Mackinnons #02 For All the Right Reasons (54 page)

“Then you won’t mind if I don’t ignore you. That wouldn’t be polite, you know.”

“I don’t want you to be polite. I don’t want you to be anything…except gone. I’ve got work to do, Alex.”

“Katherine!” Karin gasped, coming out the back door. “Where are your manners?”

Karin. How lucky can I get?
Katherine mumbled something else under her breath and crossed her arms, looking at her sister. “What are you doing here in the middle of the week?”

“I have the most wonderful news to tell you.” She stopped in front of Alex, giving him a looking-over like she was committing him to memory. “Hello, Alex. You’ve changed.”

He looked at Karin briefly. “Hello, Karin. So have you.” His eyes went back to his wife. He realized suddenly what had just happened. For a moment Alex was too stunned to move. He had just seen Karin, the woman he had loved longer than he could remember and it hadn’t done a blasted thing to him. He hadn’t felt even the slightest quiver of attachment. Not even a flicker of interest. He had known he would ultimately see Karin again, and he hoped to prove to himself that he didn’t love her as he once had, but he didn’t plan on being knocked over the head with the surprise of it.

Maybe you didn’t get a good look. Or maybe she didn’t look good.

His eyes went over Karin, slow and easy. Nope, that wasn’t it. She looked good. Real good.
But not as good as Katherine
.

Maybe it just hasn’t had time to soak in that it’s Karin you’re looking at.

He couldn’t help himself. He looked her over good and proper this time, from the yellow straw bonnet dripping with pink silk flowers and the smooth shimmer of golden curls clustered beneath the bow, over the pink dimity dress, the tiny waist, the slim hips, the parasol, now closed and balanced in her hand. All the way from Waco and not a smudge or a wrinkle or a hair out of place.

What are you feeling now?
Nothing
.

Nothing?

A great, big, wonderful nothing
. He smiled, feeling supreme satisfaction. The feeling vanished the minute his eyes landed on Katherine. There she was, in her faded gingham bonnet, strings dangling—make that one string dangling, for the other was missing entirely—one braid, sloppy and coming loose, hanging down her back. His eyes traveled over the simple cotton dress—the blue washed out and faded almost to gray except at the seams—then down the sleeves which were rolled up, making him notice the scratches from the rosebush on her arms, the green stains on her hands. Strange, the things that make a man hear music and go weak in the knees. He took another quick look at Karin.
Nothing
. Then he looked at Katherine.
There it is again. The sound of music. The weak knees. It must be love.

His eyes lingered on his wife’s face. She wasn’t taking all this scrutiny too well.

Katherine was still standing with her arms crossed, watching Alex and Karin drool over each other like two starved hogs eyeing the same slops. Unable to stand it any longer, Katherine said, “What wonderful surprise do you have for me?”

“Come into the house,” she said, taking Katherine’s hand, then seeing how dirty it was, she dropped it. “The surprise is in there.”

No one invited Alex, but he tagged along anyway, telling himself that no one had told him to stay away either.

“Why didn’t you write to tell me he was back?” Karin said, as they went up the back steps.

“I haven’t talked to you since he came. Besides, I didn’t think it was important.” Giving her a questioning look, she added, “Is it?”

Karin looked dumbfounded. “Heavens, no. Why would you ask that?”

“I don’t know,” Katherine said, stepping into the kitchen. “Why would I?”

“Well, fiddle-dee-dee, I don’t want to get all bogged down in trivia at a time like this.” She took Katherine’s arm, careful to avoid her hand, and led her into the parlor. William Burnett was standing in front of the window, looking as handsome and distinguished as he had the day Katherine met him. Katherine looked around the room. Will was the only thing that had been added, but he wasn’t a surprise, since Katherine had already met him weeks ago.

“Where’s the surprise?”

“Right here,” Karin said, releasing Katherine’s arm and moving to take Will’s.

Fanny walked into the room about that time. “You’re giving him to us?”

Everyone laughed except Katherine, who felt like she was the only one left in the dark. “We’re married,” Karin said. “As of ten o’clock this morning I’m Mrs. William B. Burnett.” She held up her hand to show her ring and Fanny backed away from the glare.

