Down by Contact - A Seattle Lumberjacks Romance (9 page)

“Well, it’s on the historic register. That’s
what
they
call it. I guess Branson was a Seattle big-wig a
century ago.”

“You guess?” She sighed. The poor house had
withstood the test of time, but could it withstand a redneck
football player with zero taste, a non-existent groundskeeper, and
an affinity for tacky?

He shrugged and stuck his hands in his
pockets. “Uh, don’t really pay much attention to stuff like
that.”

“I can imagine.” She peered through the
dense foliage to the barely visible street beyond. “I bet you don’t
get many visitors here or at least none that you’ve found.” Only
the bravest and tasteless of souls would venture forth into this
bastion of zero class and redneck adornments.

Zach’s dark brows drew together as if he
didn’t get her humor or her implications. “I’m not much for
company.”

Again, no surprise there.

“Let me show you the place.” His usual
distaste of her gave way to pride and excitement. She almost hated
to burst his bubble, but the place needed a major overhaul before
the gala, and she’d only seen a small portion of it.

Bracing herself, she followed him inside. He
walked ahead, leaving the door wide open. With a sigh, Kelsie shut
the heavy, old oak door with the oval, etched glass window. It
stuck halfway. She leaned into it with all her weight and shoved it
shut. Zach watched from a few feet away. “A gentleman holds the
door for a lady and closes it after her.”

He frowned, looking perturbed and
embarrassed at the same time.

The inside of the house shocked her almost
as much as the outside, only for a different reason. She fully
expected the place to be in a state of disrepair. Looking past junk
piled on antique furniture, a Harley parked in the parlor, and the
house’s basic unkempt condition, the grand old lady’s bones
bordered on incredible. Beautifully finished woodwork shone from
years of loving care. A curved oak banister rose to a balcony on
the second floor. An antique Tiffany chandelier hung in the middle
of the two-story entry. The hardwood floors gleamed under a layer
of dust.

“This way. I call this the man cave.” He
didn’t wait, just headed for a set of oak double doors. Kelsie
hurried after him as fast as her heels would allow. She stopped
dead in her tracks. Every bit as lovingly restored as the entryway,
the library should’ve impressed, instead she drew back and stared.
A scruffy deer head hung over the mantle. A mish-mash of new, poor
quality furniture, mostly recliners, were scattered randomly around
the room. A big-screen TV took up one entire wall and blocked an
old, beautiful built-in bookcase. The bare walls were devoid of
artwork, which perhaps wasn’t such a bad thing given Zach’s
taste.

Zach grinned at her. “So? What do you
think?”

“The house is beautiful.”

“I did the decorating myself.”

“I can see that.”

“This way.” He led her to a designer kitchen
with very undesigner-like adornments such as tacky refrigerator
magnets taped to the professional grade stainless-steel
refrigerator, red rooster canisters, and an array of plastic
utensils in a mason jar. Zach watched her, as if waiting for her
approval. “What do you think?”

“Needs a little tidying.”

“Yeah, my housekeeper quit.”

“We’ll get another one.”

“We?” He grunted as if that’d be a cold day
in hell.

He gestured for her to follow him out a set
of French doors. Turning around slowly on the sagging back porch,
Kelsie surveyed the property, looking past the overgrown landscape.
The old mansion perched on a hill high above Seattle like a dowager
queen on her throne. Below her, the city and Elliot Bay sparkled in
the waning daylight. The sun setting over the distant Olympic
Mountains cast ethereal rays of red, purple, and gold across Puget
Sound.

Incredible.
The view made up for
everything else.

Thank God almighty she had almost three
months to prepare for this party.

“Seen enough?”

She choked back a very unladylike snort.
“Yes, let’s talk.”

A few minutes later, Kelsie sat in a folding
chair at the plastic patio table. Zach sank his big body into the
only wooden dining chair in the large formal dining room. Frameless
posters depicting various football stars were tacked drunkenly on
the walls, not a straight one in the bunch. A life-sized depiction
of Tyler Harris hung on another wall, darts stuck in his heart and
crotch areas.

“A little hostile, aren’t we?”

Zach’s eyes followed her gaze, his face
colored redder than his neck. “I, uh. Yeah, maybe.” He held his
hands out with palms up and shrugged. “I keep my grudges
close.”

