Zach frowned and squinted at her, as if he was certain he was missing something.
Kelsie rambled on. “They didn’t seem to fit. A woman needs a man who complements her in appearance but doesn’t steal the limelight.”
“Okay.” Zach frowned, obviously clueless as to where her babbling was headed.
“The man’s stubble and his long shaggy hair made him look like a homeless person. He needed a stylish haircut. He needed a shave. She needed to take him shopping for well-fitting clothes at a store that did tailoring. He was a big man and off-the-rack stuff wouldn’t fit him properly.”
He frowned. “Custom-made stuff is expensive.”
“But quality lasts and men aspiring to certain positions need to wear clothes befitting of the position.”
“How do you know he was aspiring for any position other than the missionary one?” Zach’s mouth twitched into a half smile.
“Because I listened to their conversation. He’d been trying to find a job and couldn’t.” She did something very old-style Kelsie and snorted her snobby little snort. “A guy won’t be hired for certain types of jobs dressed in redneck casual.”
He raised one eyebrow. “So you would’ve dressed him for success?”
“Yes, and I would have made sure he looked the part every time he went out in public. No more holey jeans or ratty T-shirts.”
Zach’s dress of choice. He shifted his weight, still resting his butt against the counter. “Maybe that’s what makes him most comfortable.”
“If that’s the case, then he wasn’t the right man for that woman.”
“He may have been the perfect man behind closed doors. Maybe she likes the challenge of a project.”
“She does, but the project needs to cooperate to get what he wants, and spend his money to fund the project.”
He started to smile, as if he’d finally figured out the method to her madness. “The project will cooperate but under protest.”
“Good. Then I believe things will work out to be mutually acceptable to both parties.”
“So that’s a yes?” He stared at her earnestly, like a little boy pleading for a second piece of double-chocolate birthday cake. Only she was the cake. She couldn’t disappoint him. Not this time, even though a small sane part of her screamed at her to run like hell.
She wouldn’t run. She wouldn’t hide. She’d face the music and give him her answer.
“Yes.”
Zach blew out a long breath, relief replaced the tension in his body. He looked as if he didn’t know whether to hug her or shake her hand. Finally, he patted her on the shoulder.
“I suppose you’ll want a big ring?” His long-suffering sigh said it all, behind a glimmer of a smile.
Her racing heart, sweaty palms, and wet panties said more. A whole heck of a lot more. She nodded and walked out of the room, needing distance and wondering if she’d lost her mind.
CHAPTER 16
Offsides
As a kid, Zach avoided the principal’s office as much as he tried to avoid his father’s belt. Rarely did he have to sit in that stiff wooden chair while the fat, old principal wheezed like a guy in need of a good shot of oxygen. Zach became adept at flying under the radar and not catching anyone’s attention, especially his father’s. This talent served him well in his NFL career. He preferred to prove himself in the trenches rather than in television ads or Sports Illustrated.
Yet, here he was, called into the coach’s office at six-fucking-thirty a.m., the adult equivalent of the principal’s office. Even worse, Harris sat in a chair across from the coach, chatting with the man as if they were lifelong buddies. HughJack never chatted. The man’s endless energy didn’t allow for meaningless chatter. Derek sat in another chair, looking pissed that they’d dragged him into this mess.
True to form, HughJack wasted no time. Zach’s butt barely hit the chair before he squelched the niceties and launched into the reason he’d called this meeting.
“Your dislike of each other is affecting this team’s performance. Your very public argument in the locker went viral. It’s trending on Twitter, whatever the hell that is, but the front office tells me it’s not a good thing.”
Tyler cringed and Derek studied the desktop. Zach wrung his hands and said nothing, even as a healthy dose of guilt clenched his gut.
“I tried to stay out of it. Let you work these problems through yourself.” Coach skewered them both with an accusing glare.
Tyler leaned forward, avoiding Zach’s gaze. “We’re working on it. Zach and I won’t sacrifice the team because of our differences.”
HughJack looked skeptical. “How are you working on it?”
Both men looked at each other. Obviously, silver-tongued Tyler was at a total loss for an answer as much as Zach was.
“I, uh, advertised Zach’s gala on my website.” It sounded lame, and by the way HughJack puckered up his brow, he knew it.
Zach snorted. “Beware of quarterbacks with websites.”
“Fuck you. Just because I don’t do things the way you do them, doesn’t mean I’m any less dedicated.”
“You ever heard the saying that if you’re good at something, you don’t have to tell anyone about it, because they already know?”
“Hell, yeah, they know, but I’m making sure they don’t forget. They’ll remember me long after you’re old, fat, and too feeble to toss a football around your backyard. There is a life after football, Murphy. You’d better figure out what that is because you’re getting to the end of your shelf life.”
