Destiny Read Online Free PDF Page A

top with buckles along the outside for effect.
    He swallowed a groan. “So, what’s tonight’s agenda?” he asked Tess in an effort to distract himself from the sight of Kelly, bent over, back to him, pulling her boots on.
    Tess shrugged. “How should I know?”
    “Tess! Quit being so rude.” Kelly grabbed a leather jacket from a hanger and shut the closet door, then walked over to where they were standing. “Every time I put my coat or shoes in my room near my suitcase, Rosalita hangs everything in the hall closet like I live here,” she said, obviously embarrassed.
    “That’s just her job.”
    “I wouldn’t know. I didn’t have a housekeeper growing up.”
    Nash hadn’t had a housekeeper when he’d lived with his parents either, but after moving in with the Rossmans, they’d had a woman named Consuela who’d run the house much as Rosalita appeared to do here. He didn’t see the point in going into a long explanation.
    Kelly merely shrugged at his silence and struggled to put on her jacket.
    Reaching over, Nash grabbed the coat and helped, holding it out so she could slip her arms through the sleeves. Because Tess was watching, he pretended to be unaffected when Kelly flipped her hair from beneath the collar, giving him a whiff of strawberry-scented shampoo, and treated him to a smile that nearly knocked him on his ass.
    “There. All set. Tess, Rosalita’s here if you need anything. Be good,” she said to the teen.
    “I should be saying that to you two,” Tess muttered.
    “Relax. Go watch TV,” Nash suggested.
    “I have homework,” she said icily.
    “Then go do that.”
    “Ignore her.” Kelly grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the door.
    He followed, grateful to get away from Tess’s moodiness only to realize once they were outside and the house door shut behind them, they were alone.
    He’d jumped from one awkward situation right into another.
    Since her arrival in Serendipity, Kelly discovered there’d been a lot of nevers in her life. She’d never had a maid, never lived in a mansion, and never gone to private school. She walked into Birchwood Academy and immediately wondered if her sister’s discomfort with the uniform was more due to the atmosphere than the clothing. This was no public school with dimly lit halls, old metal lockers, and dingy commercial linoleum everywhere. Money elevated the look of the building and from what Kelly could see, affected the attitudes of the parents and teachers. But she was determined to keep an open mind.
    “What’s wrong?” Nash asked.
    Surprised by the question, Kelly stopped walking toward the classroom where they’d been told Tess’s homeroom teacher would meet them. “What makes you think anything’s wrong?”
    “You stiffened up the minute we walked into this place. Not to mention the fact that you talked about a million and one things on the ride here and you haven’t said a word since we walked in.” Hands in his jacket pockets, Nash leaned against one of the brightly painted metal lockers and studied her through perceptive ocean blue eyes.
    “I chatted in the car to keep you comfortable,” she lied. She chatted to keep herself level-headed and so that she wouldn’t be tempted to coax him into kissing her again. The attraction was definitely there, but she didn’t want to upset her sister’s life by pushing for a fling with Nash. No matter how sexy she found him to be.
    “And what changed now?” He probed for answers like the lawyer he was.
    Kelly frowned. With his short, expensively cut hair, he looked every inch the rich boy who’d fit right in at this school. Only the fact that she’d seen him feeling awkward and out of place at his own brother’s wedding had her considering leveling with him now.
    “Well?” he prodded. “We’re going to be late if we don’t get a move on.”
    “Then let’s go,” she suggested.
    “Not until you tell me what’s bothering you.”
    The concern in his tone got to her. “This