Kiss Me Hello (Sweetest Kisses) (6 page)

Leaving James to deal with their mother, the farm, and his own adolescent grief.

James had coped, until their mother had died of ovarian cancer the year James had finished high school.

“Were the horses on the property when we sold it?” Trent asked, and how had Trent not known one way or another?

“They were there, weed whacking between planting and harvest on a field board lease. Their new owner was supposed to come fetch them before we closed on the sale of the farm, but I never… It was a detail. I figured the people who bought us out wouldn’t just let a pair of one-ton animals wander around indefinitely, and who knows if the horses have been there this whole time, or only recently been returned to that back pasture.”

The waitress came around with the bill, which James took care of, and Trent didn’t bother to argue, lest the waitress have that much longer to flirt—pointlessly—with James.

When the waitress sashayed away—and James didn’t even bother to watch—Trent picked up the reins of the conversation.

“What did Mac have to say about this situation?”

“Said the mares are managing, though they need some care. He also said the people who bought the place aren’t horse people.”

The self-preservation instincts of a man who’d recently added two females to his household kicked in.

“I don’t have space left for two more horses,” Trent said, “much less two draft animals. You?”

“No fencing, though Inskip might let me board them with his cows.”

“Not a good plan.” Because if there was one thing worse than a loose horse, it was a loose draft horse—or two loose draft horses. “What do Daisy and Buttercup have to do with Mac’s nonexistent love life?”

James added a few little tucks and folds to his napkin. “Mac went out to dinner with the lady who owns the place and her foster kid. She kissed Mac right there in the restaurant, with everybody, including Vespa Boon herself, looking on.”

Little brothers must tattle, but Trent sensed no glee in James’s disclosure. “I’ve seen Mac’s clients sometimes kiss him in the courtroom, when he gets them acquitted against the odds, or keeps them out of jail on subsequent offenses.”

“Life is not a courtroom,” James said again. “A client kissing you or me or even Mac is not the same as this woman, who’d just met him, pulling a public stunt like that with Mac.”

“Maybe not.” Trent took the last sip of his water. “But it’s Mac’s business. You wouldn’t like it if he told you you’re a damned fool for letting Vera go, and ought to get on your horse and win her back, would you?”

James passed over the napkin, which had been transformed into an origami swan, complete with beak, tail, and majestic wings.

“He already has.”

* * *

Everything about living in the country was different, and from Sid’s perspective, mostly not in a good way.

Traipsing the length of the muddy, rutted driveway—nobody spoke sidewalk in these here bucolic parts—to catch the bus would wreck Luis’s designer sneakers in no time.

Getting to sleep without the monotonous swish and whump of traffic six floors down was impossible. The night sounds were isolated and natural—barking dogs, crowing roosters, and even the occasional hooting owl—none of which was in the least comforting.

Sid had the sense if she screamed, no one on two feet would hear her, and the cows and horses wouldn’t care.

And she wanted to scream—she wanted badly to scream.

Social Services would make an unannounced home visit any day, and the house was barely put to rights. When the case had been transferred up to Damson County from Baltimore, Sid had been warned the rules might change.

This far from the city, caseloads were probably more manageable, and rules more strictly enforced. The new caseworker wouldn’t be as sensitive about Tony’s death and its impact on Sid. The local Department of Social Services might also not be as understanding about the cultural challenges facing a kid whose mixed heritage had been unusual, even in the metropolitan area.

“I hate it here,” Sid informed her oldest cat, Bojangles. He was big, black, and long-haired, a perfect ornament to an apartment decorated in Eclectic Self-Expression, but no kind of farm cat. “Your turncoat brothers are probably all out gorging on mice until they’re the size of those idiot horses. It’s down to you and me, Bo.”

Bo yawned.

“Thank you for sharing.”

Sid went back to hanging up clothes, clothes she’d probably not wear out here in the land of blue jeans and Timbos. Carhartt outerwear was popular too—so flattering to the figure.

“I’m home!”

The kitchen door banged as Luis announced himself, and Sid glanced at the vintage Garfield clock on her nightstand in consternation. Another day shot—completely shot—and still the house gave new meaning to the term “suitcase bomb.”

