He heard the anger in her voice, heard the unbearable sadness behind it, and the bewilderment.
“When my father died, I was all too happy to scamper back to college a few months later. I couldn’t stand to be home, couldn’t stand the memories of my father sitting in the porch swing with my mother, complimenting her on her mashed potatoes, talking politics to his draft team, explaining lawn-mower engines to James. Dad was everywhere, and nowhere, and it tore at me. When you’re making that transition from youth to adult, you desperately need for home to be the unchanging rock you assumed it was for your entire childhood.”
None of this speech had been on Mac’s agenda for the morning. He should have scheduled time with Thomas, but he went on speaking anyway.
“I realized eventually I had to be that rock for my family. That was how I’d get to keep a little of my dad for myself, by taking Trent in hand when he got to college, popping in at home every few weeks, and doing one hell of a job on the academics.”
“Your point?”
“When you’re grieving, it hurts to hold on, and it hurts to let go. Every day you have to renegotiate the balance between the two. All of your choices come at a cost, but you have to take on the choosing anyway.” He’d never articulated that before, never acknowledged the effort wrapped up with the loss.
Sid expelled a sigh and dropped her head forward, so she was addressing the new, green earth.
“I’m tired and a little worried. We’ll be OK once the estate is settled.”
Which was likely months away. The bigger the estate, the more closely the probate court examined it.
“You’re keeping those mares. I’ll bring a check over midweek.”
Mac’s every instinct screamed at him that Sidonie needed holding and petting and comforting. She needed to lean, damn it, preferably on him, and she needed to cry, preferably on his broad shoulder. That much, Mac could give her, if she’d only reach for it.
Sid remained beside him, her foot propped on the fence, her gaze on the new grass.
She neither spoke nor moved for a long moment, and Mac had offered what practical help and comfort he could. He didn’t know what else to do, so he walked away and left Sid the privacy she seemed to crave.
Chapter 7
From her perch on the porch swing, Sid watched the behemoths—beshemoths?—munching their grass. She’d grown used to seeing them in their pasture, to seeing Luis leading them into and out of the barn. He talked to them, and they seemed to listen, some secret code emerging between young man and old horses.
A pair of one-ton hussies.
Sid sipped her tea, enjoying a break from sending out résumés. Damson County was far enough west and north that commutes to Baltimore or DC would be a pain in the behind, particularly if she was supposed to be home when Luis got off the bus. He was old enough to be home alone, but DSS frowned mightily on latchkey children.
Sid was tired simply from keeping house and sending out her paper. How on earth was she supposed to cope with a long commute?
A movement along the wall of the barn caught her eye. She set her teacup down and watched. The high weeds rustled, undulating with the passing of some animal traveling along the stone foundation.
All three of her cats were accounted for on the porch.
A rat?
A snake?
A stray cat?
Nothing good wiggled in the weeds like that, so Sid fetched the broom from the kitchen and advanced slowly across the yard. An odd sound came from the weeds, an animal sound but not right.
From behind Sid, a low growl told her one of the cats had come to investigate.
“Bo, get back on the porch!” She waved the broom at him, but old alley cats didn’t flinch at mere brooms. “Scat, you! This isn’t some rat in a pizza box.”
The rat, or whatever, made the noises again, and Bo hunkered, wiggling his back end down as if to pounce.
“No, drat you!” Sid pushed him two feet to the side with her broom, then wheeled to watch the clump of weeds where the noise came from. A dark brown nose poked out, weaving slightly, followed by dark button eyes.
“What the hell?”
Bo growled again, and Sid barely saw an orange blur detach itself from the porch swing and start slinking across the driveway.
“No, Harvard! You get back!”
She waved the broom at the second cat, and pivoted back to see something teetering out of the bushes.
A raccoon, an adorable if big raccoon. Enormous, really, and looking drunk, or like it had eaten something raccoons weren’t supposed to eat.
“Oh, you poor thing.”
She started to advance on the animal, only to hear a voice crack like a whip behind her.
“Sidonie, don’t. Step back now.” MacKenzie Knightley, and he was sighting down the barrel of a serious-looking gun.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” Sid was nowhere near his line of fire, but waved her broom anyway when the gun discharged with a loud report, and the raccoon expired like a deflated balloon.
The silence in the wake of that shot felt obscene.
“Who the hell do you think you are?!” She flew at him, broom raised, prepared to deliver as many stout swats as it took to drive him from the property. “You don’t come onto my land and kill an animal just because it needs help.”
Mac set the gun against his truck—how had Sid not heard that vehicle lumbering up the drive?—and snatched the broom away from her.
“Bad idea, Knightley.” She raised her hand to wallop him solidly across the cheek, a sick thrill coursing through her. In some terrible way, smacking him as hard as she could would feel wonderful.
Except the blow never landed. He imprisoned her wrist in an implacable grip and folded her arm down to her side.
“Calm down, Sidonie. Rabies is nothing to fool with.”
“Tell the raccoon to calm down,” Sid said through clenched teeth. She was trying to wrestle her hand free and trying to kick Mac when she got the inspiration to body slam him. She threw herself against him, her momentum having exactly no impact against his much larger frame, and that only made her more angry.
