Kiss Me Hello (Sweetest Kisses)

by Grace Burrowes

  Even a lawyer might not have known to lob that verbal grenade.

  “I’m from around here,” Mac said, not examining the motives behind his prevarication. “My brothers and I own a business in town, and we all live a few miles from here in one direction or another.”

  “Are they blacksmiths too?”

  “It’s not that kind of business. If you’re simply going to sell this place, why take up residence here?”

  Some sort of thumpa-thumpa rock music started up on the floor above. Sid’s gaze drifted to the ceiling, and Mac saw for the first time what had been lurking behind the offhand, dukes-up manner. She was worried and sad. Then too, she’d used the past tense regarding her brother.

  The loss of a brother…

  “You moved out here for the boy?” he asked, mostly to cut off such bleak thoughts.

  “You ever lived in Baltimore or DC?” she shot back.

  “I went to school at the University of Maryland, so I’ve spent plenty of time in DC and Baltimore both.”

  “Probably not the parts of town where Luis grew up. It’s a damned swamp. Just running to the corner store for an overpriced loaf of white bread, a kid has a thousand opportunities to go astray or be the victim of somebody gone astray. The compulsory school day is a gauntlet you and I cannot imagine. Weekends are just as bad.”

  “You lived in those neighborhoods?”

  She set her rainbow mug down on the table and cradled it between her two hands. Pretty hands, plain nails, clean and blunt. No rings.

  “That’s the thing about cities. You think they’re large, sprawling, and complicated, but when trouble wants to find a kid, trouble is just a few bus stops away. I’m pretty sure Luis wasn’t a gang member, but he was the next thing.”

  Not good, but understandable. A gang was a family, of sorts. “You said he’s been in foster care for three years? He would have had to have been a child…”

  “Not by urban standards. He was the man of the house, with two younger sisters and a mama to look after. He was doing a fine job too.”

  So proud of the kid. “By selling drugs, muling them, maybe by selling himself outside the gay bars?”

  She hunched forward, as if the temperature in the kitchen had just dropped twenty degrees.

  “We have crime out here too, Sidonie Lindstrom, and we have children. My sister-in-law Hannah grew up in foster care, and some of the things she suffered in the care of the state would break your heart.”

  “You have kids?”

  The question took him aback. He needed to ogle less and pay attention more. “I do not.”

  “Luis isn’t my first foster kid, but I was warned. The other foster parents all said there are kids that get to you. You love them all, or you try to, but a lot of foster kids are simply putting in time while their parents get their act together.”

  Mac waited and waited while a clock over the sink ticked softly.

  “I want to adopt him,” Sid went on. “Summer’s coming, and summer is another swamp. With all the budget cutbacks, summer school slots are getting harder to come by, and Luis gets great grades. He’s smart. So smart, in some ways, and yet such an idiot. This place seemed safe, seemed like what I was supposed to do next, because nothing and nobody means more to me than that kid.”

  Adopt. A difficult, complicated word.

  “Farms can be great places for kids.” Mac sounded like an ad from the county extension office, but it was the best he could do. “On a farm, anybody can make a meaningful contribution, no matter how young or old, and a kid with an ounce of imagination will never be bored on a farm.”

  “You were raised on a farm?”

  “I…was.”

  “Then you know what to do with those horses. Why don’t you take them?”

  “I don’t have the right fencing.” Fortunately.

  “Why can’t I run an ad?”

  “Horse slaughter in the United States is subject to periodic bans, but anybody can buy a horse at auction and take him to the boats in Baltimore.”

  “Boats?” She hiked her foot up onto the chair. She was that petite, that limber.

  “The horse walks on under his own steam on this end, but by the time the boat docks in Europe, he’s packaged in cellophane and ready for human consumption, and the entire operation is outside the purview of any U.S. humane organization, or any regulatory body, to ensure the horse, who is not regarded here as a food source, is safe to eat.”

  “Daisy and Buttercup…?”

  “Are nice, big animals. At sixty cents a pound live weight, they’d bring a fair price.”

  Her hand went to her stomach, and Mac did not feel the least guilty. “Luis would put me on the boat with them if I let that happen to Daisy and Buttercup.”

  Good man, Luis. “They’re happy here, and they’d give Luis something to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “They probably shouldn’t be at grass twenty-four-seven. When spring really gets under way, that can lead to grass colic, so somebody should bring them in at night and turn them out each morning. When it gets hotter, you reverse that schedule, so they don’t have to deal with the worst heat outside, but can loaf in the barn where it’s cooler. They’ll need fresh water every time they’re brought in. Someone should groom them from time to time to make sure they aren’t sporting any scurf or scratches, and when the flies get bad, they’ll need—”

  Sid held up a slim, freckled hand. “Stop. You make it sound like they’re a full-time job.”

  “They’re a commitment. As to that, the four-board fence you have should probably be reinforced with a strand of electric, but I can get that done in a day or two, if the boy will help.”

  “What will that do to my electric bill?”

  Not a no. Daisy and Buttercup were counting on Mac being able to dodge Sidonie Lindstrom’s no.

  “Won’t cost you anything. We’ll run the fence off a solar cell.”

