Elaine Coffman - [MacKinnon 04] Read Online Free PDF Page A

ship’s railing as he stared again at the churning
water. He let his thoughts surface, knowing that afterward they would settle
about him like feathers, ready to swirl in confusion at the slightest stirring.
    Old feelings, old needs, the old bitterness, bubbled to the
surface, and he closed his eyes against the memory of it, realizing then that
it was too late. Thoughts of Katherine were always with him.
    His thoughts spun backward, to the first time he had seen
her after he and Alex had returned to the old homestead in Texas after the war
with Mexico.
    We seem to have a lot in common, you and I , Katherine
had said.
    No, sweet Katherine, we don’t. To have loved but been
rejected is like being sent to bed with no supper; it’s nothing more than a bee
bite to one’s spirit. But to love and be overlooked is to die slowly by
starvation, like soap that wastes away, giving up a little of itself with each
washing.
    Oh, Adrian, why must life be so miserable?
    I’m not sure, but I don’t think even God goes through
eternity without feeling some pain. Ahhh, Katherine, what a torment you’ve
always been. Life’s a road with one bump after another, but you’re going to
make it. Have no fear about that.
    You’ll make it too, Adrian. I know you will.
    Of course I will. I’ve never doubted it. One of these
days I’ll be something to see, all right, a real sight for sore eyes, and then
you’ll look at me and say, I wish I had loved him when I had the chance.
    Only that day never came, for Katherine had married Alex,
and she was happy. He doubted she ever thought of him anymore.
    The frustrating sense of loss came back to haunt him,
stronger, more acute, than ever. Katherine. Katherine. Katherine. Would
he never be free of the pain of losing her?
    He might never be free of the pain, but he could take away
from it by filling his house with children. Children would be a part of him,
something he could love without losing.
    It won’t be long now, he told himself. Before long
you’ll have a wife and children, and the ghost of Katherine will be laid to
rest. A wife will erase her from my mind. Children will give me what I need.
    Won’t they?
    He looked up at the overcast sky. “I’ll get over you,” he
said. “I’ll find a woman more beautiful, more refined, and more educated.
She’ll be everything you aren’t.”
     
    Two days later, the weather was deceptively warm for the
middle of October. His spirits rose with the temperature as he disembarked,
taking a coach to the hotel. He remembered what Molly Polly had said to him
when she came to cook his breakfast the day he left.
    “You don’t think much of my plan to go to San Francisco, do
you, Molly?”
    “Can’t rightly say that I do, but to each his own.”
    “What is it about this trip that’s bothering you? The fact
that I’m going to take a wife? Or the way I’m going about it?” He paused,
looking at her graying hair, with its precious few streaks of that pinkish
orange color he had never gotten used to. “You think I’m wrong to go to San
Francisco?”
    “I never said that, but since you asked, I’ll tell you what
I think. I think you’re wasting your time fishing in a herring barrel. That’s a
mighty dumb place to fish when you’re looking for trout.”
    “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    Molly raised her eyes to Heaven. “‘Woe to them who are wise
in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight’,” she quoted solemnly.
    It was so melodramatic, and out of character for Molly
Polly, that Adrian laughed. “I’ve found one more thing to write on that list of
wifely requirements,” he said. “Something to go on the ‘Don’t Want’ side.”
    “And what is that?”
    “A Bible-quoting woman,” he said.
    “I would imagine she might have a few don’t wants of her own.”
    Adrian grinned at her. “Like what?”
    “Like that wad of chewing tobacco you’re always chomping on,
spitting it here, spitting it there. It’s