Kiss Me Hello (Sweetest Kisses) by Grace Burrowes Page A

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