  “Which will cost me how much to purchase?”

  She’d crossed her arms and sat back against her chair to glare at him as she fired off her questions.

  “Not one damned cent. My brothers and I have all the material on hand. We each own some land, and Trent has a growing herd of horses. Consider it a housewarming present.”

  “Do you always offer your presents with such pugnacity?”

  “Yes.”

  This did not have the intimidating effect Mac intended. Sid’s lips quirked, and then that wide, wicked mouth of hers blossomed into a soft, sweet smile.

  “I’m not very good at presents either,” she said, patting his hand. She rose and took their mugs to the sink, affording Mac a much-needed moment to absorb that smile while she rinsed out their dishes.

  Sidonie Lindstrom went from tough, hard-nosed, and combative to alluring, in the space of a single smile. Mac had been expecting a nice, rousing little argument—the lady seemed to enjoy a spat—and instead she’d given him a benediction in the form of her smile.

  “You’ll need some tack too,” he said, studying the molding over the door. Either water was getting in through some crack, or the staining had been a half-assed job. “I’ll put the word out and see if we can come up with some halters at least. Their feet need a good trim, and you’ll want the vet out for spring shots, and they probably need their teeth floated too.”

  “Now we’re talking money,” she said, her frown back in place as she turned and leaned against the sink.

  “Money’s a problem?” People who bought big farms generally had at least big borrowing capability.

  Her gaze went back to the ceiling. The next floor up boasted at least five bedrooms, one of which was directly above the kitchen. The music had been turned down, though the bass still vibrated gently through the kitchen.

  “Money is a problem, and it isn’t,” Sid said. “At the moment, we
’re cash poor, though I don’t anticipate that will be the case in a few months.”

  Because she was going to flip the place. Mac didn’t like that idea at all.

  “The vet and the dentist will leave you a bill. Most of them will work with you if net thirty’s not an option. I can look after the trimming and show Luis what to look for.”

  “Why?”

  Her smile was nowhere in evidence, but Mac understood the compelling urge to look gift horses in the mouth.

  “We’re neighbors. I don’t know what that means where you come from, but out here, it means we help each other when the need arises. Whoever told you Damson Valley is a friendly place was telling the God’s honest truth.”

  Though Mac himself wasn’t much given to friendliness—usually.

  “Fine, then how can I help you?”

  He wasn’t expecting that. Her question earned his respect—a little more of his respect.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Don’t think too long.” She pulled a towel from the handle of the refrigerator—more bright colors, chickens and flowers this time—and dried their mugs.

  “Because you’re selling this place?” He rose and studied the line of her back, trying not to be mesmerized by the way that thick coppery-blond braid kept brushing the top of her backside over faded, comfortably worn jeans.

  “Because I do not like to be beholden to anybody, Mr. Knightley. What do I owe you for coming by here today?” She kept her back to him, and Mac had the sense she was steeling herself for the answer.

  Cash poor, indeed.

  “A couple slices of pizza will do. Maybe three, provided nobody orders any anchovies. But first, Luis and I will have to get some stalls cleaned out in the barn and scare up something to use as halters. We’ll need buckets and bedding too.”

  She dried the second mug and set it up in the cupboard, then turned back around. “Luis can be difficult.”

  “Then we should get along, because I can be outright impossible.”

  “Yes.” The smile bloomed again, that blessed, beautiful, soul-warming smile. “I can see this about you, MacKenzie Knightley. Outright impossible.”

  Damned if she wasn’t giving him the impression she liked that just fine.

  * * *

  Sid sent Luis grumbling out to the barn. From the looks of his room, he’d been napping, not setting his personal space to rights.

  To have both males out of the house was a relief. Men had a noisy, biological presence, and not the kind of noise Sid enjoyed. The noise she liked was suburban or urban. Varied, impersonal, too complicated to attribute to any one person or source.

  “You miss it too, don’t you?” she asked a fat, long-haired marmalade cat reclining on Luis’s bed.

  The beast squeezed its eyes shut in answer, and began to rumble when Sid scratched its neck. What if horses could purr? The racket from those two red monsters would resemble jet engines. Sid scooped up the cat and went to the window, the better to watch Luis shuffling across the yard to the barn.

  He hadn’t wanted to move out here either, but where else were they to go?

  For the thousand millionth time, the thought “if Tony hadn’t died” tried to take root in Sid’s mind, a useless, stupid thought. She pushed it aside, and brought the cat with her down the hall to her bedroom.

  Sid hadn’t chosen the largest bedroom in the house, but rather, had taken the one at the back, with a high ceiling, a private balcony, and a view out over the fields and pastures that comprised her property.

  “I will learn to appreciate it,” she informed the cat. “I may not like it, but for now, it’s home.” She put the cat down on her bed, a big fluffy four-poster that went well with the room, and sat beside him.

  To close her eyes would feel heavenly. To enjoy for a moment the quiet of the house without male feet—teenage or otherwise—stomping through it, to know somebody else had an eye on Luis for even a little while.

  Sid lay down, the cat curling up against her side, and let herself drift.

  * * *

  “How long you been taking lessons with Adelia?”

