“It’s more than that.”
She turned to him. “Maybe. But it’s really not any of your concern.”
His jaw tightened, and he didn’t look at her. “No, it’s not.”
“What we need to worry about is getting your house in order before this party.”
He rolled his eyes. “I don’t give a damn about Veronica’s party.”
“It’s your party.”
“I beg to differ.”
“Quit wasting energy fighting it. We’re having a gala at your house. You will behave and be a gracious host if I have to squeeze your balls in a vise to get you to cooperate.”
He raised one dark eyebrow and chuckled at her out-of-character rank language. “You’ve been hanging around me too long. I’m rubbing off on you. Next thing you know, you’ll be throwing darts with the good ole boys down at the Crossroads Tavern.”
Kelsie smiled. “I could probably set aside my social indoctrination long enough to whoop your ass at darts.”
“You’re on, lady.” A smile split his face. Funny, when he smiled, he looked really handsome. Not drop-dead gorgeous like Tyler or suave and smooth like Bruiser, but ruggedly handsome like a young John Wayne. Kelsie loved old movies, especially Westerns.
She’d always been attracted to the strong, brooding type. Zach fit that bill. And he fit way too much else she desired in her new life, but he could never know. Couldn’t know because there was so much about them that would never work. She’d helped set the wheels in motion, and he’d lost a brother because of it. No wonder he hated her so much. He still saw her as the same girl who used people and crushed them under a stiletto when they’d outlived their usefulness.
Only she wasn’t. Not that he’d ever believe it, because the man held his grudges closer to his heart than most people held their loved ones.
The type of loved ones that neither Zach nor Kelsie had ever had in their lives.
~ ~ ~ ~
Zach tolerated the rest of the evening, watching his good money go down the guts of guys who ate more than an entire platoon of Army Rangers after a night-long march. Even worse, Kelsie sat next to him, not giving his cock a moment of rest. The damn thing rose to the occasion and stayed there despite his attempts to forget about her luscious body, her incredible scent, and her stunning thousand-watt smile.
He’d hoped she’d come clean about her reasons for sleeping in her car. She didn’t.
He hated feeling responsible for her well-being, yet for some unfathomable reason, he did. If something happened to her outside his home, he’d never forgive himself. On the other hand, he understood pride all too well. To invite her to stay in his spare bedroom compromised that pride. Despite all she’d done to him, he couldn’t do that to her.
He’d come up with another solution.
Yeah, right, buddy. Like screwing up her future by refusing to cooperate on this stupid-assed gala? He blew out a breath and shoved his hair out of his eyes.
A few hours later, with his credit card drained by tons of hungry football players, he left the restaurant and drove home alone. Kelsie had bummed a ride with Derek and Rachel, which really frosted his nuts. He tried not to take it personally because he suspected the reason had to do with her entire life’s possessions being stacked in the backseat of her car.
The problem was his dick really wanted to take her home and to end this bullshit denial between them. Zach never believed in beating around the bush. If you wanted something, you went after it. He wanted Kelsie’s body, but did he dare?
Every part of his body down to his big toe answered with a resounding yes while his heart squeaked out a pansy-assed no. The rest of him wasn’t listening as he pulled up to the garage, parked his truck, and mounted his front steps. Grabbing a brew from the fridge and a blanket, he returned to the porch. Turning off the outside lights, he settled onto the porch swing and waited.
At some point during the evening, he dozed off. He woke up a few hours later, stiff and cold. Kelsie never showed up.
Chapter 13—Slammed to the Turf
Kelsie folded her hands in front of her and waited for Zach. Today’s lesson would be on making conversation. She opened Mabel Fay’s book and reread the first paragraph, taking some comfort from the familiar words:
Refined and proper manners will be negated if one hasn’t mastered the gift of polite conversation. Many a time a slip in manners, such as a gentleman who slurps his soup or chooses an improper wine to pair with a meal, can be overlooked if said gentleman masks minor improprieties with witty, charming conversation.
So not Zach.
Kelsie giggled at the thought. She glanced at her watch. The man was late.
