Down by Contact - A Seattle Lumberjacks Romance

by Jami Davenport

  The freeway gave way to a four-lane highway which gave way to a two-lane country road. Streetlights became few and far between until they drove down the main street of a small town. A sign proclaimed it to be Millville. Millville consisted of a half dozen blocks of mostly boarded-up buildings and ancient houses. Zach pulled into a parking spot in front of the most happening place in town. At least it was the only place with a sign of habitation.

  She eyed the dump with skepticism. “What is this?”

  “The Squatch. Best home-cooked meals west of the Columbia River.”

  “The Swatch?” The log structure looked old enough to have been constructed by the first loggers in the area. She didn’t care for the looks of the place or for the group of rough-looking men and women standing near the doorway smoking cigarettes.

  “The Squatch. You’ll see.” Zach hopped out and greeted the group as if they were old friends. Kelsie’s stomach rumbled and she stepped out into a mud puddle, drenching her new shoes. She swore she’d been dumped into the middle of that country western song about the city girl who married the country boy.

  Skirting past a couple Harley-Davidson motorcycles parked on the sidewalk and under the building’s eaves, she nodded politely to the group near the door. They stared back at her. The woman frowned. The men looked her up and down like hunters sizing up a doe.

  Following Zach in the door, she stopped in her tracks. A life-sized, stuffed Sasquatch, looking eerily real, stood near the old stone fireplace. The mangy thing had seen better days just like everything else in this hovel. Its huge yellow teeth must have been donated from a poor, hapless bear. All in all, the hideous thing probably gave small children nightmares. Good thing the state of Washington didn’t allow children in bars.

  “Cool, huh?”

  Kelsie turned to Zach and shook her head. He guided her toward the bar with a chuckle. At least the place put him in a better mood.

  He looked around the room. “These are my people, Kelsie. Get used to it.” He motioned her to an empty bar stool next to him.

  Kelsie slid onto the stool, careful not to touch anything. On the other side of her sat a wiry little man arguing with an equally wiry woman about the merits of catching moles with traps versus a good mole-hunting dog

  The waitress wandered to the counter, gave Kelsie the once-over, and raised a-who’s-this-chick eyebrow at Zach, who just shrugged. “What’ll ya’ have?”

  “How about a glass of merlot.”

  “Don’t have none of that fancy French wine, but we got a box of Mer-lot.” She phonetically pronounced the two words.

  “That’ll be fine.” She folded her hands primly in front of her and ignored the man next to her who was now eying her boobs.

  “Enjoying yourself?” Zach grinned at her. Oh, yeah, payback was a bitch, and he’d likely only begun.

  “Immensely.” A bit of the old Kelsie’s scathing sarcasm leaked into her voice.

  “Now you know how I feel when I’m with your people.” He took a long pull off his cheap beer and sighed with satisfaction.

  Kelsie’s people didn’t use chewing tobacco or smell like cigarette factories. They rarely drank beer, and if they did, it was a microbrew. And forget wine in a box. She shifted uneasily, feeling their eyes upon her and knowing she didn’t fit in.

  The waitress came back, flashing her disgust and disapproval like the mega electronic casino billboard bordering I-5. She stopped next to Zach and placed a possessive, bony hand on his muscular thigh. Kelsie stared at the hand with its red-tipped nails as it caressed Zach’s leg. He shifted uneasily and cleared his throat. Answering the bellow of the big, fat customer lounging in the back near the pool table, the woman cast one last threatening glance at Kelsie and sauntered off.

  “Old girlfriend?” Kelsie kept her tone light even as she fought off the urge to mud wrestle this woman for Zach. God, this place was rubbing off on her.

  “Wannabe girlfriend.” He stared at the college football game on the television hanging above the bar.

  “That’s what I thought.” She laid a possessive hand on his thigh.

  “What’s it to you anyway?” He stared at her hand and swallowed.

  He had her there but she’d done enough beauty pageant interviews to think quickly on her feet. “I am going to be your wife. If there are other women in your past and present, I deserve to know.”

