Alex walked home, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, a thoughtful expression on his face. Why should it upset him that Katherine had seen him with Karin? Why did he feel this hammering need to talk to her, to set things straight, to explain? And why in the name of hell did it bother him that Katherine was so obviously hurt, no matter how much she let on that she wasn’t? He tried to rationalize all this by telling himself that it was no more than brotherly concern, that Katherine had always been as close to him as a sister, that his concern was only brotherly concern. Only problem with that was, he couldn’t explain away the tiny knot of frustration over Katherine that twisted his gut, nor could he, in all honesty, ignore the small kernel of attraction Katherine held for him.
He had always been fond of Katherine, but he was wondering if that’s all it was. “You just need a woman,” he told himself, recognizing how frustrated he was over Karin’s refusal to sleep with him, her stubborn determination to be a great lady.
He sighed, wondering,
Why couldn’t I have fallen in love with Katherine? It would have been so much simpler.
But he hadn’t fallen in love with Katherine. It was Karin he loved. Karin with eyes as blue and clear as glass beads, and hair as golden as the pollen sac on a bumblebee. Karin was the one who brought out the feelings of a man in him, and it was Karin he thought of as a woman—a woman he wanted to touch and make love to. Karin was always soft and gentle; always knew what to say to make him feel ten feet tall, while Katherine could level him with one silencing look. And she could, and had, on more than one occasion, cut him to the core with a pointed comment driven home. No, Katherine with her quick wit and sharp tongue, her no-frills talk, her plain dresses was not for him.
Alex saw Adrian was still hard at plowing, and he hopped the fence to join him. The farm was in worse shape than either of them had thought first. It was like a great hole into which they dumped three years of army pay. He would never give Karin what she dreamed of this way. He stared out over the barren fields trying to imagine them green and fertile. Hard work would do that. Hard work would give him what he wanted.
For the next month, Alex drove himself without mercy. Adrian noticed it. Katherine noticed it. Karin most certainly noticed it. Alex was avoiding her and it didn’t sit too well with her. While Alex wasn’t what she wanted in the end, he certainly filled the hours in between. She didn’t want to lose the bird in the hand until she found one in the bush.
In plain English, Karin was bored.
One sultry afternoon Adrian dropped by, asking Katherine to ride into town with him, knowing that she would refuse, just as she had refused the other thirty or so times he had asked her. It almost knocked him off his perch on the wagon seat when she dropped the pillowcase she was about to pin on the line back into the basket and said, “Why Adrian, I’d love to go with you. How lucky I am that you asked, because I have a list of things I need that is almost as long as the road from here to town.”
After Katherine had finished hanging out the clothes, she had fetched her list and her bonnet and climbed into the wagon. That last bit had surprised him, not because Adrian was used to Katherine letting him help her do anything, for she wasn’t, but he had hoped that since she had softened somewhat about riding to town with him, that perhaps she had softened about other things as well. In truth, Katherine had simply seen Alex Mackinnon coming down the road on his buckskin and desired to put as much distance between herself and him as possible.
Alex met Katherine and Adrian just as they were leaving. When he drew even with the wagon he pulled Beedle up, then pushed back his hat, using his thumb to do it. “Whew! It’s hotter than blazes out here. Why aren’t you two cooling your heels in the shade somewhere instead of broiling out here in the sun?”
“Lord, I’d rather be doing that,” Adrian said, then looking to Katherine he asked, “wouldn’t you?”
“
If
l had time,” Katherine said stiffly and looked away.
The brothers exchanged glances and Adrian shrugged his shoulders.
“Where are you off to?” Alex asked.
“Town,” Katherine said. “Karin is milking in the barn,” she said before he had a chance to inquire. Tugging her bonnet over her head, she said to Adrian, “If you want me to go with you, Adrian Mackinnon, we’d best be going. You may have all day to dawdle, but I don’t. I’ll swan! I could walk to town faster than this, not to mention how we look like a couple of pure fools dawdling in the middle of the road like we are.”