“You killed a helpless animal,” she railed. “Hauled off and shot it, judge, jury, and executioner. You can’t do that on my property. You can’t just—”
He wrestled with her silently while she bellowed and raged, until some dim corner of Sid’s mind realized she was pressed hard against Mac’s chest, his arms were around her, and she was bawling like a distraught child.
“Sidonie, hush.” He held her snugly, securely. “The raccoon was ill, suffering, prey for anything healthier that came along. Living in misery. That animal would not have lived much longer, and every moment would have been agony.”
“I know.” She choked out the two words and buried her face against his shirt, all the fight and every ounce of dignity going out of her. “I hate you.”
“Hate me all you want. All you need to.”
Mac’s hand stroked slowly over her hair, the same way he touched the horses. A soothing, reassuring touch that turned Sid’s spine to mush.
“I really do hate you.”
“Then you won’t mind if I take a small liberty.” He scooped her up behind the knees and hefted her against his chest. “You can hate me for this too.”
“A goddamned caveman is loose in Damson County,” Sid muttered, but she didn’t put it past MacKenzie Knightley to drop her if she started struggling. In a few steps, he sat with her on the porch swing, taking the place immediately beside her.
He produced a hankie from some pocket and shrugged out of his jacket, wrapping it around Sid’s shoulders and anchoring it with his arm.
“What kind of caveman goes around with a monogrammed handkerchief?” Sid groused.
“One prepared for saber-toothed women who are too soft
hearted for their own good.”
“I’m not softhearted.” Sid blotted her tears and silently recited a lot of bad words no softhearted woman should know. Mac’s jacket smelled like him—cinnamon and clove and meadows—and sitting beside him, his body heat was a palpable comfort.
“You will admit that raccoon was dangerous in the first place, Sidonie, and overdue for the Rainbow Pasture in the second?”
“The Rainbow Pasture?” She couldn’t help but smile, his tone of voice was so stern and his euphemism so unexpected.
“That’s what my nieces call heaven.” He set the swing to rocking with the heel of one boot. “You looked tired to me on Saturday, Sidonie.” His arm drew her closer, as if he expected her to wiggle away to disprove his words.
“I am tired, but I’ve been tired since…” She turned her face to his shoulder. Since forever.
“Since your brother died.”
“The reasons to run you off the property just keep adding up, Knightley.”
“You’ll have me quaking in m’boots.” His hand settled against the side of her head then slipped over her hair. “What did you have for lunch?”
“The help-wanted ads. They’re enough to ruin anybody’s appetite.”
“Sid, you can’t keep up with a teenager, much less a teenager and this property, without proper rest and nutrition. Stay here and do not fuss at me, or you’ll meet the only caveman in Damson County with an entire lecture on women and their fool notions about how to look after themselves.”
He got off the swing and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Sid to admit she’d enjoyed his warmth, enjoyed the solid, muscular bulk of him, though she was also grateful to have a few minutes to herself. She snuggled into his jacket, suspecting MacKenzie Knightley was perceptive enough to leave her in peace on purpose.
When she woke up, Mac was scowling down at her. “You need a nap.”
“I am not eight years old to need an afternoon nap. What did you cook?”
“Eight-year-olds are long past the nap stage. You have no red meat on the premises, so it’s vegetable soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Shall I carry you into the kitchen?”
“God, no.” Sid swung her legs down and stood quickly, lest she be carried over the threshold of her own kitchen.
“Land sakes, woman.” Mac had a hand under each of her elbows. “You need a keeper. When you’re hypoglycemic, standing up too fast is a recipe for disaster.” He steered her into the kitchen, managing to hold the door as he guided her by one arm. “My guess is you’re anemic into the bargain if you’re avoiding red meat. Eat up, or I’ll fetch that broom you’re so fond of and use it on your backside.”
Sid sat. “You’re kind of cute—in an overbearing way—when you’re clucking and fussing.”
“Fine,” he said, taking the teakettle off the stove. “Call me names, but eat what’s in front of you.”
“I’ll take some high-octane Darjeeling—two tea bags, please.” She picked up a golden-brown, still-warm grilled cheese sandwich with the cheese threatening to ooze over the crusts. “And lots of sugar in it too.”
“You will not. The last thing you need is a shot of caffeine at this point in the day to keep you up all night.”
She wanted to argue with him, but he’d truly grilled the bread in butter and loaded on the cheese. “You put oregano in this?”
“A little of this and that.” Mac set a steaming mug of herb tea at her elbow. “What time does Luis get here?”
“Another half hour. Shouldn’t you be out wrestling horses somewhere?”
“My clients are all taken care of for the day.”
“Then sit and stop glowering at me. You make a good grilled cheese.”
He turned a chair around and straddled it. “Has the social worker been here yet?”
“She has not.”
A little silence, while Sid savored hot food made by someone besides herself.
“What kind of job are you looking for?”
“Paying job, for starters.” She glanced up from the sandwich she was bolting to see he was smiling at her.
