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

to forget his mother tongue, and Social Services had not thought to place him with a family who spoke it—if they’d had one to offer him.
    “If you’re not too proud to ask,” Mac said, “I’m not too proud to stumble around, provided you correct my errors.”
    A glint came into Luis’s eyes, humor perhaps, or guile. “I will correct you.”
    “I will correct you as well.” Mac tossed an old towel at him. “Refill the bucket and start on those windows. You’ll need the brush too.”
    “While you do what?”
    “Muck the hell out of the run-in.”
    They worked mostly in silence, which was fine with Mac. Luis worked hard, like a person his age could, with single-minded determination to do the job right. The windows didn’t exactly sparkle when he was done—the old single-pane glass needed newspaper and vinegar for a real shine—but they let in light.
    “It looks better,” Luis said. “But that’s only one corner of the barn.”
    “It’s a start. We’d better knock off now, or the feed store will close before we can get to it.”
    Uneasiness crossed the kid’s features before his expression went blank. “Sidonie will prefer I remain here.”
    “Then she can come with me, or you both can, or I’ll leave you directions to the feed store so you know where it is.” Getting into a truck with a strange man was apparently on Luis’s don’t-even list. Mac did not speculate about why. “We’ll need to clean up some before we’re seen in public, in any case, but, Luis?”
    The boy stopped a few steps up the barn aisle.
    “You put up the muck forks and buckets and so forth every time, because if a horse gets loose, he can tangle himself up in them, destroy them, or do harm to himself.”
    Luis retrieved the muck fork from where he’d propped it near the water spigot. Mac gathered up the rest of the forks, buckets, towels, and brushes and followed Luis back to the dairy/tack room.
    “How do you know the horses?” Luis asked as they turned for the house. “Sid says you know their names.”
    “Buttercup has the blaze. Daisy has the star and the snip. I grew up around here, and those two were the state champs at one point.”
    “They’re champions?”
    “They were, years ago. Does Sid speak French?”
    “She tries, but she is too proud. She has to be the mother.”
    This last was said with a sweet smile as they walked back to the house. When this boy filled out, he would turn heads and break hearts—provided he stayed out of jail.
    “Lost my dad when I was not much older than you are now,” Mac said. “A mother is a fine thing to have.”
    Luis’s head came up. “My mother ’s in jail. Twenty years for CDS distribution, and a lot of other bullshit.”
    “You ever get to see her?” Controlled Dangerous Substances, a.k.a. street drugs .
    “She’s in Jessup.”
    Not an answer. Jessup was a lot closer to Baltimore, though, and moving out here would make visits to the prison harder to arrange.
    “I’ve visited Jessup. The facilities aren’t bad, for a jail.”
    Luis snorted and preceded Mac into the kitchen.
    Mac tried to picture his own late mother in jail. A criminal defense attorney saw people go to jail almost daily. Bad people, good people, some of them even innocent good people.
    But his own mother?
    He followed Luis into the house and wondered what would make a woman like Sidonie Lindstrom—a pretty, unmarried city girl who probably read more magazines than books and loved the smell of car exhaust—take on the challenge of a kid like Luis.

Chapter 3
    Sid was dreaming of an expedition to White Flint Mall down in the thriving suburb of Rockville. To the bargain rack at Lord and Taylor, where the slickest Little Black Dress hung in just her size. Finished silk, a plunging neckline, the hemline at exactly mid-thigh, with floral aubergine embroidery on the hem and neckline. Modest, but with the potential to tease, particularly when matched with onyx and gold jewelry, and three-inch