Adrian stared in surprise at his brother as Alex cursed softly under his breath and hurried from the room. Doc Lesley followed Alex out, and Adrian walked to the window, watching the doctor climb into his buggy. As it pulled away, he could see Alex walking toward his horse tied to the fence. Just as he reached for the reins, Adrian had a glimpse of his agonized face just as he smashed his fist against the top rail with enough force to break his hand.
Alex’s hand wasn’t broken, but it was good and sore for several days. It had healed completely by the time Katherine was up and about, tending to her chores with the same determination as ever, and a little soreness.
She didn’t see Alex for two weeks, and Karin refrained from looking her in the eye. At night Katherine went to her room and collapsed tiredly on her bed. The pain in her shoulder always returned late in the evening, but it wasn’t severe and she reminded herself she had lived with worse. Once she was in bed, she would think of Alex, just as she always did, something that came so repeatedly, like the steady
tap, tap, tap
of a hammer. And then she would remember what she had seen that day down by the creek. After the first few weeks, the shock lessened. Then came awareness—not so much the awareness of what she had seen, but more the awareness of what it all meant; awareness that Alex Mackinnon would never belong to her as he belonged to her sister; awareness that she had read so much more into his friendly presence than was actually there; awareness of the fool she had been.
The hideous reminder rose like a scaly dragon before her.
Fool… Fool… Fool…
And fool she was. Wouldn’t anyone agree? Wouldn’t anyone who knew say that’s what she deserved for wanting the man who belonged to her sister? Didn’t the Bible warn against coveting thy neighbor’s wife? Wasn’t that about the same thing as coveting thy sister’s lover?
But to see them together like that!
Perhaps that was her punishment. Perhaps that was what was needed to jerk her back to her senses.
Never again would she allow her mind to fill with hope.
Don’t absorb yourself with his every word, his teasing looks, the humorous jabs he all too frequently takes at you. Alex is a nice person,
she kept telling herself.
He was being nice to you, Katherine. N-l-C-E. That’s not the same as being romantic. It’s not the same as being attracted. It’s nothing like “being in love”. What it is like is friendship. That’s what you are to Alex. A friend. Nothing more.
It was the third week after her accident when Karin came into her room one night, shortly after Katherine had gone up. “I know you must think I’m a horrible person,” she said, sitting on the bed and crying into hands that were cupped over her face. “And you’re right! I am a horrid person. I know it. I could never be good and kind like you, Katherine. I don’t know why, but I can’t.”
“You aren’t horrible,” Katherine said wearily. “And I’m not as good and kind as you think.”
Karin came off the bed in one dramatic sweep of rose and lavender cotton, dropping to her knees in front of the rocker Katherine sat in, her golden curls, spilling over her shoulder. Grabbing Katherine’s hands in hers, she looked up at her sister through tear-blurred eyes. “I know I was wrong to let Alex take those kinds of liberties with me. I promise it won’t happen again, Katherine. I promise.”
“I’m not your mother, Karin. It isn’t for me to tell you what you can and can’t do. Whether this was the first time, or the fiftieth, it isn’t my affair. You don’t have to answer to me. I just don’t want you to do something you will be sorry for the rest of your life. I want you to be sure Alex is what you want.”
Something about the way Katherine looked must have said she doubted this had been the first time, for Karin wept bitterly into her sister’s lap. “Alex has never touched me like that before, Katherine. I swear he hasn’t. Please say you believe me. Please.”
“Karin…”
“Please.”
“All right. I believe you. But that really shouldn’t matter.”
“But it does,” she said, still weeping. “What you think has always mattered to me. I just don’t want you to think I’m a bad person.”
“I don’t.”
“Not even after what you saw? Not after the way you were hurt?”
“Not even then.” Katherine stroked Karin’s golden head, wondering why she always ended up feeling more like Karin’s mother after one of these discussions than her younger sister.
Karin’s head came up, her delicate hands wiping the tear paths from her face. “I promise it won’t happen again.”
Katherine sighed. “Karin, do you love Alex?”
“Please,” Karin said, struggling to her feet. “Please don’t ask me that.”
“Why not? It seems like a perfectly logical question to me.”