A few seconds later, he stormed into the room and glanced around. When he saw her, relief washed across the angular masculinity of his face, though his irritation still shone through, along with something almost resembling fear.
“Where the hell have you been?” He stared down at her like a man feasting his eyes on his last meal.
Oh, boy.
“Right here waiting for you.” She kept her voice calm, even though his appearance caused a major earthquake inside her.
“I mean for the last week and a half.”
“HughJack canceled last Tuesday’s lesson citing a special team meeting.” He’d noticed? She tamped down her pleasure.
“I know that, but you didn’t reschedule.”
She blinked at him. He wanted her to reschedule? “I’m not following you.”
He opened his mouth then shut it, as if he’d already said too much. He dropped into the chair and clasped his hands on the table in front of him.
“Zach? What’s going on?” He looked so distraught she reached for his hands, but he jerked them away.
“Nothing.”
Like hell, nothing. “You barged in here like a man in a panic.”
“Just hadn’t seen you around. I was curious.” He met her gaze, and she saw the worry reflected there. A warm, fuzzy feeling like when Scranton licked her cheek ran through her. Only this man licking her body would be cataclysmic on the affection scale.
“As you can see, I’m fine.” Sometimes she wondered if anyone would report her missing if she disappeared. Maybe Zach would.
“Where have you been?” He leveled her with a direct gaze.
She’d asked Rachel and Derek not to mention where she was to Zach, and she had to admit she was a little surprised they hadn’t.
“It’s not really any of your affair, but when Rachel and Derek gave me a ride after the last home game, Rachel got a call from her barn help. The woman had a family illness and needed to be away for a week. I volunteered to fill in. I’ve been staying in their caretaker’s cottage so I wouldn’t have to drive back and forth twice a day.” Not that she had a home to drive back and forth to. She’d gone straight to the cottage that night and stayed there ever since. The caretaker would return in a few days, so she’d be back to her car after that.
“Oh.” He looked down, but not before she caught the deep red coloring his face. Finally, he glanced upward. “You know how to care for horses?”
“Seriously? I rode hunters as a teenager. Mother insisted on it. All well-bred girls took riding lessons, so she said.” Kelsie’s stomach knotted at the memory. She’d loved riding those gentle beasts, but her mother demanded her daughter take home only blue ribbons at horse shows until Kelsie hated everything to do with horses. She’d purposely started losing at horse shows just so she could quit riding.
“Zach, let’s get down to business. Did you read your homework?”
He rolled his eyes and sighed. “This is total bullshit. The team’s lost as many as they’ve won, and you’re asking me if I’ve read Mary Kay’s worthless advice.”
“Mable Fay, and it’s not worthless.” Kelsie bristled, defending the woman she’d considered her guiding light over the years.
“Whatever.” He waved her off. “Let’s get this over with.”
“You’re not taking thi
s seriously. Veronica and Coach Jackson expect your full cooperation.” Kelsie tried for the stern teacher voice, but it came out as a bitchy whine. “Do you have your copy with you?” She’d found him a dog-eared copy at a used bookstore.
He looked down at his hands and shook his head.
“Do you know where your copy is?”
He lifted one shoulder, still not meeting her gaze.
Busted.
She pushed the book across the table to him. “Please read this over. I’ll give you a few minutes.”
Zach hunched over the book but not before casting an irritated glance in her direction.
This man was the most exasperating, frustrating man she’d ever known. When he bent his dark, shaggy head, she itched to comb his hair into some semblance of order. She swallowed, imagined taming that unruly mop. She’d run her fingers through it and feel its texture as she added product for control, brush it out of his eyes so she could take in every feature of his ruggedly handsome face. Tracing those uncompromising lips with her index finger, she’d tease them into relaxing. And if they didn’t, she’d be forced to use her lips. His lips would tighten, but she’d persevere until he softened them, opened for her tongue. Next thing, she’d be draped over his arm as he feasted on her mouth.
