Down by Contact - A Seattle Lumberjacks Romance (25 page)

“Forcing me to work with Harris is for my
own good?” He stalked toward her.

Irrational fear clawed at her insides, and
Kelsie backpedalled a few steps and hugged herself.

He frowned and moved closer to her. “I might
be upset, but I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know.” She hated that she’d reacted like
that to him, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Have you seen any more of the stalker?”

At the mention of trench-coat man, Kelsie
glanced toward the window and the street beyond. “Nothing. Not a
thing.” She’d been looking over her shoulder, but so far no
stalker.

“Good. I’ve got the security guys coming
tomorrow to install a complete system.”

“Thank you.”

“I want you to feel safe here.”

“I do.”

Motioning to her, Zach turned and headed for
the door. When she didn’t follow, he stopped in the doorway and
motioned to her. “Let’s go get something to eat. I’m starved.”

“Dressed like this?”

“Where we’re going, you’ll look just fine.”
He didn’t wait for her response, just headed out the door.

Grabbing her purse, Kelsie ran after him, a
little annoyed at his high-handedness. He helped her step up into
his huge truck, and she patted herself on the back for teaching him
a smidgeon of manners.

“Where are we going?” she asked, as they
drove out of the city and headed east.

“To my kind of place. I’ve had enough of
fancy dinners to last a while.” Zach stared straight ahead and
didn’t say another word.

“Is this payback?”

“Damn right. Let’s see how you blend in with
the common folk.”

Kelsie had never been much of a blender,
more like an attention-grabber, but she’d do her best to fit in and
demonstrate to him that good manners made friends in any social
circle.

She stared out the window as the rain pelted
it and ran down the glass in a steady stream of water, acutely
aware of the virile, somewhat angry man a few feet from her. Her
hand moved to the console, but she stopped it there. He wouldn’t
welcome her advances, not when he’d sworn celibacy until they said
“I do.”

The freeway gave way to a four-lane highway
which gave way to a two-lane country road. Streetlights became few
and far between until they drove down the main street of a small
town. A sign proclaimed it to be Millville. Millville consisted of
a half dozen blocks of mostly boarded-up buildings and ancient
houses. Zach pulled into a parking spot in front of the most
happening place in town. At least it was the only place with a sign
of habitation.

She eyed the dump with skepticism. “What is
this?”

“The Squatch. Best home-cooked meals west of
the Columbia River.”

“The Swatch?” The log structure looked old
enough to have been constructed by the first loggers in the area.
She didn’t care for the looks of the place or for the group of
rough-looking men and women standing near the doorway smoking
cigarettes.

“The Squatch. You’ll see.” Zach hopped out
and greeted the group as if they were old friends. Kelsie’s stomach
rumbled and she stepped out into a mud puddle, drenching her new
shoes. She swore she’d been dumped into the middle of that country
western song about the city girl who married the country boy.

Skirting past a couple Harley-Davidson
motorcycles parked on the sidewalk and under the building’s eaves,
she nodded politely to the group near the door. They stared back at
her. The woman frowned. The men looked her up and down like hunters
sizing up a doe.

Following Zach in the door, she stopped in
her tracks. A life-sized, stuffed Sasquatch, looking eerily real,
stood near the old stone fireplace. The mangy thing had seen better
days just like everything else in this hovel. Its huge yellow teeth
must have been donated from a poor, hapless bear. All in all, the
hideous thing probably gave small children nightmares. Good thing
the state of Washington didn’t allow children in bars.

“Cool, huh?”

Kelsie turned to Zach and shook her head. He
guided her toward the bar with a chuckle. At least the place put
him in a better mood.

He looked around the room. “These are my
people, Kelsie. Get used to it.” He motioned her to an empty bar
stool next to him.

Kelsie slid onto the stool, careful not to
touch anything. On the other side of her sat a wiry little man
arguing with an equally wiry woman about the merits of catching
moles with traps versus a good mole-hunting dog

The waitress wandered to the counter, gave
Kelsie the once-over, and raised a-who’s-this-chick eyebrow at
Zach, who just shrugged. “What’ll ya’ have?”

“How about a glass of merlot.”

