“I didn’t mean right then. Later, after I was long gone.”
“He could have kissed any other woman,” Nina pointed out calmly, “but he kissed you.”
Kenzie was as flustered as she was turned on. His kiss had curled her toes and sent a stab of desire through her so strong she’d been unable to catch her breath for an hour afterward. “He’s my grandmother’s partner. He co-owns the hotel and casino with her and Lydia.”
“So what?” Nina said with a chuckle. “He’s still a man and you’re a beautiful woman.”
Kenzie wanted to stamp her feet and scream. Her best friend wasn’t reacting the way Kenzie thought she would. She’d expected Nina to understand her confusion.
“Did you kiss him back?” Nina’s voice sounded sly and amused.
“No! Of course not!” She carefully snipped the last bit of fabric and placed the final piece of the gown’s skirt with the others.
“Why not?”
Because she’d still be there kissing him if she had. “It’s too weird. If I get involved with him, my grandmother will be all up in my business.”
“That would distract her from being all up in my business,” Nina said ruefully.
“You just want me to throw myself on the ‘I’m-your-friend’ sword. Not doing it.” Kenzie sat on a stool next to Nina. “The real problem is, I liked the kiss.” She wanted to kiss him again and again and again while running her hands through his tousled blond hair. She wanted more than just a kiss. Her breasts grew taut and a hunger grew deep in the pit of her stomach.
The real problem was that Reno was her new home and she didn’t want complications while she figured out her place. Reed was a complication. She had too many things to do.
Her phone rang, and she answered it, glad for the distraction from Reed.
The boutique manager sounded harried. “We’re having a problem with the computer. Again.”
“Did you call tech support?”
“Not yet. I will after I hang up.”
“I’ll be right down.” She glanced at Nina, who grinned at her. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“I have to go.”
“This conversation isn’t over.” Nina wrapped her knitting around the needles and slipped it in her tote.
“Yippee,” Kenzie said as she headed toward the door.
* * *
“The computer just went haywire,” Bianca Cranston said.
Bianca was a small, round woman with pale brown hair surrounding a heart-shaped face. Though a little on the plump side, she dressed with a flair for showing her curves rather than attempting to hide them. Today she wore a rose-colored blouse over a gray pleated skirt. She’d wound a Hermès scarf around her throat, making the outfit look expensive and chic. Kenzie maintained that even the plainest outfit could be made to look regal with the addition of an expensive silk scarf. She allowed her employees to wear the scarves in the store so customers could see how easily one scarf could add character.
A few seconds after Kenzie arrived, Reed strode into the store. When Kenzie spotted him, her cheeks flamed with heat and her heart skipped a beat. He looked so handsome in black jeans and a black knit polo shirt with his ragged hair curling around his ears. He almost looked like a pirate. All he needed was a gold hoop earring to complete the image.
“What’s the problem?” Reed asked, setting a briefcase down on the counter.
Bianca held her hands up. “I was in the middle of a transaction when the computer shut down and the screen went blank. I checked next door at the ski shop and their computer is fine.”
“Let me see what I can figure out.” He bent over the computer without even the briefest glance at Kenzie.
Kenzie backed away, feeling a little miffed. He acted as though nothing had happened between them. First she wanted to slap him. Then she wanted to kiss him. Don’t go there, she scolded herself. He’d only been doing what she’d suggested, something unexpected. Why did she think his kiss meant anything more?
Men. Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them. They’re all idiots.
She stayed out of his way. He opened his briefcase to show rows of tools and a box of CDs. “Do you have something you can use while I’m fixing this?”
“We can use the computer next door to ring up purchases,” Kenzie said with a nod at Bianca.
Reed pulled a couple of tools out of the briefcase and opened the side of the computer. In seconds he had parts strewn across the counter. Kenzie found a stool and sat down to watch him.
“Done anything unexpected today?” he asked, a playful tone in his voice.
Kenzie tilted her head. “No. But the day is relatively young yet.”
He pinned her with a sexy stare. “Do you want to do something unexpected with me?”
Did she? Yes, but she wasn’t going to admit it. “I believe you already did that.”
He grinned. “I had something else in mind.”
“Such as what?”
“Have you ever gone bowling?”
Not a day in her life. “Bowling?”
“How about tomorrow?”
She took out her phone. “I need to check my schedule.”
He took the phone away from her and placed it on the counter. “Don’t. Remember, unexpected. Yes or no?”
She studied him for a moment, her mind whirling. He was taking her advice a little too much to heart, but excitement surged through her. “Yes.” She could rearrange her schedule easily enough. That came out of her mouth way too easy.
“Good. Meet me tomorrow evening at four thirty by the concierge. I’ll even throw in dinner.”
“Is this a date?”
He paused as though considering her question. “Maybe this is just me taking your advice.”
“Okay.” She found she couldn’t stop grinning as he went back to fixing the computer. “How long do you think you need to fix this?”
“Not long.” He glanced at his watch.
She saw a customer wander into the store and went over to assist her.