The book slammed shut, and Kelsie jumped a foot out of her chair. Flustered, she fumbled for her notes, and they slid off the table. Zach knelt down at the same time she did to pick them up. Her forehead bumped his forehead. She raised her gaze and so did he. A few inches separated her mouth from his, that very mouth she’d been fantasizing about a few seconds ago. If she just leaned forward a little, pretended to lose her balance, and conveniently forgot that touching and kissing was so not a good idea, she could be kissing him.
Zach beat her to it.
His mouth touched hers and set off a series of explosive chain reactions in the rest of her body. He tasted her like a wine expert with a bottle of rare Chardonnay. She applied pressure to his lips, parting her own. He accepted the invitation with his tongue and deepened the kiss. Burying his fingers in her hair, he pulled her closer.
“So, how are the lessons going?” Tyler Harris’s taunting voice hit her like a wrong-way driver on I-5. She shot to her feet and so did Zach, knowing both their faces were redder than a tourist who’d fallen asleep in the hot sun on a beach.
“Go to hell,” Zach growled.
“If I do, I’m taking you with me.” Chuckling, Tyler winked at Kelsie and left the room.
Stricken, Kelsie looked at Zach. “What do you think he’ll do?”
“I’ll take care of him.” The grim resolve on Zach’s face didn’t bode well for Tyler’s health or throwing arm.
She wrapped her fingers around Zach’s biceps to keep him from going after the quarterback. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Kelsie could still hear Tyler’s laughter as it faded in the distance.
She didn’t have a good feeling about this. Not at all.
~ ~ ~ ~
Three and four.
They were fucking three and four. Three sorry-assed wins, four fucking losses.
A record like that didn’t get a guy into the playoffs, let alone the Super Bowl. Frustration welled up inside Zach to the point of exploding. It didn’t help that worry and guilt over Kelsie distracted him to the point where he couldn’t concentrate. To add insult to insult, his old team—the perpetual league doormats that he’d given the best twelve years of his career—had just whipped the Steelheads’ asses on Thursday Night Football. After years of mediocrity, the Detroit Devils were six and one and leading their division. The team’s owner hinted that cutting Zach in the off-season might be one of the reasons for their success.
What if it was? Zach slumped onto the bench in front of his locker and toweled off his wet hair. He felt sick to his stomach. Nothing had gone right tonight. Nothing. And not just for Zach.
Harris’s QB rating was at its all-time worst. His receivers dropped balls left and right. Zach’s defense left holes big enough for an elephant to lumber through at slow speed. Zach himself hadn’t played a stellar game and he laid the loss right where it belonged, at his own big feet.
Harris stopped in front of his locker, hands on hips, murder in his laser-blue eyes. Zach glanced up in the middle of lacing his shoes.
“Get your fucking mind off your beauty queen and on the field.”
Obviously, Harris was looking for a fight, and Zach didn’t mind giving it to him. He was sick and tired of the quarterback’s criticism from the sidelines, as if the jerk had ever played a down of defense in his pussy-assed life. Zach shot to his feet, unmindful of Harris’s extra inch of height. He had forty pounds of muscle over the QB.
“Are you accusing me of putting a woman over football?”
“Not accusing. Stating a fact.” Harris stepped forward into Zach’s space, their faces only inches apart. Fury radiated off Zach in waves. He itched to plant his fist in Harris’s smug face. The asshole had been begging for it for months.
All noise in the room ceased. Even the endless rap music from Dante Reed’s corner of the locker room stopped. The players shuffled their feet. Some kept their backs to their battling team captains; others openly gaped like bystanders at the scene of a bloody crime.
“Well, how’s this for a fact? You aren’t playing any better. Maybe you should practice what you preach.” Out of the corner of Zach’s eye, he noticed Derek and the backup quarterback, Brett Gunnels, inching toward them. Brett was a quiet guy and not big enough at five foot ten to be better than a career backup in the NFL, but the guy had guts. Zach would rather see him starting than Harris when Harris’s head wasn’t in the game. Yet if Harris’s head was elsewhere, where the hell was Zach’s? Down south?
