Kiss Me Hello (Sweetest Kisses) Read Online Free PDF Page A

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