Alex laughed at the way Adrian hopped to it and had those horses moving before a body could say armadillo. Tugging his hat down low over his eyes, Alex turned Beedle toward the Simons’ barn, wondering what Karin would be doing when he found her, because he didn’t believe for a minute that she would be milking if she didn’t absolutely have to.
He found her sitting on the ladder that led to the loft, holding one of the barn kittens—a cute fuzzy little gray thing that sputtered and hissed when he reached out to pet it, then jumped from her lap. When he teased her about not doing her chores, she informed him that she had already finished milking. Alex looked at her, thinking it was something he could do for the rest of his life. His gaze rested on her glossy golden head, not finding a hair out of place, then traveled over the perfect, doll-like features, dropping lower to enjoy the curves of her body, remembering the way she had looked that day so long ago when he had watched her swimming naked in the creek. The memory of it shot through him with a jolt. Karin stood, calling the kitten, and admonishing Alex when it ran outside. “I’ve always heard animals were a good judge of people and that kitten doesn’t especially like you. Maybe there’s a lesson in that for me.”
“Well, Clovis likes me,” he said, flashing her a smile.
“That’s reason enough to send you packing. I hate that mule. I don’t know why Katherine insists on keeping him.”“
“Probably because he’s a good mule. One of the best in the county. She’s had more than her share of offers from folks wanting to buy him.”
“And she’s a fool for not taking any of them. I wish someone would ask me. I’d sell,” Karin said, sounding just a little put out, and in fact, she was, for Alex had interrupted her at a time when she was deep in thought, and those times did not come too often.
Alex laughed. “Now stop complaining, sweetheart, and give me a kiss.”
“And if I don’t feel like it?”
“You will,” he said, grinning, his arm coming out to curl around her waist as he led her along with him to a dark abandoned stall. He stopped, backing her against the wall and turning her toward him, his eyes moving slowly over her face as if he were committing each of her features to memory. He kissed her softly on the neck. “This is all I’ve been able to think of since that day at the creek.”
“That should have never happened, and it won’t happen again.”
“Yes it should, and it will again.” He drew her closer with one hand, the other hand coming up to tilt her chin up. The moment their eyes locked, she felt his warm breath as his face came closer, his lips, soft and inviting, sliding over hers until she forgot all about her words of a moment ago. It always happened this way. When she was away from him she would make up her mind that there would be no more kisses, no more groping hands, but when she was with him nothing seemed to matter but the taste and feel of him, the words he whispered so hoarsely in her ear.
Feeling his control slip and nearly mindless with wanting, Alex pressed his knee between hers to the point she was almost straddling him. And that was her undoing, for she groaned, putting her hands around his head and pulling him down to kiss her again. His lips blistering a trail to her ear, he said, “Come up the ladder with me.”
“Up the ladder,” she said in a dazed way. There were times he felt he wanted to shake Karin and this was one of them. He kissed her again. “Listen to me, Karin. I want you and I know you want me, and unless you prefer this stall to the clean hay piled in the loft, then get yourself up there.”
“Alex, I told you…”
He didn’t let her finish. Just listening to her voice stirred him. He pressed himself closer, backing her against the wall again, his mouth coming down to cover hers. She groaned, “Oh Alex,” then kissed him back with everything she had, and Alex must have thought that was plenty, for he groaned in response.
“That’s it sweetheart.” His hand dropped to one side and began inching her dress up until he had his hand on her smooth, warm thigh. “Easy, my love, if you won’t come into the loft with me, at least let me touch you.”
She was debating that when he kissed her again, his hand moving up the outside of her thigh, then moving over. “Alex, someone might see us.”
“They won’t.”
“But Katherine might walk in.”
“She’s gone to town.”
“Adrian, then.”
“He’s gone too, so you might as well give in, unless you’re worried about what Clovis might think if he sees us.”
She couldn’t help laughing at the idea of that. Lord, what was wrong with her, ever doubting that there could ever be another man who charmed her more than Alex. Any further thought vanished as Alex’s hand found the place he sought and Karin moaned softly, a picture of Adrian coming suddenly to the front of her mind.
“Karin? Karin, where are you?”
