Down by Contact - A Seattle Lumberjacks Romance (13 page)

“You paid for two weeks.” In between the
wheezing and coughing, the large woman didn’t seem impressed.

“I gave you four hundred dollars.” Kelsie
portrayed an air of confidence. She’d straighten this out. It was
all a misunderstanding.

“That’s two weeks rent at two hundred a
week.”

“No, you said—”

“To hell with what you think I said, here’s
the agreement you signed.” She flashed it in front of Kelsie’s
face. Kelsie snatched it from her and scanned it, stopped, and read
it more slowly.

“But, I, I thought—”

“I don’t give a flying rat’s ass what you
thought. This is what you signed. Pay another two weeks or get your
skinny behind out of here.”

Anything short of an elephant’s butt would
be a skinny ass compared to the one Kelsie’s now former landlady
sported. The catty thought gave her a teensy measure of
satisfaction.

“I’ll get it to you in a few days.”

“You don’t have it now?” The woman glanced
at her watch, probably missing one of those reality shows about
rednecks with mullets running a moonshine operation out of the back
of their pawn shop and hunting for Sasquatch in their spare
time.

“No, but—”

“Sorry, missy, I don’t do charity. If I fell
for every sob story, I’d be broke.” Mrs. Tremain glanced at her
watch again and tapped her foot impatiently. “You have five minutes
to get your crap and yourself out of here before I call the
police.” The woman waddled off, her heavy footsteps thudded on the
stairs. A second later the door slammed to her first floor
apartment.

Well, at least in jail she’d be warm and get
three meals a day. Kelsie shuddered. Perish the thought. She’d
never survive in jail, not with the sheltered life she’d led. Those
women would chew her up and spit her out.

Kelsie sank to the floor and buried her face
in her hands. Her tears fell like Seattle rain. Scranton placed his
little paws on her shoulder and licked her face. She held him tight
as her tears wet his wiry poodle coat, badly in need of a clip.
Even her dog looked like a mutt, just like Kelsie must.

She’d no one to blame but herself. She’d
spent too much money on stupid stuff. Not to mention, using the
last of her dollars to pay for a second dumpster load. Funny how
quickly one thousand dollars drained from her bank account like a
wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding.

Until Zach’s gala, she’d not see another
penny from the Jacks. She’d be back to living in her car with the
nights getting colder and danger lurking in the darkness. Not that
she’d seen any evidence of being followed lately, but then again,
maybe she’d been too busy to notice.

Tucking Scranton under her arm, she started
stuffing her clothes into suitcases. After a dozen or more trips,
she’d loaded everything in her car. The entire time, Mrs. Tremain
watched, hands on her ample hips and a scowl on her face. The woman
stood on the sagging front porch as Kelsie struggled down the
stairs with her last load and watched as she drove away.

The late September sun gave way to angry
gray clouds and a heavy mist of rain, pretty much matching her
mood. Her first inclination was to run to Zach. Despite their past,
he’d take her in because that was the kind of man he was. Only she
didn’t want his pity, nor did she want to be under his thumb, to
let him realize how he held all the cards, while she played with an
empty deck. Despite being financially and emotionally wrecked,
Kelsie had her pride and her hard-won independence. Going to Zach
would surrender both.

When she’d finally left Mark, she’d made a
promise to never put herself in a situation where she depended on a
man for her very existence. She wouldn’t do it now. She’d rather
live in her car. Only where to park said car?

As she rounded a street corner on a
virtually deserted side street, headlights shone in her rearview
mirror, momentarily blinding her. Frowning and feeling a bit
paranoid, she turned down another street. The black sedan followed
a few blocks back. Another turn. Still, it was there. Kelsie
slipped down an alley. The car followed. Heart pounding in her
chest, she gunned it out of the alley, through a yellow light, and
around another corner. She caught a glance at the sedan stuck
behind cars at the lights.

Patting herself on the back for getting away
did nothing to alleviate the fears. Her hands shook on the steering
wheel and her insides churned like an angry ocean. It’d been a few
weeks since she’d been followed. She’d all but convinced herself
the guy had been a figment of her wild imagination.

Only he wasn’t. He was all too real. And he
was back.

