NFH 03 Checkmate (33 page)

For a moment he only looked at her and just
when she thought that she was finally about to get her answers
after all of these years, he shook his head and moved to step past
her. "Ask your brothers."

No, he was not about to do this to her on
top of everything else. They were going to finish this tonight.

"I'm asking you, Connor," she said, stepping
in front of him and blocking his path.

"It would be better if it came from one of
your brothers," he said, trying to step past her, but she was done
playing this game with him.

"It would be better if it came from you and
while you're at it, you can tell me why you followed me up there in
the first place," she demanded, making it clear that she wasn't
moving until he finally gave her the answers that she'd been
waiting years for.

"Are you sure that you want to hear this?"
he asked, resting his hip against the sink counter as he
waited.

"Yes," she said with absolutely no
hesitation. She desperately wanted to know what happened that
night, why he was there and why he couldn't just leave her the hell
-

"I came up there to talk to you about
something, but when I got there you were already the life of the
party. For weeks, months really, I'd been trying to work up the
courage to talk to you, but the moment that I saw you, I lost my
nerve," he admitted with a small rueful smile.

"What did you come to talk to me about?" she
found herself asking as she leaned back against the door.

"I sat back, not sure what to do," he said,
continuing with his story and for the moment she allowed it. "I
hung back for a few hours, trying to work up the nerve to approach
you," he explained, surprising her. Since when was he nervous about
approaching her?

"Just when I decided to put it off, I saw
you stumble across the dance floor. It was more than obvious that
you were drunk. The guy that you were with definitely figured that
out," Connor ground out, suddenly looking pissed. "I hung out for
another minute, hoping that your brothers would step in, but none
of them did. So, when the asshole dragged you, stumbling and
giggling out the backdoor, I followed."

"I don't really remember any of this," she
admitted, frowning as she struggled to remember something, anything
about that part of the night, but it was useless.

"I'm not surprised, Rory. You were pretty
wasted by that point. You couldn't even walk without help," Connor
explained as she noticed for the first time since this whole thing
started that he'd pulled on a pair of jeans, but left them
unbuttoned, that along with his casual pose and mussed hair made
him look sweet and sexy. He certainly didn't look like a life
ruining bastard or someone who enjoyed screwing around with
someone's heart.

"Get to the point," she said, needing to
hear how he ruined her life so that she could build up a defense
around her heart and hate him so the pain would end.

Connor looked away, his jaw clenched tightly
as he said, "By the time I got out to the alleyway, the asshole was
trying to shove you down behind the dumpster."

"H-he didn't," she said, stopping to wet her
suddenly dry lips when the words refused to leave her mouth. It
didn't matter if she remembered it or not. Knowing that some guy
had hurt her like that would be difficult to get over. As she
waited for his answer, she hoped that Connor had gotten there in
time. Please let him have gotten there in time, she prayed as dread
coiled around in her stomach.

"He didn't have a chance to hurt you, Rory.
I promise you that he didn't hurt you," he said softly, but
wouldn't look at her.

"What aren't you telling me?" she demanded,
afraid that he was lying to protect her from the truth.

"There's nothing else to tell, Rory. You
know the rest," he said, shaking his head as he pushed away from
the counter and moved to step past her, but she wasn't ready to
drop this.

"No, I don't," she said, planting her good
hand against his chest, stopping him from ending this conversation
before she got the rest of her answers.

"He pulled a knife. We ended up in jail.
Case closed, end of story, let it go," he said firmly, gently
pushing her hand away and this time he managed to walk away from
her and was halfway to his bedroom door when she asked, "And how
did we land in jail and him in the hospital if he was the one with
the knife, Connor? Huh?" she demanded, walking after him and
cutting him off before he could make it to that door and walk away
from her, taking the answers that she desperately wanted to know
with him.

"How did my life get wrecked, Connor? Tell
me," she demanded. When he clenched his jaw and didn't answer, she
screamed it. "Tell me!"

"You wouldn't listen to me!" he snapped,
grabbing her by the arms and giving her a shake, not hard enough to
hurt her, but it was enough to stun her. "I told you to get your
ass back in the bar, but you wouldn't listen! You should have
fucking listened to me, Rory!" Another shake. "Do you have any idea
how close I came to losing you that night? Do you?" he practically
roared in her face as he pushed her back up against the wall and
got in her face, clearly done with avoiding this subject.

"I begged you to go inside, Rory, but even
drunk you're a stubborn pain in the ass!" he snapped, glaring down
at her. "When that asshole pulled out a knife, you got pissed and
went to punch him. I almost didn't get between you in time! Do you
have any idea how close that piece of shit came to stabbing you? Do
you?" he demanded, sounding angrier and angrier with each passing
second when all she could do was stand there, desperately trying to
catch her breath as his words sank in.

"How did he get stabbed, Connor?" she asked,
reaching out and grabbing onto him as a wave of dizziness tore
through her head with the possible knowledge that she was the
reason the man ended up in the hospital having one of his kidneys
removed.

"He fell on the knife when I tackled him to
the ground," Connor said, his tone more gentle as his grip on her
arms turned supportive.

"But in the police report he said that you
attacked him," she mumbled, desperately trying to wrap her mind
around everything he'd told her and figure out how the hell they'd
gotten off when it was the other guy who ended up in the hospital
when there hadn't been any witnesses to back them up. She'd tried
to get her hands on the police report a few times over the years,
but because the case was closed and she wasn't a Canadian resident,
her request had been denied.

"I know what he said, Rory, but his story
didn't add up," Connor explained softly.

"What are you talking about, Connor? There
were no other witnesses and he's the one that got hurt. How exactly
didn't his story add up?"

