“What the hell is this?”
The closest guys averted their eyes and refused to answer. Zach stepped to the nearest machine and cut it off. It died with a sputtering choke, which was exactly what he planned to do to a certain someone. Or multiple someones.
Harris stepped forward, a smirk as wide as the Columbia River on his face. “We’re cleaning up this hellhole and helping out the pretty lady here. My guys and I are suckers for a damsel in distress.”
The entire offensive team down to the lowliest rookie stopped what they were doing, shut off machines, and stared. Silence replaced the earlier din as Zach squared off with Tyler. He opened his mouth to kick the quarterback off the property when he caught Kelsie out of the corner of his eye. She stood off to one side, dressed in ratty blue jeans, a dirty white T-shirt, and scuffed tennis shoes. In her hands she held a small towel. Right now, she was wringing the daylights out of the defenseless piece of cotton. Their eyes met, and he read her silent plea to play nice.
Fuck. This is Kelsie’s stunt?
He glared at her, knowing she’d called his bluff big-time. He might not like her. He might figure he owed her a whole lot of pain. Staring at those damn sky-blue eyes of hers, though, Zach couldn’t be the heartless bastard he wanted to be.
Turning away from her before he fell to her feet and did her bidding, he narrowed his eyes and snarled at Harris. “Fine, I’ll bring some real muscle, and we’ll get some actual work done.”
In response, Harris turned on the pressure washer and cupped his hand to his ear. “What? I can’t hear you. Did you say you’d call in more help?” He aimed the nozzle at Zach’s feet, and Zach jumped back a few feet.
With a curt nod, Zach tromped back into the house, threw on some old jeans, and started making calls. Five minutes later, he stepped out into the fall sun, shovel in one hand, loppers in another, and went to work without a word. He’d be damned if Harris and his prima-donna offense would show up the real workhorses on the team.
Within five minutes, fantasies of killing Tyler Harris filled his head. The jerk barked orders as if he’d been named union boss on a road construction crew. Flipping Harris off, Zach stomped to the opposite side of the house and away from the QB. Several minutes later, his defensive players started showing up in several big-ass trucks and armed with lawn tools. They gathered around, waiting for instructions from their captain.
“We’ll start on this side; they’re starting on that side.”
“Yeah, and we’ll meet in the middle.” Harris popped out from behind an overgrown arborvitae like a fucking fairy in a Disney movie.
“Middle? Hell, we’ll be three-quarters of the way down the back of the house before you ever turn the corner.”
“Is that a bet?” Harris cocked his head and grinned.
“Yeah it is.”
“All right, I’ll bet we reach the back French doors before your guys.”
“What does the winner get?”
“The loser buys beers for the other squad after the next game.”
“And steak.” LeDaniel, the rookie defensive end, ate as much as the entire defensive line.
“You’re on.” Harris slapped LeDaniel on the back. “Hope you’re not too hungry, buddy.”
“What if one side cheats and doesn’t do a good enough job?” Brett, the play-by-the-rules backup QB, always thought about shit like that. Obviously, his mama never told him that life wasn’t always fair.
Kelsie stepped forward. A strand of blond hair stuck to her flushed cheeks. “I’ll be the judge of that. Everything needs to pass my inspection.”
Zach groaned but Harris grunted his consent, then turned to his guys. “Hey, dipshits, quit gawking. Let’s get to work.” He strode off with his posse, determination in his every step.
Glancing at Kelsie, Zach stifled the odd urge to wrap his arms around her and kiss the hell out of her. He loved her messed up like that. He itched to pluck the hair off her cheek and wrap it around his finger. Beads of sweat moistened her forehead and made him fantasize about better ways to get her sweaty. Much more pleasant ways.
He had to stop this insanity. She was the enemy.
Kelsie leaned toward him. The scent of magnolias and grass clippings drifted to his nostrils. “Good luck, Zach.” She spoke quietly so only he could hear, her words letting her allegiance be known.
“You want me to win?” A warm, content feeling curled up in his core like an old hound in front of a fire.