“And your enemies closer. Don’t I know
that.” Kelsie opened her laptop, all business. “Let’s discuss the
changes that need to be made before the gala. We have a few months.
What’s your budget for improvements?”

“I don’t need improvements. I like this
place as it is.”

“For starters, the jungle outside could
conceal a small elephant.”

“My lawnmower’s busted.”

“Fix it.”

“I will, just haven’t had time.”

“Pay someone.”

“To do something I can do? No way in
frigging hell.” His chin jutted out and he crossed his muscular
arms over his chest, drawing Kelsie’s eyes to his bulging biceps
and the dusting of hair on his forearms. She licked her lips. He
cleared his throat.

Kelsie’s head shot up. She’d been caught
gawking. “Your shrubbery is taking your house by siege.”

“My trimmers need sharpening.”

“Let me guess—and you haven’t gotten around
to it.”

“Nope.” He scratched his ample chest and
leaned back in his chair, regarding her with hooded eyes, very
sexy, hooded eyes, the kind a girl would expect to see in a
bedroom. The stubborn set of his chin warned of more trouble to
come.

“The boxes in the hallway?”

“Haven’t gotten around to unpacking.”

“The Harley in the parlor?”

“Need to rebuild the engine and—”

“You haven’t gotten around to it.” Kelsie
buried her fingers in her hair and glared at him in frustration.
Death by slow poisoning sounded good about now. His death, not
hers. Hmmm. Then again.

“This is the perfect house for an intimate
black-tie affair, after some cosmetic changes.”

“Intimate, huh?” His mouth turned up at the
corners, a wolfish grin, which made her the lamb. “As in you and
me?”

“And two hundred other people.”

“If that’s what you’re into, honey, I’m
game.”

“Cut the sexual innuendos.” The man’s
suggestions were making her wet in all the wrong places. “We need
to hire a lawn and garden service, refurnish the rooms, and get a
large dumpster delivered.”

“
We
aren’t doing a damn thing. I’m
not holding a black-tie affair, a white-tie affair, or even a
T-shirt affair. Understood? You want it cleaned up and all that
other fancy crap, you take care of it. I’m not shelling out a penny
for this bullshit. It’s bad enough I have to attend manners
classes, and you’re damn lucky I agreed to do that.” Zach laid it
on thick, projecting complete indifference.

“I wasn’t aware you had any options.”

He shrugged. “I’m not holding a party.”

“Yes, you are.” She stared at her notes as
if they mattered. He’d just hacked her future to pieces in a few
sentences. No black-tie charity gala, no money for Kelsie, no
business referrals, no nothing. She’d be back to living in her
car.

She met his eyes. His hard exterior softened
a bit. “Hey, look, I know you think I’m being an ass, but I feel
strongly about this. I’m not gonna compromise my principles to
satisfy the owner’s spoiled brat daughter. This is who I am, if
they don’t like it, tough.”

Easy for him to say. The roof over his head
and food in his mouth didn’t depend on this gala. “I wasn’t aware
you had a vote in this if you want to stay in Seattle. You’d prefer
to be tossed off the team and traded to that loser team?”

“How do you know about that?”

“I make it my business to know about my
clients.”

“I never said I’d spend my own hard-earned
cash on this gala.”

She squared her shoulders and sat up
straighter. Zach wasn’t making this easy. “Running a charity event
of this caliber costs money.”

He dug in, his stubborn jaw jutted out even
more. “I’m not spending money on the yard. It’ll be dark. They
won’t see it anyway.”

Exasperated, Kelsie considered wrapping her
fingers around his thick neck and squeezing. “Fine, I’ll do the
work myself.”

“You? Are you effing kidding me? You
wouldn’t know how to mow a lawn if it was artificial turf.”

“I’m quite handy I’ll have you know.” Kelsie
stood and gathered her stuff, vindicated by the incredulous
expression on his masculine face. “I’ll be back in the morning, and
you will have the lawnmower fixed.”

She hurried out the door before she came to
her senses and begged for his help.

Or even worse, begged for his body.

* * * * *

Zach knelt in front of the lawnmower he’d
dug out from under a pile of boxes in his garage. He didn’t enjoy
doing stuff like this, but he’d be damned if he’d spend his
hard-earned money on something he could do himself. Call him a
tightwad, and he’d gladly answer that call. Except when it came to
this house. He’d paid a small fortune for this place.