God above, MacKenzie Knightley was a handsome man. His demeanor camouflaged it, but he had the kind of face that looked out from perfectly lighted ads in men’s magazines. Strong, masculine bones, thick dark hair, dramatic eyebrows, and a pair of perfect, chiseled lips.
They looked sculpted, but they’d be soft, those lips.
“I know people,” he said. “I can probably find you something that pays. Not a lot—salaries are less out here than in DC and Baltimore—but something. You’ll need benefits too, health insurance at least.”
“I don’t want a job mucking stalls, Knightley. How many of these did you make?” She held out the remaining crust of her sandwich.
He got up and opened the oven, then put a second grilled cheese on her plate.
“You might as well eat the last one,” Sid said. “But you’re not getting me a job. Bad enough you’re paying us for mares that aren’t yours, and then you have to see my annual meltdown, and feed me”—she took a sniff of gustatory heaven—“garlic salt, and pizza seasonings along with the oregano, right?”
“Maybe a dash. What kind of work do you enjoy, Sid?”
She gave up fencing with him—the food was too good for that—and talked about all the parts of managing a production crew she’d enjoyed. The stepping and fetching, the variety, the sense of being needed, the lack of time chained to a desk.
The freedom and the knowledge that she was helping to create something.
“Let me think about it,” he said, rising. “If I make more for Luis, will it ruin his dinner?”
“Grilled cheese sandwiches will be his dinner.” She picked up half of the second sandwich, though the food was making her drowsy. “We haven’t fallen into a routine here yet, or not a good one. He comes home, grabs something to eat, then disappears into the barn or goes off into the fields. As it gets later, he hits the books. He’s pretty self-sufficient.”
Mac gave her a look over his shoulder from his post at the sink.
“You are not to do my dirty dishes, Knightley. I have a few scruples left.”
“Eat your soup before it gets cold.”
He was like those draft horses: too big, too solid, physically but also emotionally, to be bullied, intimidated, argued, or swayed off his chosen path.
For a few minutes earlier that afternoon, his solidness had been a blessed comfort. Sid finished her soup and her sandwich—every bite—then took her dishes to the sink for MacKenzie Knightley to wash.
* * *
Sidonie Lindstrom was working herself up to a swivet.
Mac put the last dish in the drain rack and forcibly turned his thoughts away from what might have happened if she’d come any closer to that miserable coon. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources considered every one of them rabid, and they were illegal as pets as a consequence.
She’d been determined to fix it, to help it.
Though she might have died in the process.
“I’m running a string of electric fencing around the mares’ pasture,” Mac said, knowing full well he had no right to be on Sid’s property without her permission. “I picked up the supplies from my brothers, and Luis can lend a hand. He’ll need to know how to fix it too.”
Sid watched him drying his hands on a towel, and Mac would have given his last five retainers to know what was going through her head.
“You don’t live here, Knightley. It’s not your pasture to worry about.”
“It’s you and the mares I’m worried about.” He tucked the towel over the handle of the refrigerator. “If the mares get loose and somebody’s car hits them, you are liable for all the damage done to the car and the loss of human life. You’ll also have to pay to have the horse’s remains disposed of, because the authorities frown on
burying horses in the backyard.”
“And one good lawsuit can ruin your whole life.” She saluted with her tea mug. “Fine, take liberties with my fences. You’ll probably add to the property value, and Luis will like the idea of keeping his ladies safe.”
Nobody would ever take liberties with Sid Lindstrom’s fences again, though somebody had apparently tried.
“Every man worth the name needs to keep his ladies safe,” Mac said. “Don’t ridicule Luis for being honorable.” What drivel was he spouting, when he should have been chasing Sid up the stairs—to take a nap?
She pushed her hair out of her eyes, much as Merle or Grace might do, though the gesture was weary.
“You’re right, and I’m sorry. Tony was so much older than I. I don’t have a sense for what a guy, fifteen going on sixteen, might want out of life.”
“But you’re determined to finish raising him?”
She took a sip of her tea. Stalling. Mac told his clients to ask for a cup of water when they were on the witness stand and cross-examination was getting too intense.
“I was sixteen when my mother died, and I was headed for foster care until Tony stepped up and announced he was ready, willing, and able to take in the half sister eighteen years his junior, a kid he barely knew, one he’d seen mostly at holidays and a few family gatherings, and not a very nice kid at that.”
Mac resisted the urge to sit at the table. Sid would need space when she was parting with confidences, just as some of his clients needed him to move around the office, water his plants, and otherwise look preoccupied when they confessed their misdeeds—or made up their lies.
Sid had no plants, so he started putting away the dishes he’d washed.
“Most of us have trouble being consistently nice at sixteen, Sid.”
Her dishes were pretty, something he hadn’t noticed earlier, and the dishes, cups, and bowls all matched.
“Luis doesn’t have trouble being nice. He’s a solid-gold gentleman, MacKenzie. I don’t know whether it’s his culture, his upbringing, or his determination not to be the trash society sometimes tells him he’ll become, but he’s good to the bone.”
Kiss Me Hello (Sweetest Kisses) Page 11