Kiss Me Hello (Sweetest Kisses) (8 page)

“That’s just it.” Sid picked up her sandwich in two hands, rocking her hips from side to side in the chair, as if settling in for a tug of war. “The lawyers are never on your side. They may take your money, but they’re on their own side, ultimately.”

Now was not the time to argue—or to tell Sid he was a lawyer. “They can’t break the law to please a client.”

“And yet they drag their feet, prevaricate, don’t return phone calls, all the while charging an hourly rate that would bankrupt The Donald in nothing flat.”

Some lawyers did that, though it was hard to get away with in a small town. Word traveled quickly.

“You having trouble with a particular lawyer?”

“The lawyers handling Tony’s estate, for starters. Seems they can pay the rent on the studio and give Thor free rein with the business decisions, but with Tony’s personal assets, they are as tightfisted as my Scottish granny.”

“Who are they?”

Sid gave Mac the name of the firm.

“Over in Baltimore?”

“With offices in DC and Boston. This is a good sandwich.”

Which brought up another touchy subject: “When was the last time you sat down to eat something with protein in it, Sidonie?”

“Pancakes have eggs in them, so this morning.”

And she thought lawyers were bad. “You going to let Luis get away with having nachos for lunch?”

“I didn’t see you chasing after him to retrieve the contraband.” She took another bite of her sandwich, chewing like a squirrel. “He’s fast, and getting bigger by the day.”

“Boys will do that, but we’re discussing proper nutrition.” Mac opened a few cupboards, found what he was looking for, and turned a burner on. “You don’t have much here in the way of fresh produce, Sid. Veggies are good for growing boys.”

And grieving ladies
. Mac kept that thought to himself.

“You have a point,” Sid conceded. “But somebody would have to cook the fresh veggies.”

“You cook the frozen ones,” he said, pouring milk into a saucepan. “Fresh ones aren’t that different. Do I take it that some of your financial worries would be alleviated if Tony’s estate were disbursed?”

Sid glared at the remaining two-thirds of her sandwich, which was answer enough.

“Tony was a fricking financial genius. He bought this farm on a whim, to flip it in a few years, or so he said. Tony could spot a deal.” She chewed more slowly. “Yes, I am shamelessly sitting on my rosy ass, at least for now, when I ought to be out finding work. Except I want to be here for Luis, and we just moved here, and there isn’t much call for a video production infield utility gofer out here in God’s country.”

“File for unemployment. It’s income, and if you worked, you earned it.”

“I worked up until a year ago, when Tony started having bad spells. I’m not sure I still qualify for unemployment. What are you doing there, Knightley? Making free with my comestibles?”

“Here.” Mac put a steaming mug of hot chocolate in front of her. “You said you’d drink milk. This is milk.”

“You made me
hot
chocolate
?”

“It’s comfort food and good for you.”

Sid’s brows knitted, and she traced a finger around the rim of the mug. “I don’t have any of the mix. How did you do this?”

“You have bitter cocoa, sugar, vanilla, salt, and milk.”

Sid took a sip, then a second sip. “Yours is better than the instant kind. More chocolate.” She swiped at her top lip with her tongue.

“You want another sandwich?” Or maybe Mac would scrub the cobblestones Luis had already wrecked his knees scrubbing.

“I want you to sit and stop pillaging in my kitchen. How did you learn to make this?”

“My mother believed her sons should know their way around the kitchen, particularly when she had no daughters to assist her. You done with the nachos?”

“Knightley,
sit.
”

Mac sat, which was a bad idea. He had a front-row seat when Sid once again licked that little chocolate-milk mustache off her lips.

“Who’s your lawyer?” he asked, needing to see her dander up again. Sid hated lawyers, which he tried to regard as a good thing.

“I don’t have a lawyer, nor do I want one.”

She was enjoying the hot chocolate, though. Mac couldn’t help but notice that.

“You should have one, because the estate lawyers don’t represent you. They don’t have your best interests at heart. They won’t hop to it just because you say so.” They’d go merrily billing away, in fact, not exactly milking the estate, but doing a thorough job of administering it.