“That ain’t a surprise,” Fanny said. “It’s a miracle.”

This time Katherine laughed along with everyone else, running across the room to hug Karin. “I can’t believe you got married without telling me,” she said.

Karin laughed. “I didn’t know myself until Will woke me up banging on my door at eight this morning and tossed a stack of boxes as high as a house in my front door and told me to put everything on, that he’d be back for me in one hour and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. You wouldn’t believe what he gave me.”

“A wedding dress,” said Katherine.

Will laughed at the surprised look on Karin’s face, then he introduced himself to Alex. “Well,” he said, upon finding out Alex was Katherine’s husband, “I didn’t know I’d be meeting my brother-in-law today.”

“Neither did I,” Alex said. “I could tie up half the afternoon asking you questions, but I guess Katherine can fill me in on everything later.” Turning to Katherine, Alex said, “Love, do we have any spirits in the house? An occasion like this calls for a toast!”

Katherine was so dazzled by the sound of Alex calling her
love
, that Fanny, bless her soul, had to step in. “Dewberry wine is about it,” she said. “We’ll have to settle for that.”

Katherine invited Will and Karin to stay for supper, but Will said they were catching a stagecoach in Dallas and had to be on their way. “We’re going to New York City,” Karin said. “Can you believe it? And then we’re sailing for Europe.”

Katherine had never seen Karin so happy, and she had never felt so happy for her. Life was harsh and cruel. Life wasn’t supposed to be like this. Her eyes filled with tears—happy tears. Who would have thought it—here they were, nearly starving a few years ago, and look at them now. Katherine intended to go on and get all emotional thinking about all the hard times, when suddenly she remembered when Karin was being courted by that horrible old Ben Witherspoon. She began to laugh.

She laughed. And she laughed. She laughed until tears came streaming down her cheeks and she doubled over as if in pain. Alex, who was wondering over Katherine’s sanity at this point, helped her to the sofa. Karin looked panic-stricken. Will looked completely baffled. Fanny looked like there wasn’t a thing out of the ordinary going on.

“Whatever’s the matter?” Karin asked, coming to sit beside Katherine.

“I was trying to get all sentimental, and then I started thinking,” Katherine choked out between fits of laughter, “about the time Ben Witherspoon was courting you.”

“Ben Witherspoon!” Karin said, “that old…”

“F…fossil,” Fanny said, catching herself just in time. Everyone in the room started laughing.

“Remember how we hadn’t had anything to eat that winter except pork?” Katherine said.

“And how old Witherspoon kept bragging about all his beef?” Karin said. “You started dropping hints right and left, your mouth watering…”

“And old Witherspoon brought us all that…”

“
Pork
,” the three women said in unison.

By this time, even Fanny was laughing and the three of them sat on the sofa laughing and crying and hugging each other until Will looked at Alex and said, “I’ve got a bottle of good Kentucky mash in the buggy.”

Alex was there first.

Sometime later, Alex, Katherine, and Fanny stood beside the gate, watching Will hand Karin into a shiny new buggy when Karin remembered she had left her parasol. “I’ll get it,” Katherine said, running into the house.

She had just picked it up and started for the door when Will stepped into the room behind her. “I’m glad to have a chance to speak to you. I know you must think I’m too old for Karin, and you may be right. I have a daughter the same age as Karin and a son two years older. But I honestly believe I’m the right man for her. I love her, Katherine, and more importantly, I understand her. I know some people may think her flighty and too obsessed with money and the things it will buy, and perhaps she is—deprivation and loss of parents can do that to some people. But that doesn’t matter to me. I’m a rich man. I can give her anything she could ever want and more. With me she feels secure for the first time in her life, and I feel ten feet tall knowing I’ve given her that.”

By the time Will finished, Katherine was crying again. “Here now,” he said, coming to take the parasol. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Katherine gave him her best rendition of a bear hug and kissed him on his clean-shaven cheek. “You haven’t upset me at all, Will. You have, by making Karin happy, made me very happy as well. Thank you,” she said, “thank you from all of us.”

