“What are you doing, then?”
“I’ve been perfectly honest with Alex. There are things I want, things I can’t get here, things Alex can’t give me. He knows that.” Karin lapsed into silence, staring at the flat surface of the water without really seeing it. She was seeing Miss Minnie Perkins, the oldest spinster in Limestone County. Ninety years old, and in her fourth rocking chair. Dear merciful God, what if that happened to her? Over the years that Alex had been away, three young men had cycled through her life, each one looking promising at first, then dwindling to nothing. Of the three, one joined the army; one went back East to school; one was pushed into marriage with a wealthy Dallas girl.
There were times she thought about catching the next stage and taking it as far as the money she had would take her. She told herself that she was simply a woman who needed more in her life than a place like Limestone County, Texas, could offer. She told herself that marriage was a way to put Limestone County behind her; that it was possible to love a rich man just as easily as it was to love a poor one. Basically, men were all alike—some were like fleas, hopping from place to place, while others were like ticks and once they latched on they sucked you dry. Alex didn’t seem to fit either one and that puzzled her.
It was at half past four in the afternoon a week later that Karin was tying a wide taffeta bow on a new bonnet displayed in the window of the seamstress shop. She tied the bow once, then backed off a ways to look at it, then yanked the ribbon, and retied it. This went on for a few minutes, tying and relying, until she felt she had it right. And the moment she stepped back and smiled with satisfaction at her handiwork, she glanced up to see Alex Mackinnon grinning at her from the other side of the window. He took the watch from his watch pocket and opened the lid pointing at it, then looking at her in question. She held up ten fingers and mouthed the word ten minutes. He nodded and pointed to the place he now stood, telling her in that wordless way that he would be waiting for her there in ten minutes’ time. Karin nodded, watching him walk away before she turned back to what she was doing.
Ten minutes later when she locked up the shop, Alex was waiting for her, just as he’d said. “This is a surprise,” she said, relieved when he took her packages from her.
“I’ll toss these into the wagon, then we can take a stroll through town.”
Karin looked at the main street of Groesbeck, which happened to be the only street, and said, “It’ll be a short one.”
Alex laughed. “True, but we need to talk.”
She nodded, feeling the knot of apprehension curl inward in her stomach.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said.
“About what?”
“I think I was wrong to come back here thinking I could make a go of things. Adrian and I— Well, we’ve tried, but it just isn’t working.”
“You haven’t given yourself much time, Alex.”
“Time isn’t the problem. I could spend the rest of my life here trying to scrape a living from this unforgiving place and still have no more to show for it than I do now.” They reached the wagon and Alex placed the packages beneath the seat, then turned, taking Karin’s arm and guiding her up the street. “There are so many things I want for us, things we can never have as long as I stay here.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you’re leaving?” She laughed. “Now you sound like me.”
“No, I’m not leaving. At least not right away.” His laugh was dry and crackling. “That’s the hell of it. I don’t know where I’d go even if I did leave. I only know I won’t ever be anything more than a poor dirt farmer as long as I stay here.”
“And I don’t want to be a dirt farmer’s wife.” She saw the way he looked at her. “I know Katherine would say there were worst things than being a dirt farmer, that you were young and strong and in time…” Her eyes were pleading. “I can’t think of anything worse than being a dirt farmer, Alex. Absolutely nothing.”
It surprised her when he said, “I know. Sometimes I feel the same way. If I keep going like this, in time I’ll be dead, just like half the men around here will be because they’re killing themselves at a hopeless task, hoping to perform miracles.”
“I suppose you’ll just have to make the most of it and not give up hope until an opportunity for something better comes along.”
“What if that opportunity never comes? Or what if it does and I can’t make myself latch onto it? I’ve always loved the land. You know that. I can’t see myself doing anything that would take me from it. But it’s no use. Adrian and I have buried every cent we had in this place, and for what? A few dehydrated sprigs?” He looked up at the sky, a red, molten ball beating down without mercy or moisture. “We haven’t had a good rain in a while, and you know what that means to a dry-land farmer.” He fell silent, staring off for a moment. “God, I hate this—this feeling so goddamn helpless. You can’t imagine what it’s like to work your fingers to the bone, plowing and planting, and then watching every seed, every tiny green sprout break forth with promise, only to wither and die beneath this hell-born sun.”