  Mac posed what he hoped was a neutral question. With teenagers, anything, anything could become grist for the drama mill. He recalled his younger brothers’ adolescent moodiness as if it were yesterday, and gave thanks they’d all weathered those storms without irreparable injury.

  “I’ve been taking lessons for a few weeks. Before we moved here, Sid brought me out on weekends once she signed me up with them.”

  Nothing more, no polite overtures, no small talk. Maybe they’d get along after all.

  “You muck your horse’s stall at the riding school?”

  “And scrub the water buckets, groom my horse, throw hay, and clean my tack.”

  “Then you’re just the man these ponies have been looking for.” Mac walked into the barn’s understory. The good news was the structure was built of chestnut beams and fieldstone and likely to last forever with minor maintenance.

  The bad news was the minor maintenance probably hadn’t been done for ten years. Cobwebs hung everywhere, dust accumulated in sedimentary layers on every surface, and little light came through windows larded with fly specking and dirt.

  “Water’s back here,” Mac said, going to the sidewall of the barn. The frost-free spigot was barely discernible in the gloom, a bucket festooned with cobwebs still hanging from the hook. “Say a prayer it works.”

  He spoke in Spanish, a little to keep Luis’s attention, a little to practice. A criminal defense attorney with some bilingual ability had an advantage, both in garnering business and in earning trust with Hispanic clients. Then too, Spanish was easy and pretty.

  “People who live beyond civilization’s borders can’t be expected to speak civilized languages.”

  Mac looked up from the rusty water gushing into the old bucket, because Luis had spoken in the soft, lilting French of the islands.

  “People who are new to a territory ought to do more listening than judging,” Mac replied in the same language, and he went on in French, because the look on Luis’s face was positively comical. “I dated a girl from Toronto in high school, and she helped me with what I’d learned in class. I also spent a couple summers crewing on a sailboat in the Caribbean. Dump this, would you? I’ll find us some brushes and rags.”

  Luis took the bucket without another word and disappeared out into the sunshine.

  Mac rummaged in the old dairy, which had been made over into a tack room of sorts, and came up with more buckets, muck forks, old toweling, and a bucket brush.

  “Let’s focus on the run-in stall,” he said—in English—when Luis came back. “The rest of this barn needs a crew and some serious cleaning equipment.”

  “May we speak French?” Luis asked, using what was apparently his native language. “I seldom hear it, and I don’t want—I prefer it.”

  Luis didn’t want to forget his mother tongue, and Social Services had not thought to place him with a family who spoke it—if they’d had one to offer him.

  “If you’re not too proud to ask,” Mac said, “I’m not too proud to stumble around, provided you correct my errors.”

  A glint came into Luis’s eyes, humor perhaps, or guile. “I will correct you.”

  “I will correct you as well.” Mac tossed an old towel at him. “Refill the bucket and start on those windows. You’ll need the brush too.”

  “While you do what?”

  “Muck the hell out of the run-in.”

  They worked mostly in silence, which was fine with Mac. Luis worked hard, like a person his age could, with single-minded determination to do the job right. The windows didn’t exactly sparkle when he was done—the old single-pane glass needed newspaper and vinegar for a real shine—but they let in light.

  “It looks better,” Luis said. “B
ut that’s only one corner of the barn.”

  “It’s a start. We’d better knock off now, or the feed store will close before we can get to it.”

  Uneasiness crossed the kid’s features before his expression went blank. “Sidonie will prefer I remain here.”

  “Then she can come with me, or you both can, or I’ll leave you directions to the feed store so you know where it is.” Getting into a truck with a strange man was apparently on Luis’s don’t-even list. Mac did not speculate about why. “We’ll need to clean up some before we’re seen in public, in any case, but, Luis?”

  The boy stopped a few steps up the barn aisle.

  “You put up the muck forks and buckets and so forth every time, because if a horse gets loose, he can tangle himself up in them, destroy them, or do harm to himself.”

  Luis retrieved the muck fork from where he’d propped it near the water spigot. Mac gathered up the rest of the forks, buckets, towels, and brushes and followed Luis back to the dairy/tack room.

  “How do you know the horses?” Luis asked as they turned for the house. “Sid says you know their names.”

  “Buttercup has the blaze. Daisy has the star and the snip. I grew up around here, and those two were the state champs at one point.”

  “They’re champions?”

  “They were, years ago. Does Sid speak French?”

  “She tries, but she is too proud. She has to be the mother.”

  This last was said with a sweet smile as they walked back to the house. When this boy filled out, he would turn heads and break hearts—provided he stayed out of jail.

  “Lost my dad when I was not much older than you are now,” Mac said. “A mother is a fine thing to have.”

  Luis’s head came up. “My mother’s in jail. Twenty years for CDS distribution, and a lot of other bullshit.”

  “You ever get to see her?” Controlled Dangerous Substances, a.k.a. street drugs.

  “She’s in Jessup.”

  Not an answer. Jessup was a lot closer to Baltimore, though, and moving out here would make visits to the prison harder to arrange.

  “I’ve visited Jessup. The facilities aren’t bad, for a jail.”