NFH 03 Checkmate (4 page)

"Oh yeah," he said, grinning, looking
towards the James brothers. "Maybe even more."

* * * *

"Did you know Connor was gay?"

That question had Rory stumbling even though
she'd changed into her work boots, jeans, and customary gray tee
shirt. Before she went head first into the brick wall, Sean reached
out and grabbed her by the arm to steady her, which was actually
impressive since he never took his eyes off the huge plate of food
in front of him.

"Thanks," she said, taking the empty seat
next to Brian.

"No problem," Sean said around a huge bite
full of his cheeseburger.

"Well?" Bryce demanded as he pushed a mug of
steaming hot cocoa towards her while Craig gestured to Luanne,
their waitress.

"Well, what?" Rory asked before taking a
fortifying sip of cocoa. Not as good as hers, but still doable.

"
Did you know he was gay
?" Sean hissed
as Luanne placed a large cheeseburger platter with extra fries,
onion rings and coleslaw in front of her.

Connor O'Neil gay? That was actually
laughable. She snorted as she took another sip of cocoa and picked
up her knife. Just as she finished cutting her burger in half,
Brian reached over and took half of it. When she raised the bun of
the remaining half, Johnny took her onions. Sean and Bryce took her
french fries while Craig and Brian split her onion rings. When the
only thing left on her plate was the coleslaw and half a burger,
each man in turn dumped his side salad with extra creamy French
dressing on her plate. It took a few years, but she had them nicely
trained, she thought as she took a bite of her burger.

"Why do you think he's gay?" she asked,
spearing a delicious looking French dressing covered cucumber slice
onto her fork.

"He keeps looking over here at us," Brian
said, jerking his head in the direction behind him.

Sipping her cocoa, Rory leaned to the left
to look between two of her very large brothers. Sometimes she felt
like she had her own entourage of linebackers. Having large
muscular brothers did come in handy when she needed help moving or
someone to open a pickle jar.

"He's doing it again," Johnny said, moving
to the side so she could get a better look and sure enough he was
looking over at them. Actually, so were his little buddies. They
were talking and gesturing towards them. No doubt the men were
pissed at the news. So was she, but she was willing to suck it up
as long as he stayed the hell out of her way that is.

As if he sensed her thoughts, he turned his
eyes on her and narrowed them dangerously. She narrowed her eyes on
him. Everything around them disappeared as they glared at each
other. Sure it was childish, but she would not look away first damn
it! Even when people walked between them neither looked away.

The glaring was actually starting to make
her feel dizzy, but she would not look away first! Not this time!
She would-

"They're probably just gloating. It's okay,
baby girl, we'll get the next one," Craig said, pulling her
attention away from the glaring bastard. She looked away, but not
before she caught his triumphant grin.

The bastard!

"We got it," she said, taking a quick sip of
cocoa.

The men actually stopped eating to frown at
her, which was pretty amazing since there was still food on the
table and these were the James brothers.

"What do you mean we got it?" Brian
asked.

She shrugged. "I signed the contract less
than a half hour ago. It's ours."

The men looked over their shoulders and then
back at her in unison. "Then why do they look like they're
celebrating? I can't imagine Connor being happy about losing to
you," Bryce said, staring longingly at the burger left on her
plate. So maybe they hadn't entirely forgotten about the food, she
thought.

"Yeah, he looks damn happy for a man that
just lost a million dollar contract," Johnny said as his hand
inched, almost as if it had a mind of its own, towards her burger.
Before it touched her plate, Craig reached out and slapped his hand
away.

Johnny gave her a sheepish smile and a
shrug. She knew he couldn't help himself. It was something she
understood even when they were kids. Her brothers could eat their
father out of house and home by the time they were six and often
did. Considering that by six they were the size of twelve year olds
that wasn't too surprising. If it hadn't been for Craig, she
probably would have starved to death. He kept his younger brothers
in line and made sure that she had enough to eat.

"Yeah, well, he kind of sort of got the
contract too," she said quickly, wincing in anticipation of their
reaction.

Instead of cursing and slamming the table
with their fists like she expected, they just sat there staring at
her. Finally Bryce spoke. "You're kidding, right?"

She shook her head, taking another sip of
cocoa. Again her brothers looked over their shoulders and this time
the life ruining bastard had the balls to salute them with his beer
and a cocky grin.

Rory discretely flipped him off. Connor's
cocky smile quickly turned to a tight frown as his eyes once again
narrowed on her. Her brothers turned their attention back to her,
clearly wondering what she'd done. She just gave them an innocent
smile as she sipped her cocoa.

"I don't understand," Sean said. "How did
you both get the contract?"

Darting her eyes away, she said quietly, "We
both got the contract. We'll be working with Highland Construction
on this job."

Stunned silence met her announcement. She
chanced a glance back up at her brothers, who were now looking at
her as if she'd grown an extra head. She cleared her throat
nervously and continued.

"We each got the contract with a twenty
percent markup and a nice bonus if we finish by the November
deadline," she said, watching as the information sank in.

Each of the men cursed vividly as they
turned and shot another scowl to the man that once again smiled
smugly in their direction. Slowly, her brothers turned back to face
her, glaring.

"Why didn't you tell them we could do it
without Highland Construction?" Sean demanded. This time when
Johnny tried to snag her burger, Craig didn't stop him.

Great, the big babies were mad at her.
Whatever. They'd get over it.

"Does it look like I want to work with him?"
she asked, making them frown. "I didn't have a choice. Even if we
hire extra men we won't be able to train them in time for them to
be useful. We wouldn't make the deadline. If we did this alone we'd
also blow our profit on extra equipment. Extra equipment I might
add that Highland Construction has. All we have to do is go in,
work our asses off just like any other project, meet the deadline
and that's it. The only downside is that it will be with the
bastard, but if I can handle it, then so can you."

