Mackinnons #02 For All the Right Reasons (6 page)

Since that day, she had stopped her spying, but she seemed to have taken up a new crusade in its absence. Now she seemed determined to make him notice her whenever possible, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not—like today. Katherine had always been smart as a tree full of owls, but she had never bested him at school—at least not until three weeks ago. He had smugly assumed that to be because she couldn’t. But now he wasn’t so sure. Over the past few weeks she had bested him in the spelling bee, been responsible for his essay taking second place to her first, and had driven him to his chair in defeat when she finished her sums a good five minutes before he did. When Karin made a cake, Katherine baked a cake and a pie. When he took Karin riding, there went Katherine streaking by them, riding like someone had set her horse’s tail afire. When Karin took him to help her gather wildflowers for the dinner table, Katherine showed up at the house ahead of them with enough flowers in her arms to put flowers on every table in Limestone County. On and on it went, the list growing longer every day, until Alex found he was actually looking forward to seeing just what Katherine would do next.

Alex wasn’t the only one of the Mackinnon brothers who was waiting on Katherine. But instead of waiting to see what Katherine would do to win Alex’s favor next, his brother Adrian was waiting to see when she would come to her senses and fall out her state of infatuation with his brother. And that presented a problem for Adrian, because being Alex’s twin, the brothers had always been very close. But now Adrian could no longer talk to Alex, at least not with the same ease and frankness he had always been able to employ in the past. The truth of the matter was that Adrian resented Alex, partly because of Katherine’s attachment to him, and partly because of Adrian’s fondness for Katherine, both of which Alex was aware of and had never missed a chance to tease his brother about.

“My little twin is in love,” Alex said to Karin one afternoon as they walked toward her house from the creek. He had just looked up to catch sight of Adrian leaning against the fence. Even from where he was, Alex could see Adrian was watching Katherine bring the milk cows up from the pasture.

When Alex and Karin stopped beside Adrian, Alex let out an exaggerated sigh and said, “Adrian is in love and hankering from afar.” He glanced at Katherine, then back at Adrian. “Why don’t you hop on over that fence and help her with the cows?”

“Shut up, Alex,” said Adrian.

Alex laughed and turned to Karin. “Wouldn’t you like to have that sweet face looking at you like that?” He gave Adrian’s face a pat.

Adrian slapped his hand away. “Alex, I’m warning you.”

Karin stepped closer and gave Adrian the once over, patting his face as Alex had done. “He does have a sweet face, doesn’t he?”

Adrian clenched his jaw, feeling his fists itch with the desire to smash Alex’s pretty face. Instead, he turned quickly away from the fence, knowing, even as he turned, that there was something deeper here than just brotherly teasing. Alex seemed angry at him.

“Oh, do look, Adrian. I’ve made Alex jealous.”

Adrian turned back, as Karin spoke to him. “Do you think I should ask his permission before I pat your sweet face?” Karin’s tone wasn’t as gentle and teasing as before. Adrian didn’t say anything, but Alex did.

“Why don’t you behave yourself?” Alex lashed back at her.

“Why should I? You aren’t.” She saw Alex’s face getting redder and redder. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid Adrian might show some interest in me?”

“My brother has more sense than that,” Alex said angrily, then stomped off.

Karin came over to where Adrian was standing. “I really do think you have a sweet face, Adrian. To be Alex’s twin, you two really don’t look anything alike.”

“We aren’t that kind of twins.” His voice was not cordial in the least. He did not like Karin and she knew it.

“Adrian, don’t be angry at me.”

“I’m not.”

“Thank you, sweet Adrian.”

Adrian didn’t get a chance to say anything else. Karin leaned toward him and kissed him softly on the lips. “Why waste your time wishing for something you can never have? It’s your brother she wants, can’t you see that?”

“I’ve got eyes,” he said hatefully.

“Darling Adrian, don’t be cross. It doesn’t become you.” She gave his cheek another pat.

Adrian slapped her hand away, then turned, giving her his back.

After she left, Adrian looked out across the pasture, seeing Katherine was looking at something. It didn’t take long to figure out what. At the crest of a gently sloping hill he could see Alex staring off into the distance, his hands rammed into his pockets, completely unaware that Katherine was looking at him with such longing in her eyes.

