Mackinnons #02 For All the Right Reasons (47 page)

“Oh, no ma’am. I couldn’t take that.”

“Of course you can. My feelings will be hurt if you don’t.”

He looked at her. He looked at the cake. Then he reached out his hand as Katherine handed it to him. “I like that name,” he said. “Banjo. It’s got a nice ring to it.” He started for the door, then checked himself. “Oh, I almost forgot. I brought a letter for you.” He reached into his big shirt pocket and pulled out a wrinkled, folded letter.

Katherine took the letter, recognizing Karin’s handwriting. “Thank you, Jumbo.”

He thanked her for the cake and went outside. After she rinsed the door, Katherine opened the letter and scanned it quickly. Karin was concerned about their farm. The neighbor man they had hired to help Fanny had moved. “Men are still scarce in these parts,” she wrote, “and I’ve been unable to find help. It’s too much for Fanny to run alone, and I’m not sure what we should do. If I don’t hear from you soon, telling me otherwise, I think I’ll put the place up for sale. Old Mr. Ledbetter has contacted me a time or two about buying it.”

Katherine didn’t want to sell her home place. Not for any reason. She knew someone could be found to help Fanny. All it would take was a trip to Dallas or Ft. Worth, maybe even an ad in the newspaper, but Katherine couldn’t depend on Karin to do it. She decided to write Fanny, asking her to place an ad, and then send another letter to Karin telling her she didn’t want to sell.

The kitten tucked in her arm, Katherine went searching for Wong. She found him in the great room, stacking wood next to the fireplace. She showed him the kitten, telling him they needed to find a box. “Boss no likey kitten,” he said, shaking his head solemnly. “He make Missy give it back. Boss no likey.”

“Boss no havey any say about it,” she said. “Boss lady keepie kitten.”

Wong grinned at her, his black tooth giving the impression that it was missing. “Okay, boss lady. You keepie kitten. Wong find box. Boss no likie. Wong not stay in house when boss get mad.”

“That’s fair enough.”
We may both be out of the house if boss no likie
. “Now find me a box.” It didn’t take him long to find one. They decided to put it in the kitchen next to the stove where it was warm. Katherine carried Banjo, Wong dogtrotting behind her with the box.

About that time, Alex came crashing through the kitchen door, barging into the room like some great lumbering grizzly. Katherine eyed the muddy tracks across her floor. “Alex, couldn’t you clean your feet outside so you don’t make tracks all over my clean floor?”

“Don’t start on me, Katherine.”

“I’m not starting on you. I asked a simple question that could be answered with a simple reply.”

Alex didn’t say any more, for he had spotted the box on the floor. “What in the hell is that?”

Katherine picked Banjo up, stroking its head. “It’s a kitten, Alex. What does it look like?”

“More trouble!” he said. “We don’t need it.”

“We don’t need your snarling, either, but we seem to be getting it.” Wong moved behind her. “Did we get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, Alex?”

He took the kitten from her and thrust it around her, into Wong’s face. “Get rid of this.”

“Okay, boss.” Wong took the kitten.

“Give me the kitten, Wong. I’m keeping it in the kitchen.”

Wong held the kitten toward her as Alex spoke.

“Put it outside.”

“Put it in the box.”

By this time Wong was looking a bit confused. “Boss say put kitten outside. Boss lady say put kitten in box. Wong no can do both. If Wong put kitten outside, boss lady be unhappy with Wong. If Wong put kitten in box, boss unhappy with Wong. Wong no please both. Wong no try. Wong put kitten on floor then Wong leave.” He did what he said he would do, putting the kitten on the floor. Katherine watched his long black pigtail swing to and fro as Wong hurried his dogtrot along and headed for the back door.

Once he was gone, Katherine picked the kitten up and put it in the box. When she turned back, Alex was gone.

The next time she saw him was at dinner. Alex seemed to be his old self. He even went so far as to laugh at a few of the kitten’s antics. After dinner, when they moved into the great room and she served Alex and Adrian thick slices of chocolate cake and steaming cups of coffee, Alex was warm and considerate. After they finished, Katherine carried the cups and plates back into the kitchen and after she cleaned them, she went upstairs. She lay in bed, waiting for the sound of Alex coming down the hallway, the sound of his hand opening the door. But he never came. It was the first time since she had moved into his room that Alex didn’t come to bed.

