Mackinnons #02 For All the Right Reasons (40 page)

“Big John Polly,” she said. “Have you met him yet?”

“Oh yes. And
Big
Molly too!” Katherine laughed.

“I was just on my way over to pick up my supplies,” he said. “Big John will be taking me up early tomorrow. I hope I can find my way back when I’m done.”

“Katherine!” Alex said so loud that Katherine jumped, dropping her ledger. Walking toward them, Alex said, “You’re needed at the house.”

“At the house?” she asked. Her face flushed, she stammered and said, “I was just learning about windfall bucking from Mr. Erikson.”

“Whatever you want to know, you can ask me.” Alex arrogantly walked between Katherine and Emil, taking Katherine by the arm. Then turning to Emil, he said, “If you don’t want me to take a ten-pound sledgehammer to you, I suggest you get on with what you were doing before you detained my wife.”

Emil picked up Katherine’s ledger and handed it back to her.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” Emil replied.

“
You
are on borrowed time,” Alex said, glaring at Emil.

Emil grinned. “I heard you hadn’t been married very long,” he said, then turned, whistling as he walked away.

“Arrogant foreigner,” Alex said.

“Arrogance seems to go with the business,” Katherine said and walked away.

Alex caught up with her. “I don’t want you talking to him anymore.”

Katherine walked faster. “Just him, or does that go for any of the men?”

“Any of them who acts like he does.”

“He wasn’t doing anything.”

“He was standing too close and acting too friendly.”

“So what do you want me to do next time someone says something to me? Bolt and run?”

“I expect you to act like a lady.
A married lady
.”

She gave him a cold look. “Sometimes you have the mentality of a stupid sheep, you know that?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I
barely
qualify to be called married at all, and that is
only
because we had a marriage ceremony. We certainly haven’t had any of the other
things
that go along with marriage,” she said.

“I know one
thing
I’ve been trying like hell to give you for over a week,” he said. “If you aren’t getting what you want, Katherine, it isn’t my fault.”

“No?”

“No.
You’re
the one who’s refused to share my room.”

“Well,
you’re
the one who’s too pigheaded to understand why.”

Alex opened his mouth to speak, but Big John walked up and asked Alex if he had a minute and Katherine took advantage of that to hurry up to the house. When she arrived it didn’t take her long to find there was no one there. Coming back down the stairs after her fruitless search, she was steaming. “So, I’m needed at the house, am I? Might I just ask
who
was needing me?” she said quite loudly, since there was no one there.

“I’m the one that wanted you here,” Alex said, coming into the room from the kitchen.

Katherine noticed he said
wanted
, not
needed
. “Well, you have me. Now what was so important that you had to embarrass me like that?”

Alex looked a mite remorseful as he crossed the room to her. “Look, I’m not trying to embarrass you or make life miserable for you. You don’t understand what it’s like for these men, how long it’s been since they’ve even seen a woman.”

“So I’m to confine myself to the house so they can’t
see
me, is that it?”

“No,” he said, then paused, his expression becoming lighter, a gleam appearing in his eye. “You can go out…on occasion.”

“Thank you. And what occasion might that be?”

“After it’s dark.” He couldn’t help laughing at the expression on Katherine’s face.

“That isn’t funny, Alex.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “There were parts of it…”

“Oh, do be quiet!” she said and started up the stairs again. Alex caught her and swept her into his arms and Katherine was so startled her mouth dropped open.

It was one of the few times she couldn’t think of a thing to say.

He put her on her feet when he reached the top, backing her across the floor and pinning her against the wall. “What did you call me?”

“I didn’t call you anything.”

“Yes you did. Outside. You said I had the mentality of a…”

“Stupid sheep.”

“I thought all sheep were stupid.”

“They are. But the stupid ones are even stupider.”

Alex wasn’t even going to attempt to understand that one. “Katherine, what am I going to do with you?”

“Send me back, I suppose.”