* * *
Reed watched her go. The computer was actually an easy fix. A memory stick was loose in its housing. All it took was a screwdriver to pry it out and reset it firmly. He rebooted the computer and nodded at Kenzie who gave him a brief smile before turning back to the customer.
He wanted to linger to watch her work, but he had a meeting with Miss E., Lydia and the chief financial officer.
He found his way through the maze of corridors and offices behind the administration area to the conference room. He sat down at the end of the table.
“Glad you’re here, Reed,” Miss E. said. For such a tiny woman she had a presence that filled the room.
Lydia looked uncomfortable as she squirmed trying to find a position that wouldn’t put a strain on the baby or her back. Her face was drawn and tired. She looked ready to burst, but Reed knew she had another week or two before the baby’s birth.
Martin deWitt had been CFO for Jasper Biggins, the original owner of the Mariposa. He was a tall, slim, impeccably dressed man with black hair threaded with gray. A small mustache over his lips gave him an air of sophistication as he spread open file folders and tapped his laptop, bringing the screen to life.
“We have a problem,” Martin deWitt said.
Miss E. nodded intently. Reed simply waited. The winning of the hotel and casino had been so unexpected and new he didn’t feel like an owner yet.
“Explain the problem,” Miss E. urged.
“As you know, to expedite gambling in the casino, customers purchase cash cards, like debit cards or pre-paid credit cards, for a certain amount of money that can be used with the slot machines. The cards keep track of their winnings and any perks they win. A customer buys ten dollars, whi
ch is put on the plastic card and entered into the slot machine, and an amount, say a quarter, is deducted from the balance on the card each time the customer places a bet and loses.”
Reed nodded. He understood the logistics of slot machines.
Mr. deWitt looked around the conference table. “The system works well enough, but there have been a few complaints over the years. Yesterday, a big complaint was made when a customer purchased a card in the amount of ten thousand dollars and when she went to use it, it was short five hundred dollars.”
“Did someone make a mistake?” Lydia asked.
Martin looked troubled. “I think it’s more than just a mistake. Most complaints are handled by the floor managers, but this one came to me. Five hundred dollars is a lot of money to lose on a mistake.”
“How did we handle it?” Miss E. asked.
“To make up the difference, we gave him a card for five hundred dollars and it came up short twenty-five. ”
Which shouldn’t have happened. This was a big problem. “What do you think is going on?” Reed turned over the problem in his mind. This could simply be a computer fix, or was the problem something bigger?
“I’m not sure, but I’ve tried a small experiment. I loaded different amounts onto twenty-four cards and they all came up five percent short. Which means that every time a customer loads money onto a card, it’s five percent short. The house is getting the money, but the customer isn’t getting what they paid for.”
“I don’t like this at all,” Miss E. said. “The reputation of this hotel could be irreparably damaged.”
Reed studied Martin, his mind working furiously. “Do you know how long this has been going on?”
“I’ve just started looking into it, but after talking to some of the cashiers, I found there have been complaints going on for a couple years, at least. The problem is that no one in the casino, except for several of the croupiers, has been with the hotel longer than a couple years.” Martin opened a file and glanced through it. “Most customers only put ten, twenty-five or fifty dollars on a card and probably never notice that the cards are short by five percent. For those who do discover they’ve been shorted, a complimentary meal takes care of the difference. But five hundred dollars is a whole different matter.”
“How do we fix it?” Lydia clenched her hands tightly in front of her, looking worried.
“It could just be a simple glitch in the software,” Reed offered, “which can be fixed. The problem would be taking the whole system off-line, which could hurt our bottom line.”
“How long do you think it will take?” Miss E. asked.
Reed shook his head. “I could find the error immediately, or it could be weeks. There’s a lot of code to go through.” Though he could probably write a program that would help him narrow it down.
“We could have some unhappy customers,” Lydia said.
Miss E. waved her hand. “We’ll give them Hendrix’s brownies for free. They’ll be fine.”
Lydia smiled. “And maybe a free drink. Or a discount coupon for a dinner.”
Martin seemed to relax. Reed could tell he’d expected a very different response.
“I’ll fix the glitch,” Reed said. “There’s no need for anyone to panic.”
Miss E. stood up. “Then we’ll leave this in your very capable hands, Reed.”
Not until later, when Reed had returned to his office in the IT department, did he have a thought. If the casino was taking in the full amount, but the cards were short, where was the missing money going? He would need to talk to Martin deWitt again.
* * *
The bowling alley was noisy with the sound of bowling balls rolling down the alleys and the thunder of falling pins. In the background Lady Gaga belted out a song. Kenzie had never been in a bowling alley before. All the lanes except for a few at one end were occupied with what appeared to be teams.
“Why bowling?” she asked as she tied the laces of the bowling shoes Reed rented for her.
“I used to hold bowling parties with my employees.”
How interesting. He didn’t seem like a bowler, but she was learning that there was as much predictable about him as was unpredictable. He was a hot, sexy mystery. One she was longing to get to the bottom of. “Why?”