“Don’t have none of that fancy French wine,
but we got a box of Mer-lot.” She phonetically pronounced the two
words.

“That’ll be fine.” She folded her hands
primly in front of her and ignored the man next to her who was now
eying her boobs.

“Enjoying yourself?” Zach grinned at her.
Oh, yeah, payback was a bitch, and he’d likely only begun.

“Immensely.” A bit of the old Kelsie’s
scathing sarcasm leaked into her voice.

“Now you know how I feel when I’m with your
people.” He took a long pull off his cheap beer and sighed with
satisfaction.

Kelsie’s
people
didn’t use chewing
tobacco or smell like cigarette factories. They rarely drank beer,
and if they did, it was a microbrew. And forget wine in a box. She
shifted uneasily, feeling their eyes upon her and knowing she
didn’t fit in.

The waitress came back, flashing her disgust
and disapproval like the mega electronic casino billboard bordering
I-5. She stopped next to Zach and placed a possessive, bony hand on
his muscular thigh. Kelsie stared at the hand with its red-tipped
nails as it caressed Zach’s leg. He shifted uneasily and cleared
his throat. Answering the bellow of the big, fat customer lounging
in the back near the pool table, the woman cast one last
threatening glance at Kelsie and sauntered off.

“Old girlfriend?” Kelsie kept her tone light
even as she fought off the urge to mud wrestle this woman for Zach.
God, this place was rubbing off on her.

“Wannabe girlfriend.” He stared at the
college football game on the television hanging above the bar.

“That’s what I thought.” She laid a
possessive hand on his thigh.

“What’s it to you anyway?” He stared at her
hand and swallowed.

He had her there but she’d done enough
beauty pageant interviews to think quickly on her feet. “I am going
to be your wife. If there are other women in your past and present,
I deserve to know.”

“I’m surprised you care.”

She dug her fingernails into his leg, but he
didn’t flinch. “Despite the circumstances, I won’t cheat on my
husband.”

“And I won’t cheat on my wife—despite the
circumstances.” Their eyes locked. The sexual tension arced between
them, sizzling and smoking like a short in the wiring. Her wiring
definitely shorted out when he was near.

“Good. Keep it that way. You wouldn’t want
to see what a former mean girl can do when she’s pissed off.”

He faked a shudder. “Nope, I’ll keep my
privates intact, thank you. Never know when I might need to use
them.”

Kelsie gazed into his warm brown eyes. She
liked this Zach, liked when he softened his edges a little and
relaxed. She liked how he smiled with his whole face, especially
his eyes, and those rare dimples came out. Yes, if Kelsie
Carrington-Richmond didn’t watch herself she might do something
inexcusably dumb and fall hard for a guy like Zach, which wouldn’t
be fair to him.

She looked down at her Mer-lot and swirled
the red liquid around in her glass. She needed to keep her freedom
and her emotional distance because if she dropped her guard she
might end up right where she was last year.

She hadn’t gained those hard-won inches of
freedom just to lose them to another man.

CHAPTER 17

Zach, having pre-wedding jitters, needed a
little normalcy in his life so he spent Tuesday night the way he’d
spent every Tuesday night since he joined the NFL, volunteering for
a homeless family organization, Family Ties, which worked to keep
families together even though they didn’t have a roof over their
head.

Zach did what he could, giving of his time
along with a generous anonymous donation every month. Sometimes,
Zach almost caved under the futility of it all, but he soldiered
on, taking care of his little piece of the world as best he
could.

Dedication to helping the homeless happened
to be the one thing he had in common with Veronica. At times his
resistance to the gala twisted his gut with guilt, not just because
of Kelsie, but because each year it raised a significant amount of
money for Seattle’s homeless charities. And here he was being a
shit about hosting it. He supposed if he dug deeper, it wasn’t
because he didn’t want to support the cause. Obviously. But more
because these fancy things had a way of bringing out the bumbling
idiot in him. Without exception, he did something stupid and ended
up looking like an uncouth moron.

Only this year he’d have Kelsie, not just as
a mentor, but as a wife. He’d left her planning a wedding with the
girls at his dining room table earlier this evening. She’d looked
damn good, smiling and laughing, her eyes sparkling and her lips
parting to show those white teeth. He ached for her and walked
around in a perpetual state of horniness. It seemed like he’d
sported a boner for days.

