Mackinnons #02 For All the Right Reasons (35 page)

“Bless my soul!
This
is your intended? She’s not at all what I expected a man like you would pick out.” The sharp black eyes narrowed in scrutiny. “She’s a scrawny little piece of goods, wouldn’t you say? A bit too tall and thin?”

“She probably won’t look so tall once she’s eaten your cooking for a while and feathers out some,” Alex said—too good-naturedly in Katherine’s opinion.

“She’ll have to feather out a great deal,” answered M.P. “And I’m not sure you’ll have much when she does. But we’ll see. There’s nothing like crisp mountain air to whet a body’s appetite.”

“Obviously there isn’t,” Katherine said, giving M.P. the same scrutinizing once-over the woman had given her. “You must have been here for some time.”

Alex looked like he was about to choke, then muffling a cough, he turned his head away.

Initially Katherine felt the desire to shrink away from this woman’s piercing look, but she had seen women of this ilk before. They came on strong as a gust of wind, just to test the lay of the land. If Katherine backed off in fright, this woman would make life miserable for her. On the other hand…Katherine was determined to hold her ground. If this was to be a battle of wills, she might as well win herself a spot in this camp right now, or this woman would take over. The thought of turning to Alex or even Adrian for support in the future never entered her mind. She had been taking care of herself for quite some time now and after the hardships she had endured, what was one woman, even if she was as big as a mountain? She was quite accustomed by now to fighting her own battles. Of course, that didn’t mean she wasn’t a tad uncomfortable.

The chicken, who by this time must have been as uncomfortable as Katherine, began to stir up a fuss. Without any inkling that she was going to, the woman suddenly grabbed the chicken with her other hand and with a quick twist, yanked the head off. The head went one way, the chicken in the other. Katherine watched the headless chicken run in circles, flapping and slinging blood everywhere before falling on its side and lying still after a few stiff jerks.

Katherine’s eyes flew to the woman. She had never seen anyone wring the neck off of a chicken that fast. M.P. must have been at least six feet tall, and over two hundred pounds if Katherine knew anything at all about size. Her eyes were a deep, polished brown that looked almost black, her hair a washed-out strawberry blonde color that looked as if it had spent the past year and a half in a crimping iron, for all Katherine could think was it looked like it had been fried. Maybe it had. Maybe that’s why it looked pink. While Katherine was taking all of this in, the woman pulled out a cigar and bit the end off of it, then offered it to her. “Smoke?”

“No,” Katherine said. “No, thank you.”

The woman shook her head. “It’s a shame you don’t. Right soothing on the nerves. If you change your mind, you let me know, you hear?”

“I’ll see that you’re the first to know,” Katherine said.

Molly Polly lit the cigar, releasing a gray coil of smoke that curled slowly upward. “Hold out your hand,” she said to Katherine.

“Why? So you can lop it off like you did that chicken’s neck?”
Or use it to put your cigar out?

Molly laughed, then turned to Alex. “She’s scrawny, but she’s got a sense of humor. She might make it.” Then to Katherine she said, “You afraid to hold out your hand?”

Katherine held her hand out, watching as Molly blew six perfect smoke rings that encircled her arm like a bracelet. Molly laughed, giving Alex a poke in the ribs. “Brave little thing, ain’t she?”

Katherine thought she might faint. Instead, she drew herself up, standing tall and straight and stiff. “I’m stronger than I look,” she said before Alex had a chance to respond. “And I don’t take too kindly to being talked about or poor-mouthed in my presence.”

Molly Polly slapped her leg. “Raised on firebread arid sassy too!” she said, then laughed. She gave Katherine a contemplative look. “Well, bless me, Alex! It appears you got yourself one that plows a straight furrow and goes to the end of the row, though I’d have never guessed it by looking at her.” She narrowed her eyes at Katherine. “You ever been in a fight, gal?”

“No. I always heard it was the still sow that got the slops.”

Molly threw back her head and laughed. She slapped Alex a healthy one across his back. “Seems she’s up to snuff,” she said, “in spite of her size.” To Katherine she said, “Don’t you worry none, I’ll put some meat on those bones.”