“It’s your place, after all.” Her gaze met his, suddenly all cool and distant, as if she needed to push him away before he got too close.
“Yeah.” He stared down at his feet, pushing a rock around with his shoe. “I should’ve taken care of it when I bought it.”
“Well, you will from now on. At least until the gala. I’ll see to it.”
Why did her statement strike equal parts of hope and fear in his heart? Because she’d be underfoot or because he wanted her underfoot? “I’m sure you will.”
“We’ll start on the inside once we finish the outside.”
Zach balked. Invading his privacy outside his house was one thing, but tramping into his house and seeing how he lived happened to be another. He didn’t want Harris knowing anything about his personal life. It’d give the ass an opportunity to mine for weaknesses. “I’ll take care of the inside.”
Kelsie raised one eyebrow. “You will?”
He thought about that one. “You can help me.”
“It’ll take more than you and me to get this place cleaned up and in shape and keep it that way.”
“Then get some friends to help, but not the entire team. No way in hell. And not Harris.”
“Fine. I’ll see what I can do.” Kelsie strode off, as if he’d hit a nerve or something. Women.
Zach sighed and raked his fingers through his tangled hair. He hated dealing with stuff like haircuts, but he hated his hair long, too. He’d just as soon shave his head if it weren’t so time-consuming. The last time he’d tried it, he’d just about bled out from several nicks on his head. Not a pretty sight unless it was Halloween.
“You got it bad, buddy.”
Zach jumped as Tomcat, one of his defensive ends, snuck up beside him. “Dammit, quit surprising me like that.”
“If she didn’t have you all tied up in knots, you’d have heard me.”
“She doesn’t have me tied up in anything.”
Tomcat barked out a loud snort. “Hey, it’s me. I know you, bro. You’ve met your match with the pretty lady. She’ll be leading you around by your dick in no time.”
“Just ’cause you like to be whipped doesn’t mean I do.” Tomcat, Zach’s college teammate and long-time friend, had gotten married last fall to a fireball of a woman who put him in his place and loved him dearly. Zach had served as best man. Actually, he adored LaShonna. It took a strong woman to tame a man like Tomcat. LaShonna was that woman.
“Yeah, well, stallions get corralled every day.”
“And they get castrated every day. Not this stud.”
“Suit yourself.” Tomcat watched appreciatively as Kelsie moved from place to place, making suggestions on hedge trimming and directing a couple rookies with pieces of a broken concrete fountain to a nearby dumpster—a dumpster that hadn’t been there a few hours ago. The rookies fell all over themselves to impress her.
Zach narrowed his eyes, not liking how his friend was looking at Kelsie. “You’re married.” He growled out a reminder.
“Hell, I know, but a man can look. She’s a fine one. You should avail yourself of her charms, my man.”
“I’m not availing myself of anything when it comes to that woman. We have a history. I might be dense, but I’m not a total idiot.”
“A man-eater, huh?”
“Well, look at her. What do you think?”
“I think she looks mighty fine. If I were you, she could eat my manhood anytime she pleased.” Tomcat elbowed him.
Zach sighed and turned his attention
to the crow bitching at them from a bough of the nearby red cedar tree. “You know crows are actually good-looking birds, but they’re scavengers eating off the misfortunes of others.”
“Can’t judge a bird by its feathers.”
“Nope, you can’t. The ugliest birds turn out to be the most useful, eating their weight in bugs and mosquitoes rather than eating garbage and bitching to the high heavens.”
Tomcat raised one black eyebrow. Chuckling, he turned away and went back to work.
With a frustrated groan, Zach hacked at the overgrown rhododendron blocking the front windows of his house.
“Cut it down to a few feet off the ground. Open up the house to the sunlight.” He didn’t need to look to know Kelsie stood beside him. His body told him about two seconds before she opened those ruby-red lips of hers.
“What sunlight? This is Seattle.”
She laughed, a wonderful, heart-enslaving sound. How was it possible to be attracted to and detest someone at the same time? He knew his dick wasn’t all that discerning, but it was the rest of him he was worried about.
