Down by Contact - A Seattle Lumberjacks Romance (39 page)

Under different circumstances, Zach would’ve
doubled over with laughter at the sight of Kelsie whipping the bowl
back and forth within inches of this chickenshit’s head. Zach’s
prim-and-proper lady was defending him like the fiercest of
warriors with a stainless steel bowl—not exactly the warrior’s
weapon of choice.

“You’ve sunk to his level.” Mark threw one
last volley.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, and you can
take
this
.”

Zach lunged for the bowl just as Kelsie
attempted to heave it at Mark. They wrestled for it, Zach desperate
to stop her from doing something so stupid as dumping it on Mark’s
head. She fought with him, finally stomping on Zach’s other foot.
He tried to hang on, but she jerked it out of his caramel-coated
fingers with amazing strength.

Kelsie aimed the bowl at Mark’s head, as
Zach made a last-ditch grasp for it. Veronica hurried to Mark’s
side at the same moment the bowl hurtled toward Mark. The bowl hit
its mark—literally—and Veronica got caught in the cross fire. Warm,
sticky caramel sauce coated Mark and Veronica’s hair and slid down
their faces, necks, and torsos as slowly as slug moves across a
sidewalk. Little bits of caramel stuck to Veronica’s eyelashes and
almost glued her eyes shut.

“Oh my God.” Bruiser’s words echoed Zach’s
sentiments exactly. Then the running back started laughing.

Mark didn’t find any of it funny. “You
fucking bitch.” He looked ready to kill, sputtering and cursing and
most likely seeing red along with gold from the caramel. Groping
for another weapon, Mark grabbed a bowl of strawberry sauce and
flung it. Zach and Kelsie ducked. The bowl flew between them,
careening off Zach’s shoulder and splattering Tyler Harris, who’d
walked up behind them, squarely in the face. Red strawberries and
sticky sauce coated him like a very pissed-off sundae. Zach wiped a
glob off his own ear, part of the overspray. Kelsie sported a blob
of strawberry on the tip of her nose.

Harris pushed past them. His blue eyes
burned like a pilot light through a red strawberry haze. “You
bastard.” He shoved his hands in a bowl of liver pate, scooped up a
ball and aimed at Mark. Mark dove for cover behind the kitchen
island, and the pate ball hit HughJack squarely on his forehead as
the coach entered the kitchen. Great aim. Deadly aim.

This was not good. Not good at all.
HughJack’s face turned redder than it did during a twenty-clipboard
game.

As more guests crowded into the kitchen, the
rookie running back shouted out a war whoop, grabbing another
bowl.

The chef started screaming, “Not the caviar!
Please, not the caviar!” The man sounded ready to cry.

A second later the caviar took flight,
spraying across several guests and teammates, leaving globby messes
of fish eggs clinging to elegant clothing.

Bruiser and LeDaniel took cover behind the
island and peppered the growing crowd with olives and little hard
pieces of bread. Shrimp was jettisoned from an undisclosed
location. Bow-tie pasta flew across the room a line drive, headed
for the team owner’s crotch.

It all happened so fast. Within a minute
participating teammates and guests had laid waste to the entire
kitchen and the remainder of the food. Kelsie and Zach huddled in a
corner out of the line of fire, at least most of it. Zach’s stomach
dive bombed to the bottom of his dress shoes and stayed there. They
were both so screwed. So very, very screwed.

HughJack wiped pate off his lips and
bellowed above the crowd. “STOP IT! NOW! What the fuck is going on
here?”

One last piece of chicken smacked HughJack
in the face before the mob quieted. Players glanced at each other
and shuffled their feet. Guests picked bits of food from their
hair. Zach and Kelsie rose from their safe place. Kelsie clutched
Zach’s hand so hard his circulation was almost cut off. Several of
the wait staff swung into action and handed out towels.

Spitting out caramel and looking like a
melted Snickers bar, Veronica turned on Zach. “You moron. You
started this.” A piece of shrimp was stuck to the caramel on her
right cheek.

For a minute Zach blinked, then realized
Veronica thought he’d flung the first bowl, not Kelsie. He jumped
on her assumption, anxious to save Kelsie’s reputation and her
business, even as he knew he might very well be sinking his own
career in the process. “I was giving that ass there what he
deserved.”

