Mackinnons #02 For All the Right Reasons (8 page)

“There’s always a chance you won’t.”

“Then I’d rather be dead.”

“I don’t know how you can say that. Only a fool talks that way.”

“I can say it, because it’s true. If I thought this,” she looked around her and indicated the house with a wave of her hand, “was all that I would ever have, I would take Pa’s gun down and place it against my breast and pull the trigger.”

When he had started to speak, she had taken his hand and led him outside to stand on the porch. “Look out there, Alex. Look as far as you can in any direction you desire, and tell me what you see.”

“I see the land.”

“You see? We are so different, Alex. You look out there and see the land, but when I look, I see the stars.”

Had anything changed for her? He found himself wondering if she still saw stars. He wondered if she had thought much about him all these years he’d been away. He hadn’t written, but there had been no chance, not when he was always on the move, fighting a war in Mexico. At least that offered some consolation. With the war going on, there weren’t many eligible men around. Not that he was interested in whether or not there were any men left in Limestone County, mind you, but it did mean that Karin, more than likely, hadn’t found a star to hitch her wagon to.

He was still a bit uneasy, though. A woman as beautiful as Karin—as beautiful and determined. He wouldn’t put it past her to marry some old fool in his dotage, as long as he had money. No one around Limestone County had much more than the Mackinnons or Simons—another point in his favor. Maybe, just maybe, if his luck held, she might be waiting for him, just as she had been that night he had come by her house to say goodbye.

His thoughts spun backward to the last time they had been together. He had asked her to wait for him, to give him a chance to prove himself when he returned. The moment he had spoken those words, he wished them back. Karin hadn’t said anything.

She had simply looked at him, her eyes meeting his. For some time they had looked at each other, her beautiful blue eyes snared for a moment by his and unable to look away. He had known even then that her heart must be hammering as fiercely as his own, had known that the blush that stole to her cheek spoke for a woman full of yearning.

Well aware of her hesitancy, of her love for him on the one hand, of her long-held desire to better herself on the other, Alex had moved in swiftly. His arms had come around her, drawing her small-framed body hard against his, as his mouth sought and found hers. Lord, he remembered just how soft her mouth was—soft and responsive, and he had parted her lips gently and easily, his tongue surrounded with her warm sweetness. Even now, he could feel the way her fingers had moved swiftly to the back of his head, digging into hair that was a little too long, her nails raking his scalp. His hands had been so frantic to press her closer, as if by doing so he could mold her against him and bind her to him forever; flesh to flesh, bone to bone, woman to man, mate to mate.

As it always did whenever he was around her, he had felt himself growing rock hard, knowing too that she had felt the rise of his desire, firm and strong, against her belly. His hands had moved from her shoulders to the small of her back, rubbing, caressing, learning the shape of that which he held so dear. His body straining for fulfillment, his mind reeling with need, his hands had come around to caress her breasts. It was as it had always been, that night being no different from all the others—first the talking, then the kissing, the touching, the wanting, and for Karin, the fear. She had broken away. “Alex, please. We can’t…”

“Why the hell can’t we?”

“Please, Alex. It’s our last night together. Don’t let’s be angry with each other. Let us both have something more to remember than anger, or…”

“Or what? Go on, say it.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“The hell you weren’t. You were going to say the
groping
, weren’t you?” He shook her. “Well? Weren’t you?”

“All right, damn you! What if I was?”

“Thank you, at least, for your honesty.”

“It isn’t like you think, Alex.”

“No? Then how is it, sweetheart? Tell me how it is for you when I touch you. Does it repulse you? Does it frighten you? Does it make you wish I would hurry up and go away?”

“No!” she screamed. “It makes me want you to do all the things you want to do.”

“Then why, for the love of God, aren’t we doing them?”

“Because it’s too soon.”

“Too soon for what? I’m leaving at first light. We sure as shootin’ can’t do them by mail!”

“It’s too soon for us to know what the future holds for us, Alex. You’re leaving to join the Rangers. There’s a war brewing. Anything can happen. You could change your mind. You might be caught up in a stupid, senseless war and get yourself killed. Or you could meet someone else.”

