Down by Contact - A Seattle Lumberjacks Romance (24 page)

“Yes.”

Zach blew out a long breath, relief replaced
the tension in his body. He looked as if he didn’t know whether to
hug her or shake her hand. Finally, he patted her on the
shoulder.

“I suppose you’ll want a big ring?” His
long-suffering sigh said it all, behind a glimmer of a smile.

Her racing heart, sweaty palms, and wet
panties said more. A whole heck of a lot more. She nodded and
walked out of the room, needing distance and wondering if she’d
lost her mind.

CHAPTER 16

As a kid, Zach avoided the principal’s office
as much as he tried to avoid his father’s belt. Rarely did he have
to sit in that stiff wooden chair while the fat, old principal
wheezed like a guy in need of a good shot of oxygen. Zach became
adept at flying under the radar and not catching anyone’s
attention, especially his father’s. This talent served him well in
his NFL career. He preferred to prove himself in the trenches
rather than in television ads or Sports Illustrated.

Yet, here he was, called into the coach’s
office at six-fucking-thirty a.m., the adult equivalent of the
principal’s office. Even worse, Harris sat in a chair across from
the coach, chatting with the man as if they were lifelong buddies.
HughJack never chatted. The man’s endless energy didn’t allow for
meaningless chatter. Derek sat in another chair, looking pissed
that they’d dragged him into this mess.

True to form, HughJack wasted no time.
Zach’s butt barely hit the chair before he squelched the niceties
and launched into the reason he’d called this meeting.

“Your dislike of each other is affecting
this team’s performance. Your very public argument in the locker
went viral. It’s trending on Twitter, whatever the hell that is,
but the front office tells me it’s not a good thing.”

Tyler cringed and Derek studied the desktop.
Zach wrung his hands and said nothing, even as a healthy dose of
guilt clenched his gut.

“I tried to stay out of it. Let you work
these problems through yourself.” Coach skewered them both with an
accusing glare.

Tyler leaned forward, avoiding Zach’s gaze.
“We’re working on it. Zach and I won’t sacrifice the team because
of our differences.”

HughJack looked skeptical. “How are you
working on it?”

Both men looked at each other. Obviously,
silver-tongued Tyler was at a total loss for an answer as much as
Zach was.

“I, uh, advertised Zach’s gala on my
website.” It sounded lame, and by the way HughJack puckered up his
brow, he knew it.

Zach snorted. “Beware of quarterbacks with
websites.”

“Fuck you. Just because I don’t do things
the way you do them, doesn’t mean I’m any less dedicated.”

“You ever heard the saying that if you’re
good at something, you don’t have to tell anyone about it, because
they already know?”

“Hell, yeah, they know, but I’m making sure
they don’t forget. They’ll remember me long after you’re old, fat,
and too feeble to toss a football around your backyard. There is a
life after football, Murphy. You’d better figure out what that is
because you’re getting to the end of your shelf life.”

“That’s enough.” HughJack pounded his fist
on the table so hard his coach of the year trophy fell over. With a
frown, he picked it up and examined it then set it upright. “I gave
you two selfish clowns a couple months to work out your
differences. You weren’t mature enough to do it so the women in
your lives and I have done it for you.”

“Women? What women?” Zach couldn’t imagine
Kelsie getting involved in team affairs. Kelsie, his fiancée, just
thinking the words made him forget where he was.

“
Your
women. The ones in your lives.
All three of them: Rachel, Lavender, and Kelsie.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah, my woman. We’re engaged.”
Zach blurted it out just like he’d blurted out the proposal,
feeling more than a little pride in saying it.

Tyler and Derek both gaped at him, but
HughJack didn’t miss a beat. “Congratulations, maybe she’ll pound
some sense into your thick skull.” HughJack’s eyebrows slammed
together with that don’t-mess-with-my-game-plan glower. “Rachel,
Lavender, and Kelsie devised a plan to teach you two knuckleheads
to work together regardless of your personal opinions of each
other. I didn’t like it at first but, hell, after last night’s
display, I’m willing to try anything.”

Oh, crap. This did not sound good. The
terrible trio and the coach conspiring together?