“It may be logical,” Karin said, wiping the tears from her face and looking like the perfect picture of composure, “but logical or not, I don’t want you to ask me.”
“Why?”
“Because I do love Alex, but in a way I don’t think you would understand. Because I feel I’ll lose no matter what I say.”
“I don’t know how you can say that. Alex loves you, and…”
Karin came to her feet and walked a few feet away. “I know he does, but I also know things won’t ever work for us.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I see what’s going on over there. I pass by their place every day. I see how hard Alex and Adrian are slaving—no, how they’re killing themselves working that run-down old farm all by themselves. All this talk—and it’s little more than that—just talk. They won’t make that place pay—ever. I’ve known it from the beginning. It will suck up every penny they saved and give them nothing in return.”
“They may surprise you. They’ve got more than thirty acres under cultivation right now, and the spring rains have been abundant. They’ll have enough hay to feed those thirty cows they bought from Karl Webster, and then some. Why, just the other day Alex was telling me about that fine, prizewinning bull he’s trying to buy from George Tatum’s widow.”
Karin threw up her hands. “Stories, all of them. Nothing more than dreams and stories. There’s nothing realistic about any of it. It won’t work, Katherine. I’m telling you, it won’t work.”
“Then nothing has changed for you, has it?”
“How do you mean?”
“You haven’t changed your mind about leaving, have you?”
“No, I haven’t. Why should I? Tell me one thing that’s happened that would make me reconsider.”
“Alex is back.”
“And still as poor as a church mouse.”
“If you feel that way, why do you keep him hanging on? Why don’t you tell him? Why keep him hoping?”
Karin turned away, giving Katherine her back. “I have told him. It isn’t my fault he’s so stubborn. I told him again last night, told him I could never spend the rest of my life here.”
“What did he say?”
“The same thing he always says. He asked me to wait a little longer, to give him more time. But it’s so hard, and I’m so confused. I love him, but I don’t want to. I want him, yet he isn’t what I want. Does that make sense?”
Katherine nodded.
“You know yourself there were never too many men around and now, after the war there are even fewer. Alex is so
nice
, and I’m so very tired of being poor.” Karin turned back toward Katherine, wringing her hands in front of her. “Oh, Katherine, you don’t know what it’s like to be poor.”
Katherine looked dumbfounded. “I don’t know what it’s like? Aren’t you forgetting that I’m as poor as you, that I live in the same run-down house, that I eat the same pathetic food as you do? How can you say I don’t know what it’s like to be poor.”
“Because you don’t, not really.”
“That simply isn’t true.”
“It is! I know it is, because you know how to withstand troubles, Katherine. You’re like an oak tree with deep, strong roots, able to withstand all the things Mother Nature throws at you, while I’m like the water plants that grow along the creek. I bloom and look pretty as long as everything is in perfect balance, but when it isn’t I wither and die.”
“You aren’t that shallow, Karin, no matter what you think. You’re just upset about what happened. I don’t hate you and I don’t think you’re sinful or awful for what happened. I just want you to be certain about whatever you choose to do. Alex is in love with you. Don’t give him false hope.”
“You know, it’s almost funny. I know you love Alex more than I could ever love anything.”
“I don’t! He’s a friend, nothing more.”
“Oh, Katherine, it’s so obvious. Of course you love him, everyone knows: me, Adrian, even Alex.”
“Alex has never said a word to me.”
“He wouldn’t. He likes you, values your friendship too much to hurt you. He always thought you’d outgrow it, or find someone else to love.”
“It isn’t fair for you to say that. You have no right to talk that way.
If
I was in love with Alex, it wouldn’t be some silly, childish infatuation I’d outgrow.”
“Don’t be angry. I probably shouldn’t have said what I did. Heaven knows I don’t have any room to talk. Look at me! Here I am in love with Alex, yet telling myself it can never be. That’s what I meant a while ago when I said you love Alex more than I could ever love anything. I can’t love like you do, Katherine. It isn’t my whole existence, my entire being. In my way, I do love Alex. I know I should stop this thing between us, because it isn’t fair to him and he’ll only be hurt in the end. I should let go, but I can’t seem to.” She pressed her knuckles against her temples. “Oh, why is life so wretched? Why am I the way I am? All my life I’ve felt I had to do something to stand out, to draw attention to myself. You were always so smart, Katherine, so self-assured, so confident. Life was always a challenge for you. You were always good at everything you did. You won all the races, you made better grades, you could cook and sew and quote poetry. I never thought I would have a chance to compete with you. And then one day I realized I had something over you. I was pretty. I had a figure. I was becoming a woman, while you were nothing more than a plump child. That was my one chance to outshine you, and I took it.”
