Down by Contact - A Seattle Lumberjacks Romance by Jami Davenport

shoe, and rubbed her throbbing foot. In the past week
she’d gained a new respect for people who did physical labor for a
living. She’d never see a gardener or repairman in the same way.
There wasn’t a muscle in her body that didn’t ache, or a square
inch of skin that wasn’t red and chapped.
    For the better part of the past week, Kelsie
attempted to tackle Zach’s yard, but instead it tackled her. She
couldn’t give up. Not now. Not when her goal hovered on the
horizon. A stubborn linebacker and a jungle yard wouldn’t deter
her. Even if said yard harbored all sorts of nasty, greasy
surprises, such as old car parts and garbage and disgusting
creatures in the form of slugs big enough to cart off the house on
their slimy backs.
    Loneliness and longing were almost as bad as
her physical pain, lonely for a friendly face and longing for a man
who’d never forgive her. Men complicated everything, and she
preferred things to stay as simple as possible until she rebounded
from her current sorry state.
    But she’d kissed him. Not just a nice sweet
kiss, but an all-out assault in which she’d attempted to burrow
under his skin or at least his clothes. This obsessing over him had
to stop. She’d tasted that forbidden fruit for the last time. No
more. She was a professional doing a professional job, and she
would not do her client.
    Mercy, but Kelsie needed someone to spill
her woes to other than Scranton. Someone who’d be an ally in a
harsh world. She craved true girlfriends, the type everyone else
had, not the superficial ones she’d had all her life. Of course,
you have to be a friend to have true friends. Kelsie was ready to
be that type of friend if only someone would give her chance.
    Someone like—
    She heard a familiar voice and stilled,
listening, certain her addled brain must have dredged up an answer
to her prayers.
    “I’m on my way, Vinnie. Where are we
meeting?” Rachel Ramsey’s voice drifted to where Kelsie sat. She
held her breath, hoping she’d hear the location before Rachel
exited out the door.
    “Beachfront Pub? Got it. See you there in
ten.”
    Talk about right-place, right-time. Kelsie
had better start going to church because someone up their just
might be playing on her team.
    Slipping her shoe back on her foot, she
ignored her protesting toes and stood. She walked up to the old
security guy at the front desk and gave him her pageant-winning
smile. “Where’s the Beachfront Pub?”
    He grinned as if she’d just gifted him a
winning lotto ticket. A few minutes later, she hurried out of the
building as fast as her bruised and blistered feet would carry
her.
    Kelsie drove ten minutes to the Kirkland
waterfront area and parked in the restaurant lot. She glanced in
the rear-view mirror, still feeling as if her face betrayed the
effects of Zach’s kiss last week. She touched her lips. Perhaps the
physical evidence disappeared but in her mind those hungry lips of
his still roamed across her mouth and face, wreaking havoc with her
brain.
    No more men. Not a one. Especially not an
unsociable loner with the manners of a caveman and a chip on his
shoulder larger than most continents.
    No. No. No.
    Just keep saying the words, Kel, some day
you might really believe them.
    Taking a deep breath to clear her mind and
shore up her courage, she walked into the Beachfront Pub and paused
in the doorway, scanning the tables. With the regal bearing of the
beauty queen she once was, she wove between the tables to one near
the window. Several men gazed appreciatively at her as she strolled
by. She ignored them. They weren’t part of her plan, now or ever.
Two heads bent close together, one blonde, one brunette, gossiped
away, totally unaware of her determined approach.
    “Imagine meeting you here.” Kelsie gushed,
using her best girlfriend-to-girlfriend voice.
    Both women glanced up at the same time. She
caught the quick look between them, almost as if they were on to
her but too polite to call her out on