“You are never playing another down of
football on my team.” Veronica’s sticky claws were out, as if she
meant to draw blood.

Zach shook his head. “Even a layer of
caramel can’t make you sweet.” Big mistake, but it came out of his
mouth without him thinking. Somewhere nearby, he heard Bruiser
laugh and Tomcat snort.

“I’ll have your head.” Veronica included
them all in her scathing look. Perhaps it’d be a multiple
beheading.

“Wait a minute. I threw that first bowl.”
Kelsie stepped forward, madder than he’d ever seen her. She turned
on Zach. “I told you. I can fight my own battles.” She swung back
toward Veronica. “This jerk insulted my husband.”

Mark, wiping his face with a wet rag, shook
his head. “I’m done with you, bitch.” He pointed at Kelsie.

“Don’t you call my wife a bitch.” Zach lost
it. Too hell with manners. He pulled back his arm, hand fisted,
ready to lay the guy out on the floor. Fingers like a steel vise
and smelling of strawberries, closed around his biceps and pinned
his arms behind his back.

Harris growled in his ear. “Don’t make this
worse for Kelsie.”

Mark shook his head and little drops of
caramel flew everywhere. “I’m fucking out of here.” He shot a
glance at Zach. “You’re a dumb idiot, just like you always were.
Enjoy her while it lasts.” He stomped away, squishing with every
step.

More guests had poured into the kitchen
area. The caterer, recovering from shock, frantically yelled
instructions to her staff to clean up the mess in a futile attempt
to salvage the evening.

HughJack shouted at Harris. “Get him out of
here for now.” He looked pointedly at Zach. “We’ll talk first thing
Monday morning. You sure as hell better hope this doesn’t make the
papers or the Internet tomorrow.”

Tyler and Derek grabbed his arms and pulled
him away from the crazy-assed caramel woman, while her father and
brothers rushed to comfort her.

“It’s probably already on Twitter by now,”
Derek muttered as they shoved Zach toward the door and away from
the scene of the crime and out of Veronica’s sticky clutches.
Dumbfounded with shock, Zach staggered across the room.

Kelsie stood away from the group of people,
her knuckles in her mouth and said nothing.

While his future imploded around him, Zach
blindly allowed Harris to usher him out of the room.

* * * * *

A food fight had obliterated Kelsie’s world,
and blew it into millions of tiny, unrecoverable pieces. And she,
Kelsie Murphy of the impeccable manners, had started the entire
thing. She didn’t know whether to sob or laugh hysterically.

Veronica gripped her father’s jacket lapel,
leaving a caramel handprint. “You need to suspend Murphy for
disciplinary purposes. Look at all the witnesses. You can’t let him
get away with this type of behavior. We had a deal with him.”

Mr. Simms backed up a few steps, as if
trying to get away from the candy fallout. “We’ll talk in the
morning. All of us.”

HughJack nodded his agreement.

Kelsie couldn’t stay quiet any longer. She
ignored Veronica and pleaded her case with Mr. Simms and Coach
Jackson. She already signed her finishing school’s death sentence.
Her next words might put her directly in the electric chair, but
she couldn’t let Zach take the fall for this.

“I threw the first bowl. Not Zach. He’s
taking the blame for me. Zach has come so far. He’s worked hard not
only on the field but off. He’s the first one in the building in
the morning and the last to leave. He would not jeopardize the most
important thing in his life—his team—over something like this. He’s
done everything you’ve asked, buried the hatchet with Tyler, worked
tirelessly on this gala, studied hard to improve his social skills.
How can you punish a man who’s made such an effort, especially for
something he didn’t do?” She looked from one to the other, hoping
to see a glimmer of understanding and sympathy in their eyes.

The two men gave nothing away. Veronica,
caramel dripping off her chin, shook her head. “Nice try. But Zach
threw that bowl.”

“No, he didn’t. Zach passed the test. He
learned his lessons better than his teacher did.”

Veronica didn’t budge. “You’ll never
convince me.”

“We need to get you home.” Her father
ushered her from the room without another word.

The excitement over, the crowd dissipated,
heading back to different parts of the house—or a shower—jabbering
and laughing. Their lives hadn’t been destroyed, like Zach’s had
and Kelsie’s.

