Down by Contact - A Seattle Lumberjacks Romance Read Free

thing
that’d changed.
    Kelsie scanned the room then did a double
take. Their eyes met and crashed with the intensity of a wrong-way
collision on I-5. The fake smile faltered. The gliding stopped. She
looked around the room as if planning an escape route. Then she
straightened her shoulders and turned on the charm, gracing him
with her halogen smile—perfect white teeth and hot red lips. Really
hot. As if she were happy to see him.
    Bullshit.
    Zach scowled his best don’t-fuck-with-me
scowl.
    Kelsie faltered. Her stride went from
graceful to jerky. The smile slipped off her face, replaced by what
appeared to be panic. She pivoted on her impossibly high heels and
fired up the after-burners.
    Oh, no, she wasn’t getting away this easily.
Zach jumped to his feet and gave chase, single-mindedly focused on
confronting her, something he’d been dying to do since his senior
year of high school. Yeah, stupid idea, but he’d never been one for
thinking before reacting, a trait which worked well in football,
not so well in real life.
    She glanced over her shoulder, her blue eyes
filled with what looked like fear, as if she expected him to do
physical damage to her or some stupid-assed thing like that.
    Zach cornered her near the head table.
Kelsie changed directions and charged past him. He spun around to
follow, refusing to let her off that easily. He clipped her full
tray drinks with his elbow. She lurched with the tray, but it was
too late. Helpless, Zach watched the disaster happen in slow
motion.
    The tray teetered back and forth, as Kelsie
desperately fought to gain control. The tray won. Glasses of wine
sprayed red, white, and pink across the tablecloth, looking like a
tie-dye session gone mad. Goblets shattered. Women screamed as wine
drenched expensive evening gowns. The team owner leapt to his feet,
his sputtering laced with profanity as red wine coated his
custom-tux and white shirt. His spoiled daughter, Veronica, didn’t
hold anything back either, loudly insulting the size of Zach’s
brain and his dick. Closest to the debacle, the governor’s wife
leapt to her feet, her low-cut sequined evening gown hung on her
like a limp rag. Red wine and mimosas dribbled down her neck and
chest and disappeared in her cleavage. Zach grabbed a napkin and
desperately blotted at the wine. In his panic, he swiped the napkin
across the plump mounds of her breasts. She screamed as if he’d
purposely groped her. HughJack, the team’s head coach, grabbed him
and pulled him away.
    “I’m sorry. Oh, fucking hell. I’m so sorry.”
Zach wanted to crawl under the nearest boulder.
    “What did you think you were doing?” Coach
spoke in that deadly calm, quiet voice that struck fear in the
meanest of linemen. Zach preferred HughJack’s ranting and notorious
clipboard throwing to that voice.
    “I—I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
    Veronica, still sputtering and looking for
blood, turned on Kelsie. “You! How could you be so stupid?”
    “I—I—” Kelsie shoved her fist in her mouth,
obviously horrified at the carnage she’d helped cause. She lifted
her gaze to Zach’s. Anger blazed in her stormy blue eyes.
    Wait one fucking minute. She blamed him ? He hadn’t done one damn thing other than be where he
was supposed to be—a charity benefit for a charity whose name he
couldn’t even remember. She was the one who didn’t belong here.
    Jerking her gaze away from his, Kelsie
dropped to the floor and started wiping up the mess with any napkin
she could confiscate from the nearby tables. Several other staff
joined in the fray, wiping tables, cleaning up the mess, and
comforting wet, angry guests.
    Zach debated on whether or not to fade into
the background or make her night that much worse. Once again, she’d
made him look like a backwards hick, her special talent.
    A fat, sweating chef with chocolate stains
on his white apron waddled out of the kitchen and spoke in a harsh
whisper to Kelsie. “You idiot. Did you do