“So we could bond and work better as a team.” He hefted a bowling ball out of its bag. His ball was a fancy dark red with veins of black and white threaded across the surface. It was so highly polished she could see her reflection in it before he dropped it in the ball stand to the left of their lane.
“Are you bonding with me?”
He jiggled his eyebrows. “We’re here to have fun.”
How he was able to look goofy and seductive at the same time was beyond her. “I thought we would do something that took us out of our comfort zones.”
“You’ve never seen me bowl.”
He helped her choose a black ball for herself that fit her grip and she carried it back to their lane. The group next to them erupted into cheers. Kenzie eyed them curiously. They all wore matching shirts with some logo on the front pocket. Bowling shirts did not make much of a fashion statement.
“She bowled a strike,” Reed explained.
“A strike?”
“Knocked all the pins down.”
Kenzie just nodded. She hitched up her boyfriend jeans and tugged her red tank top into place. If she could ride a camel to the pyramids in Egypt, she could throw a ball down the lane and knock down the pins.
“Stand here,” Reed ordered, pointing at a mark on the slick floor. He positioned her hands around the bowling ball. “Now, you’re going to swing the ball back like this and take three steps forward. On the last one you’re going to slide, like this, and stoop a little.” He demonstrated for her. “Then throw the ball when you reach this mark.”
She did so, and the ball ended up in the gutter. The ball was much heavier than it looked. Eventually it reached the back of the lane and disappeared. A moment later it reappeared in the ball return, clinking into Reed’s ball.
“You get two tries.” Reed helped her position her feet again.
She paced forward and threw the ball. It sort of stayed in the middle of the lane and eventually reached the pins, knocking down three. “I’m a bowling rock star,” she cried, raising her arms in victory.
Reed laughed. He sat at the scoring console and entered her score. Then he stood and picked up his ball. She studied the way he stood, his feet together, the ball poised in front of him. He stepped forward and threw the ball in an oddly graceful set of motions. His ball slammed down the lane and smacked into the pins. Several fell down.
“You knocked some down,” she said, feeling a small thrill of excitement. She was enjoying herself. Who knew bowling could be so much fun. She wanted to knock all the balls down.
His ball came back through the return. He picked the ball up and swung it again. It rolled down the alley and knocked the rest of the pins down.
“That’s a spare.”
“I think I’m going to enjoy this.” She picked up her ball.
They bowled a few frames and while she waited for her ball to return after her last gutter ball, Reed announced, “It’s time for beer and nachos.”
She shook her head in surprise. “I haven’t had beer and nachos since college.”
“Life can’t be all salad and smoothies.” He walked over to the bar to put in his order.
She tried not to think about the calories. Oh, well, she’d work it off tossing that ball around and maybe hitting a few pins.
“You don’t strike me as a bowler,” she said after a couple more frames.
“I had to find a way to connect with my employees besides work. Downtime was important. And stress was a big part of the day.”
“How did you get into
artificial limbs?” Miss E. had told Kenzie about his business.
He lifted a nacho to his lips, cheese dripping on his fingers. He wiped the cheese off with a napkin. “Five years ago Dad lost his leg below the knee in a training exercise and decided to retire from the navy. I’d moved away from writing phone apps to internet security at the time. I remember what he went through, getting his prosthesis to fit correctly. He wanted a leg that looked like a real leg. Later, I started experimenting myself and ended up developing software that took all the measurements needed and crafted a realistic-looking leg that matched the real leg. Watching my dad walk, you’d never know he had a prosthetic leg. And from that I developed other applications for the medical field.”
“That’s really impressive.” He’d made a huge contribution to making people’s lives easier. All she’d ever done was try to make women look pretty.
“I did it because I love my dad.” For a second he looked sort of sad.
Kenzie wanted to comfort him to take the look away. She realized he’d never said anything about his mother. “Where are your parents?”
“My dad lives in San Diego and my mom was killed in an auto accident seven years ago.”
“That sucks,” she said. “I didn’t mean to say that quite that way.”
“You’re right. Losing my mom sucks.”
Cheers sounded at the other end of the alley. She glanced around. A woman jumped up and down, throwing her hands in the air and whooping. “I did it. I did it,” she cried. Her companions clapped and she bowed.
“What do you want? Where do you go from here after you’ve made a gazillion dollars?”
He studied her thoughtfully. “That’s kind of an intense first-date question.”
“You said this was a ‘maybe,’ not a date. You’re avoiding an answer.”
“I want to see where the day takes me. I don’t want a plan. What about you? Where do you want to go in your life?”
“That’s kind of an intense first-date question.”
He laughed. “You asked first.”
“First I thought I wanted my own fashion empire. Now I’m just thrilled being here in Reno with my family. We’re all in the same place for the first time since we were kids. We see each other every day and have fun together. I’m about to be an aunt. Who knew a simpler life could be so rewarding.” New York was filled with noise and chaos. Reno was so quiet she could hear the crickets at night.
Drawing Hearts Page 4
