Down by Contact - A Seattle Lumberjacks Romance (16 page)

Shaking off the bittersweet memories, Zach
swiped viciously at the tears and rubbed his eyes. He stood and
almost fell on his ass. His right leg tingled all the way up to his
hip from lack of circulation. He stomped it on the ground, ignoring
the spikes of pain.

The rain started again.

“Good night for now, little brother. I love
you.”

Zach tried the back door and found it
locked. Walking around the house to the porch, he dropped into the
creaky porch swing, not wanting to go inside just yet. He must have
fallen asleep because when he woke he was cold and stiff. He stood
and stretched, his hand on the doorknob when a flash of light
pulled his attention to the street. Ever since the team cleared his
property, Zach’s view of the street had opened up. A dark sedan
extinguished its headlights and drove slowly up the block.

Keeping to the shadows he stepped off the
porch and behind a sturdy old cedar and peered around a trunk
bigger than a fifty-gallon drum. The car, similar to the one he’d
seen at Jacks headquarters a few weeks ago stopped directly in
front of his house. A few seconds later, it crept forward and down
the block. Zach listened. The car engine didn’t fade away. Instead
it got louder. The guy must have turned around.

He stepped out from behind the tree and
sprinted toward the car. He caught the startled expression on the
driver’s face, the same guy from a few weeks ago. Zach lunged for
the passenger door handle, but the jerk gunned it, leaving him
grasping nothing but air. A second later his forward momentum took
him down and he hit the concrete with a thud and rolled to his
side.

“Damn.” Zach pushed to his knees, ignoring
his skinned palms and stared after the car as it careened down the
block and out of sight. Getting up, Zach wiped off his hands,
flinching slightly as his knees protested the abuse. If he got his
hands on that jerk, he’d make him sorry.

A glint of silver tucked back in the corner
behind his garage caught his eye. If it hadn’t been for his chase
after the stalker, he’d have never seen it. He walked toward the
small compact, stepping as quietly as a six-foot-three,
two-hundred-fifty-pound guy could while wearing cowboy boots. As he
crept closer, the motion-sensor light on his garage flipped on and
illuminated the surrounding area. Tucked next to the garage in what
used to be an RV parking spot, was a small car.

Zach stopped in his tracks.

Kelsie
’
s car.

Puzzled, he moved closer and peered through
the steamed-up windows. Alarm skittered through him, his heart beat
faster. Finding a clear section of the window, he pressed his face
against it. Inside the car, Kelsie huddled under a small mountain
of blankets. She’d reclined the front seat and slept curled up in a
tight ball. Two beady eyes belonging to Kelsie’s eagle-bait dog
peeked from beneath the covers and watched him.

He held his breath waiting for the yapper to
let loose. Scranton wrinkled his nose and dismissed him as
insignificant. The little rat turned his back and burrowed beneath
the patchwork quilt.

Zach raised his hand to knock on the window
and ask why the hell she was sleeping in his driveway. He squinted
into the darkness. His frown deepened. Boxes were stacked in the
backseat, along with a makeup bag. Clothes hung on the hooks on
either side of the back doors.

It looked like she was living in her car.
Zach updated his assessment. No, actually she
was
living in
her car. No doubt about it. No wonder he’d caught her sleeping on
his couch.

Zach straightened, torn between taunting her
and leaving her alone. He knew how it felt to be reduced to being
homeless. He’d hit some pretty low times in his younger days. Yet,
Kelsie didn’t have the poor background he did. He couldn’t believe
she didn’t get money in the divorce settlement or that her wealthy
parents allowed her to live like this. Something didn’t add up.
Something that was none of his damn business. She’d made her bed
now she’d need to lay in it, even if that bed happened to be the
front seat of a car. Karma’s a bitch. She deserved this. Even as
the words formed in his mind, he didn’t feel vindicated or even
satisfied. He felt pity and sadness she’d been reduced to this.

The vengeful side of him tried to goad the
nice guy into waking Kelsie up and kicking her out of his driveway.
The nice guy side refused to do so.

The nice guy won.

The least he could do was let her keep her
pride. And keep her safe. From what he wasn’t sure. Hell, he wasn’t
even certain who the guy was following: Kelsie or him? And why?