Katherine was about to respond to that, but Molly caught sight of Wong and yelled for him to “Come get this here chicken,” then she turned back to Katherine. “I’ve got to get back to my rat killing before that fool cooks that chicken with the feathers on.” As she turned away, she gave Katherine one last glance and said over her shoulder, “If you ever need anybody to push you in the creek, you just let me know. Hear?”

Katherine smiled. “I hear.”

“Now that’s interesting,” Alex said, moving to stand beside Katherine as they both watched Molly fall into step beside Wong.

“What is?” Katherine asked.

“You’re the first person she’s taken a liking to.”

“That was a liking?” asked Katherine.

Alex threw back his head and laughed and Katherine lost herself for a moment in the joy of it.
Oh Alex, you are so very, very dear
. A minute or two later, she turned to follow him down the steps, but when she reached the last one, Alex swept her up into his arms. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“I would think that would be obvious. I’m carrying you.”

“I know that, but why? I walked over here.”

He grinned and lowered his head close to her as he whispered, “Maybe I just wanted to hold you, and with all these people about it’s the only way I could think of.” He tossed her up a bit to get a better hold on her and she squealed. He grunted. “If you’d relax, it would make this job easier.”

“If it’s such a taxing job, you can put me down.”

“I could,” he said, “but I won’t.” Seeing she was about to say something else, he said, “Katherine, for once in your stubborn life, will you close that sweet mouth of yours and just lay back and flow with the current.”

“Oh,” said Katherine, her body going slack. She closed her eyes and dropped her head back. A moment later she opened one eye and looked up at him. “Am I flowing enough?”

“I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell am,” he said, crossing the distance to the other porch. He stood her on her feet, but kept her in his arms. Katherine glanced up at him. His eyes were on her. The expression on his face resembled that of a man who’d just been handed a smoking package and didn’t know if he should stay and open it, or throw it as far as he could. Their eyes still locked, he said, “Make yourself comfortable. As soon as the road clears I’ll come back for you.”

“All right.”

“Do you want me to take you inside?”

“Do you want to?”

He grinned. “Come on,” he said, releasing all but her arm which he held on to.

The room was small and neat, but the smell was past intolerable, almost painful. Katherine clamped her hands over her nose.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She lifted her hands just enough to speak. “I can’t stay in here.”

“Why not?”

“The smell! Alex, it’s awful. Has something died?”

He sniffed the air and laughed. “No. This is the foreman’s cabin. They all smell this way.”

“The foremen or the cabins?”

“Both.”

“Why?”

“Lumbermen don’t bathe too often.”

“It doesn’t smell like they bathe at all.”

“Oh, they bathe, just not with any kind of frequency.”

“How often is that?”

“Once or twice.”

“A month?”

“A year.”

Katherine thought she was going to be sick. “Please,” she croaked, “Take me outside. I can’t stay in here. I’ll be sick.”

“Katherine, it may start raining again.”

“Alex, I’m serious. I am going to be sick. I prefer the rain. Really I do. At least
it’s
clean.”

He picked her up again and carried her outside. When she was in fresh smoky air she inhaled deeply. “You can put me down now. I’m all right.”

“I’ll carry you,” he said, and walked around a team of oxen hitched to three enormous logs. He carried her to the edge of the trees and stood her on a carpet of pine needles and dried leaves. “If it rains, there’s a tent you can stay in.” Seeing the way she looked at the tent, he laughed and said, “It’s open at both ends so it’s well ventilated.”

“Thank you,” she said, their eyes locking again.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

“So are you.”

“Katherine…”

In the silence that followed, neither of them seemed to be able to move. It was the same feeling she had felt around him so many times before, and she wished they were someplace private.

He turned to look back across the logging camp until the silence was almost unbearable, then he exhaled, removing his hat and raking his fingers through his hair. He slapped the hat against his leg a time or two, then put it back on his head. Then he looked back at her with the unspoken yearning pulling tighter between them.