Adrian was never able to understand why Alex couldn’t see how selfish and spoiled Karin was in comparison with Katherine’s gentle and compassionate nature. Adrian guessed it was always the fate of the younger sibling to get the short end of the stick, for that seemed to be the fate he and Katherine were resigned to.

He watched Katherine until Alex had disappeared from sight and Katherine stooped to pull a flower, inhaling its sweet scent. He saw her close her eyes and wrap her arms around her middle as if she were hopelessly in love.

As Adrian turned and walked away Karin’s words kept sound ing in his head.
To be Alex’s twin, you two really don’t look anything alike.

That was one of the few things Karin had ever said that Adrian agreed with. He and his brother were not identical, nor were they anything alike. They didn’t look alike, think alike, or react alike. In fact, about the only likeness to be found was in their build and their love for fighting. They were both strong and stubborn, both wanting their own way, and that was a constant source of irritation and friction between them. Of the two, Alex was the gentler, more easygoing brother, while Adrian was too cynical for his own good and prone to be rather opinionated. He was a bit of a perfectionist in comparison with Alex’s sometimes sloppy disregard for the things around him. But the biggest source of annoyance for Adrian was the fact that he was born a few minutes after Alex. He went through life feeling Alex had a distinct advantage over him.

Needless to say, most of their disagreements weren’t settled verbally. It had taken a strong father and older brothers to keep the two from killing each other in the all-too-frequent fights they had had when they were younger. After their father John and older brother Andrew were killed, the twins were held in check by the remaining three brothers, Nicholas, Tavis, and Ross. Strangely enough, in spite of the constant bickering and fighting between them, they were fiercely loyal and close to one another. If they had thought about having a motto, it would have been: “I can do it to my brother, but nobody else can.”

As time had passed, the friction, the tendency for the twins to disagree violently was still there, but the number of fist fights diminished. Alex and Adrian still found themselves locked in frequent battles, but usually of a nature that could be settled by talking, with a good fist fight thrown in every now and then—if for no other reason than to just clear the air.

But today Adrian wasn’t feeling like talking. For weeks his ire had been rising toward Alex and some things needed settling. It had been quite a spell since they’d had a fight and cleaned the slate, and on top of that, fighting had gotten to be such a habit with him and Alex that he couldn’t conceive not having one every now and then.

Early the next afternoon, Alex, having finished his chores, was riding over to the Simon place when he saw someone standing all alone in the middle of the pasture. From this distance he couldn’t tell if it was Karin or Katherine, but figured it had to be one or the other. He turned his horse in the woman’s direction. When he drew close enough to speak, he didn’t, for there was something about the way Katherine was standing there looking like the tight bud of a four o’clock before the flower opens in the late afternoon. Something was wrong.

He rode closer, and dismounting, spoke her name. “Katherine?”

She was turned away from him, but he could tell by the way her body was all hunched forward that she had been crying. Seeing her like this, with the sun so brilliant all about her, she seemed no more than a vapor, a fairy spirit that guarded this particular pasture. “Katherine?” he called again and stepped to her side. He saw then what had caused her distress. Lying before her like a crushed petal was a fawn, its huge brown eyes open and starting to cloud, a gaping hole just behind one ear where the blood had already dried.

“Why?” she sobbed. “Why would anyone shoot a fawn?”

He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her against him, feeling surprised that she wasn’t as hefty as he expected. In truth, she was more narrow in the shoulders than Karin. He looked down at the gleaming head, not red and not really brown, but a color that lay somewhere in between. Another thought struck him: Karin would have never noticed a dead fawn in the pasture, much less paused to grieve over it. “Don’t cry, Kath. It won’t do the fawn any good.”

“I know, but it’s so little. See? It still has its spots. Why would anyone kill it?”

“Maybe something happened to the mother and they killed it to keep it from being orphaned.” He began looking around, then spying an area not too far away where the grass had been trampled, he took her hand. “Come on.”

He pulled her along with him like a child would pull a toy on a string, and she followed just as silently. “See?” he said, pointing.