“Hey now.” Derek, the team peacemaker, attempted to step between them, but neither Zach nor Harris budged.
“Stay out of this,” Tyler snarled. Derek didn’t retreat but didn’t make another move to interfere. Brett stood his ground, too, ready to break up a fight, while Zach’s defensive line moved behind him, like his own personal posse of defenders.
Shit, any minute they’d have a brawl in the locker room.
“Kelsie isn’t my problem. You are.” Zach flexed his fingers, walking a thin line between strangling Harris and decking him. He had no doubt he could lay the guy out in one or two punches. “My grandma could play better football than you and with a lot more desire.”
“Fuck you. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. You shouldn’t shit in someone’s backyard until you clean up the crap in your own.”
“You’re scaring me, Harris.” Zach’s booming laugh echoed across the silent locker room. Only then did he notice a small group of local reporters inside the locker room door, witnessing the team dysfunction for themselves, complete with high-def cameras.
HughJack pushed past the reporters, breathing fire. “Get the fuck out of here,” he spat and booted their asses from the room with one homicidal glare. They scurried out, a couple of them getting stuck as they did so. HughJack slammed the door after them so hard Zach felt the vibration through the soles of his shoes.
Oh, crap.
Zach’s anger deflated along with his chances for a Super Bowl ring. Even Harris backed up a step and plastered a friendly smile on his face. “Hey, Coach. Murphy and I were just having a little fun with the reporters. Nothing serious.”
HughJack looked from one to the other with a scowl that struck fear in Zach’s heart.
“Tomorrow morning. My office. Six thirty a.m. Don’t be one fucking minute late.”
“Six thirty?” Harris’s whining faded off into the sunset when HughJack swung around at him.
“You got a problem with that?”
“No, sir. I’ll be there.” Tyler stood up straight as if at attention. Zach half expected the suck-ass to salute or lick the coach’s feet.
HughJack pinned Zach with his penetrating gaze. “And you?”
Zach nodded with a sinking feeling in the pit o
f his stomach that his days with this team were numbered. Even Kelsie’s charm and image building couldn’t get him out of this mess.
~ ~ ~ ~
Rachel, Lavender, and Kelsie sat in a private booth in a pub near Steelheads Stadium. Kelsie had survived a couple tense days waiting for the fallout from Tyler’s discovery of Zach and her. So far nothing had happened. Maybe Tyler would keep his mouth shut. After all, he did seem to like Kelsie, despite what he felt about Zach.
Kelsie was dragging. After her stint at the horse barn, she’d taken on an evening job at a local theater a few days a week, in the ticket booth. The job took every bit of her beauty queen training to put up with some of the remarks and rudeness. She didn’t care. She needed to get back on her feet and earn a steady stream of income, no matter how small.
“Oh, I forgot to pay you. Thanks for taking care of our horses.” Rachel opened a checkbook and scribbled out a check, handing it to her.
Kelsie glanced at it, surprised by the amount. “It was my pleasure. I love horses, but I can’t take this. It’s too much.” The old Kelsie would’ve pocketed the check and been annoyed it hadn’t been more money. The new Kelsie handed it back. She’d had a wonderful place to live for over a week in exchange for a few hours of work.
Rachel stared at the check and tried to hand it back. “Please, take it.”
Kelsie shook her head. Doing a friend a favor without expecting something in return felt liberating. And Rachel had become a friend. Despite how desperate Kelsie might be for the cash, she wouldn’t ruin that feel-good feeling by accepting payment.
When Kelsie didn’t take the check, Rachel pushed it into her hands.
Sighing, Kelsie tore the check into small pieces. “Consider this a favor from a friend.”
Rachel shrugged and smiled. “If that’s how you want it.”
“Hey, ladies, shhhh. Listen.” Lavender pointed to one of the many televisions hanging around the room.
Kelsie’s head snapped upward just as she heard Zach’s name mentioned on the post-game show. Two sportscasters sat at a large table. A large still picture of Zach and Tyler in uniform was displayed behind them.
Offsides: The Originals (Seattle Steelheads Book 3) Page 13