“That’s enough.” HughJack pounded his fist on the table so hard his coach of the year trophy fell over. With a frown, he picked it up and examined it then set it upright. “I gave you two selfish clowns a couple months to work out your differences. You weren’t mature enough to do it so the women in your lives and I have done it for you.”
“Women? What women?” Zach couldn’t imagine Kelsie getting involved in team affairs. Kelsie, his fiancée, just thinking the words made him forget where he was.
“Your women. The ones in your lives. All three of them: Rachel, Lavender, and Kelsie.”
“Oh. Uh, yeah, my woman. We’re engaged.” Zach blurted it out just like he’d blurted out the proposal, feeling more than a little pride in saying it.
Tyler and Derek both gaped at him, but HughJack didn’t miss a beat. “Congratulations, maybe she’ll pound some sense into your thick skull.” HughJack’s eyebrows slammed together with that don’t-mess-with-my-game-plan glower. “Rachel, Lavender, and Kelsie devised a plan to teach you two knuckleheads to work together regardless of your personal opinions of each other. I didn’t like it at first but, hell, after last night’s display, I’m willing to try anything.”
Oh, crap. This did not sound good. The terrible trio and the coach conspiring together?
Tyler shot him a quick worried glance, and for once they agreed on something. They were screwed, really screwed. Even worse, she’d betrayed his trust, and there engagement wasn’t even twenty-four hours old.
Harris sat back in the chair and rubbed his face. He blew out a ragged breath. “What kind of plan?”
“Every Tuesday, you’ll meet and work on the gala. Together. No competition against each other. Just you and Zach. If the gala fails, you both fail as a team of two.”
“But, we—”
HughJack cut Tyler off. “You’re the team captains. Don’t disappoint me. I expect you to put as much effort in this as you would any must-win game because this is a must-win for both of you.”
“In what way?” Zach braced himself for an answer he might not want to hear.
“Do I really need to answer that, Murphy?”
Zach shook his head, feeling like a kid who’d been chastised for giving the wrong answer in class.
“Working together, you’ll beat the amount of money we raised last year for the Seattle Hearts for Homeless charity.”
“But last year was a record-breaker because that timber baron heires
s died and left her estate to the charity.” Tyler’s face paled. He looked as if he was going to throw up.
“Then you’ve got a lot of work to do. Seattle is crawling with software CEOs and ancestors of timber barons.” He looked pointedly at Tyler. “Like you.”
Zach stared at Harris, his mouth dropping open in surprise. “You have that kind of history?” His nemesis having ancestors like that somehow didn’t fit with the guy’s image.
“How do you think Twin Cedars got built?”
Zach shrugged, feeling stupid that he’d forgotten that simple fact. “I thought it was rum-runners.”
“That too.” Tyler didn’t take the least bit of offense.
“Regardless. Find new sources of donations.” HughJack pulled the conversation back to the issue at hand.
“They aren’t that easy to find,” Tyler hedged. Zach noticed he dug his fingernails into the palm of his hand. “Not in this economy.”
“What if we don’t achieve it?”
“You’ll be benched. Both of you for the first half of the first playoff game of the season or if we’re on the verge of not making the playoffs then the last game of the season.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“I wouldn’t? Try me? Call it tough love. I’ve had enough of your bullshit ripping the team apart. Keep your differences to yourselves. On the surface you’d better be so enamored with each other that your teammates will think you’re suffering man crushes.”
“They’ll never buy it. We can’t do this.” Harris clenched his jaw so hard Zach expected it to shatter any second.
“I trust you boys to rise to the challenge.”
“You’re nuts.” Harris’s angry look would’ve incinerated a lesser man.
“You won’t be the first to claim that.” HughJack shrugged, glowering at the two angry jocks.
Derek finally spoke up. “Coach, why am I here? I get along with everybody.”
“You are the mediator, the final word in any dispute, what you decide is law. Keep these idiots out of trouble.” He turned back to Zach and Tyler. “Your hatred of each other is killing this team. I thought about benching you both without this scheme, but now I have a way to do it and put it on both of you. Remember, this charity is very important to Veronica. Don’t screw this up.”
“But coach, we can’t—” The look on HughJack’s face caused Zach to swallow the rest of the sentence.
“One more word from either of you, and you’ll be riding the bench for the rest of the season. I’m not so sure I shouldn’t do that anyway.” Coach looked down at his computer, dismissing them.
Zach had no intention of letting this team down by warming wood during the season. Harris stood and looked at Zach, his expression unreadable. Zach looked right back.
Harris leaned close. “Thanks, asshole.” Heaving an exasperated sigh, the jerk walked out of the office.