  “I’m surprised you care.”

  She dug her fingernails into his leg, but he didn’t flinch. “Despite the circumstances, I won’t cheat on my husband.”

  “And I won’t cheat on my wife—despite the circumstances.” Their eyes locked. The sexual tension arced between them, sizzling and smoking like a short in the wiring. Her wiring definitely shorted out when he was near.

  “Good. Keep it that way. You wouldn’t want to see what a former mean girl can do when she’s pissed off.”

  He faked a shudder. “Nope, I’ll keep my privates intact, thank you. Never know when I might need to use them.”

  Kelsie gazed into his warm brown eyes. She liked this Zach, liked when he softened his edges a little and relaxed. She liked how he smiled with his whole face, especially his eyes, and those rare dimples came out. Yes, if Kelsie Carrington-Richmond didn’t watch herself she might do something inexcusably dumb and fall hard for a guy like Zach, which wouldn’t be fair to him.

  She looked down at her Mer-lot and swirled the red liquid around in her glass. She needed to keep her freedom and her emotional distance because if she dropped her guard she might end up right where she was last year.

  She hadn’t gained those hard-won inches of freedom just to lose them to another man.

  CHAPTER 17

  Charged a Time Out

  Zach, having pre-wedding jitters, needed a little normalcy in his life so he spent Tuesday night the way he’d spent every Tuesday night since he joined the NFL, volunteering for a homeless family organization, Family Ties, which worked to keep families together even though they didn’t have a roof over their head.

  Zach did what he could, giving of his time along with a generous anonymous donation every month. Sometimes, Zach almost caved under the futility of it all, but he soldiered on, taking care of his little piece of the world as best he could.

  Dedication to helping the homeless happened to be the one thing he had in common with Veronica. At times his resistance to the gala twisted his gut with guilt, not just because of Kelsie, but because each year it raised a significant amount of money for Seattle’s homeless charities. And here he was being a shit about hosting it. He supposed if he dug deeper, it wasn’t because he didn’t want to support the cause. Obviously. But more because these fancy things had a way of bringing out the bumbling idiot in him. Without exception, he did something stupid and ended up looking like an uncouth moron.

  Only this year he’d have Kelsie, not just as a mentor, but as a wife. He’d left her planning a wedding with the girls at his dining room table earlier this evening. She’d looked damn good, smiling and laughing, her eyes sparkling and her lips parting to show those white teeth. He ached for her and walked around in a perpetual state of horniness. It seemed like he’d sported a boner for days.

  Thank God HughJack gave Harris and him a reprieve until after the wedding. Zach couldn’t handle all this stress at one time: playing nice with Harris, keeping his hands off Kelsie, and getting hitched.

  Shaking off his worries, Zach slogged through a large puddle, and down the sidewalk. He tipped an imaginary hat to the old vet known only as Danny. As usual the man sat on a bench under an awning next to the homeless shelter. Danny smiled a toothless grin and touched the bill of his new Lumberjacks ball cap in response, the very cap Zach had given him last week.

  “How’s it goin’, Dan?” Zach paused and dug in his wallet.

  “Good, man. My bones are aching, means it’s gonna be a rainy fall and a cold winter.”

  “You would know better than me. Why don’t you let me put you up in a room for the winter
?”

  “Nah, I’m fine right here. Walls give me claustrophobia.” Danny took a puff on a cigarette stub he’d most likely found on the sidewalk. Zach tried not to think about it.

  “I understand.” At least, he understood as well as anyone could who’d never been in Danny’s situation. The man served in Vietnam and was a POW for a year. Dan hated to be penned either in jail or behind the confining walls of an apartment. Still, it didn’t seem right that someone who’d given so much to his country should live on the streets. Despite Zach’s best efforts that’s where Danny stayed. In fact, he seemed to resent any interference from Zach except his friendship. Pride was a powerful thing. As was the bottle. Danny held tightly to both.

