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

when I touch you. Does it repulse you? Does it frighten you? Does it make you wish I would hurry up and go away?”
    “No!” she screamed. “It makes me want you to do all the things you want to do.”
    “Then why, for the love of God, aren’t we doing them?”
    “Because it’s too soon.”
    “Too soon for what? I’m leaving at first light. We sure as shootin’ can’t do them by mail!”
    “It’s too soon for us to know what the future holds for us, Alex. You’re leaving to join the Rangers. There’s a war brewing. Anything can happen. You could change your mind. You might be caught up in a stupid, senseless war and get yourself killed. Or you could meet someone else.”
    “Or you could.”
    “I know that. That’s why we can’t. I’ve made a vow to myself. I won’t give myself to any man without marriage.”
    “I’ve offered you that and you’ve refused.”
    “I didn’t refuse, Alex. You were talking about the future. I said I’d give you my answer when you came back.” Her arms had come around him then, soft and sweet and sure. “I love you, Alex.”
    “I love you too.”
    That had been the last thing he had said to her. The next morning he had ridden away. Now, almost four years of his life had passed since that night, and he still meant those words as much as he ever had. Problem was, did she?
    His horse faltered and pulled him out of his reverie. He glanced at Adrian, seeing their return had the same effect upon him. For some time, the brothers rode in silence, following the neglected road, passing a pond on their left—a pond where Alex and Adrian had spent many an hour fishing for catfish and catching nothing but perch. A sad smile lingered on Alex’s face as he remembered the first few times they had fished for their supper after their ma and pa had died. Their older brother Nicholas had appointed the twins, as the two youngest, to be in charge of the garden and catching fish, while the three older boys worked the fields and tended the livestock. How many times had he and Adrian thrown out their lines with their mouths watering for a big, juicy catfish, only to pull in perch after perch after perch, and tiny ones at that. Not knowing how to clean a perch, they had simply gutted them, lopped off the heads and dipped them in cornmeal to fry. He chuckled softly, remembering the way Tavis had take a bit bite and immediately spit fried perch all over the place. “What’s the matter with you?” Ross had asked.
    “You try it and find out.”
    Ross took a bite, and like Tavis, spit fried perch all over the place.
    Nick was laughing now. Then giving the twins a questioning look, he said, “You boys did scale those perch, didn’t you?”
    “Scale them?” the twins said in unison.
    Nick threw back his head and laughed, a deep rolling laugh that he swore later had left his sides aching and tears in his eyes. Alex had never been reminded of it before, but now it came swiftly to him, just how much Nicholas was like their father, and just how much he missed both of them.
    Rounding a bend in the road and coming up over a rise, they came in sight of their old house and drew up, content to just sit in the middle of the road and stare. It didn’t look as fine as it had in his memory, or as new. At one time it had been a handsome, dignified place with a neat yard surrounded by a picket fence covered with woodbine and Virginia creeper, and their mother’s rocking chair on the front porch. But after their mother and brother were killed by the Comanche, the house had been burned, and only the chimney and a small part of it had survived. They had helped their father to rebuild it, or at least make a good start, but their father had been scalped before it was finished and the brothers had finished the rest of it, using the original fireplace and two of the bedrooms. They soon found that they weren’t the craftsmen their father was, and the old place had never looked quite the same. In fact, Nicholas