did his best to look her over with critical disregard, but all he felt was deep affection. He couldn’t humiliate her by sending her back in shame. He couldn’t crush her spirit by telling her the awful truth. The hard knot of matrimony that would join them forever tightened around his neck. The burden of the secret he would have to keep from her grew heavy and demanding. He had many regrets in his life, but this was the biggest regret of all. And what stung the most was the helplessness he felt.
The goddamn helplessness
. It was the first time he could ever remember his life slipping out of his control.
And I can’t do anything but stand here like a fool and watch it go.

Adrian was about to say something else when Alex cut him off with a wave of his hand. “We’ve talked this thing to death. There’s nothing more to say. I’ll speak to the captain,” he said roughly and turned away.

Speaking to the captain is precisely what Katherine was doing, or more correctly, the captain was speaking to her. “The best thing about rain,” Captain Steptoe was saying, “is that you get a rainbow when it’s all over.” He looked down at the rapturous face turned up toward his. “You do like rainbows, don’t you—and believe in the pot o’ gold?”

“I suppose, although I’ve seen plenty of rainbows and nary a pot of gold,” Katherine answered. “Besides, what’s always interested me more is what’s on the other side.”

“Well now, I’ve n’er given that a thought,” he said, turning away for a moment to give a dressing down to a seaman who had broken forth with a volley of nautical oaths from the rigging overhead. Katherine, who heard it all quite clearly, clamped her hands over her mouth so as not to appear unladylike and laugh, for the oaths, colorful as they were, weren’t really embarrassing because of the way the seaman seemed to squawk and flap in the rigging like an awkward parrot about to lose his footing.