  Zach tucked a twenty in Danny’s shirt, even though he knew the man would spend it on cheap whiskey. Pushing his way through the heavy door, he walked past the reception area where a large black woman sat with a pile of knitting. She made hats, gloves, and scarves to give to the people who came into the shelter. Anitra nodded, smiled, and never missed a stitch, or whatever it was called in knitting.

  A couple dozen kids of varying sizes and ages waited for him in an adjacent room, empty except for a few scratched tables and rickety folding chairs. They leapt to their feet with excitement, remembering he’d promised them a special surprise for this week’s visit.

  These kids shared a common bond. They were part of an alarmingly fast-growing homeless family population. He gave a high five to Ricky, an enthusiastic twelve-year-old who wanted to be a fireman. The kid had grown up in a middle-class neighborhood until his father lost his job and unemployment ran out. Now they lived in a tent in the mayor’s tent city. Next he greeted Caleb, a quiet ten-year-old, who came to life when Zach talked sports. He lived with his two sisters and single mother in their car. She lost her job and her boyfriend on the same day, finding herself on the street.

  Tonight, Zach had chartered a bus, and they were making the half-hour trip to Seattle’s Museum of Flight, where he’d arranged for a special private evening. Afterward, they’d dine on pizza and juice at a local pizza joint.

  “The bus leaves in five, guys. Load up.” Zach motioned toward the door. The kids ran for it, yelling and screaming with pure joy. A half dozen chaperones followed at a more adult pace. The kids’ enthusiasm never ceased to amaze him. God, he wanted to take every one of those kids home with him to his big, rambling empty house.

  He’d done that once or twice before he’d come to Seattle, and it’d ended in disaster. Now he tried to give his time without getting personally involved. Doing as much as he could without having these kids’ situations drag him down.

  Just like with Kelsie. Sorta. Actually he’d tried to not get involved but he was involved, about as involved with a woman as a man could be, which was not the same thing. In fact, it was much worse than involved, yet he didn’t see another option, no matter how stupid his solution was. He worried about her stalker. He worried about her being homeless. He worried he might not stop the next time he found her naked in his house. He groaned just thinking about the soap sliding off her shoulders to nestle between those creamy white breasts. Shit, his penis was rising to the task again. Down, boy.

  Zach refocused his attention on the sweet little boy still sitting in a chair and clutching a child-sized football. The kid looked up at him with sad brown eyes, and Zach’s heart melted like a wax on a stovetop. He reminded Zach of his brother.

  Andy was new to his little group, about eight years old, and stick thin. His family was newly homeless. His sister had been in and out of Children’s Hospital with cancer. Their family spent every penny on her treatment, the mother and father worked when they could. They’d recently lost their home. It was a sad situation all around.

  Zach slid onto the chair next to him. “Aren’t you going?”

  Andy rolled the ball around in his hands.

  “Hey, buddy, don’t you want to see all those planes?”

  Andy stared at his hands and nodded.

  “They’ve got a space shuttle flight simulator.”

  The little boy twisted the sleeve of the tattered coat draped across his lap.

  “Do you like space? I do. I wish I could go there someday. Don’t you?”

  Andy shrugged.

  Zach dug in his pocket and found the individually wrapped Frango mint chocolates—the best chocolate on earth—he carried with him every Tuesday. He held one out to Andy. Andy grabbed it from his palm like a hungry dog diving into a bowl of food. He tore off the wrapper and stuffed it in his mouth. The look on his face was pure heaven.

  “Good chocolates, aren’t they?”

  “The best. My grandma used to buy them every year at Christmas time, but she’s gone now.” His face fell at the memory.

  This was the most Zach had ever heard him speak. “Is she gone to heaven?”

  “Yeah. She gave us a home. Then she died. My uncle kicked us out of the house and sold it.” The sadness in his tone almost undid Zach. “That’s why we don’t have a place to live.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry about that. You’ll get another house. Soon. I’m sure.” Zach clapped a hand on his bony shoulder.

  “Before Christmas? If we don’t get one before Christmas, Santa won’t be able to find us.”