“Up here, Weese!”

He appeared in the doorway a moment later, his hair sticking out in all directions, his expression amused. “You’re trying to do housework again, Sid. I’ve warned you about this.”

“Putting clothes away is not housework. It’s unavoidable drudgery, unless I’m to live out of boxes until we move again. How was school?”

“Same, same. My trig teacher is cute.”

“You made it a point to tell her that?”

“Cute, as in, gray hair, nerves of steel, twinkling blue eyes. I think she likes me. Said her grandson has red hair, and he’s brilliant. She’s about this high.” He held his hand out at the height of his own shoulder. “You hungry?”

He didn’t mention any cute girls, which was a good thing—probably. “Starved, now that you’re asking.”

Sid followed Luis down to the kitchen, which at least bore a semblance of functionality.

“Why do you suppose we always come and go through the kitchen door, rather than the front door?” she mused.

“The house was designed so the kitchen is closer to the barns and buildings,” Luis said. “The house wants us to come and go this way. Did you use up the last of the raspberry jam?”

The kitchen door was thus closer to the mud—or something worse than mud. “I might have. We should still have some apricot.”

Luis made a face, because apricot preserves had been classified in one of their frequent squabbles as girl food.

“You’ve finished your first week here, Luis. Can you dance to it?”

He was quiet as he assembled a triple-decker PBJ, then stepped away from the counter so Sid could get to work on fixing her own smaller sandwich.

“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. The usual gang of idiots is missing the worst tier at the bottom. They talk about some of the kids being in gangs, or dealing, or into the cult-worship bullshit, but I get the sense it’s ninety-nine percent talk, which is a relief.”

Luis wasn’t stupid. Not by any means. “They’re all junior plow jockeys and bake-sale queens?”

“The whole spectrum is present—the jocks, the nerds, the preppies, the hoods, the lost—but the middle rungs are wider in each group, I guess. The feel of the school is still like a school, not like a juvie hall without uniforms. What’s for dinner?”

“This is our house. A PBJ
is
dinner.”

“It’s Friday, and even in our house, we’re allowed to celebrate the weekend.” Luis screwed the lid back onto the apricot jam, then did the same with the peanut butter, and put them away when Sid had finished making her sandwich. “I could go for a piece of that lime cheesecake.”

Sid stared at the sandwich she’d made: peanut butter and apricot jam on stale whole wheat, and one slice was the heel, dammit.

“If we got a dog,” she said, “I could feed him this sandwich, and he’d think it was the greatest treat he’d had all week.”

“If we got a dog, you’d have to make sure it had all its shots, or DSS would impound him or some shit.”

The mood in the kitchen went from end-of-week relaxed to sullen-anxious-teenager in a blink.

“They haven’t called, Luis. I left the worker a message on Monday, according to Hoyle, and there hasn’t been a call back.”

“Call them again. We’re supposed to go to a review hearing within thirty days of moving out here, and it’s been ten days already.”

Technically, the workday wasn’t over for fifteen more minutes. Sid passed Luis her sandwich, and while he watched, dialed the number for DSS again. She got voice mail—she always got voice mail—but left the prescribed message and the house number for a return call.

“Satisfied?” she said, hanging up.

“I will be satisfied when they close my case and leave me in peace.”

“There are two ways through that door, Luis. You can turn eighteen, which is more than two years off, or you can let me adopt you. I support either outcome, you know that.”

He glared at the half of Sid’s sandwich he hadn’t eaten. “Do we have to talk about this now?”

“We have to talk about it sometime,” she said gently. “You won’t go to counseling, and letting you drift along in foster care for another two years makes the state look bad come federal funding time.”

“As if I give a rat’s crap how the state looks.”

“As long as your case is open, Luis, they can come along and move you back to a group home. Bad grades, hooking school, a fender bender, a dirty urine, anything, and they can take you from me, and me from you. Your lawyer made that plain enough.”

Such a helpful little SOB, that lawyer. Somewhere along the line he’d confused pontificating with zealous advocacy.