And who would keep him safe from Kelsie?

* * * * *

The sound of Zach’s diesel 4x4 pickup woke
Kelsie from a restless sleep. She inched the blankets down until
just her eyes peeked above the covers. Zach’s taillights faded in
the distance as he pulled onto the slumbering street and
disappeared from sight. A homeless girl had to love a man who left
at the crack of dawn and didn’t return home until late into the
night, especially when she knew where he hid his key.

Of course, one slight problem when said man
returned home unexpectedly. Her face flushed at the thought of him
catching her masturbating. Thank God she’d managed to avoid him
ever since by leaving before he arrived home, parking down the
street, and returning once the last light went off in his house.
Last night, he had company. She’d seen the taxi pull up and drive
by with a man in the back.

Interesting
. Zach never had company,
let alone the kind that arrived and left in a taxi rather than in
their own over-sized vehicle. She’d heard once that a man
compensated for the size of his penis with the size of the truck he
drove. Not so Zach. They were both huge. She’d seen firsthand. Her
face went from hot to flaming at the thought.

Scranton snored in her ear, his little body
curled up on her shoulder. She moved him off her and placed him on
the passenger seat. He grunted, turned a few times, and curled back
into a little ball. He was so not a morning dog. Sitting up, Kelsie
squeezed her legs together. She had to go pee. Bad. She gazed at
the house, dark in the early morning light, then opened the car
door and made a run for the front door. Fishing the key out of its
hiding spot in the dead begonia on the front porch, she let herself
in and made a dash for the powder room in the grand entryway.

After doing her business and splashing water
on her face, she walked back outside to get Scranton and the
necessary toiletries for a shower. She’d wash a load of clothes
today, too. A twinge of guilt tweaked her conscience. She was using
Zach, and she knew it, but desperate times skewed her newly
discovered ethics. Despite his house’s messy condition—and she was
making a dent in it—getting ready for the day in Zach’s house beat
the leering men in the homeless shelter or the questionable
cleanliness of her previous apartment. Besides Zach would never
know. The guy lived and breathed football twenty-four seven. It
wasn’t like her activities cost him money, and she’d been putting a
lot of her own personal sweat into making his house
presentable.

She cringed and held her hands to her mouth.
That sounded like the old Kelsie, the one who could justify any
selfish act. Taught from a young age to indulge in the luxuries
that came with a sense of entitlement, Kelsie had taken her life
for granted. The hurtful things she had done never made her feel
better inside, they made her feel worse.

Maybe Mark had been her punishment.
Beautiful, spoiled, privileged Kelsie had learned the hard facts of
life after her wedding. Abuse didn’t have an economic barrier or an
educational barrier. It hid behind false smiles and guilt-laden
apologies.

The night she’d asked for a divorce his
emotional abuse had turned physical. He pummeled her face with his
fists. Once the blows knocked her to the ground, his vicious kicks
to her ribcage broke two ribs and cracked a few more. Eventually,
she passed out. She’d woken up in a hospital bed, her
doting
husband sat near her bed and chastised her for her clumsiness one
moment and then ignored her as he discussed a case with one of the
senior partners in his law firm.

She’d faked sleep, hoping he’d leave. He
did. She’d thrown on her bloodied and torn clothes, hoofed it out
of the hospital, and straight to a ruthless female divorce
attorney. But Mark gathered the wagons. Within twenty-four hours,
not one member of his family or hers spoke to her, ostracizing her
as sure as the Amish shunned those whom they deemed evil. She left
town as soon as the divorce was final.

Now the man she’d hurt the most in high
school held the power to destroy her.

Oh, Zach
. She sighed. If only life
could have been kinder to both of them.

Kelsie went back to her car and gathered up
her things. She dumped her dirty clothes on top of the dryer to
sort and glanced out the window in the back door. Something was
different. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the square of
dirt where there’d been lawn yesterday. Some kind of flat marble
stone sat on top of it. Wondering what Zach brought home this time,
she scooped up Scranton and went to investigate.

As she read the inscription on the marble
slab, a cold knife edge of sadness sliced into her gut. The knife
twisted with such wrenching pain that she dropped to her knees in
the wet grass and dirt. Scranton wriggled out of her arms, shook
himself off. After casting an accusing look in her direction, he
trotted off to take care of business.