“Oh, dear God,” Karin said, pushing Alex away. “It’s Fanny Bright!”
“There are times I swear she isn’t,” Alex said with a trembling sigh, feeling as frustrated as all get out.
“You swear she isn’t what,” Karin said, putting her clothes in order.
“Bright.”
“Well, never mind that. I just hope I can get myself presentable before she walks in here. Now you give me some time to get her lured into the house before you come out, you hear? That’s the last thing I need—her catching the two of us in here together, or to see you sneaking out after me.” Fanny called again, and Karin answered, hurrying from the barn, not giving Alex so much as a last look. Alex waited until they walked inside the house before leaving.
That night Karin lay in bed thinking that she didn’t enjoy kissing and flirting with Alex the way she used to. She found that strange, but not shattering, for she had never been one to stick to anything too long. There were just so many things to do and see, and the same was true, she supposed, of men. How could she know Alex was the one, when she hadn’t seen more than a handful of others? What if she married Alex—and then met another man she liked better? She closed her eyes and rolled over, seeing Adrian’s face again, and she found herself wondering why she was suddenly thinking of Adrian so much. But once the thought was there, she couldn’t shake it. What would it be like to kiss him? And, furthermore, what would it hurt?
This idea was firmly planted like a seed in the back of her mind and over the next few days Karin watered it liberally. Whenever Adrian was around, she began to fuss over him, lowering her lashes, brushing against him, not enough that Alex would notice, or even Adrian, at first. When Adrian didn’t respond, Karin became a little more persistent until she saw him walking toward the creek one afternoon, a fishing pole slung over his shoulder,
Adrian did not share any of Karin’s curiosity. In fact, he had grown almost to the point of despising Karin for what his brother was too blind to see, that she was making a fool out of him.
Hearing the rustle of leaves behind him, Adrian turned to see Karin coming up behind him. “Have you caught any fish?”
He gave her his back. “A few.”
She ducked her head to come under a low branch, then, when she was on the other side, she moved with a swaying walk to Adrian’s side, peering at his string of fish in the water. “How many do you have?”
“Two.” Adrian turned toward her, his face controlled, his words not very warm. “But that isn’t why you walked all the way down here, and we both know it.”
“It isn’t?” she repeated, giving him a smile. “Why
do
you think I came?”
“I think you came to get the answers to some questions.”
“Like what?”
“Like how I compare with my brother.”
She gasped. “Adrian! How can you say such a thing?”
“Because it’s true, and you know it as well as I.”
She toyed with a lock of his hair. “And if it is?”
He pulled his head to one side. “It won’t do you a bit of good.”
“Why is that?”
He turned toward her, his face a mask of red fury. “Because I don’t like the way you lead my brother around by the nose. Because I don’t like the way you pretend to care for him and make eyes at me every chance you get. Because I’m not half the man my brother is around women and you wouldn’t be happy with me for a single minute.”
“You hate me, don’t you?”
He sighed. “No, I don’t suppose I hate you exactly, but I could shake you until your teeth rattled. I suppose I’ve known you too long to hate you. We’ve always been friends. I remember how much I used to like you before you began to change. I don’t like what you’ve become.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can remember a time when you weren’t so hoity-toity, a time when you would ran barefoot and swim naked, a time when you didn’t fuss over the way you looked or worry if no one noticed you.”
“We were children then.”
“Yes, and some of us grew up. You just changed.”
She sat down next to him, feeling the need to look beautiful, to show off, drain away. “I haven’t become anything. I may want things that are different from you and Alex and Katherine, too, but inside, I’m still the same person.” He shot her a look and she said, “Oh, I know what you think, what everyone thinks. But I haven’t slept with your brother. We haven’t even come close.”
“You give the impression that you’ve done a hulluva lot more than come close.”
“Do I?” She tossed a pebble into the water. “Oh dear! I scared away the fish.”
“It doesn’t matter. I think they’ve stopped biting anyway.”
She drew her knees up under her chin. “I know you think I’m using Alex, but I’m not, Adrian. I’m really not.”