The next morning she went to see Molly, driven by the need to have a woman to talk to. Molly was in the cookhouse, going after a mountain of potatoes with a knife bigger than a meat cleaver.

“Hello, Molly,” she said with a glum tone, coming into the kitchen and sitting on a stool.

“Well, what brings you out in the cold?”

“I just felt like having some feminine company.”

“Let me get these potatoes on to boil, then I’ll fix us a hot cup of coffee.” Katherine sat on the stool, watching Molly go after those potatoes until she had them all neatly quartered and dumped in a pot. Then she poured two cups of coffee from a pot so large she had to pick it up with both hands. She carried the cups to a small table with two chairs and motioned for Katherine to join her.

“So, you’re getting tired of just having men-folk to talk to?”

“I can’t talk to them about this.”

“Uh-oh! This sounds serious.”

“To me it is.”

“Hold that thought. I’ll be right back.” Molly went to another table that held a dozen or so sugar bowls. Picking one up she carried it back to the table. Katherine watched her ladle sugar into her cup. She had never seen anyone put six spoons of sugar in a cup of coffee before. A minute later she took a sip of her coffee and saw why.

“Pass the sugar,” she said, making a face. Molly laughed, sliding the sugar bowl toward her. “So, what do you want to talk about?”

“My marriage.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Alex and I aren’t getting along.”

“When did this start?”

“When I came to San Francisco.”

Molly’s eyebrows rose, but she didn’t say anything at first. She simply sat there, adding another spoonful of sugar to her coffee and stirring it. “What went wrong?”

“I’m not sure. He just never acted like he was very glad to see me. We married aboard the ship on the way up, but he didn’t take me to his bed.”

“He was probably waiting until you reached home.”

“He didn’t take me to bed then either.”

“Oh, dear.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“And he still hasn’t?”

“Well, he has, but…”

Molly let out a whistle. “Is he still coming to your bed?”

“He has been, but he didn’t come to bed at all last night.”

“I must say I’m surprised. Alex doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who isn’t interested in that sort of thing. How were things between you when he left for California?”

“We were good friends.”

“Good friends? You mean he asked you to marry him when you’d only been good friends?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you ever become…” She paused a moment, then said, “better friends?”

“Because Alex was in love with my sister.”

Molly looked dumbfounded. “He was in love with your sister when he left?”

“Yes.”

“And how long was he gone?”

“A couple of years.”

“So two years later he writes for you to come to California and get married?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you think that was a little strange?”

“Yes and no.”

“Good answer.”

“You see, I’ve always known Alex and I were better suited than he and Karin ever were. And there were so many times before he left that we…he…”

“Felt an attraction for one another.”

“Yes. In fact, the night he left, Karin was upset. She said she wouldn’t wait for him. After he left her, he came into the kitchen and we talked. He kissed me in a way he had never kissed me before. He asked me to write him.”

“Did you?”

“Yes, but Karin never did.”

“And the next thing you knew, he wrote you to come to California to be married.”

“Yes.”

“What did you think? Didn’t you wonder why he didn’t ask for your sister?”

“A little, but I kept remembering the way he kissed me the night he left. I thought after my writing to him, he had decided I was the right choice. And then there were the letters themselves. At first they included a personal note for Karin, but gradually he stopped these. He began writing to me only, telling me how much I would love the country, or how he would love to show me this or that.”

“Let me ask you something. Did you ever ask Alex why? I mean, why he asked you to marry him?”

“Yes.” Katherine thought back to that day on the ship when she had asked Alex.

Alex, why did you write for me?

Because it was time I took a wife.

Why me and not Karin?

Because it was meant to be, Katherine. Because I knew you would come.

She told Molly.

“Do you love him?”

“Oh, yes. With all my heart.”

“But you aren’t sure of his feelings.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Have you told him you love him?”

“Yes.”

“Has he said the same to you?”

“No, not yet.”

“You’re talking to the wrong person, Katherine. Alex is the one you need to talk to. You two have some serious things to talk out.”

“I know, but I’m almost afraid of what I might find out. Sometimes he acts so indifferent that I don’t think he loves me at all.”

“Honey, they
all
do that.” Molly patted her head. “Don’t you go doubting his feelings for one minute. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

“I don’t think those kind of looks are prompted by the heart,” she said woefully. “The source is much farther down.”

Molly laughed. “You talk to him. You’ll feel so much better when you have these things all worked out.”