Kelsie barely paid him any attention. The
date on the slab struck her like her ex-husband’s blow to her
cheek.

Back in high school, Mark and Kelsie had
been in one of their frequent break-up phases. At Marcela’s
insistence, she’d invited Zach to the country club ball. Shimmering
decorations and a mirror ball couldn’t hide the ugliness of that
night. Her friends bullied Zach, using the information she’d gladly
given them to cement her place in their circle. Mark had been the
one to break Zach, making sure everyone knew all the sordid details
of why Zach’s father was in jail for murder. One vicious right hook
from Zach and Mark dropped face first into the pasta salad like a
duck shot out of the sky with a hunting rifle.

The last time she’d seen Zach, he’d been
handcuffed and sitting in the back of a patrol car. They’d locked
gazes. His misery caused by her betrayal was etched in the strong
lines of his face. She’d never forgotten that look, carried it with
her all these years as her cross to bear. She owed him, and she
came to Seattle to repay the debt.

The cold fingers of regret wrapped
themselves around her throat, as Kelsie traced the date of his
brother’s death with an index finger. The date swam before her
eyes.

The cruelty of what they’d done to Zach that
night strangled her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get her lungs
to function. She gasped and swayed as the world spun like an
out-of-control merry-go-round ride. She struggled to stand, but her
knees buckled. She crawled to the bushes and threw up last night’s
dinner then collapsed in a heap in the wet grass and dirt, her
chest heaving. Tears ran down her face, while sobs wracked her
body. The taste of mud mingled with the salt from her tears.

Kelsie Carrington-Richmond was a bitch of
the worst kind. She didn’t deserve to be in the same company of a
man as kind as Zach Murphy.

The date of his brother’s death had been the
very day she’d taken him to the country club ball. She remembered
because earlier that afternoon her family had celebrated her
daddy’s birthday.

CHAPTER 11

Kelsie sat silent and motionless in the midst
of sixty-five thousand screaming fans. She’d been a fool to allow
Lavender and Rachel to drag her to this game. She couldn’t keep her
eyes off Zach, and the more she watched, the more she wanted him,
only she didn’t deserve him.

Two days ago, she’d seen direct evidence of
what a bitch she’d been to Zach. She couldn’t come to terms with
the depth of her cruelty. Just thinking of that cold, hard slab
with his brother’s name on it caused her throat to constrict and
her eyes to fill with tears. She’d been such a bitch, such a
ruthless, opportunistic bitch. So much guilt weighed her down, she
might as well have been carting around a seventy-five-pound
backpack.

The crowd around her collectively groaned,
jerking Kelsie back to reality. Rachel stared at her. “Are you
okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Just fine.”

Rachel shrugged and went back to watching
the game. Kelsie blinked and focused her gaze on the field below
her. Zach stood a few feet behind the defensive line shouting
signals for a change in defensive scheme to his teammates.

Kelsie hadn’t grown up in Texas for nothing.
She knew enough about football to recognize missed tackles. Zach
had his share in the first three quarters. According to Rachel,
he’d messed up a few defensive audibles, too, meaning he didn’t
read the offense correctly and called for the wrong defensive
formation. The Packers exploited every one of his mistakes.

Kelsie leaned forward, elbows on her thighs,
knuckles pressed against her mouth. Her sole focus was the football
field several rows below. Darn, but she wanted to bite a
fingernail, not that they weren’t already gnawed down to the quick
due to the trauma of her life the past several years. She’d always
been a nail biter, an unfortunate habit that drove her mother
bat-shit crazy. After all, a beauty queen must have perfect nails
and perfect every-fricking-thing else.

At the end of the second quarter, Zach lined
up in the defensive backfield. She watched him survey the offense.
He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted to his defensive
teammates over the din in Jacks’ stadium. Getting down in his
stance, he reminded Kelsie of a panther watching a delectable baby
zebra wandering too close to his kill area. As soon as the ball was
snapped, Zach sprang into action, his big body catlike with fluid,
athletic grace. He might be rough around all his edges, but the man
boasted some mighty fine edges.