Zach attacked the tree with the frustration of a man who saw paradise and knew he couldn’t have it because it was an illusion painted by a deceptive beauty with all the charm of a Southern belle and the deviousness of a scam artist.
~ ~ ~ ~
Later that evening, Zach stood on his porch with his hands propped on his hips and surveyed his small kingdom in wonder. His yard bore no resemblance to the overgrown jungle it’d been just this morning. One-hundred-year-old giant, feral rhodies had been pruned back to manageable sizes. Trimming the bottom boughs on several huge cedars opened the view up considerably. Hell, he had an even better view than he’d realized. Blackberry vines no longer wound their way through the yard like coils of barbed wire on a battlefield.
He had to hand it to Kelsie. When she set her mind to something, she worked like a stubborn dynamo. Her willingness to get her hands dirty and jump right in with the rest of them earned his grudging respect.
Zach shook his head. Women. No man in his right mind could figure them out, and no man wanted to dig through the mysterious recesses of their minds, especially not a devious mind like Kelsie’s.
He cringed as he recalled her last words this evening as he walked her out to her car. Tomorrow we start on the house.
No way in hell did he want anyone poking through his house. He guarded his privacy like vicious dogs guarded a junkyard. No one knew the real Zach, not even Tomcat. This house was his sanctuary. He didn’t want Kelsie or anyone else sissifying it to make it acceptable to some hoity-toity group of millionaires. He didn’t give a shit what they thought, but he did give a shit about staying on the team.
Well, crap. What the heck choice did he have but to tidy up one room and limit the party to that area? Yeah, right. He could see Harris now. The ass would conduct tours of the worst parts of Zach’s house just to embarrass the hell out of him.
He couldn’t win for losing.
Chapter 7—A Loss on Downs
Kelsie pulled up in front of the old house converted into one-room apartments, where she’d rented a room two weeks ago. While the place wasn’t exactly the Ritz, it beat living in her car.
For three days, she’d slogged through Zach’s treasures, which consisted of garbage most thrift shops would reject. She’d never seen so much junk in her life. She’d collected enough pop cans to fund an entire school’s extracurricular activities for a year. The guy never threw anything away. She’d make him watch that television show on hoarders and hopefully scare him straight. His aversion to using a garbage can definitely required an intervention.
Picking up Scranton, she mounted the creaky front steps and opened the flimsy front door. Trudging to the top of the stairs, she turned right down a narrow hall to the one-room studio smaller than her closet back home and a lot less elegant.
She stopped dead. All of her worldly belongings were stacked in a heap outside the door. A clasp on the door was locked with a hefty padlock. A note taped to the door ruffled in the breeze from a nearby open window.
She tore the note from the door and read it. She’d been evicted for not paying the rent due a few days ago. It had to be a mistake. She’d paid for a month.
“You need to leave this building now. Tenants only.” Her former landlady stood near the stairwell, huffing from the exertion of climbing the steep stairs. Sweat dripped off her double chin and settled in the cleavage of her enormous boobs.
“Mrs. Tremain, there’s been some mistake. I paid a month’s rent.”
“You paid for two weeks.” In between the wheezing and coughing, the large woman didn’t seem impressed.
“I gave you five 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-fifty 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.”
“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 stomped 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 her cash had 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 Steelheads. She’d be 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 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, even though every part of him would hate helping her. Well, almost every part. 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 situat
ion 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. Heart pounding in her chest, she gunned it through a yellow light and around another corner. She caught a glance at the sedan behind her turning the opposite direction down the street. They hadn’t been following her, after all.
Her hands shook on the steering wheel and her insides churned like an angry ocean. She wasn’t being followed, but tell that to her stricken heart and upset stomach.
Kelsie drove around for several minutes, chewed on her trashed fingernails, and found herself on Zach’s street, despite her best intentions. Somehow, being near him gave her security. The type of security she’d not felt in quite a few years.
No lights shined 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 wasn’t 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.
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 sunup and came back after sundown.
Offsides: The Originals (Seattle Steelheads Book 3) Page 8
