Adding Up to You Read online

  “Come in. I hope you have time for a glass of iced tea?”

  Kenna thrust out the bill once more. “This is yours.”

  “Of course it’s not.”

  “But it is.” She wagged the bill, because darn it, Sarah wasn’t even looking at it. “Please. Take it. Use it for this place.”

  “What I could use, Kenna, if you want to help, is your time.”

  “I have this new job, and it takes most of my time—”

  “I have a teenage girl in here right now,” Sarah said. “She’s eighteen and already selling herself.”

  Kenna’s heart fell. “For drugs?”

  “For clothes and food.” Sarah’s smile was gone. “She’s too old for the foster system.” She squeezed Kenna’s hand. “The more people who try to reach her—”

  Kenna thought about the girl inside, struggling to survive and her throat burned in shame. Had she ever believed she’d had it tough? My God, how shallow. “I was just having a string of bad luck on the day we met, that’s all, and now I’m embarrassed to tell you how well off I really am.” She held out the money again. “I can’t let you think I can’t pay you back. I’ve told you I’m Kenna. Kenna Mallory. My father owns the Mallory Hotels. All of them.” There was an ache in her chest at the thought of Sarah’s disappointment, a woman giving all of herself to everyone around her, even a perfect stranger.

  Never in her life had Kenna felt so selfish. She lifted her head to tell Sarah so, but Sarah was smiling at someone just behind Kenna. “Hello, there.”

  “Hello.”

  At the sound of Wes’s voice, the ache from deep inside tightened into panic. Her first instinct was to turn around and…and smack him, but she refrained herself. Barely. “I thought you were going to wait in the car.”

  “Nope.” He smiled at Sarah and held out his hand. “Weston Roth.”

  “I’m Sarah Anderson— Wes?”

  “Sarah…wow. I didn’t recognize you. Small world.”

  “It is in this neighborhood,” Sarah said with a laugh.

  Wes turned to Kenna to explain. “I grew up near here. Sarah lived a few doors down. She worked with my younger brother, helped me convince him to go to college instead of hanging on the streets with the worthless crowd he’d gotten into.” He smiled at Sarah. “Back then your Teen Zone was a couple miles farther south. I didn’t know you had one right here.”

  “It’s new.” Sarah looked around her, at the deteriorated street, at the rundown yard full of dried-up, trampled grass and crumbling brick. “Well, new to us anyway.”

  Kenna looked around her and thought…Wes. He’d grown up here. Here…

  “You’re a friend of Kenna’s, then?” Sarah asked him, and Kenna tensed.

  She wasn’t his friend, she was the thorn in his side.

  “Yes,” he said, holding Kenna’s gaze captive.

  Nope. No way. She didn’t buy it. Or she didn’t want to. “We’ve got to go,” she said. Pulling out the pocket on Sarah’s jeans, she tucked in the twenty-dollar bill. “I’m sorry it’s not more. Good luck.” And she chased her own shadow to the car.

  Wes got in behind the wheel as she was buckling up. “What was that about?”

  “Just a visit.” And now it was over. She’d go back to her comfy new job, her comfy life and remember daily how very lucky she was. “Let’s go.”

  “You gave her money.”

  “You’re quick.”

  He studied her carefully. Too carefully, and she felt fragile, an inch from shattering. “Look, I repaid a debt, okay? Can we go now?”

  “Are you crying?”

  She swiped at a tear. “Of course not.” What was wrong with her? Why did she feel so emotional? So on edge?

  “Look, I know it’s none of my business—”

  “You’re right about that.”

  “Kenna—“

  Ruthlessly, she swiped at another tear. Her last tear. “Just drive, Wes. Can you do that?”

  She felt him staring at her, but she didn’t look over at him, and he let her get away with that. “Yeah, I can do that,” he said after a long moment and, shockingly enough, he did.

  Only he didn’t take her back to work, as she’d expected. Instead, they drove up to…a go-kart race track?

  She blinked at the two separate race tracks, each equipped with karts that were going very fast. “What is this? What are we doing?”

  “Relaxing.” He shoved his sunglasses on top of his head and gave her a look of pure trouble.

  It should be illegal, that look, as it was more intoxicating than any drug. “Relaxing,” she repeated, her voice still a little shaky. “Where’s the beach?”

  “No beach. We’re doing this my way.”

  His way. Holy smokes, with a smile like that, aimed right at her, she’d probably do anything his way. “We’re on lunch break.”

  “So we’ll eat after.” He sighed when she just looked at him. “How many hours did you work last week? Like, sixty? We’re entitled.”

  They stood in line. Then he was slipping a helmet on her head, tucking her hair in, his fingers brushing against her jaw, his eyes locked on hers. “Ready?”

  If that wasn’t a loaded question. “You should know,” she said, so close she could have kissed him. “This is a really bad idea. You and me…we mix like oil and water.”

  “I know.”

  “So what are we doing?”

  “I haven’t a clue.” He stroked a finger over her jaw. “I can’t remember.”

  “You said we were going to relax. Your style.”

  “Yeah. This will help.”

  “Help who, exactly?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  CHAPTER 11

  THE FIRST TIME AROUND, Kenna sat with Wes in a two-seater kart. He took the track like a pro—meaning full speed—making her scream with far more terror than laughter.

  Hands and body in full control of the kart, whipping them around the track, he glanced over. “Stop?”

  “No!”

  That caused a smile, and by the end of their lap time, she wanted to do it herself.

  They picked out their karts and before the laps started, when they were side by side, waiting for the green flag, he looked over at her and revved his engine.

  That was such a guy thing, she laughed. “I’m going to win,” she called to him.

  “No, you’re not.”

  And true to his word, he beat her, the first two times in fact, but on the third, she pulled ahead of him in the last lap and won by a hair. She got out of the go-kart and marched right up to him.

  He was grinning, until she stabbed a finger into his chest—a chest that didn’t give an inch. “You let me win. Don’t ever let me win.”

  “Then stop driving like a girl.”

  Oh, that did it. “One more.” She got back into her kart, and on the fourth try beat him for real.

  “I didn’t let you win,” he said when it was over.

  “I know.” Coolly, she let him move ahead of her before doing a little victory dance.

  But when he looked back over his shoulder and caught her at it, he grinned.

  And once again, the air sizzled around them.

  They got back into his Jag. For a long moment, the air was tight with everything they’d repressed, with a longing and a need neither of them dared put into words.

  “You had fun,” he said quietly.

  She lifted a shoulder. “It was okay.”

  “You had fun. I have the hearing loss from your screams to prove it.”

  “Yeah? So wear ear plugs next time.”

  “Say it, Kenna.”

  When he looked at her like that, all dangerous smile and intense eyes, she knew she’d tell him whatever he wanted to hear.

  But this time, it was the utter truth. “I had fun.”

  “And?”

  “And…” She drew a deep breath. “And if you’d stop looking at me like that, I might have the smallest chance of being relaxed. Very relaxed.”