Free Running the Numbers by Roxanne Smith

love, Blake had done a real number on Quinn. First, an affair. Then he marries her sister. I sure know how to pick ’em . She brushed crumbs from her fingers. “I have good news for you, Blake.”
    His eyebrows rose. A hint of something close to exasperation or even despair glinted behind his green-gold stare.
    She looked away. “We’re definitely done with your history.”
    * * * *
    Sadie turned onto Brewster’s Lane with a quick peek at the dashboard clock. Hopefully, eight wasn’t too early on a Saturday morning for Blake. But the drive out to Cliff Creek took time, not to mention the actual cutting and chopping to get the wood to fit in her truck bed. Her back hurt just thinking of the splitting that came later. She’d leave that part to Blake, once she gave him a tutorial.
    Her cell phone buzzed, and she grabbed it with her right hand, while using the left to smoothly navigate the first switchback.
    “Hi, Kennedy. Sorry, can’t hit yard sales this weekend. I have plans.”
    “Yeah, I heard.”
    Her voice was like a frosty breath in Sadie’s ear. “You okay, Ken?”
    “Sure, I’m fine,” Kennedy began, with blatantly false lightheartedness. “Just seems weird to me. Last weekend, you weren’t interested in Blake in that way. Yet, you’ve been his new little best friend ever since.”
    Torn between irritation and a hint of guilt, Sadie exhaled through her nostrils. “I took him to lunch on Monday, and I told you last week I was going to offer to help him out. Which is why I’m taking him out to cut firewood. He mentioned spending a fortune on those little bundles at the grocery store, trying to learn to make a decent fire before winter. Anyone in the office could’ve offered to help him out. Besides, why do you care?”
    “Isn’t it obvious?” Exasperation swept Kennedy’s cry into the realm of petulance. “Monday, I’d been two seconds from asking him out after Amanda shot him down, but youzoomed in like Superwoman and snatched him up. All I have to do is show an interest in someone for you to suddenly be keen as hell on them. Wes is a perfect example. What’s your deal, Sadie?”
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Okay, she might cop to Blake, but Wes was a different matter altogether. “You’re mixed up, Ken. The thing with Wes is…” Crap. Sadie clenched her teeth. “It’s complicated. And it’s long over. You want him, he’s up for grabs. As for Blake, I’ve told you, my goal is to find out if he wants Duncan’s job. That’s it.”
    Kennedy’s tone fell into tired dejection. “Yeah? Well, Wes called looking for your number again. He said you keep deleting it from his phone.”
    Sadie grinned. “Eventually, he’ll quit leaving it in the breakroom.”
    “This time it was important. But I think I’ll let you call Wes yourself. Maybe you can go back to pretending not to flirt with him under the guise of not wanting attention instead of pursuing Blake, with whom I’ve made my interest clear.”
    Crap. It’s last summer all over again.
    The same thing had happened when a cute young guy from Utah had moved in next door to Kennedy mid-summer. Her best friend had crushed hard on the guy for months, who ended up asking Sadie out. The circumstances incited pity for her friend but also incurred a fair amount of frustration and irritation—Sadie would have said yes if it hadn’t been for Kennedy’s irrational anger that he’d dared to ask, and the not-so subtle hints that Sadie had enticed him to do so.
    The kicker was that if Kennedy knew the gritty details of Sadie’s past with Wes, she wouldn’t be so blasé about her crush on him. But it was Sadie’s own fault the whole office thought of their past relationship as a mere fling.
    “Look, I don’t flirt with Wes. We have history, and it shows. That’s all there is to it. Concerning Blake, you can’t claim every man who randomly shows up in our lives, okay? What if I like Blake, too? I don’t owe you first shot, Ken. And I