Her brothers looked thoughtful as they
considered what she said. Finally with a shrug, Craig said, "Fine,
as long as he leaves us alone to do our job and lets us lead we
won't kick his ass."

Chapter 3

"That's it, boy," Connor cooed as the
hundred and fifty pound pain in the ass cocked his head to the side
and studied Connor. "Come on, big guy, you know you want it," he
said, holding the hot dog he dipped in peanut butter up higher as
he moved it slowly from side to side.

The demon spawn that Rory liked to call a
dog licked his lips hungrily as his eyes zeroed in on the tasty
treat. Grinning, Connor leaned over and reached for the laptop bag
that he'd foolishly set down on the ground ten minutes ago so that
he could grab his briefcase and the stack of files only to turn
around and find the pain in the ass lying across it.

Connor tossed the tasty treat onto Rory's
property. The dog sent him one last glare before he took off.
Connor wasted no time in grabbing his laptop, knowing the damn dog
would be back. Sometimes it seemed as though the damn dog liked
screwing him over more than Rory did.

He was just about to head inside his house
when a familiar red four door sedan pulled into Rory's driveway.
Hadn't he already chased this loser off? It had been what.....three
or four weeks since he last saw this asshole sniffing around Rory?
Then again, most of the men Rory dated, all losers in his opinion,
stopped coming by her house shortly after meeting him, which was
the way he liked it.

But clearly he hadn't done his job if this
one was coming back for more. As he watched the asshole step out of
his car as he smoothed his hair back and straightened his obviously
new shirt and slacks, Connor couldn't help but wonder how dumb the
man really was.

When the man spotted him, he froze and
noticeably swallowed. A loud menacing growl had the man taking a
step back. Because that too pleased him, he pulled the second
peanut butter dipped hot dog out of the baggy and tossed it to the
dog Rory dared to name, “Bunny.” With a grunt, the dog swallowed
the treat whole, but never took his eyes away from the asshole that
refused to step away from behind his car.

Like that would protect him, Connor thought
with a sigh as he walked over to the corner of his large white
Victorian home, which happened to be a mere twenty feet away from
the corner of Rory's house, an almost identical house. When the
homes were built over two hundred years ago they had been identical
in every way, except the direction of the layout was opposite in
each house. The Master bedroom suite of each house had its very own
open porch that extended past the walls of the house by ten feet
and cut the distance between the two houses to eighteen inches.

It wasn't exactly a surprise that the house
were built together since the houses had been built by identical
twins. The brothers had built the homes for their wives only to
discover later that their wives could not stand each other, at
least that's what his realtor had told him. Whether or not it was
true didn't really matter to him. All that mattered was that he
could look forward to aggravating the piss out of Rory each and
every night when she sat out on her porch to relax.

When he'd first bought the place, the small
strip of land that separated the two properties held not only a
tall wood fence that started at the street and ended at the back of
the property, but large arboreta trees that were nearly as tall as
the house, completely blocking Rory's house from his sight. Since
he'd bought the house for the entertainment value, he of course had
the fence and trees taken down the next day.

Rory had been pissed at the time, but she
soon got over it and focused her attention back on fixing up her
house while he did the same with his. It took him two years to get
the house the way he wanted it, but it was well worth it. When he
first bought the place he'd considered giving it a more modern
look, but after his first night in the place he decided to go with
what he thought it might have looked like when it was originally
built. It took extra time, money and a lot of guessing, but he was
happy with the results.

When he originally bought the property he
planned on fixing it up and selling it off, having Rory around to
torture was just a bonus, but once it was done he knew that he
wouldn't be able to part with it. He knew it was the same for Rory.
Although he'd never seen what she'd done, and god how he wanted to
see what she'd done, he knew that she loved the house and also
changed her mind about selling when the renovations were
complete.

"Is Rory here?" the man asked as he shifted
nervously.

"Is she expecting you?" he asked, leaning
back against the house as he discretely reached behind the rosebush
one of his ex-girlfriends insisted on planting and flipped the
switch off of what he liked to call his “Little Box of fun” and
settled his fingers over the three black buttons on the small
panel.

"That's none of your business," the man
snapped, noticeably bristling.

"Then I guess you'll just have to find out
for yourself," Connor said with a careless shrug as he watched the
man shoot him a scowl just before he stormed up the walkway and
damn near jumped out of his skin when Bunny decided to block his
path.

"Easy," the man said anxiously as he backed
away from the dog. Even though it probably should be enough that
the dog most likely made the man piss his pants, Connor felt that
he needed a little more incentive to get the hell out of here and
never come back.

"What the hell!" the man yelled as Rory's
sprinklers came on full blast. Connor waited until the man ran back
to his car, only falling twice and ruining his clothes with mud and
grass, and was peeling out of the driveway before he turned her
sprinklers off.

Best damn thing he'd ever built, he decided
as he gave his partner in crime a mock salute and headed for the
front door. It really was too bad he couldn't stand her dog since
he did come in handy from time to time.

* * * *

"Why are you covered in mud, sweetie?" Rory
asked as she bent down to cup Bunny's mud splattered face. When she
caught a whiff of peanut butter and hot dog she knew exactly how
her poor baby got all dirty.

"Connor," she bit out, momentarily
forgetting that she couldn't kill him for at least five months.

"You called?" the annoying bastard said,
sounding amused.

She looked up, not surprised to find him
standing on his second floor porch, shirtless and holding a bottle
of beer. Sometimes she wished that he hadn't cut down those damn
trees. At least she could have pretended that he wasn't next door
and probably would have enjoyed relaxing on her porch more if she
didn't have to see him. Then again, he would have just found some
other way to annoy her.