“Then you’ll have to do what others do who aren’t farming. Get a job.”
“Doing what? Shoveling manure in the livery? Counting pennies at the bank? Hell, I wouldn’t last a week.” He shook his head. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s what I should do, but somehow I can’t seem to make myself walk through a door that the hand of poverty is holding open.” He sighed and they walked on in silence, passing a store or two, a few people they knew who spoke or nodded in passing. Everything was closing down for the day, folks turning their thoughts toward home and more than likely, what was for supper. Alex and Karin reached the end of the board sidewalk and taking her arm again, he helped her step down and cross the alley. Once they were in the middle, he sighed and took her hand as if it were some sort of apology, and drew her aside, down the alley to stand behind the protection of some stacked crates. He took her in his arms and kissed her softly. “I know I confuse you. I asked you to trust me, to give me time, and you did. It tears me up to know I’ve failed you, that I can’t give you the things I was so certain I could.”
“You haven’t failed me, Alex, because I never believed you could do those things, not because I doubted you, but because I know what a cruel mistress the land can be.”
He looked down at the sweetest angel face that looked back at him with wide, beautiful eyes. “No matter what you say, I made so many promises, promises I couldn’t keep—save one.” He pulled her against him, cuddling her head against his chest and resting his chin against the top of her head. “I promised to always love you, and that hasn’t changed. You do know how much I love you, don’t you?”
She nodded.
“It’s been pure hell for me to keep my hands off you and to keep from taking you to my bed. I want you so bad I can’t sleep at night, but that will have to wait a while, I guess.”
“I wish I knew what to say, how to help you.” She laughed and took his hand. “We’re a strange pair, aren’t we, Alex? The blind leading the blind. Here you are, wanting above everything to spend the rest of your life here, yet fate seems determined to drive you away, while I want nothing more than to get as far away from this godforsaken place as I can, yet every door out of here seems shut in my face. Here I am, terrified I won’t ever get away from here. And you? You’re worried you won’t be able to stay.”
Chapter Nine
Katherine was sitting on the back porch crying when Alex rode up.
He didn’t know she was crying at first, but by the time he got close enough to see her sitting there, her legs crossed like an Indian, her skirts tucked in the circle of her legs, her bare toes peeking from beneath her frayed hem, her head resting in her hands, he heard the soft, muffled sounds of her crying.
Funny, Karin could cry and he took it in stride, but seeing Katherine—something about the forlornness of it pierced him to the soul. Perhaps that was because tears came to Karin frequently and with apparent ease, while Katherine was the kind who kept such emotions private. “Sweet Katherine,” he said, coming up the steps and dropping down on one knee beside her, “why are you crying?”
“Just go away and leave me alone,” she said between sobs.
“I can’t leave until I know why you’re crying, so you might as well tell me. Has anything bad happened?”
Her head shot up and her lip quivered. “Not unless you consider what that careless, inconsiderate, pestiferous mule did as bad.”
“Clovis?”
“Do you know any other mule around that fits that description?”
He shook his head. “Well? What did he do?”
“Come here,” she said, climbing clumsily to her feet and clutching his arm, “you can see for yourself.” She led him around the side of the house to where a makeshift wire was stretched from the house to the chinaberry tree, a wire she used to hang out her laundry, just as she must have done earlier today. Only now the clothes weren’t on the line, they were scattered about the yard, trampled and dirty, the basket overturned and half of it missing. His eyes lingered on the frayed edges of the basket. “What in the…”
“He ate it,” she said, almost choking on the dismay in her voice. “He was eating what was left of it when I came out here and found what he had done.” She looked around the yard at the tossed and scattered laundry and her lip quivered again. “Just look at what he’s done,” she said, the tears coming of their own accord in spite of her efforts to hold them at bay. “Do you have any idea just how long it will take me to get this mess all cleaned up and the laundry rewashed? And some things,” she said, picking up a pair of bloomers that had been shortened to a provocative length, “are beyond repair. He ate the legs out of these,” she wailed. “Now they’re fit for nothing except the rag barrel.”