“My lawyer, the social worker, the judge.” Luis scrubbed his hand through his hair, and gave her a look from old, sad eyes. “I’ll bring in the ponies, and then maybe you’ll be willing to spring for cheesecake.”

He banged out of the kitchen, taking another bite of sandwich as he went, leaving a ringing silence behind.

Why in the ever-loving hell had Sid started that riff about Luis being moved? He’d come home in a decent mood, his impression of the school surprisingly positive after the first week, and she had to go pissing on his parade with that talk about…

The phone rang, interrupting her self-castigation.

“Sid Lindstrom.”

“Hello, Mrs. Lindstrom, I’m Amy Snyder, the caseworker assigned to Luis Martineau. How are you?”

“Unpacking,” Sid said, not correcting the social worker’s choice of title, “but getting there. What can I do for you, Ms. Snyder?”

“Call me Amy. I wanted to touch base with you, see how you’re settling in, and let you know I’ll stop out next week some time during business hours to introduce myself to you and Luis. May I say hello to him now?”

“He’s out with the livestock. If you like, I can have him call you back in a few minutes.”

A slight pause, suggesting Sid had either given the wrong answer, or the woman was typing in her contact note as they spoke.

“I’ll talk to him when I make my home visit. Do you have any questions about moving out here? You have Luis enrolled in school?”

“I have. I did want to ask when the review hearing is. I understand we’re supposed to attend one in the next few weeks, and Luis is already anxious about it.”

Another pause while the worker probably looked at the court order from Baltimore.

“I’ll put one in the works when I come in on Monday, and the court will send out the hearing notice. Luis is encouraged to come because the judge is supposed to see the kids in the courtroom regularly.”

“Luis knows the drill. We’ll look forward to meeting you in person next week.”

They hung up, and in the pit of Sid’s stomach, in the place that never forgot she’d already lost a brother, and Luis wasn’t hers to keep yet, unease germinated and tried to set down roots.

“Heaven help me, lime cheesecake sounds like just the antidote.”

* * *

What was a kid supposed to do with his weekends in the country?

Sid put the question to herself as she climbed out of bed early Saturday morning—bedroom curtains weren’t in the budget yet, and the sun apparently rose earlier out here than it did in the city. She made pancakes, breakfast being her fave meal of the day, and sat down to consider which room she might focus on putting to rights.

All of them, none of them. A straight week of laundry, unpacking, washing glassware, dusting corners, and trying to domesticate left her without motivation.

“You cooked.” Luis scrubbed his hand over his eyes as he came down the kitchen steps. Even the guy’s sweats were nudging into high-water territory.

“Alert the media. I left your plate in the microwave. Coffee’s hot.”

Luis got to bottom of the steps and stretched. “I think I’ll have tea.”

“When did you become a tea drinker?” And when had he developed such defined biceps?

“I’ve always liked it. My mom used to fix us tea without the tea. Mostly hot milk and sugar. Where’s the syrup?”

“Hell if I know,” Sid said, though maple syrup doubtless lurked in the cupboards somewhere. “You’ll have to rough it with butter and sugar.”

“I like butter and sugar. You heard back from Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe about the estate yet?”

It
all
comes, said Rabbit, from watching
Rocky and Bullwinkle
reruns.
“I called Mr. Granger twice, and haven’t heard back, natch. What will you do with your day?”

“Mac said he’d bring over some halters and show me a few things about handling the horses.”

“Mac?” Sid knew damned good and well which Mac.

“I called him this week and reminded him. Making do with braided baling twine isn’t going to cut it if my girls have a frisky day.”

“Your girls?” Sid barely resisted the urge to cross her arms.

“We’ve gone through the first bag of feed.” Luis put the kettle on the burner and turned the heat on high. “Probably not a good idea to run out.”

“Weese…”

“I got a lead on a job,” he said, getting down a mug and tossing in a tea bag. “There’s a guy over the hill—Hiram Inskip—who farms a lot of our land, and he might need some help.”

“I recall the name. What do you know about farming?”

“I know you get to drive tractors and use a lot of equipment. I’m good at engines.”

He was genius with engines, but big engines ate boys’ fingers for dinner. “You’re fifteen. Child labor isn’t legal, and machines are dangerous.”