Zach shot a hopeful glance at the coach. HughJack shook his head without ever hearing the question. Shoulders slumped, Zach left the room.
His life was being jettisoned right into the cold waters of Elliot Bay without a life jacket. The coach was forcing him to be best buddies with Harris, and Kelsie—his future wife—had had a hand in this. She’d gone behind his back just when he’d convinced himself maybe she’d truly changed, and he could trust her.
Yet, for a Super Bowl ring, Zach would sell his nuts to science. He wasn’t so sure how he felt about his bride-to-be, except for the sex part. He definitely knew how he felt about that.
* * * * *
A few hours later Zach walked in the door as Kelsie stood on a six-foot ladder and cleaned cobwebs from the ten-foot ceilings in the parlor. She felt his powerful presence before she saw or heard him. Belatedly, Scranton lifted his head and yipped a half-hearted hello and went back to sleep.
Zach’s heavy footsteps echoed across the hardwood floors. Kelsie didn’t turn around. She stretched as far as she could to reach one large cobweb in the corner. The ladder teetered precariously then tipped. A scream ripped from her throat as she grabbed the air for something to break her fall. That something happened to be Zach. He caught her in his strong, muscular arms and pulled her to his solid chest. Gasping, she clutched his shoulders and buried her face in his sweatshirt. She clung to him, breathing in his clean, woodsy scent, and waited for her wildly beating heart to slow to an idle, while Zach held her stiffly to him.
Only it didn’t slow, it sped up, pounding in her chest like the bass on a teenage boy’s car. She nuzzled his neck, while his scent permeated every cell in her body right down to her wet panties. Lord, but she wanted this man. Now. She nibbled at his neck. He groaned but rather than responding in kind with those hot lips, his body tightened.
Realizing he was angry, Kelsie wriggled out of his arms, uncertain what she’d done to upset him. Straightening her clothes, she wiped the cobwebs and dust from her shirt. If her mother could see her now, she’d collapse in a dead faint. Carringtons did not do manual labor, especially dirty manual labor, and she’d done plenty lately, but the place was looking pretty damn good. In fact, it looked like a place that even Kelsie’s snooty mother would be proud to call home.
She lifted her gaze to meet his. Desire and anger merged together. His nostrils flared as if he’d caught a whiff of her own need. It had to be rolling off her in waves.
He looked around the room and his gaze fixed on something. He looked more pissed than Scranton had the time she’d informed him they’d run out of dog food. He continued to stare as if she’d sold his prized possessions and spent his last dime. Kelsie followed his gaze to the pile of shopping bags still sitting in the entryway.
“I made an appointment with a tailor recommended by Lavender. He does all of Tyler’s suits. You’ll need at least one tux and a nice suit for less formal occasions. We’ll start with the tux for the wedding and—” Her voice dropped off. “Zach? What’s wrong?”
“Did you leave anything in the stores?”
She knew what he was thinking—that she’d jumped at the first opportunity to spend his money. Instead, she’d been quite frugal and was proud of it. “I bought you a few things.”
“I don’t need any more clothes. I have plenty.”
“I thought I made things clear last night. Not the right kind. We need to make a good impression, and that has a cost.”
“We do?” He swung his gaze back to her, disappointment melded with irritation in those chocolate depths.
“Yes. Us. If you want out, now’s the time.” Let him think the worst of her, it’d keep him from getting attached down the road.
“I already gave you my word.” He set his jaw in that so-familiar stubborn way of his.
“You look miserable.”
“Maybe it’s the thought of having the same tailor as Harris.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “Don’t worry. And I didn’t max out your credit card.”
He grunted.
“You’re home early for you.” She glanced at her watch to verify. It was only seven thirty. “Hoping to find me in the tub again?” She teased him with a wide smile.
His eyes darkened at the memory, and his lips actually turned up at the corners. “Not a bad thought, but actually the power’s out at the facility so we couldn’t watch film. Some idiot backhoe operator digging nearby broke the underground power line.” Zach walked over to a framed painting and fingered it as if to straighten it, only he made it more crooked. She expected him to comment on his missing football posters, but he didn’t.
“Tell me what’s wrong?”
He met her gaze, and she braced herself at the look he gave her.
“You sold me out to Coach.”
“What?” She didn’t understand. She hadn’t talked to HughJack in over a week.
Uh oh. She broke out in a cold sweat and wrung her hands together. She really wanted to bite a hunk out of her thumbnail. “HughJack decided to implement our plan?”
“He sure did. Why didn’t you warn me?�
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“Because your coach said he thought our idea was stupid. I guess he changed his mind. Besides, it’s for your own good.”
“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.”
Down by Contact - A Seattle Lumberjacks Romance Page 18