He tilted his head to one side and studied the chewed bloomers, a vivid picture coming into his mind—a picture of Katherine wearing nothing but those lopped-off bloomers and a mass of long, mahogany hair. His eyes went over her slowly. Was she as leggy as his vision of her, or was it simply because of the bloomers’ indecent length?
Alex saw the hopeless look on her face and patted her arm, looking around. “Where is he now?”
She wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. “Sulking in a stall in the darkest corner I could find in the barn.”
He laughed. “He won’t like that. I better see to him before he tears the stall apart.”
“He won’t get the chance to tear anything this time. I snubbed him so close he can’t even blink, and I plan on leaving him there.”
Alex pushed his hat back and looked around the yard at the scattered laundry. “Well, it’s a mess for sure, but you can’t punish him forever. He’s just a dumb—”
“Don’t you dare tell me he’s just a dumb animal,” she shrieked. “He’s smarter than two dictionaries and meaner than an acre of snakes! I’m the only person in the world who’s nice to him and this is my thanks!”
Alex forced the smile that threatened to stay hidden, his arm slipping around her shoulders. “Well, if it helps any, I don’t think he meant it as something personal against you.”
“He doesn’t care one way or the other. That’s the problem. And he’s stubborn as—”
Alex grinned, looking down at her. “A mule?”
Her face seemed to transform right before his very eyes, the anger and frustration melting away to be replaced by a smile held in tight check. Alex threw back his head and laughed, and the tight grimace eased itself into a bright smile, Katherine’s bubbling laugh joining his a moment later. She elbowed him sharply. “It’s not funny, Alex.”
“I know,” he said, “but I figured I could laugh if you did.”
“I might as well laugh,” she said, looking around at the destruction scattered about the yard and sighing in a sad, dejected way, “it’s the only enjoyment I’m going to get out of all of this.”
“Now, this sounds mighty strange coming from someone I remember always telling me that I would
get out of things just what I put into them.
Don’t you feel that way anymore?”
“Of course I do! It’s just that what I’ll be putting into all of this is nothing but backbreaking work. It’ll take me a while to gather everything up, then I’ll have to spend a whole day doing laundry I’ve already done.”
“I know.”
“Heaven only knows when that peddler man will be back this way with another basket like that one I had, and it cost me two bits! There are a million things I need that I could buy for two bits.”
“I know.”
She clamped her hands on her hips and glared up at him. “You keep saying the same thing over and over.
I know. I know
. Is there anything
else
that you haven’t told me that you
know?
”
“I know you’re the most adorable woman I’ve ever seen and if I wasn’t already head over heels in love with your sister, I’d be after you faster than Clovis was after that laundry basket.”
“If you didn’t love my sister, do you think you really could love me?”
The question jarred. “Don’t ask such silly questions. Everyone loves you,” he said, not really answering her question.
He watched the teasing light of humor fade from her eyes. “And you’re in love with my sister, so those were really wasted words, weren’t they? We both know where you stand.”
The life had gone out of her voice, and he knew why. He knew how Katherine felt about him. It was something that soaked into him like a hard rain—welcome and refreshing at first, but coming too hard and too fast to handle. He didn’t want this complication in his life, and he didn’t want to spoil the friendship he had always had with her. Most of all, he didn’t want Katherine to be hurt.
Don’t love me, Katherine. It hurts too much to know I can’t give you what you want.
“Yes, we do,” he said softly, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t help you gather these things. Then I’ll see to that pen Clovis keeps breaking out of, although I think we’ve got more mule on our hands than pen. You need a new one.”
A teasing light came into her eyes. A second later, he heard it in her voice. “A new mule, or a new pen?”