Kelsie swallowed past the giant-sized lump
in her throat and went in search of Zach. She found him sitting in
the upstairs tower bedroom on the curved window seat staring out
the window. He looked as if he’d just been told he’d never win a
ring or play another down. As far as she knew, that may well be
true. She walked over to him, her heels clicking on the hardwood
floors. He didn’t as much as glance her way.

“Zach? Are you okay?”

He stared out the window, proud, yet sad.
Kelsie sat next to him and took his big hands in hers. They were
cold.

“Did your ex leave?” His voice sounded
weird. He jerked his hands away from hers.

“Yes, I don’t think he wanted to stick
around since he was wearing most of the dessert and the rookies
were eyeing him hungrily.” Her attempt at humor was met with
silence.

Long tense silence, except for the muted
sounds of the band in another part of the house and occasional
voices drifting up from the deck.

Zach looked up, attempted a wry smile. “I
don’t think the crowd will forget this gala.”

“There is that.” She cleared her throat.
“Zach, I didn’t invite Mark, and I didn’t hire a PI to trick you
into marrying me. You have to believe me.”

“I do believe you, except for one thing.” He
looked up at her with the saddest eyes. “Why did you come to
Seattle, Kel?”

He had her there. By the devastation on his
face, he read the truth in her expression. “Zach, it wasn’t like
that, really. Yes, I knew you were here. I didn’t have anywhere
else to go, and I’d changed so much, learned so much. I had to
apologize to you for everything before I could move on with my
life.”

He snorted as if he wasn’t buying it. “You
didn’t think I could help your career?”

“I—well, yes, I hoped maybe you could at
first. But now—”

“Now, what?” He stared out the window, his
strong profile contorted with grief.

“There’s more to it than that. I thought we
might have the start of something good. Something lasting. Only you
would never open up to me.”

“About why Gary is buried here?”

“Among other things. That’s only a symptom
of a larger problem.”

Zach swallowed and cleared his throat. “I
buried Gary’s ashes here because he’d always dreamed of owning a
Victorian mansion. His forever-home. So I finally bought him one.”
He stared out the window and a lone tear ran down his face.

Kelsie’s heart stalled, then exploded in her
chest in a rapid series of frantic drum beats. Zach never cried.
Never.

She fought for the right words, the words to
make everything be okay. Only for once, she couldn’t come up with
anything.

“I never let anyone in, not even my brother,
not since high school, but I was letting you in again, Kelsie.
Learning to trust you. Believing in you.” Zach met her gaze, lines
of deep sorrow cut trenches into his rugged face.

“Zach, please, I should’ve told you why I
came here, leveled with you.”

“It’s not just that. You followed me
everywhere tonight, never once let me out of your sight. You didn’t
trust me not to screw this up, as if I didn’t realize how important
this was to you.”

“Zach, I just wanted to be there for you. To
support you.”

“Support me! Hell, you wanted to control my
every move, my every word.”

Kelsie gasped. He made her sound like her
mother. Oh, God, she was nothing like her mother, was she?

“You had to make sure this poor Texas boy
didn’t soil your perfect gala and ruin your ridiculous
business.”

She grabbed hold of his statement and
attacked. “You think my business is ridiculous?”

“Well, yeah? Who does it help except you?
Does it give a homeless man a coat for cold winter nights? Does it
provide a warm meal for a disabled veteran on the streets? Does it
cure a child of cancer?”

“No, but, it—”

“It what? Perpetuates a bunch of outdated,
snooty rules that don’t say a damn thing about the person
underneath.”

She couldn’t argue with that logic. “Manners
are part of civilized culture. Without them we’d be animals.”

“Like tonight.” His wry chuckle didn’t reach
his eyes. “What about compassion? Caring? Giving?”

Kelsie couldn’t speak. Her mouth opened but
nothing came out.

“You used me, Kelsie. Just like you used me
in high school, just like you used the team, and those pageant
judges because nothing gets in the way of what Kelsie wants.
Nothing. Not even a man who was fool enough to believe he loved
her.”

“You loved me?” She grasped the words and
held them to her heart, searching for the glue to put this mess
back together.

“I’ve always loved you, worshipped you,
carried an Olympic-sized torch for you. I got over it once. I’ll
get over it again.”

“But—”

He held up a hand to stop her. “I’ll sign
any divorce papers you want. Hell, I don’t even care if you ask for
spousal support or whatever the hell they call it.”