From the time Zach was old enough to know
other people didn’t live like he did, he swore if he ever got rich,
he’d never be one of those pompous assholes with fancy furniture in
a house a guy couldn’t get comfortable in. Money would never change
him. And this beauty queen with a stick up her butt wouldn’t change
him either—even if she did live in his fantasies all night long and
invaded his thoughts at the worst of times.

Zach loved his house. He’d promised his
brother—his dead baby brother—that someday they’d have a house like
this, put down roots, and never move again. This was his forever
home. He had it all planned out, and Zach didn’t like it when
anyone messed with his carefully laid out steps. One: Win the Super
Bowl and get a ring. Two: Retire. Three: Get hired for that UW
coaching vacancy coming up next summer. Four: Get married and raise
a family and grow old all in the same house.

The minute the real estate agent showed him
the old Victorian, he knew it was
the
house, the one he’d
imagined when he escaped to that safe place in his head whenever
his father beat the crap out of him.

When Kelsie and her friends humiliated him,
he swore he’d show them all one day. They’d kicked him when he was
as far down as a man could get. He hadn’t even been a man, he’d
been a seventeen-year-old kid with a murdered brother and mother
and an abusive father in prison. Memories of their cruelty twisted
his insides into a mass of pain.

Zach gave the wrench one final vicious
twist, wiped his greasy hands on a towel and stood up. Righting the
lawnmower, he added gas and checked the oil. Kelsie would need more
than a regular lawn mower to tackle this lawn, but a vengeful part
of him would enjoy watching her try.

A twinge of guilt tweaked at his conscience.
Revenge wasn’t nearly as fun as he thought it’d be. He didn’t like
the idea of kicking Kelsie while she was down, even though she’d
shown him no mercy in the past.

Okay, buddy, you’re getting soft. Mean girls
like her don’t stay down for long. She’ll use and abuse the next
poor sucker, and that poor sucker is probably you. She sees dollar
signs when she looks at you. Big, fat green ones.

And what did Zach see when he looked at
her?

God help him, he wanted to see a mean bitch
who no longer held the power to reduce his knees to mush or the
beauty to turn every male head in any room, especially his.

No such luck—on both counts.

Zach yanked the starter cord. The damn thing
broke and catapulted him several feet, sliding on his ass across
the yard and into a thorny bush. Muttering several curses, he
clambered to his feet.

Damn it. He glanced at his watch. She’d be
here any minute. As much as he’d like to witness her struggles, his
practical side warned him to stay clear of the woman. He’d planned
on being gone before she showed up for a multitude of reasons, most
of which he chose not to explore. He fought his way through the
dense weeds and overgrown bushes to the side of the house to the
open garage door. Somewhere in this mess he might find an extra
lawnmower cord. Zach dug through box after box, throwing the
contents onto the already littered concrete floor.

Then he caught the whiff of magnolias on a
summer breeze followed by soft footsteps. His entire body snapped
to attention and his dick saluted.

Zach clutched the spare lawnmower cord in
his hand, took a deep breath, and turned around. Kelsie stood a few
feet away, gaping at the carnage in the garage. Her smooth brow
furrowed as she clutched a tiny dog close to her chest. Zach wanted
to be that dog.

She pursed her lips and pinched her nose as
if something smelled bad. Probably him. Old feelings of inadequacy
and doubt threaded through him.

“Obviously you don’t park cars in here.”

“Obviously.” He hated how she looked down
her nose at him, just like the old days, like she considered him a
stupid hick, inadequate and ignorant. He so did not want to be that
guy in her eyes. The little dog bared its teeth at him and
growled.

Kelsie tapped its nose and uttered, “Shush.”
The animal focused on him with suspicion, watching his every move
with its beady little black eyes.

“What the hell is that?”

“This is Scranton. He’s a toy poodle, comes
from a long line of champions. Very well bred.”

And Zach wasn’t. Yeah, he got the message.
The dog had better bloodlines than Zach. By far. “I prefer real
dogs. Big dogs. Dogs who can chase balls, retrieve ducks, or ride
in the back of a pickup.”