Thank God HughJack gave Harris and him a
reprieve until after the wedding. Zach couldn’t handle all this
stress at one time: playing nice with Harris, keeping his hands off
Kelsie, and getting hitched.

Shaking off his worries, Zach slogged
through a large puddle, and down the sidewalk. He tipped an
imaginary hat to the old vet known only as Danny. As usual the man
sat on a bench under an awning next to the homeless shelter. Danny
smiled a toothless grin and touched the bill of his new Lumberjacks
ball cap in response, the very cap Zach had given him last
week.

“How’s it goin’, Dan?” Zach paused and dug
in his wallet.

“Good, man. My bones are aching, means it’s
gonna be a rainy fall and a cold winter.”

“You would know better than me. Why don’t
you let me put you up in a room for the winter?”

“Nah, I’m fine right here. Walls give me
claustrophobia.” Danny took a puff on a cigarette stub he’d most
likely found on the sidewalk. Zach tried not to think about it.

“I understand.” At least, he understood as
well as anyone could who’d never been in Danny’s situation. The man
served in Vietnam and was a POW for a year. Dan hated to be penned
either in jail or behind the confining walls of an apartment.
Still, it didn’t seem right that someone who’d given so much to his
country should live on the streets. Despite Zach’s best efforts
that’s where Danny stayed. In fact, he seemed to resent any
interference from Zach except his friendship. Pride was a powerful
thing. As was the bottle. Danny held tightly to both.

Zach tucked a twenty in Danny’s shirt, even
though he knew the man would spend it on cheap whiskey. Pushing his
way through the heavy door, he walked past the reception area where
a large black woman sat with a pile of knitting. She made hats,
gloves, and scarves to give to the people who came into the
shelter. Anitra nodded, smiled, and never missed a stitch, or
whatever it was called in knitting.

A couple dozen kids of varying sizes and
ages waited for him in an adjacent room, empty except for a few
scratched tables and rickety folding chairs. They leapt to their
feet with excitement, remembering he’d promised them a special
surprise for this week’s visit.

These kids shared a common bond. They were
part of an alarmingly fast-growing homeless family population. He
gave a high five to Ricky, an enthusiastic twelve-year-old who
wanted to be a fireman. The kid had grown up in a middle-class
neighborhood until his father lost his job and unemployment ran
out. Now they lived in a tent in the mayor’s tent city. Next he
greeted Caleb, a quiet ten-year-old, who came to life when Zach
talked sports. He lived with his two sisters and single mother in
their car. She lost her job and her boyfriend on the same day,
finding herself on the street.

Tonight, Zach had chartered a bus, and they
were making the half-hour trip to Seattle’s Museum of Flight, where
he’d arranged for a special private evening. Afterward, they’d dine
on pizza and juice at a local pizza joint.

“The bus leaves in five, guys. Load up.”
Zach motioned toward the door. The kids ran for it, yelling and
screaming with pure joy. A half dozen chaperones followed at a more
adult pace. The kids’ enthusiasm never ceased to amaze him. God, he
wanted to take every one of those kids home with him to his big,
rambling empty house.

He’d done that once or twice before he’d
come to Seattle, and it’d ended in disaster. Now he tried to give
his time without getting personally involved. Doing as much as he
could without having these kids’ situations drag him down.

Just like with Kelsie. Sorta. Actually he’d
tried to not get involved but he
was
involved, about as
involved with a woman as a man could be, which was not the same
thing. In fact, it was much worse than involved, yet he didn’t see
another option, no matter how stupid his solution was. He worried
about her stalker. He worried about her being homeless. He worried
he might not stop the next time he found her naked in his house. He
groaned just thinking about the soap sliding off her shoulders to
nestle between those creamy white breasts. Shit, his penis was
rising to the task again.
Down, boy.

Zach refocused his attention on the sweet
little boy still sitting in a chair and clutching a child-sized
football. The kid looked up at him with sad brown eyes, and Zach’s
heart melted like a wax on a stovetop. He reminded Zach of his
brother.