Mackinnons #02 For All the Right Reasons Read Free Page A

night when the mist rolled up from the creek. Karin was thinking her sister had been showing a lot of this gloomy side of late, poking around in her mental cobwebs, dragging out old ghosts, stirring up dead memories. It was enough to make a body shudder, like someone was walking on your grave. Take tonight for instance. Why would she dredge up Alexander Mackinnon’s name all of a sudden? He’d been gone from these parts so long that Karin had grown tired of waiting. Alex was a looker, for sure, but she wasn’t the kind to wait for a man forever—no matter how good he looked. Besides, she wasn’t about to take her ducks to a market that poor. Oh, his name still made her heart turn flips, but she had decided her heart could learn to turn flips for a rich man as easily as a poor one. “What made you think of Alexander Mackinnon all of a sudden?” she asked again.
    Katherine got that far-off look in her eyes. “Mr. Carpenter stopped by on his way back from town. He said three of his kids are down with the chicken pox.”
    By this time, Karin was looking completely dumbfounded. “And that reminded you of the Mackinnons?”
    “Well, of course it did,” Katherine said, giving Karin a direct look. “Don’t you remember how we all had the chicken pox at the same time…you, Alex, Adrian, and I?”
    “Saints preserve us! How can you remember things like that? I don’t even remember having the chicken pox, much less who had them with us.” Karin looked reflective, and just a little irritated. How on earth did Katherine manage to remember all the nonsense she had salted away in the back of her mind? It was all she could do to remember what dress she planned to wear tomorrow. Sometimes when Katherine got like this and started dumping all these questions and bits of poppycock in her lap, Karin felt like someone had just handed her a shovelful of hot coals and she couldn’t decide if she should drop it or light out running. “The chicken pox,” Karin repeated slowly, her voice trailing off in reflection. “I think I do remember something about that, but stars above! That was seven or eight years ago.” Karin stood up and began poking her sewing into her basket. “We’ve got enough to worry about right now without dragging our past along with it, especially when it’s of no value whatsoever. Like hauling garbage, if you ask me. Now, why would a body want to haul a bunch of worthless garbage around when he didn’t have to?”
    Katherine didn’t have an answer for that one. “I don’t know, but sometimes I just can’t help thinking about the way things were back then, back when mama was alive.”
    It was galling to Karin, always being reminded of how much Katherine had loved their mother, or how much their mother had loved Katherine. Karin had loved her mother too, but never in the same way that Katherine had. Katherine was like that. She didn’t love, she cherished, and when she cherished someone, that person could do no wrong in her eyes. She was loyal to a fault and no matter how hard you tried to convince her of something lacking in someone she cherished, she would have no part of it. Because of that, Karin had, on more than one occasion said that Katherine had a stubborn streak a mile high and a mile wide. But that never did stop Katherine from cherishing. That kind of loving was bigger than Karin could swallow. She knew everyone had different ways of going about things, but if she were really and truly honest she would have to admit that it made her feel that in matters of the heart she always took a back seat to Katherine. She didn’t want to be relegated to any back seat right now, unless it was in Carter Turner’s new buggy. She was feeling too happy and in like with herself to be put in her place by anyone, let alone her dreamy-eyed sister. “Well, there are more important things than the old days to think about now,” she said.
    Katherine snipped the last threat and looked sadly at her coarse brown