Mackinnons #02 For All the Right Reasons by Elaine Coffman Page B

down her wet face in great droplets and splashing on his hand. He drew her closer, feeling her shoulders shake, the trembling that overtook her. He dropped his chin on the top of her head and began rubbing her back.
    He had been rubbing for some time when he realized she had stopped crying. For the briefest moment he felt reluctant to let her go. There had always been this strange bond between them, a closeness he couldn’t explain. There were times he almost felt like he was one side of a coin and Katherine was the other side, but that sounded so idiotic that he would dismiss the idea as soon as it came. It was Karin he loved. But he did have a strong feeling of some unexplainable sort for Katherine. Drawing back and cupping her chin with his hand to lift her tear-streaked face, he wiped the tears with his thumb. “Better?”
    “Not better,” she said with a shaky voice. “Just all cried out.”
    He laughed and gave her a quick kiss on the head. “Tell you what. Why don’t you ride Tarnation on over to your house. I’ll just take my shovel,” he said, removing the small spade from his saddle. “I’ll give that little friend of yours a decent burial, then I’ll come on.”
    “I can walk.”
    “I know you can,” he said, dropping the spade and sweeping Katherine up into his arms. He carried her to his horse and put her in the saddle, handing the reins to her. She started to say something, but he gave Tarnation a swat. “Go on, now.”
    He watched her lope across the pasture on Tarnation. He remembered the day Tarnation was born. Katherine had been there and the two of them had wiped the jet black colt dry. “I want you to name him,” he had said to her, but before she could answer, Karin walked in, wedging herself between them.
    “I’ve got to go,” Katherine said, rising to her feet.
    “What about a name?” Alex asked.
    “You can name him Tarnation, for all I care!” Katherine said hatefully, and left the barn.
    Alex had done just that.
    Now, he was shaking his head as he watched her and the black gelding go over a hill and out of sight. Then he turned and picked up the spade, walking back toward the place where the fawn lay. He saw Adrian coming toward him.
    “That was touching. What were you doing, rehearsing for Romeo and Juliet? ”
    “Ease up, Adrian. I’m not in the mood for your cynicism.”
    “What are you in the mood for? Pawing one sister while you’re bedding the other one?”
    “What’s gotten into you? I wasn’t pawing anyone, and what I do with Karin is my own damn business, but I haven’t bedded her.”
    “Just keep your filthy hands off Katherine. She’s not like Karin. She’s decent.”
    “Is that what’s eating you? Because all you know is decent women? You know what I think? I think you’re as randy as a seasoned buck, but you don’t know how to go about getting any woman to ease it for you. Why don’t you go into town like I do?” He shrugged. “It’s your choice. But if you choose not to, don’t go around taking your troubles out on me. I’m—
    Alex never got to finish that sentence, for Adrian’s fist came out of nowhere to crack his jaw, driving him to his knees. “Okay. Okay,” Alex said, coming to his feet and wiping the thin trickle of blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’ve been itching for a fight for weeks. We might as well get this over with.”
    Adrian cracked the other side of his jaw. This time Alex didn’t say anything. He simply dove at Adrian, locking his arms around Adrian’s knees and sending them both to the ground.
    An hour later they buried the fawn as well as their battered bodies would allow and hobbled down to the creek and fell in, clothes and all, both of them covered with blood and caked dirt, aching in places they didn’t know they had, their mouths too swollen to talk, their bodies too weary to want to. For over an hour they had simply lain there, in the shallows of Tehuacana Creek, letting the cool water