  “Santa will find you wherever you are. He doesn’t need a house.” Zach stood and picked up the child, standing him on his feet.

  “Let’s get a move on. Everyone’s waiting for us.”

  Andy wrapped his tiny cold hand around Zach’s. “Do you have any more chocolate?”

  Zach laughed, causing the boy to smile. He gave him another. “Here you go, but don’t tell the other kids. They’ll be jealous.”

  The boy nodded. “It’ll be our secret.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Zach walked to the bus with the little boy holding his hand, warmed by the fact that he could bring joy to a small boy, even if only for a moment.

  He wished he could share such simple joys with Kelsie, the kind money could never buy, wished they could be like other couples and work side by side to help these families. He needed to be careful of expectations that would not happen.

  They weren’t going to be a normal, loving couple.

  But the sex would be damn good.

  * * * * *

  The next week flew by with all the wedding preparations. Kelsie worked night and day until she fell into bed exhausted at night, which was a good thing or Zach’s self-imposed celibacy might not have made it to their wedding day.

  They’d planned the wedding for the bye week, a week and a half away. Rachel had volunteered their ranch house in the country, and Kelsie gratefully agreed. Zach wanted it to be an intimate affair, if you could call a wedding with every member of the Lumberjacks team and front office intimate.

  Zach mostly kept to himself, working even longer hours than usual and sleeping on the couch while Kelsie took over the master suite. He avoided her as much as she avoided him, while the sexual tension in the house grew to unbearable proportions. Kelsie spent some lonely nights in that tub, but nothing relieved the need building inside her.

  There’d been no trench-coat man sightings since the night of the proposal, and the newly installed security system gave Kelsie a measure of comfort. Even so, she never went anywhere alone, always inviting the girls to join her.

  Zach still hadn’t gotten over what he saw as her betrayal by forcing him to work with Tyler. At least Kelsie managed to convince the coach to wait until after the wedding before Tyler and Zach served their sentence together.

  Kelsie spun in front of the mirror at the bridal shop, oddly excited about her upcoming nuptials. Regardless of the circumstances, she wanted to make this wedding a memorable occasion for Zach. In a few short months all that would be left of their short union would be the memories. She wanted him to remember her fondly.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Lavender frowned at her, her carefully plucked brows in a grim, straight line. The woman was going
to be a hard sell. In the corner, Rachel madly texted someone—had to be Derek—probably their version of phone sex, especially considering the look of rapture on her face. A twinge of envy slid through Kelsie. Even back in their honeymoon stage, Mark never enjoyed that kind of closeness or bantering. Ever serious and critical, he paraded her around like a soulless Barbie doll whose only purpose was to serve him. But Zach, now there was a man who would practice fifty shades of phone sex. She didn’t know how she knew that but she did.

  Kelsie stared at herself in the mirror. The classy off-white dress off the sales rack was the perfect dress for a woman’s second marriage—especially when the marriage happened to be a sham. Well, except for the physical part. She wanted to drop her panties and feel Zach sliding inside her and—

  Lavender snapped her fingers in front of Kelsie’s face. “Hey? You sure you want to do this?”

  Kelsie blinked a few times and met Lavender’s concerned gaze. After considering her words, she chose the truth. “I don’t deserve Zach, but he thinks I do.”

  “I love that dress.” Rachel joined them and slipped the cell phone in her purse. Kelsie expected to see smoke curling out of the purse any moment.

  “It works for the circumstances.”

  “And what are the circumstances?” Lavender pushed, not the type to give up easily. How could she be if she was with Tyler?

  Kelsie didn’t respond. Rachel and Lavender exchanged a glance, and Kelsie braced herself for a lecture.

  The lecture didn’t come. Well, not exactly.

  “Zach’s a nice guy. He’s had a tough time of it. He needs a woman in his life for all the right reasons.”

  Kelsie bristled and fought the defensiveness bubbling inside her. They were concerned about Zach. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it was admirable. Kelsie couldn’t pin that trait on herself. How admirable was it of her to marry a man because she’d reached rock bottom, and he offered to bail her out?