Katherine felt a deep sadness for Karin, for she had no idea Karin felt this way, even though she knew what her sister said was, in essence, right. She had always bested Karin in school, so often that Karin would wail, “But it’s not fair! She doesn’t pay attention at all. She’s always staring out the window, her mind a million miles away. She never studies, while I’m always poring over my schoolbooks. Why does everything come so easy and natural for her?”
“It isn’t fair,” Karin wailed again, and Katherine remembered how her father’s hand would come out to stroke the lovely golden curls on Karin’s head, and how much she wished he would do that to her.
I don’t care
, she would tell herself.
I have my mother
. And that was true.
Katherine stood. “Why don’t you go finish putting the buttons on your new dress. I’ll check on the progress the stew is making.”
While Katherine set the table, someone knocked on the back door. When she opened it, Alex was standing there. Seeing him, her body tensed, a shiver of awakening flesh leaving a trail of goose bumps. She looked at the hat in his hands, his clothes sweaty and dirty, as if he’d just come from the fields. Even this way he looked tempting—honest, hardworking, and bronzed by the sun.
Seeing the way she looked at him and imagining her thoughts, he said, “I apologize for my appearance. I’ve been plowing since sunup. I only came by to bring Clovis home.”
“Oh no!” Katherine frowned. “Did he get out again?”
“I’m afraid so. I found him heading down the road toward town. I penned him, and I figured out how he was getting out. I replaced a few worn boards and tightened the lock. That should do the trick. If it doesn’t, let me know.”
“I will. Thank you, Alex. I appreciate that. Sometimes I swear Clovis knows how vital he is to the work around here. He always knows just how much he can get away with.” Her voice trailed off as his eyes fastened on hers. She felt torn in two. One part of her screamed to have this pretense done away with. She wanted to be free to shout her love from the treetops. The other part, as always, worked hard to appear impersonal and uncaring.
“Katherine,” he said softly, looking a little uncomfortable.
“Yes?” She looked at him, feeling her insides twist painfully. He smiled, a little hesitant, unsure. Normally, his smile would put her at ease, but today, even that gave her no peace.
“About what happened that day at the creek—the day you were hurt.”
She didn’t say anything. There were no words to express her thoughts, her feelings. She didn’t speak because she couldn’t. Nor could she think. Everything within her seemed to shut down. Nothing seemed to exist for her in the entire world, nothing save this most beautiful of men standing grimy and uncertain before her, and her desperate need to have him close, to feel his hands touch her in places that had known no man’s touch. The tension was strong enough to reach out and strum like a guitar. So much love for him welled inside her, she knew it had to be shining brilliantly in her eyes. It was something she wanted desperately to hide, and she looked down, trying to concentrate on the worn ruffle on her apron.
“Please,” he said. “Hear me out.”
Katherine held up her hand. “I’d rather you didn’t mention anything about it. What goes on between you and Karin—” Her voice faltered and she was afraid she couldn’t go on. With supreme effort, she managed to say, “It’s none of my affair, Alex. There’s no reason to discuss it.”
“I just wanted you to know…”
“You owe me no explanation. As far as I’m concerned, it’s forgotten.”
“Katherine, I know better. I know…”
“I said it was forgotten, Alex. Let’s leave it that way.”
“All right,” he said looking hurt. “If that’s the way you want it.”
“That’s the way I want it.”
“I’ll be heading back, then.”
Katherine nodded and watched him turn and walk away. She closed the door, then leaned her back against it, her hands spread flat against the worn wood. She closed her eyes and listened for the sound of his footsteps as he turned away, her mind screaming,
Oh, Alex…Alex…Alex…
Knowing as she thought those words he would never hear them or the other words she longed to say:
Alex, I love you
.