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

here in the country were a more reasonable breed.
    Maybe pigs could fly in this fresh rural air too.
    “Feed store,” Luis said, dutifully putting on his turn signal and following Knightley into the parking lot of a building sporting a “Damson County Farmers’ Co-op” sign over a front-facing loading dock. “You coming in?”
    “Sure, unless you’re paying for this pony chow?”
    “I would, if that would make a difference.”
    Sid got out and studied Luis over the roof of the car. “You just met these horses, Luis, right?”
    He jammed his hands in his pockets, a young man trying to figure out how not to get in trouble for telling the truth, because he would assuredly get in trouble if he lied.
    “I saw their tracks in the pasture the day we moved in, and I knew the tracks couldn’t have been there from last year. Mac’s waiting for us.”
    Tracks. Oh, right. Little dude from way downtown saw horse tracks. Like she would believe that.
    “You knew the horses were there, and you said nothing. This is not good, Luis.”
    “They were abandoned,” Luis said again. “Left to starve or die. They don’t deserve that, Sid. They were state champions, and nobody cares what happened to them.”
    Spare me from crusading adolescents. “We don’t know what their story is, but we’ll talk more about this later.”
    Knightley started walking toward Sid’s little Mustang convertible as if he’d heard his cue. “You might consider getting something with four-wheel drive,” he said. “Winters can be tricky out here.”
    “This thing’s paid off,” Sid said, patting the candy-apple-red hood. “Car payments can be tricky too. Where’s the horse food aisle?”
    “It doesn’t work like that,” Knightley said. “Come on inside, and I’ll show you the ropes.”
    He held the door for her—for a farm boy, he had polished manners—and explained that they ordered the feed at the counter, and the nice man would put it in Sid’s car for them. This was good, because the feed came in fifty-pound bags, which meant hefting it out of her car’s trunk would be a job she and Luis shared.
    Fifty dollars later, they had two bags of horse feed and some fancy fairy dust with joint supplement in it for horses. Luis was listening raptly as Knightley explained the ins and outs of feeding draft horses, as opposed to the school horses Luis had met thus far.
    “Are we going to stand here all night,” Sid asked, “or take pity on a starving woman?”
    The man and the boy turned to look at her at the same moment, their expressions showing the same consternation.
    “Pizza,” she said, enunciating carefully. “Gyros, cheesecake. Nu-tri-tion, such as it can be found out here in the provinces. Ringing any bells?”
    “Sid gets cranky when her blood sugar’s low,” Luis said. “And she’s tired.”
    “I never would have guessed.” Knightley turned to open his truck door—his unlocked truck door. “The restaurant is right down this road about two miles on the left. You can’t miss it.”
    “We’ll meet you there.” Sid hopped into her car and started the engine, lest Luis get Knightley going on some other No Girls Allowed topic. That had happened occasionally with Tony, but not often. Luis had kept his distance from Tony, and Sid hadn’t really known what to do about it.
    But then, Tony hadn’t been trying to be any kind of role model for Luis. He’d regarded the foster children as Sid’s “little experiment.” They came and went, and if Sid wanted to send them birthday and Christmas cards, or go to their graduations, that was her decision.
    When she’d told him Luis was different, Luis was a keeper, he’d scoffed.
    “They’re all different to you, Sid. You’d keep every one of them if you could get away with it.”
    Damn him, even if he was dead, he’d been right.
    * * *
    Mac had made a horrendous mistake, one evident before the food had been brought to the table. Aspidistra’s was getting crowded, because