Tyler shot him a quick worried glance, and
for once they agreed on something. They were screwed, really
screwed. Even worse, she’d betrayed his trust, and there engagement
wasn’t even twenty-four hours old.

Harris sat back in the chair and rubbed his
face. He blew out a ragged breath. “What kind of plan?”

“Every Tuesday, you’ll meet and work on the
gala. Together. No competition against each other. Just you and
Zach. If the gala fails, you both fail as a team of two.”

“But, we—”

HughJack cut Tyler off. “You’re the team
captains. Don’t disappoint me. I expect you to put as much effort
in this as you would any must-win game because this is a must-win
for both of you.”

“In what way?” Zach braced himself for an
answer he might not want to hear.

“Do I really need to answer that,
Murphy?”

Zach shook his head, feeling like a kid
who’d been chastised for giving the wrong answer in class.

“Working together, you’ll beat the amount of
money we raised last year for the Seattle Hearts for Homeless
charity.”

“But last year was a record-breaker because
that timber baron heiress died and left her estate to the charity.”
Tyler’s face paled. He looked as if he was going to throw up.

“Then you’ve got a lot of work to do.
Seattle is crawling with software CEOs and ancestors of timber
barons.” He looked pointedly at Tyler. “Like you.”

Zach stared at Harris, his mouth dropping
open in surprise. “You have that kind of history?” His nemesis
having ancestors like that somehow didn’t fit with the guy’s
image.

“How do you think Twin Cedars got
built?”

Zach shrugged, feeling stupid that he’d
forgotten that simple fact. “I thought it was rum-runners.”

“That too.” Tyler didn’t take the least bit
of offense.

“Regardless. Find new sources of donations.”
HughJack pulled the conversation back to the issue at hand.

“They aren’t that easy to find,” Tyler
hedged. Zach noticed he dug his fingernails into the palm of his
hand. “Not in this economy.”

“What if we don’t achieve it?”

“You’ll be benched. Both of you for the
first half of the first playoff game of the season or if we’re on
the verge of not making the playoffs then the last game of the
season.”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“I wouldn’t? Try me? Call it tough love.
I’ve had enough of your bullshit ripping the team apart. Keep your
differences to yourselves. On the surface you’d better be so
enamored with each other that your teammates will think you’re
suffering man crushes.”

“They’ll never buy it. We can’t do this.”
Harris clenched his jaw so hard Zach expected it to shatter any
second.

“I trust you boys to rise to the
challenge.”

“You’re nuts.” Harris’s angry look would’ve
incinerated a lesser man.

“You won’t be the first to claim that.”
HughJack shrugged, glowering at the two angry jocks.

Derek finally spoke up. “Coach, why am I
here? I get along with everybody.”

“You are the mediator, the final word in any
dispute, what you decide is law. Keep these idiots out of trouble.”
He turned back to Zach and Tyler. “Your hatred of each other is
killing this team. I thought about benching you both without this
scheme, but now I have a way to do it and put it on both of you.
Remember, this charity is very important to Veronica. Don’t screw
this up.”

“But coach, we can’t—” The look on
HughJack’s face caused Zach to swallow the rest of the
sentence.

“One more word from either of you, and
you’ll be riding the bench for the rest of the season. I’m not so
sure I shouldn’t do that anyway.” Coach looked down at his
computer, dismissing them.

Zach had no intention of letting this team
down by warming wood during the season. Harris stood and looked at
Zach, his expression unreadable. Zach looked right back.

Harris leaned close. “Thanks, asshole.”
Heaving an exasperated sigh, the jerk walked out of the office.

Zach shot a hopeful glance at the coach.
HughJack shook his head without ever hearing the question.
Shoulders slumped, Zach left the room.

His life was being jettisoned right into the
cold waters of Elliot Bay without a life jacket. The coach was
forcing him to be best buddies with Harris, and Kelsie—his future
wife—had had a hand in this. She’d gone behind his back just when
he’d convinced himself maybe she’d truly changed, and he could
trust her.

Yet, for a Super Bowl ring, Zach would sell
his nuts to science. He wasn’t so sure how he felt about his
bride-to-be, except for the sex part. He definitely knew how he
felt about that.