Sid saluted with her mug. “That is the damned truth. How do I afford a lawyer when the estate people won’t turn loose of the first nickel? What you call your basic conundrum, there.”

“It’s your lawyer’s job to get the nickels turned loose,” Mac said, “particularly if Tony set up some sort of trust with you as beneficiary.”

“Weese got the trust from a life insurance policy. I get a wad of cash, I think.”

She
thought.
Six months into probate, and she hadn’t seen a preliminary accounting, nor apparently even had a peek at the will or the trust documents.

Not good.

“How about I have my lawyer make a few calls?” Mac asked, putting the lid back on the guacamole dip.

“No thank you. Lawyers who make calls are lawyers who send out bills. Did you make any more of this stuff?” She nodded at her mug.

Sid would let him fix her another hot chocolate, but not arrange free legal help. Usually, people were pestering Mac to take their cases, to “look over” the charging documents, or “talk to the cops” for them. His clients often wanted something for nothing and were happy to get it.

“I can make you more, Sidonie.”

“How about you show me how?”

Mac did, standing next to Sid at the stove, leaving her to stir the milk with the wooden spoon while he put away the nachos and dip and wiped off the table.

“What do you suppose Luis is up to?” he asked when she’d poured the hot chocolate into two mugs.

“Damned if I know. He’s in love with those horses, though, and that’s going to be a problem.”

“How?”

“We cannot afford them.”

A money problem, Mac could solve. A problem with Sid’s pride, only Sid could solve.

“What if the owner paid you to board them here,” Mac suggested. “Paid you what they’re costing you, plus something for their care?”

“That would be Luis’s idea of a prayer answered. He seems to spend more time out at that barn with each day.”

Whatever that quote was, about the outside of a horse being good for the inside of a man, it went double for kids, probably quadruple for foster kids.

“Have you seen what he’s done there?” Mac asked.

“I have not,” Sid said, passing him his hot chocolate. “I figure he’ll let me into the secret clubhouse when he wants me to see it.”

“Take a look. He’s working miracles. Now, about the horses.”

“And their imaginary owner, who has not, in the two weeks since we closed on this place, so much as picked up the phone to ask after his fair damsels. I asked the real estate agent to call the previous owner, but even his agent can’t find him. I don’t suppose you know who this paragon of pet-owning responsibility would be?”

Mac took a fortifying sip of his hot chocolate. “In a sense, I think that would be me.”

* * *

And
here
I
was
beginning
to
like
him—or his hot chocolate.

“Mr. Knightley, I do not appreciate prevarication, mendacity, or manipulation,” Sid said. “Why would you leave your horses here, come on the scene as if you knew nothing, and now offer me some sort of confession?”

“I can explain.”

The road to hell should be paved with those three words. “You can keep your explanations,” Sid said. “I cannot abide people who trade in falsehoods. Ask Luis—on your way out the door.”

Sid had also respected this guy, respected his generosity and competence, his willingness to deal with Luis—but when had her judgment regarding guys ever been trustworthy?

“You asked me a question, Sidonie, at least let me answer it.” Mac sat back in his chair, reminding Sid she couldn’t bodily toss him anywhere.

“So answer, then beat it. Take the mastodons with you.” At least Sid had his hot chocolate recipe to keep.

“I didn’t leave them here. I never had title to them, and if you can’t listen with an open mind, why should I bother? I can walk out that door, and there isn’t a judge or a jury on this earth that would hold me responsible for those horses. I hold myself responsible. Why don’t you run your ad on Craigslist, and explain to Luis why his horses ended up in a freezer headed for Belgium?”

MacKenzie Knightley wasn’t the kind of guy whose fuse burned down quickly and loudly. His arguments were soft, reasonable, and nasty.

“You said they were yours. Now they’re Luis’s?”

He had blue eyes, and they reflected a world of frustration. A guy this size, this frustrated, whom Sid didn’t know well at all, ought to be intimidating.

And he was, but not scary. MacKenzie Knightley was formidable, but she would have bet her leather bomber jacket he was honorable. Surely any guy who scolded her about protein and grief while he made her sandwiches and hot chocolate had to have some honor?