Katherine stood. “Thank you for talking to me, Molly. I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t here.”

“You’d make do,” she said. “Just like I’ve done all these years.” Molly came to her feet, with considerably more effort than Katherine had used. “You think about what I’ve said. You’ll know when the time is right.”

Katherine nodded, then turned and walked slowly out of the kitchen into the great dining hall of the cookhouse. It was strangely quiet and deserted, such a far cry from the times she had seen it full of hungry, enthusiastic men.

She took her time walking up the hill, mulling over the things Molly had said. When she reached their house, it was as quiet and deserted as the cookhouse. She went to the kitchen. The kitten, Banjo, was out of his box. Katherine looked around the kitchen, calling him, deciding after a while that he must be in another part of the house. For almost an hour she looked for him, checking all the rooms downstairs, then going upstairs to check the bedrooms, and finally the attic.

As a last resort, she checked Alex’s study, finding the door ajar. She went inside and looked around. The room smelled like leather and Alex, with a faint hint of Adrian’s chewing tobacco. Wondering where that infernal kitten could be, she began searching, laughing to herself when she found Banjo curled up in the leather chair behind his desk. Picking him up, she gave him a scolding and remembered the letter from Karin. She had planned on writing Karin and Fanny when she went upstairs, but now that she was here in Alex’s study she might as well write it now. Holding Banjo in one hand, she pulled out the chair with the other and sat down, putting Banjo in her lap. She stared at the desktop, seeing a pen and inkwell, a blotter, scattered notes and stacks of paper, all of which were written on.
Alex is bound to have some stationery
. She pulled out the center drawer, finding more papers and no stationery. Two drawers later, she found what she was looking for. Katherine took about half an inch of stationary off the top of the stack, then began rummaging around for envelopes. Finding them in the next drawer, she took two off the stack, noticing just as she closed the drawer that the next envelope was addressed. She shut the drawer and picked up the pen, dipping it in the well, when it occurred to her that an addressed envelope had no business being in with the unused ones. She opened the drawer again, taking out the envelope, feeling a letter inside and thinking it was one Alex must have mixed in with the unused envelopes by mistake and therefore did not mail. She was about to prop it against the clock, so Alex would notice it, when she saw the name of the addressee:
Miss Karin Simon
.

With trembling hands, she opened the letter Alex had written—and never finished—in a moment of anger, the day they had arrived at the camp from San Francisco. Her heart plummeted.

“Dear Karin,

I know you must have been shocked and hurt when I wrote asking Katherine to come to California.” Katherine felt a tremendous relief. Obviously, Alex had started this letter to explain his feelings and reasons for asking her to marry him instead of Karin. She read on. “I don’t know how to explain the mistake. Adrian and I fought, and I wrote the letter to you. I was drunk, and somehow wrote Katherine’s name, though God knows how or why. I didn’t realize the mistake until she arrived, and by then it was too late. I had to marry her. I had no choice. I don’t think I can ever…”

The letter ended there, but even if it hadn’t, Katherine knew there could have been no more words to pierce her any more cruelly than those she had already read. Four things in the letter jumped out at her: Alex had written for Karin when he was drunk and wrote her name by mistake. He didn’t realize what he had done until she arrived. He felt forced into marriage, though he didn’t say why. And he didn’t think he could ever… What?
Forgive Katherine? Forget his love for Karin?

For some time, she simply sat there looking at the letter, as if by the passage of time, the words, the reality would fade away. The letter was written by Alex—she would recognize that broad, sweeping hand anywhere. The letter was written in grief, after their marriage.
Somehow I wrote Katherine’s name, though God knows how or why
. The words stabbed at her. He hadn’t wanted to marry her at all—had never intended to marry her. It was all a mistake. But the worst realization of all was knowing that Alex had lied to her, even after she had asked him. Her mind at first refused to believe it, then the agony of certainty closed in. Katherine put the letter on the desk, then put the kitten on the floor. On trembling, uncertain legs, she stood, the back of her hand coming up to her mouth so she could bite back the scream. Her world shattering and crumbling about her, she could only feel the agony of knowing the lie, the shattering humility of knowing the truth. She wanted to destroy and be destroyed. Within her, her essence, her very being seemed to explode into tiny fragments that fell slowly to the floor and lay as a tarnished reminder of her shame. Everything went blank after that.