She followed with her eyes. “Blood.”

“Quite a bit of it. See, here’s where it came down. Then it was pulled over here. There are tracks here. Two horses. And the marks of a man’s boot. He must have killed it then loaded it on the other horse here.”

“A deer?”

“Probably a doe. He must have discovered the fawn in the grass where she’d left it hidden.” His arm came around her. “Poor Kath, don’t take on so. It was a mercy killing. The hunter didn’t want the fawn to slowly starve to death.”

“It was murder!” she sobbed against his shirt.

“After you’ve had time to think on it, you’ll feel differently.”

She pulled back and looked at him, the sight wrenching his heart. “No, I won’t. I won’t ever forget the way it looked, Alex. It was so sm-sm-small.” Her tears were coming harder now, running down her wet face in great droplets and splashing on his hand. He drew her closer, feeling her shoulders shake, the trembling that overtook her. He dropped his chin on the top of her head and began rubbing her back.

He had been rubbing for some time when he realized she had stopped crying. For the briefest moment he felt reluctant to let her go. There had always been this strange bond between them, a closeness he couldn’t explain. There were times he almost felt like he was one side of a coin and Katherine was the other side, but that sounded so idiotic that he would dismiss the idea as soon as it came. It was Karin he loved. But he did have a strong feeling of some unexplainable sort for Katherine. Drawing back and cupping her chin with his hand to lift her tear-streaked face, he wiped the tears with his thumb. “Better?”

“Not better,” she said with a shaky voice. “Just all cried out.”

He laughed and gave her a quick kiss on the head. “Tell you what. Why don’t you ride Tarnation on over to your house. I’ll just take my shovel,” he said, removing the small spade from his saddle. “I’ll give that little friend of yours a decent burial, then I’ll come on.”

“I can walk.”

“I know you can,” he said, dropping the spade and sweeping Katherine up into his arms. He carried her to his horse and put her in the saddle, handing the reins to her. She started to say something, but he gave Tarnation a swat. “Go on, now.”

He watched her lope across the pasture on Tarnation. He remembered the day Tarnation was born. Katherine had been there and the two of them had wiped the jet black colt dry. “I want you to name him,” he had said to her, but before she could answer, Karin walked in, wedging herself between them.

“I’ve got to go,” Katherine said, rising to her feet.

“What about a name?” Alex asked.

“You can name him Tarnation, for all I care!” Katherine said hatefully, and left the barn.

Alex had done just that.

Now, he was shaking his head as he watched her and the black gelding go over a hill and out of sight. Then he turned and picked up the spade, walking back toward the place where the fawn lay. He saw Adrian coming toward him.

“That was touching. What were you doing, rehearsing for
Romeo and Juliet?
”

“Ease up, Adrian. I’m not in the mood for your cynicism.”

“What are you in the mood for? Pawing one sister while you’re bedding the other one?”

“What’s gotten into you? I wasn’t pawing anyone, and what I do with Karin is my own damn business, but I haven’t bedded her.”

“Just keep your filthy hands off Katherine. She’s not like Karin. She’s decent.”

“Is that what’s eating you? Because all you know is
decent
women? You know what I think? I think you’re as randy as a seasoned buck, but you don’t know how to go about getting any woman to ease it for you. Why don’t you go into town like I do?” He shrugged. “It’s your choice. But if you choose not to, don’t go around taking your troubles out on me. I’m—

Alex never got to finish that sentence, for Adrian’s fist came out of nowhere to crack his jaw, driving him to his knees. “Okay. Okay,” Alex said, coming to his feet and wiping the thin trickle of blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’ve been itching for a fight for weeks. We might as well get this over with.”

Adrian cracked the other side of his jaw. This time Alex didn’t say anything. He simply dove at Adrian, locking his arms around Adrian’s knees and sending them both to the ground.

An hour later they buried the fawn as well as their battered bodies would allow and hobbled down to the creek and fell in, clothes and all, both of them covered with blood and caked dirt, aching in places they didn’t know they had, their mouths too swollen to talk, their bodies too weary to want to. For over an hour they had simply lain there, in the shallows of Tehuacana Creek, letting the cool water ease their soreness.