* * * * *

A few hours later Zach walked in the door as
Kelsie stood on a six-foot ladder and cleaned cobwebs from the
ten-foot ceilings in the parlor. She felt his powerful presence
before she saw or heard him. Belatedly, Scranton lifted his head
and yipped a half-hearted hello and went back to sleep.

Zach’s heavy footsteps echoed across the
hardwood floors. Kelsie didn’t turn around. She stretched as far as
she could to reach one large cobweb in the corner. The ladder
teetered precariously then tipped. A scream ripped from her throat
as she grabbed the air for something to break her fall. That
something happened to be Zach. He caught her in his strong,
muscular arms and pulled her to his solid chest. Gasping, she
clutched his shoulders and buried her face in his sweatshirt. She
clung to him, breathing in his clean, woodsy scent, and waited for
her wildly beating heart to slow to an idle, while Zach held her
stiffly to him.

Only it didn’t slow, it sped up, pounding in
her chest like the bass on a teenage boy’s car. She nuzzled his
neck, while his scent permeated every cell in her body right down
to her wet panties. Lord, but she wanted this man. Now. She nibbled
at his neck. He groaned but rather than responding in kind with
those hot lips, his body tightened.

Realizing he was angry, Kelsie wriggled out
of his arms, uncertain what she’d done to upset him. Straightening
her clothes, she wiped the cobwebs and dust from her shirt. If her
mother could see her now, she’d collapse in a dead faint.
Carringtons did not do manual labor, especially dirty manual labor,
and she’d done plenty lately, but the place was looking pretty damn
good. In fact, it looked like a place that even Kelsie’s snooty
mother would be proud to call home.

She lifted her gaze to meet his. Desire and
anger merged together. His nostrils flared as if he’d caught a
whiff of her own need. It had to be rolling off her in waves.

He looked around the room and his gaze fixed
on something. He looked more pissed than Scranton had the time
she’d informed him they’d run out of dog food. He continued to
stare as if she’d sold his prized possessions and spent his last
dime. Kelsie followed his gaze to the pile of shopping bags still
sitting in the entryway.

“I made an appointment with a tailor
recommended by Lavender. He does all of Tyler’s suits. You’ll need
at least one tux and a nice suit for less formal occasions. We’ll
start with the tux for the wedding and—” Her voice dropped off.
“Zach? What’s wrong?”

“Did you leave anything in the stores?”

She knew what he was thinking—that she’d
jumped at the first opportunity to spend his money. Instead, she’d
been quite frugal and was proud of it. “I bought you a few
things.”

“I don’t need any more clothes. I have
plenty.”

“I thought I made things clear last night.
Not the right kind. We need to make a good impression, and that has
a cost.”

“
We
do?” He swung his gaze back to
her, disappointment melded with irritation in those chocolate
depths.

“Yes. Us. If you want out, now’s the time.”
Let him think the worst of her, it’d keep him from getting attached
down the road.

“I already gave you my word.” He set his jaw
in that so-familiar stubborn way of his.

“You look miserable.”

“Maybe it’s the thought of having the same
tailor as Harris.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “Don’t
worry. And I didn’t max out your credit card.”

He grunted.

“You’re home early for you.” She glanced at
her watch to verify. It was only seven thirty. “Hoping to find me
in the tub again?” She teased him with a wide smile.

His eyes darkened at the memory, and his
lips actually turned up at the corners. “Not a bad thought, but
actually the power’s out at the facility so we couldn’t watch film.
Some idiot backhoe operator digging nearby broke the underground
power line.” Zach walked over to a framed painting and fingered it
as if to straighten it, only he made it more crooked. She expected
him to comment on his missing football posters, but he didn’t.

“Tell me what’s wrong?”

He met her gaze, and she braced herself at
the look he gave her.

“You sold me out to Coach.”

“What?” She didn’t understand. She hadn’t
talked to HughJack in over a week.

Uh oh.
She broke out in a cold sweat
and wrung her hands together. She really wanted to bite a hunk out
of her thumbnail. “HughJack decided to implement our plan?”

“He sure did. Why didn’t you warn me?”

“Because your coach said he thought our idea
was stupid. I guess he changed his mind. Besides, it’s for your own
good.”