He looked like he didn’t know what to do or say, and she understood that, for she felt the same. As long as they had been on the ship and he had avoided her, she had been too hurt and angry, or too busy thinking, to think much about what would happen once they reached Humboldt Bay. But they were here now, and in a few hours or less he would come for her, to take her to her new home. It would be dark by then, and when it was dark, people went to bed. She had often dreamed of lying beside Alex in a bed, but the reality of it had lost its dreamlike state.
I love you, Alex
. She felt herself drawn toward him, so much she swayed on her feet. His arm shot out to steady her.

“There are times when I think I’m going to enjoy being married to you,” he said in that same husky voice she remembered so well. She had been about to ask him just when those times were when she realized this must be one of them and any further thought vanished from her mind. His hands came out to turn her face upward. As he kissed her, his hands went beneath her cloak, pulling her tight against him. Her arms started around him when he pulled back. “Right now I’m wondering if this is the same woman I kissed in a kitchen a few years ago in Texas.”

“She’s the same one,” she said.

“She doesn’t kiss like it,” he said. “
That
kiss was different.”

“You remember that?”

“Oh, I remember. A man doesn’t forget something like that.”

Even when he’s in love with her sister?
she almost said, but the look on his face was pleasant and the teasing light in his eyes was one she remembered so well. “And how was it different?”

He grinned. “The words escape me,” he said, his lips moving against her cheek. “But I can show you.” She felt his mouth brush hers, warm, beguiling, inviting, and she groaned, leaning into him, her arms going around his neck. “That’s more like I remembered it,” he whispered against her open mouth as his hand upon her back rubbed with lazy ease. And then, as quickly as it had come, it was over, and she felt a shattering emptiness when he pulled away. He studied her face for a moment, his eyes a darker blue now, their feeling closed to her. He stepped back and looked around him like he didn’t know which direction to take.

“I better get going,” he said. “It’ll be dark soon and I’ve got a lot to do.” He started off, going not more than two or three steps, then turning. “You’ll be okay?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine.”

Alex stared dumbly at her. What was she doing to him? A week ago he was in love with her sister. And then she shows up. And what did he do?
I married her, for God’s sake.
Why?
If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t have to work for a living
. And if that wasn’t enough, you had to start kissing her.
That was her fault. She shouldn’t look at a man like that if she didn’t want to be kissed.
And you, old man, shouldn’t kiss a woman like that when you claim you don’t care for her. He began to feel angry at her for what she was doing to him. Nothing was as it seemed anymore. There had always been a sort of special bond between them, a long-lasting friendship, nothing more. But now that bond was stretched, forced to encompass more. From the moment he saw her coming off that ship in San Francisco he had felt strange, like she had some hold over him. And perhaps she had. Otherwise, he would have sent her packing. Why hadn’t he?
It sure as hell wasn’t because of that puny threat of Adrian’s,
he said to himself, knowing it was the truth. It irritated the dickens out of him to think she was in control. Yet he didn’t seem to be able to just toss her back like a fish he didn’t want.

He remembered the many times he had done just that with Karin, simply walked away and left her stewing and fuming, making demands that he laughed at. But with Katherine it was different. It wasn’t easy staying away from her on the ship. He told himself it was because she was a beautiful woman and it had been too damn long since he’d had a woman—even an ugly one. But he knew that wasn’t the reason. He might not love her, but he desired her. The other reason would come later.

“If you need anything, just send one of the men for me.” He didn’t give her a chance to respond, but turned quickly away.

Katherine looked through the dim mist that swirled around his retreating back. “Dear God,” she prayed, “you’ve given me the answer to my prayers, and I’m mighty beholden and terribly grateful. But if it’s not asking too much, could you show me, now that you’ve given it to me, just what I’m supposed to do with it?”

Chapter Sixteen

He came for her at dusk.

She did not notice him at first, for she had been standing outside the tent since the rain had stopped, watching the sun set like an orange rind, the fiery twilight kindling the jagged peaks of the mountains and crowning the treetops with fire.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he said, coming to stand beside her.