“Or you could.”

“I know that. That’s why we can’t. I’ve made a vow to myself. I won’t give myself to any man without marriage.”

“I’ve offered you that and you’ve refused.”

“I didn’t refuse, Alex. You were talking about the future. I said I’d give you my answer when you came back.” Her arms had come around him then, soft and sweet and sure. “I love you, Alex.”

“I love you too.”

That had been the last thing he had said to her. The next morning he had ridden away. Now, almost four years of his life had passed since that night, and he still meant those words as much as he ever had. Problem was, did she?

His horse faltered and pulled him out of his reverie. He glanced at Adrian, seeing their return had the same effect upon him. For some time, the brothers rode in silence, following the neglected road, passing a pond on their left—a pond where Alex and Adrian had spent many an hour fishing for catfish and catching nothing but perch. A sad smile lingered on Alex’s face as he remembered the first few times they had fished for their supper after their ma and pa had died. Their older brother Nicholas had appointed the twins, as the two youngest, to be in charge of the garden and catching fish, while the three older boys worked the fields and tended the livestock. How many times had he and Adrian thrown out their lines with their mouths watering for a big, juicy catfish, only to pull in perch after perch after perch, and tiny ones at that. Not knowing how to clean a perch, they had simply gutted them, lopped off the heads and dipped them in cornmeal to fry. He chuckled softly, remembering the way Tavis had take a bit bite and immediately spit fried perch all over the place. “What’s the matter with you?” Ross had asked.

“You try it and find out.”

Ross took a bite, and like Tavis, spit fried perch all over the place.

Nick was laughing now. Then giving the twins a questioning look, he said, “You boys did scale those perch, didn’t you?”

“Scale them?” the twins said in unison.

Nick threw back his head and laughed, a deep rolling laugh that he swore later had left his sides aching and tears in his eyes. Alex had never been reminded of it before, but now it came swiftly to him, just how much Nicholas was like their father, and just how much he missed both of them.

Rounding a bend in the road and coming up over a rise, they came in sight of their old house and drew up, content to just sit in the middle of the road and stare. It didn’t look as fine as it had in his memory, or as new. At one time it had been a handsome, dignified place with a neat yard surrounded by a picket fence covered with woodbine and Virginia creeper, and their mother’s rocking chair on the front porch. But after their mother and brother were killed by the Comanche, the house had been burned, and only the chimney and a small part of it had survived. They had helped their father to rebuild it, or at least make a good start, but their father had been scalped before it was finished and the brothers had finished the rest of it, using the original fireplace and two of the bedrooms. They soon found that they weren’t the craftsmen their father was, and the old place had never looked quite the same. In fact, Nicholas had said it looked old and dejected the day they finished it.

“Well,” Alex said at last, “we aren’t going to get much done if we sit here staring like two imbeciles who forgot where they were going.” Adrian nodded and they kicked their horses into a faster gait and headed for home. Once they reached the yard, they tied the horses to the sturdiest section of run-down fence, Alex reaching the front porch before Adrian. He tried the door handle, but it didn’t give. Then he remembered Adrian had locked the door the day they left. He turned toward his brother.

As twins often do, Adrian sensed what his brother was about to ask him. He shrugged. “Don’t even ask,” Adrian said, coming up beside him.

“You’re the one who locked it. You had the key.”

“You forget that Ross was still hanging around these parts when we left. Besides, we both said we weren’t coming back here.”

“
You
were the one who said that, not that it matters. Hell, we’re both doing and saying a lot of things we never thought we would,” Alex said.

“True,” said Adrian. “I guess kicking in a front door can be one of them.”

“Right,” Alex said, and kicked the door. It gave straightaway, the old rusted hinges pulling away from the jamb, the door falling inward with a loud crash that sent dust rolling upwards in billowing clouds.

“That,” Adrian said dryly, “will be the first thing on the list of repairs.”

