Read Online Stolen Little Thing (Little Thing Series Book 1) by Sasha Gold - Free Book Online Page B

mother’s not here. Is there anything you want to ask Maria or me?” The woman batted her long eyelashes, smoke grey eyes glinting with humor. Maria giggled.
    Esme shook her head, her face heating with embarrassment.
    There was a knock at the door. Henry, the youngest of the lost boys, strolled in carrying a tray with a coffee pot and some sweet rolls. Esme sighed with impatience, and shifted as she balanced on the crate. The women made a fuss over the child. They doted on all the boys, but it seemed that Loretta and Maria were being especially affectionate with Henry this morning. They made a fuss over the tray he’d brought, how sweet it was of him to bring it all the way upstairs and what a good boy he was to help Consuelo in the kitchen.
    They went back to fitting the dress as Henry leaned against a chair and watched them work. When the older ladies’ backs were turned, he ate one sweet roll and then another. Hunger made Esme petulant and she made a face at him. He stared back at her impudently and with deliberate ease took the next-to- last roll. The black eye Sal had given him in the corral had faded to a purplish hue. Esme wanted to chastise him for wolfing down the pastries as though they were all for him, but something stopped her. She noticed with dismay that his collarbones jutted out from his neck like spokes of a wagon wheel. He was small but he was a scrapper. The defiance in the boy’s eyes reminded her of Luke’s belligerent nature when he was a child. Henry’s idle lingering in the room told her he had no desire to return to peeling potatoes in Consuelo’s kitchen. It dawned on her that his having to help in the kitchen while the other boys did chores outside was some sort of dressing down. That was the reason; Maria and Loretta praised and coddled him at every opportunity, even now as he devoured their breakfast. They were soothing his bruised ego.
    For her part, Esme would just as soon not have any child around so early in the morning. They were trying enough during waking hours. “Thank you, Henry,” Esme said in a tone she hoped sounded dismissive.
    But he didn’t move. “My mama had red hair too.”
    Esme patted her copper locks wondering what a mess they must be after trying on so many dresses. “How delightful. Please tell Consuelo thank you for the sweet rolls.”
    The boy rolled his eyes, snatched the last roll, and slipped out of the room.
    “Are you ready to be a Mama to all of those muchachos ?” Maria asked.
    “I like children,” Esme replied. “Some of them anyway.”
    Loretta laughed. She took the pins she had clasped between her lips. “We believe you, don’t we, Maria?”
    “One thing’s for certain,” Esme said. “Boys are not nearly as bad as girls. They don’t sulk or shriek like teenaged girls. I was never so glad to leave a place as when I gave my notice at St. Adelaide’s.”
    Maria straightened the skirt of the dress and tugged at the hem. “Don’t worry, the boys aren’t so bad after a while. Luke’s mother came to love them, even though, in the beginning what she really wanted was a house full of girls in ribbons. It was Luke who changed her mind. He was the first orphan to come, and she loved him best of all, like he was her own flesh and blood. Let me tell you he was the worst cabron that ever stepped foot on the ranch.”
    Esme didn’t know what a cabron was, but knowing Luke, she suspected Maria was insulting him, and the word cabron sounded like she was calling him a goat. It made her smile. Luke had been a rascal. While she might not relish the idea of nightly meals with a table full of rambunctious young men, she had to appreciate that they had no one else to care for them. It hurt her like nothing else, a deep splinter in her heart to think of Luke as such a child, an orphan, a lost boy. One day, perhaps he would tell her the story of his life before he came to the Crosby Ranch.
    While the ladies toiled in the next room, Luke lay awake, listening