She recalled Mark’s final words to her:
I’m not done with you. I’ll make your life a living hell. Keep
looking over your shoulder. You’ll never know when I’ll show
up.
At the time, she convinced herself they were idle threats
spoken by a man accustomed to having things his way, except for a
divorce he hadn’t wanted.

Kelsie drove around for several minutes,
chewed on her already trashed fingernails, and found herself on
Zach’s street, despite her best intentions. Somehow being near the
big lug gave her security. The type of security she’d not felt in
quite a few years.

No lights shone in the windows of his big
house. Good. She inched into his driveway and squeezed her little
car between his garage and a hedge of holly in a spot she knew was
not visible from the house and couldn’t be seen from the
street.

It took several minutes for her heart to
stop thumping, and her pulse to return to near normal. She gnawed
on a piece of beef jerky she’d grabbed earlier from Zach’s house
and drank some bottled water. Hopefully she wouldn’t need to pee
until morning. Being homeless sucked big time. When she started
making money, she’d never again callously disregard a person
holding a sign on the street corner.

Angling her seat back, Kelsie huddled under
a couple coats and a blanket. Scranton burrowed under the layers
with her and curled up in a ball on her chest. Pretty soon his
snoring echoed through the quiet evening.

Sure, she could ask Rachel or Lavender for
help. They’d take her in, but she didn’t want to be in their way or
cramp their love lives. Besides, Zach, so far, didn’t have any
social life to cramp. In fact, her job included helping the loner
build a healthy social life, even if she died trying. Except for
her sleeping accommodations, this was perfect. He’d never see her
parked here. Plus, the guy left home before sun-up and came back
after sundown.

So for now, she’d sleep in her car, spend
all her spare time at Zach’s. Maybe she could eat and shower there.
Sleep inside during away games. She huddled deeper under the coats,
wondering if she could sneak in and sleep on the couch if it got
too cold.

Yeah, it could work. It wasn’t the best
plan, but it was a plan. Kelsie closed her eyes, comforted by
knowing Zach slept a few yards away.

* * * * *

Zach dropped into the chair across the table
from Kelsie. He hated fancy restaurants, hated dressing up, hated
wasting the money. Besides, he wasn’t in the best of moods anyway.
The team lost another game, making their record two and two. He
needed to be studying game film not wasting his time with this
bullshit.

With a long-suffering sigh, he glanced up at
Kelsie. She stood behind her chair, glaring at him. His brows drew
together as he gazed up at her. She gave him one of those
look-down-her-nose frowns. He’d messed up. Again. He racked his
brain in an attempt to figure out what useless rule he’d violated
this time.

“You’re forgetting something.”

“Uh.” He glanced around, not that he’d find
the answer anywhere but, damn, he couldn’t remember all this crap.
He had a brain for football plays not for etiquette. “You look like
nice tonight.”

She continued to stand. He jumped to his
feet and stood, vaguely recalling he shouldn’t sit until she did.
Only she didn’t sit. She shook her head as if he was the most
clueless moron she’d ever been saddled with, which was just about
right, he figured.

Zach sighed, feeling like an idiot without a
clue. “I take it that’s not it.”

“Zach, are you honestly this oblivious?”

“Yeah, probably.” He raked a hand through
his hair, smoothing it out, yet the action made her frown all the
more. “I don’t know what you want.”

“A gentleman pulls out a lady’s chair for
her.”

“Ah, hell.” With an annoyed sigh, he
lumbered to her side and yanked out her chair. She sat down with
exaggerated daintiness. He shoved the chair up to the table,
dropping back into his own seat.

“Try it again.”

“Are you fu—” Zach paused. “Flipping kidding
me?”

“Keep your voice down. People are staring.”
Kelsie glanced around the room. Zach noted the various people
looking down their royal noses at him, just like Kelsie did. “We’ll
keep practicing it until you get it right, understand? This is your
test. We’ve gone over fine dining for the past week.”

Zach tugged on the collar of his shirt. “I
hate ties.”

“I know, you’ve told me a thousand times
over.” Kelsie moved to stand beside the chair. “Do it just like we
practiced it.”