Locking his eyes on her, he gently took her
good hand off his arm and placed it on the left side of his chest.
When she opened her mouth to ask what he was doing, he glided her
hand over his chest. It took a moment before a small raised line
registered and when it did, she shook off his hand and traced her
fingers over the three inch scar that she'd never noticed before.
Not that anyone would have really had a chance to see the scar with
his tattoo covering the area.

When he raised his left hand, palm out, her
eyes landed on a long thin scar that ran across it. Without a word,
she reached up with a shaky hand and traced the thin scar that ran
across his palm that she'd always assumed was from working
construction.

"Defensive wound," she said numbly as she
dropped her hand to her side.

"Yes," Connor said, pushing away from the
wall and moving away from her. When he sat down on the edge of the
bed and dropped his head in his hands, it surprised her how badly
she wanted to go to him.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, leaning
her head back and looking up at the ceiling, desperately trying not
to lose it as something occurred to her.

He hadn't ruined her life.

That was all her. She'd ruined her life by
getting drunk and going off with some asshole. She'd put them both
in that situation and because of her, Connor had been hurt.

"There was no point in telling you, Rory. It
was done."

"You were in the cell with me the next
morning, Connor. How did you manage that if you were injured?" she
asked, trying to find a hole in his story, instinctively knowing
that she wouldn't find any. For all his faults, Connor was not a
liar.

"I let them stitch me up and then left
against medical advice when they wanted me to stay the night," he
explained softly.

"Why?" she found herself asking even though
she wasn't really sure that she could handle anything more
tonight.

"I couldn't stomach the idea of you being in
a jail cell like that, Rory. By the time the ambulance came, you
were already having problems. I made them bring you to the
hospital, but they only kept you there long enough to give you some
fluids before they released you to the police."

"Why did my father hit you?" she asked,
wondering if her father knew Connor's role in everything. She
doubted it. Her father would never strike someone that protected
one of his children.

"He didn't know what happened. The only
thing that he knew was that I followed you to Canada and that you
were arrested, facing some pretty serious charges."

"You could have corrected him on that," she
said, feeling her eyes tear up once again. She hated crying, didn't
want to do it, but damn Connor if he didn't have her close to
crying her eyes out.

"You had enough to deal with, Rory. It was
simpler for me to take the brunt of his anger."

Taking a slow, steady breath, she dropped
her gaze to Connor and for the first time in years she didn't know
what to feel when she looked at him. She couldn't hate him, wanted
to, but she couldn't. He'd saved her, cared for her and protected
her and she'd been an absolute bitch to him over the years, not
that he didn't deserve some of it, but there was no way that he
deserved all of it.

"Why did you come after me, Connor?" she
whispered, praying that he wouldn't say or do anything else that
would rock her world. She really didn't know how much more she
could take.

"In the top drawer," he said, tilting his
head to the side so that he could watch her.

Heart pounding in her chest, she walked over
to his bureau. She threw him one last look to find him sitting
there with his head once again in his hands and she couldn't help
but wonder just how bad this was going to be. After taking a
fortifying breath, she reached up and opened the drawer.

It slid out easily, but that wasn't exactly
surprising since there wasn't much inside, not much at all. In the
middle of the drawer sat a small velvet jewelry box.

"What is this?" she asked, swallowing
nervously as she picked it up.

"Your birthday gift, Rory."

Her hands shook so badly that she almost
dropped the box, twice, but after a minute she managed to open it.
Her chin trembled as she traced the tiny diamond with the tip of
her finger. It was the smallest diamond ring that she'd ever seen,
but it was without a doubt the most beautiful one that she'd ever
laid her eyes on.

She pulled the ring out of the box for a
closer look when something inside the ring caught her eye.
Swallowing hard, she turned the ring over until the dim bedroom
light hit the inscription just right and when it did, she almost
dropped it as she read the three letters engraved on the ring.

LRJ

Chapter 29

Him and his big fucking mouth.

If he'd just kept his mouth shut and his
feelings for her to himself, at least for a little while, they
wouldn't be sitting here rehashing all of this bullshit. This
wasn't how he wanted her to find out. Actually, he never planned on
telling her, but he knew the moment that he walked into that
bathroom to face her that the choice was no longer his to make. Now
she knew what a pathetic asshole he really was.

"What does LRJ stand for?" she asked softly
as she knelt down in front of him.

"Little Rory James," he admitted with a sad
smile, knowing that he'd truly gone and fucked up his one chance
with her.

"May I?" she asked, gesturing with her
broken hand to his chest. With a small nod, he leaned back and
wasn't too surprised when she traced her fingers over her initials
that he'd had tattooed all those years ago when he'd had a little
bit too much beer and not enough common sense not to tattoo the
name of a woman who hated him on his body. He'd been young and
foolish and now he just felt old and stupid.

"The suites are yours, Rory," he said when
he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"I know," she said softly as she continued
to trace the letters, looking mesmerized by the tattoo.

"The deal's off, too," he needlessly
explained, licking his lips and trying not to moan when her fingers
teasingly traced over his nipple.

"Yes, it is," she said, running her fingers
to the other side of his chest while he sat there, trying to remain
unaffected, but it was nearly impossible with Rory touching
him.

"What were you hoping to get out of this
deal?" she asked, slowing her movements as she looked up and met
his gaze.

"It doesn't matter," he said truthfully,
because none of it mattered without her, not Strawberry Manor, not
his business, nothing. It might have taken him a while to figure it
out, but he knew that the only thing that mattered to him was Rory.
Her touches gave him hope that they might have a future, but he
wasn't a fool. He'd pissed her off and she'd be justified in toying
with him.

"Not going to tell me?" she asked, cocking a
brow in question as she moved closer, resting her broken arm across
his leg as her other hand slid up his chest and over his
shoulder.