The image of that stabbed like a pain in the heart of him.
Never
, he thought.
Never
. He looked at her adorable face, thinking he could never part with her. But he couldn’t find the words to say that yet.
In time
, he thought.
In time, I’ll tell her
. He laughed softly to hide what he was feeling and pulled her close against his chest. He hadn’t wanted to marry her, and now he didn’t want to send her back.
What’s going on here?
he asked himself, wondering if he could be falling in love with her so easily.
No
, he told himself.
She’s a lot of company and you enjoy her, but that isn’t love. She’s brought joy and laughter into your life, but that isn’t love. She makes you look forward to seeing her and listening to what she has to say, but that isn’t love.

Being forced into this marriage still didn’t sit too well with him, but he didn’t blame her. He looked into her upturned face. “I can’t send you back. It’s too late for that, I’m afraid.” His lips touched the top of her head, then he was looking at her, the blue of his gaze like a clear summer sky. “There’s always been something about you, something that has always made it difficult for me to stay away from you.”

Why should you? Why can’t you give in, Alex? I know you want to. I know you love me. I know it.

He drew her closer with the slightest urging of one hand and nuzzled her neck. Then his lips were at the side of her face. He was all soft breath and warm, living man. His lips touched her brow in a slow circular motion before going down over her small perfect nose. He kissed her once. Twice. Then he sighed, drawing her even closer as he brought his mouth down on hers. His grip was hard, determined, but gentle. It was the sort of kiss that drew one out and left her with an aching, unexplored need. Cool and dry and in complete control, his searching mouth taught her the way to kiss a man. The belated scorch of passion burned away her pique and she melted, warm, and infinitely lovely in his arms. He drew back, looking down at her upturned face. Her eyes were closed, the lovely dark lashes outlined against milk-white skin; her cheekbones were delicately defined and curved gently down to her lips which were full and slightly parted, glossy now from his kiss. As he studied her, her lashes fluttered and her eyes opened, green eyes as deep and languid as pools he could drown himself in.

“Why can’t I stay angry at you?” he asked gently.

“Because I’m so adorable,” she said with a laugh.

“Wrong,” he said. “Try again.”

“Because you don’t have any reason to be angry at me at all.”

That was uncomfortably close to the truth. He laughed, then looked at her for a moment before he cupped her chin in his. “Do you always see to the heart of things? How’d you get so wise?” His thumb began making slow, lazy circles around her mouth.

“I’m not wise. If I were I wouldn’t…” She saw he was going to kiss her and she tried to turn her head away, but he caught it firmly with a kiss. This time he let her feel some of the heat he was feeling. His hands came up to hold her face as he drew his lips back and forth across hers before dropping lower to the soft curve of her throat. Her breath drew in sharply, catching in her throat. “Ahhh, Katherine, I never knew you could taste so sweet.” He caught her mouth again, his fingers tracing the contours of her ears, his breath coming soft as a whisper.

He had kissed her before, but those times he had done it simply because the occasion presented itself, or because he desired her in a moment of weakness. But this time it was different. This time he kissed her for none of those reasons. This time he kissed her because he wanted her levelheadedness, her ability to heal, her sweet nature, her understanding smile. He wanted her ability to make him forget, to see her as something strong and secure and right in his life. He wanted things to be back the way they were between them before he married her, when she was a friend most dear, the one person in the world he could talk to and feel she understood.

“Alex,” she said softly, her huge eyes shining in the dim light. “Don’t do this if you aren’t ready. Don’t tease me and then push me away.”

“If I’ m not ready for what?”

“To know me as your wife.”

To know me as your wife
. To know her as Abraham knew Sarah.
Abraham knew Sarah and she conceived.

Alex released her and slowly turned his head away. The sound of her running to her room and the door slamming ended long before he reached the bottom of the stairs.

But that had all happened yesterday, and now someone was shouting, “Come on old man! Kiss her so we can get underway.” The men began to cheer as Alex took her in his arms.

“Give her a good pucker.”

“Give her one that’ll last a week!”

“Give her one for me!”

Alex laughed and kissed her, thoroughly, giving her all of those things.

“We said week, Mackinnon, not a month.”

The laughter almost drowned out Alex’s last words. “Take care, Katherine. I’ll be back in a week I hope.”

“I’ll miss you, Alex.”