Zach glowered at one old lady in particular
who wouldn’t stop staring. She quickly looked away and whispered
something to her equally wrinkled companion.

Kelsie shot him an impressive evil eye as
she sat down. He didn’t know the beauty queen had it in her.

“That was inexcusably rude.” Kelsie folded
her hands in her lap.

Zach imitated the gesture. “So what? She was
rude.”

Kelsie was doing a lot of sighing. “You just
don’t get it. Even though I dress you up, make you comb your hair
and shave, you still look like a feral man posing in a suit, more
at home in your bare skin than clothes of any kind.

He shrugged, not doubting the truth.

“Next week we’re getting you a civilized
haircut and a decent suit.”

“Not on your life. All this fancy-assed crap
is bad enough without you turning me into some pansy like
Harris.”

“I hadn’t noticed Harris was a pansy. He
seems quite masculine to me.”

Irritation flowed through him. He hated
being compared to Harris and found lacking. “You seemed to like a
real man when I kissed you.”

She didn’t rise to the bait. “Zach, I need
you to put some effort into retaining this information.”

“Listen, every minute I spend on this
useless garbage is one less minute I spend watching game film.”

“Haven’t you watched enough game film over
the years?”

Zach didn’t expect her to understand. Nobody
understood but his teammates. It was about the game. It was always
about the game. Nothing mattered but the game. Football was all
he’d ever had, and all he ever would have. He’d fight heaven and
hell to keep it in his life until he drew his dying breath. Kelsie
wouldn’t get that, not at all. She’d never played the game. How
could anyone who’d never felt the sting as pads smacked against
pads, swallowed the gritty taste of dirt in their mouth, or smelled
the freshly mown grass understand the brotherhood each player felt
with his teammates—well, expect for Harris.

“I want a ring. In order to get one, I have
to be able to dissect everything the opposing offense is capable of
doing, every week. I’m the one who calls the defensive formations.
I’m the defensive captain. The guys look up to me and expect
nothing less. I can’t let them down, but this damn manners crap is
interfering with my ability to be a good defensive captain and
teammate.”

Kelsie sighed. “I’m not doing this because I
get a perverse pleasure out of it. I’m doing it because it’s my
job, and Lumberjacks’ management is paying me to teach you some
social graces. If you’d cooperate, we’d spend less time going over
the same information.”

“You sure you don’t get a perverse pleasure
out of making me jump through hoops?” He frowned at her, certain
she did just that. After all, it was all about what Kelsie wanted,
always had been.

“Believe what you want. I have a job to do.
So do you. Your job is to learn some basic manners so you don’t
embarrass the team in social situations.” She snapped her napkin at
him then folded it neatly in her lap.

Zach imitated her actions, down to the
napkin snap. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic. You could turn down the charm a
little. It’s blinding me.”

In spite of himself, Zach laughed. Hell, he
didn’t possess a charming bone in his big body, and they both knew
it.

“Now order a bottle of wine and go through
everything like we practiced it.”

“You mean sniffing the cork and all that
bullshit?”

“Yes, all that bullshit.”

Zach grinned. “Keep it up, and you’ll be
sounding like me.”

“Not a chance in thousand lifetimes.” She
graced him with one of her dazzling smiles, the same smile she used
on him in high school when she needed a lackey to do some kind of
dirty work for her. In a way she still did. She needed him to mind
his manners so she could get a hefty contract with the Jacks and
torture more unsuspecting players with her lethal charm.

Despite all she’d done to him, he’d
cooperate because he didn’t have an option, and somewhere deep
inside, he wanted to please her.

CHAPTER 9

Zach froze and listened. A sound, just a
slight sound. There, he heard it again. Snoring? Someone, somewhere
snored in his house—and it wasn’t him.

He pulled back the covers and stood, wading
through the clothes littering the floor. He grabbed the Ken Griffey
Jr. autographed Louisville Slugger on the dresser and hefted it in
his hands. He’d locked up his hunting rifles downstairs in the gun
safe. The bat would have to do.

A sliver of a moon shone through the open
blinds. Zach slept with the window open, liking fresh air and a
frigid bedroom. He wasn’t scared exactly, but adrenaline ran hard
and strong through his veins.