Natural Blond Instincts

Maybe she needed to find something for her, something that would stir her soul and keep her going every day, and maybe that something wasn’t the hotel business.

But for now she had a whole weekend, and she needed out, needed to revitalize. After three weeks of paychecks, she could have gone anywhere, but armed with a check equal to one of those weeks, she drove to the Teen Zone.

There weren’t kids in the yard this time, but two men on ladders painting the house, one of them Josh from work.

The other…she blinked in the early sunlight, sure that she was hallucinating.

Or fantasizing.

Because high on the second ladder, alongside Josh, stood Wes.

At the sound of her sandals on the concrete, the two dark, handsome heads turned to look at her.

Josh smiled his reception.

Wes did not.

Shading her eyes with her hand, Kenna tilted her head back and studied them both in jeans and T-shirts, thinking it was a shame they didn’t allow such dress at work because they certainly looked mighty fine in faded, soft denim. “What are you doing?”

“Painting.” Josh had a streak across one cheek and his shirt, and for a guy she knew only as the Mallory Enterprises resident computer geek, he looked to be having a fabulous time.

Kenna glanced at Wes and couldn’t help but yearn and burn with memories. He had paint spattered across his T-shirt and jeans, too, but he didn’t grin. He simply lifted one brow and shot her a look that had her thoughts going straight to the gutter.

Every time she thought about how he’d kissed her, touched her, everything, she got hot and cold at the same time. Even now, her thigh muscles tightened. Her nipples hardened.

A simple, hormonal reaction to an extraordinary-looking man, she assured herself. Normal.

“Want to give us a hand?” Josh asked.

Kenna was still looking at Wes, who was looking at her right back, the sun reflecting off his glasses so that she couldn’t get a feel for what was happening behind the lenses.

Josh backed down the ladder so he could talk without yelling. “It’s a good cause, you know. I once spent a lot of time in one of Sarah’s Teen Zones.”

“You did?”

“Between that and my brother-” He hitched a shoulder toward Wes. “I managed to stay on the straight and narrow when I wasn’t headed that way by myself.”

Kenna stared at him for a moment before whirling back to Wes, who was still high above her on the ladder. “Josh is your brother?”

“The one and only. Original troublemaker, reformed rebel, now computer wizard Josh Roth.”

“Not too reformed,” Josh said proudly, wiggling his eyebrows. “I can still raise trouble as needed-Oops.” His cell phone was ringing. One look at the caller ID had him going very still. “Well, look at that. She finally realized she wants me.”

Kenna blinked. “Who?

“The fickle Mallory.”

“We’re all fickle.”

“I’m talking the master of fickle.”

“Serena.” Surprised, Kenna watched as Josh answered the phone.

“This is my day off, princess, so unless you finally have the word yes on your tongue-” Josh went quiet, listening, then laughed. “I’m not falling for that little sniffle, so go call some other fool to come fix your home computer. I only work on Saturday for women who at least pretend to like me.” Clicking off, he put the phone back on his belt and strode toward the house.

“Where are you going?” Wes called after him.

“I need sustenance.”

“She’s messing with him,” Kenna said.

“Better him than me,” Wes muttered.

“Wes-”

“He’s a big boy, he can handle it.”

Yes, she was sure Josh could handle it. In fact, they’d actually be good together, if Serena would ever admit such a thing.

“Why don’t you grab a brush and start on the trim?” Wes asked.

“I didn’t plan on…”

“What, you don’t want to get your manicure all messed up?”

“What?” She stared up at him. “What did you just say to me?”

“You don’t want to get your-”

“I heard you.”

“Then why did you say what?”

“For your information, I’ve never painted before.”

Wes smiled. “Big surprise, Ms. Mallory.”

“Okay, Mr. Know-It-All.”

“I am not Mr… Know-It-All.”

“You are. You took one look at me on my first day and thought you knew me. You think you know everything. Now, I’ll give it to you that most of the time you actually do know everything, but not all the time, Wes. Not when it comes to me. I’m not the spoiled woman you think I am. I’m my own woman, with my own ideas, but I’m not a joke.”

He stared at her, then backed down the ladder and sat on the porch step. He scrubbed a hand over his face, and she refrained from telling him he now had a green streak of paint across his nose.

“You’re right,” he finally said.

“You should know, those are my favorite words.” She grabbed a paintbrush and started on the trim. “But that’s okay, as I’m a fairly big know-it-all myself.”

He just stared at her.

She smiled as she started painting. “By the way, this’ll be your fault if I do it all wrong.”

JOSH CAME BACK out and they finished the trim, then started on the siding. Later Sarah came out with a tray of cool drinks. “I’m finished with the counseling sessions for the day,” she said cheerfully. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all this help.”

Wes grabbed a soda. Painting in the sun had made him thirsty.

No, correct that. Staring at Kenna painting in the sun had made him thirsty.

And hot as hell. It wasn’t that she knew what she was doing and was art in motion to watch.

It was that she didn’t know what she was doing and was a disaster in motion to watch.

She’d looked so adorable in her fierce concentration, with her lip between her teeth, her eyes narrowed, paint splattered all across the front of her short dark-blue denim skirt and bright-red tank top and matching sandals.

He figured out about thirty minutes in, why he couldn’t take his eyes off her. It was because she painted as she appeared to do everything else in life. No matter if she knew what she was doing or not, she jumped in with both feet, with no hesitation…with all her heart.

“Lyssa and Debbie asked when you’re coming back,” Sarah said to Kenna. “They liked talking to you.”

She’d been here, talking to the kids?

“Right,” she said with a laugh. “They said that, that they’d liked talking to me about smoking and smart choices.”

“Well, not in those words,” Sarah acknowledged. “They said they thought you were ‘tight.”’ She lifted a shoulder. “I just translated for you.” Sarah patted her hand. “They liked you, said you didn’t preach.”

Kenna laughed. “I don’t have much to preach about.”

“You’d make a great role model,” Wes said. When both women looked at him, he opened his mouth to say