After Will left, she stood at the window and watched him hand Karin her parasol and climb in the buggy next to her. Never had she seen Karin so relaxed and radiant. How had she not seen it before—all the love shining in her face? The thought of the happiness in Karin’s life made her even more aware of the hollowness in her own, and she turned away from the window and went upstairs before Alex and Fanny returned.

Two days later, Alex faced the sweltering one-hundred-and-four-degree heat and rode over to Katherine’s. He had purposefully given her a couple of days away from him, hoping Karin’s marriage might have some positive influence upon their strained relationship. But when he reached the Simon place, he couldn’t find Katherine or Fanny, and seeing the wagon and Clovis were gone, decided they had gone into town.

He went back home and tried getting his mind on work, deciding to put the new roof on the tool shed, but after he smashed his thumb for the third time, he called it quits. Hot and restless, he headed down to the creek for a swim to see if he couldn’t cool off and think things through. It was time to have a confrontation with Katherine and he wasn’t sure how he should approach it.

As he walked through the trees lining the creek, he remembered how many times he had done this when he was growing up, and how many times he had hoped to catch a glimpse of one of the Simon sisters. And then he remembered one time when he had.

Lord, that had been a long time ago, but the memory of it was still as vividly painted across his mind as the day it happened. He thought about the way Karin had looked when he had seen her the last time, perfectly groomed, as always. He couldn’t help wondering if Karin naked still looked as good as the memory he carried of her. He closed his eyes, seeing her as she had been that day, the sun warm upon her pale skin, the water sluicing from her body, the dusky tips of her breasts hard and pointed. He had loved her intensely from that moment.

He dipped his head, coming up on the other side of a branch and froze.
What the hell? Karin. Karin here?
He could swear she was, standing in the water, just as he’d seen her then. He blinked. She was still there. He closed his eyes for a moment, knowing she would be gone when he opened them. But when he did, she was still there. And then she turned, stepping out of the shadows into the sunlight and he saw this woman didn’t have blonde hair. This woman had auburn hair. Hair like his wife. In fact, she looked a lot like his wife. By God, it was his wife!

Alex couldn’t move. He stood, transfixed, watching his wife walk into the deeper water, swimming and splashing, then swimming back to stand in the shallows, giving him a good view of what she kept hidden beneath all the prim buttons on her dress. The current carried the long strands of her hair to swirl like ribbons of shiny black silk around her hips and legs. He watched her standing in the sun-dappled shallows, where she washed her hair beneath the droopy, yellow-green branches of a willow tree, tiny iridescent bubbles of foam sluicing over skin as pale as a winter moon.

He remembered a time years ago, when a young boy had come to a place very near this one, and how he had stood, dry-mouthed, and watched a beautiful girl bathe in the warm waters of this same creek. In that boy’s youth it had been commonplace to measure a girl’s beauty by a physical measuring stick, to yearn for what he found dazzling, but fiery youth saw in only half-truths. Age had made the boy into a man and taught him to be practical, to look with the heart and not the eyes. That man had learned his lesson. He had not brought the faults of youth into his later life. He understood that youth had its pleasures, and although different, age had them as well. They weren’t the same pleasures, but they were no less enjoyable.
This
was the lesson life had taught him. He had learned it, and gained a profit.

And wasn’t that what life was all about?

Suddenly, uncontrollable laughter gripped him and he went weak in the joints. Laughing as hard as he was, he was powerless and too watery legged to stand, dropping to a half-rotted log before he fell over.

The sound of masculine laughter drifted over the tops of trees and across the water to where Katherine stood. Instantly, she dropped low in the water, holding her breath. She listened. Her fists clenched.

She knew that laugh.

Yanking an old sheet from the limb where she had left it, Katherine wrapped it around her body and made her way through the undergrowth, drawing closer to the sound. She broke through the brush and saw Alex sitting on a log, collapsed in a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

The bastard is laughing at me!
The thought seared like a hot poker and she moved like someone had just applied it to her backside. Certainly there was more pride in her zeal than charity when she came up in front of him and said, in the most caustic tones, “Why don’t you tell me what’s so funny and then we’ll both laugh?”