“My father bred that pair,” he said, staring at his mug. “They were the last pair out of his own mares, and he was looking very much forward to seeing what they could do. We broke them to drive, to the plow, and even to ride, and they were smart about it. Full of common sense, like the best ones are. I competed them at the state fair and did well.”

“Which is how you knew them at sight?” More than a decade later, he knew them at sight.

“Yes. But we sold them when we sold the farm after my mother died, and the new owners were supposed to come pick them up after we’d closed with the farm’s buyers. Not everyone has a stock trailer that can handle such a big pair of animals, so we thought nothing of it. James was the only one living here, and when he moved out, the horses were contentedly enjoying pasture board. I don’t think it occurred to him—to any of us—to follow up.”

“Who’s James?” Sid asked.

“My baby brother. Six years younger. Wonderful guy.”

“Are you telling me those horses have been lounging here for the past ten or twelve years unattended? I do not believe that.”

“I don’t know.”

Sid saw no guile, no deception in Mac’s eyes. What she saw surprised her: he truly did feel responsible, wretchedly so.

“They’re enormous horses, Knightley. Somebody would have noticed them.” Though she’d been on the property for a week before she’d caught sight of them—and she didn’t have a job in DC or Baltimore that kept her away for most of the day.

He rose and took his mug to the sink, and he didn’t stop there. He scrubbed his mug out with soap and hot water, then put it in the drain rack.

“It’s possible they were someplace else for years at a time,” he said, “but came back here to board, because the property can accommodate them. Their feet have been tended to occasionally, so they weren’t feral.”

One-ton feral horses. Sid abruptly missed the blandishments of the city all over again.

“They need bigger pastures than other horses?”

“Not that so much as they need stronger fencing, bigger stalls, higher ceilings, and very stout gates. A couple tons of horse regularly scratching on a fence post will soon have it on the ground.”

Sid was by no means as sturdy as a fence post and neither was Luis. “You’re sure this is your Daisy and your Buttercup?”

“I’d bet my farrier’s tools on it, and those belonged to my dad.”

Which, Sid supposed, was comparable to a solemn vow for MacKenzie Knightley.

“Why didn’t you come right out and tell me what was going on?” Sid asked. “I cannot stand lying. Will not stand it.”

Now his gaze slid away, but Sid let the question hang. No matter how much she liked Mac’s hot chocolate, or Luis liked his horses, the man would deal honestly with her or not deal with her at all.

“You’ve put together that I was raised on this farm?”

Well, hell.
“No, I did not. This is where you grew up?”

“My mom died in the bedroom where Luis is sleeping now. She wanted it that way, and hospice and James and Trent and I made it possible. The memories are mixed, but mostly good. They’re just not all happy.”

How could a man have good memories of the very house where his mom had died?

“So you didn’t tell me you grew up here, didn’t tell me those used to be your horses, and I have to wonder what else you’re not telling me.”

Sid was abruptly having to take slow, deep breaths, because the thought of three boys losing their mother—not to a few years in jail, but for forever—made her chest ache.

“Would you like to tell me about the day Tony died?” Mac didn’t raise his voice, didn’t put any particular inflection in the question at all, and his salvo landed directly on target as a result.

“I would not. So you were minding your business, and then last Saturday, you got the wind taken out of your sails.” A relief to think Mac’s deception was a symptom of simple human bewilderment—a not entirely convincing relief.

“Yes.” He leaned back against the sink, looking incongruously domestic, a linen towel listing Scottish swear words over his shoulder. “The wind taken out of my sails, to see the place had been sold again, to see Daisy and Buttercup, to feel like we’d—like
I
had let them down by losing track of them. I’m not stupid, but I need time to figure out the things most other people take right in stride. Compared to my brothers, I’m slow.”

Damn him for being able to put that into words, for being brave enough.

“But you can cut right through situations that would stop everybody else,” Sid finished for him, because that was the other half of the syllogism of life at the social margins.

“Pretty much.” Mac studied her, and must have seen the relenting in her eyes. “Truce?” He held out a big, callused, competent hand.

Sid didn’t want to touch him, because if she did, all her mad would evaporate, and she might even feel some compassion for him.