Free Down by Contact - A Seattle Lumberjacks Romance by Jami Davenport

Now they were at odds to the point where they couldn’t say
a civil word to each other if their life depended on it.
    Zach knew his grudge was stupid, and Harris
knew it was stupid, but they were stubborn alpha males who refused
to show weakness and be the first to back down. He hated to admit
it, but maybe he could use a little training in tact and
manners.
    Off to his side he heard Derek sigh, and a
second later he walked out of the room.
    Frustrated by the doubts filling his head,
Zach pounded his fist into his locker. But even the dent he left
didn’t make him feel better.

 
    CHAPTER 6
One Yard and a Cloud of Dust
    Kelsie consulted the handwritten directions
Zach had scrawled on a piece of paper. She couldn’t afford a data
plan on her phone so goodbye GPS, hello old-fashioned navigation by
paper.
    She turned on Sparkling Bay Drive and drove
down a street lined with stately maples and historic Seattle
mansions, scanning for the correct address. From a block away, she
spotted the likely culprit. Not that it was a bad house. In fact,
just the opposite, the old Victorian mansion stood tall and proud,
defying time and looking down her classical nose at modern
development.
    No, it wasn’t the house that concerned her.
If Zach paid a gardener, he’d better fire the guy.
    She was speechless.
    As she drove next to the house, Kelsie
slowed her car to a crawl and craned her neck. A post with a house
number partially obscured by overgrown rhododendrons confirmed her
worst suspicions.
    Zach Murphy, former poor boy turned NFL
defensive star, lived at this address. She turned up the once
elegant driveway. A forest of overhanging branches scraped along
the roof of her car as she drove past a flock of faded, pink
plastic flamingoes, one missing a beak, another missing a leg.
    Oh, yes, she’d come to the right place.
    Unfortunately .
    She stopped her car, gripped the steering
wheel, and stared. And stared. And stared again. She blinked.
Closed her eyes. Counted to ten. Peeked once. Twice. Three times.
Nothing changed the landscaping disaster obscuring most of the
house from view.
    Oh, good heavens .
    If a child ventured into Zach’s yard, the
two-foot tall grass would surely gobble him up and he’d never be
seen again, if the tangle of feral shrubbery didn’t attack him
first. She stared through the car window, expecting to catch a
glimpse of the random lion, tiger, or bear that might have taken up
residence, also never to be seen again.
    Did she dare get out? Especially in her new
thrift-store heels? The very heels she would have turned her nose
up at in her former life.
    Half hidden under an undomesticated wisteria
arbor, Kelsie spied the front walkway cleverly disguised as an
Amazon rain forest. She gingerly stepped out of her car, hoping she
could find it again when it came time to leave.
    Picking her way across a concrete driveway
pitted with potholes and clumps of grass growing up through the
cracks, she approached the clandestine walkway. An errant
blackberry vine wrapped itself around her leg despite her best
attempts to step over it. Greedy thorns snatched at her legs, as if
she were their next meal. She stepped on the vine with her other
foot and pulled it off her, but not before it tattooed her ankle
with scratches.
    Hearing a chuckle, she looked up. Zach stood
on a wide porch, which appeared to wrap around the entire house. A
smile tickled his mouth. While not prone to violence, one
well-placed slap to his amused face would do wonders for her
mood.
    “Welcome to Branson Manor.” His voice
sounded strangled, as if he fought to hold back out-and-out
laughter.
    Kelsie didn’t see one funny thing about this
situation. “That’s what you call it?” Avoiding another blackberry
vine, she mounted the front steps, which creaked under her weight.
A tattered, blue suede recliner with duct tape on one arm crouched
in a corner of the porch, a stack of beer bottles next it, and not
good beer, but the cheap stuff.
    “Well,