“I’ll…” He glanced at the ship. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

Alex had been gone two weeks and two days the day it happened.

Katherine had wandered up to the higher elevations and was sitting on a redwood stump, sketching a squirrel and daydreaming about Alex. There was no one about to disturb the quiet beauty of the trees towering around her, or even the squirrel’s preoccupation with an owl he was scolding for occupying a branch of his tree. The light slanted through the branches in extended shafts, splotching the forest floor with color. Everything around her seemed fresh from creation.

Occasionally sounds from the loggers would invade her solitude, but as the wind rose the sounds grew steady and stronger until the thwacking of axes and the rasping of saws seemed to be moving closer.

She had been sketching for almost an hour when the silence was broken by a distant shout and a bursting crack followed by the crash of a tree that struck with such force the earth beneath her trembled. Then she heard a cry, and another and another until she sprang to her feet, the sketch falling to the forest floor. There was an urgency and the sound of panic in those voices, a sound far different from any she had heard before. Without thinking she started off in the direction of the cries and shouts, running and stumbling as the sharp branches ripped at her clothing and hair, often stabbing into her flesh with a flash of pain, but something urged her on.

Breathless, her legs rubbery from the long uphill run, she reached the clearing littered with stumps and loosened limbs called widow-makers.
Widow-makers
. Her heart pounded painfully in her chest, her eyes searching and finding the logging crew gathered around a felled tree across from her. She ran up to the group of men. One of them she knew only as Half-pint stopped her. “You don’t want to go up there, Miz Mackinnon. It ain’t gonna be a pretty sight.”

“What…” She fought for breath. “What happened?”

“One of the fallers didn’t get clear and he was carried down the hill with the tree.”

“How bad is he hurt?”

“Don’t know yet. We ain’t got to him.”

Katherine lifted her skirts and started down the hill. “Maybe there is something I can do.” She reached the group of men who were cutting and chopping away the branches of the huge redwood.

“Where is he?” she asked.

Jumbo Shay was standing beside her. “He’s caught beneath those branches. They’re trying to get to him, but it’s gonna take a while to cut through everything.”

“Isn’t there any other way to get to him?”

“Not unless you ain’t big as a minute and can crawl through.”

Katherine didn’t hesitate. “I’m not very big. Maybe I can.”

“There wouldn’t be much you could do, Miz Mackinnon. Not until we cleared everything away so as to get him out.”

“That man may be dying. He shouldn’t have to die all alone.”

“He may already be dead.”

“Then I can tell the men they don’t need to risk another life by being in a hurry.”

She stepped across the debris, coming closer to the tree, seeing where the men were working. Jumbo followed her. “Miz Mackinnon thinks she can crawl through to get to Birkham.”

The men moved away, letting Katherine through. When she had gone as far as she could without crawling, she looked at the small space between the splintered branches. “I’ll have to remove my skirt,” she said, her hand going to her waist.

Jumbo’s voice boomed. “All right you slobbering fools, I want every one of you to turn around and face the other way. Any man who looks will wish he hadn’t.”

To a man they turned around and Katherine slipped her skirts off, peeling down to her drawers. She didn’t think about how it must look, or give any thought to being embarrassed. There were more urgent things filling her mind. She crawled through the small opening. It was tight, branches and leaves cluttering her way, scratching her skin, but she inched her way through, crawling over any obstacles. Jumbo called out to her. “Can you see him yet?”

“No.” But a moment later she shouted, “Yes! I see him… Oh God! He’s bleeding badly.”

“Is he breathing? Can you tell?”

His face was turned away from her, but the arm that was bleeding so bad was within her reach. She placed her fingers over his wrist, picking up the faint pulse. “He’s alive.” She looked at his other arm. “I think his arm is almost severed.” She had never seen so much blood, or had any idea how sickening sweet it smelled. She had to stop the bleeding.
Think, Katherine. Damn! I wish I had my petticoat.
But she did have the ribbon in her chemise. She worked her way around so she could support herself without any weight on her arms, then she unbuttoned her blouse, finding the ribbon and pulling it through. She remembered another time she had pulled her chemise ribbon out, a time when Alex had been nearby. But Alex was far away from her now.