Alex stepped inside, his eyes going over the dingy interior with care. “It’s going to be a long list,” he said, shaking his head, for he saw how thick the dust was lying on everything, saw the cheerless, desolate look of a long abandoned dream. They stepped back outside, waiting for the dust to settle. “Why don’t you ride on into town and get some of the things we’ll be needing while I try to get this place cleaned up and habitable?” Alex said.

Adrian looked at the crumbling ruin around him. “Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

After Adrian left, Alex checked the place out, seeing just what he could find to work with. A quick survey turned up nothing, no broom, no soap, no nothing. Ross sure wasn’t much of a homebody if he’d left the place looking like this, but then he remembered how Ross was always one to lay his head on a woman’s soft bosom rather than on a pillow stuffed with corn husks.

A few more minutes of searching turned up one dehydrated bar of lye soap, but it was harder than Adrian’s head. The furnishings would serve, but the mattress needed a good dusting and a few hours in the sunlight. The linens in their mother’s chest smelled of age and dampness and would need airing as well. There wasn’t much here to get started with. But he knew where he could find the things he needed.

He rode across the creek, through the pecan grove and across the pasture, scattering a curious herd of cattle. As he drew near the Simon place he could see the passage of time hadn’t been particularly kind to them either—scrawny as all get out, they were. Cows that bony couldn’t give much milk. The state of neglect made him wonder if old man Simon had passed away. The place was a mess. And the more he looked, the more dilapidated everything seemed. The chicken coop leaned so far to the left a sneeze would topple it over, and an old plow, rusted and abandoned, was almost hidden behind a tall stand of grass and weeds. Where a fine smokehouse once stood, a half-rotted buggy lay turned on its side. At one time, a whitewashed picket fence had surrounded the house, but now only a portion of it remained. One long section leaned drunkenly outwards, one section was missing entirely, and a third section had evidently given in to its drunken leaning and fallen flat—and that had happened some time ago too, for the grass and weeds that grew between the pickets were a foot tall. A few feet from the back door a lazy old sow lay on her side in the mud, a dozen squirming piglets nursing hungrily. But the dark-haired woman on the porch was as fine as dollar cotton.
Who the hell is she?

Katherine stood on the back porch shaking the crumbs from an old red and white checkered tablecloth when she saw the man on horseback coming up the road. Seeing no one she recognized, she was about to turn away when something about the man called out to her. She watched him for a moment, her face a curious mixture of apprehension and elation as one by one pieces of familiarity fell into place. She gasped, her hands clenching the tablecloth and pressing it against her stomach as if by so doing she could make the sharp pain of recognition and remembrance go away. Her eyes grew wide with disbelief. Her heart pounded furiously. The color disappeared from her face. Alexander Mackinnon. His very name had been so much a part of her thoughts, while the man himself was the very essence of her dreams. And now he was here, no longer a thought, no shining image from her dream. He was real. He was alive. He was home. And her heart leaped from the joy of it. Alex. Dear, beloved, Alex. No more would she have to wonder if he still had the power to steal her breath away. The magic was still there, at least for her.

At least for her. At least for her. At least for her.
A sobering thought, for it reminded her that it was her sister he was coming to see, not her. But none of that mattered now. He had come home and her heart was singing in response. She could sooner sprout wings and fly than she could still the trilling in her soul.
Oh, joy! Oh, happiness! Oh, he looks so good. Dear Lord, I look so bad.
Her hand came up to smooth the sleek lines of her hair.

He drew up just a little shy of the porch and sat on his horse just a few feet away, looking her over. He was still as beloved to her as before, still as lean and handsome as ever. Her eyes went over him anxiously looking for signs of change and finding few. He was older, of course. And more filled out. But there was something more, not a change exactly, but more an attitude of seasoning, of being weathered. The boy who left here four years ago was no more than unripened fruit, but the man who rode into her yard moments ago was no green boy. The four years he had been gone and the things that had happened to him during that time had ripened him and given him a patina that only comes with age. She saw his eyes were still the color of a cloudless sky on a sunny day, and his smile was as crooked as ever.
Ahhh, Alex
, she thought.
You’re still so perfect in every way.