NFH 03 Checkmate (7 page)

Brian sat there quietly, because he knew he
fucked up and what was expected of him. He didn't even complain
when their father made him do all the grunt work for the next three
months. It was a job they all hated and worked their asses off to
avoid, but once you got grunt work assignment you knew that you
royally screwed up. They worked hard to avoid grunt work, real
hard.

"Because they should be up here doing this,
not you," he said, stepping onto the roof and gesturing for her to
get the hell off. With an amused snort, she continued to check the
roof.

"And what exactly should I be doing?" she
asked, not bothering to look up as she tapped her blunt metal pole
against another spot.

"Getting my coffee. What else?" he asked in
that cocky tone that always rubbed her the wrong way and worst of
all, he said it in front of her brothers.

She looked up, hoping they were getting
offended on her behalf and moving to throw Connor's ass off the
roof, but of course they only let out amused chuckles as they
continued to work. For a moment she glared at them, wondering not
for the first time, why they hadn't beaten the crap out of Connor
for her since they beat everyone else up.

Whenever she asked them about that, they
either shrugged it off like it was nothing or told her that she was
handling Connor well enough on her own. She secretly suspected that
they said and did nothing because they got a kick out of this sick
and twisted rivalry she had going on with Connor. Even her own
father, who hated it when a man looked at her the wrong way, never
mind made her life a living hell, said and did nothing.

There was something seriously wrong with the
men in her life, she decided as she marked off another area. When
she stood up, she nearly jumped off the roof, but Connor's grip on
her hips kept her firmly in place. That was good, because it meant
that it wouldn't take a year to heal in order to kick his ass. She
could do it right now.

She moved to turn and let him have it, but
he held her firmly in place. "You don't belong up here, Rory," he
said, keeping his tone light even as his hands tightened on her
hips.

"I'm not fetching your coffee, Connor, so
drop it," she said, taking a step forward only to have the jerk
move with her.

"I don't care what you do as long as you get
off the roof and let some of my men up here," he said, keeping his
hold on her as they continued to move forward with her ramming the
end of her pole against the roof with a little more force than
necessary. When she found a soft spot she bent without thinking and
placed her bottom firmly against the front of his pants.

As soon as the action registered in her mind
she stood up, praying that no one noticed the blush creeping up her
cheeks, and tested the area around the weak spot. Connor's soft
amused chuckle in her ear made the blush worse.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" she
asked him as she tried to ignore just how good the brief contact
had felt.

"Well, I do have about a hundred things that
need my attention, but at the moment I'm stuck trying to get a pain
in the ass woman off the roof so that my men can get to work. As
soon as she moves her ass I'll be out of your hair," he explained,
sounding amused.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said
stubbornly as she bent, making sure that she bumped into him hard
and was pleased by his pained grunt, and marked off another
area.

"Then neither am I," he bit out tightly when
she stood up.

She shrugged as she focused on her work and
not on the large hands at her waist. "Suit yourself." It was a
difficult task, but she somehow made it through the next hour
without tossing him over the side of the roof. When they were done,
the life ruining bastard insisted that he go down the ladder first
and waited patiently until she moved her ass and joined him on the
ladder.

"Careful," Connor said, making her grind her
teeth together as she glared up at her brothers as they nearly fell
off the roof while they laughed their asses off at her. It would
serve them right, she decided as she was forced to move at Connor's
snail's pace down the ladder. Once they reached the bottom, the
bastard actually had the nerve to place his hands on her hips as if
she needed the help.

She'd been seven when her last babysitter
quit after a rather unfortunate incident at the playground between
her, Connor and the McCaffie's dog, Snowflake. Since no one else in
town had the guts to watch her, her father decided that she was
more than old enough to work. He'd started her off with grunt work
and he hadn't taken it easy on her because she was a girl or only
seven.

It figured that the one man that treated her
like a woman was the one that made her wish she was a man so that
she could kick his ass. Ever since she could remember she'd been
treated like one of the guys. Even her boyfriends treated her like
one of the guys.

They never once told her that she was
pretty, bought her flowers or chocolates or did a hundred things
that other women took for granted. When they went out it was a fast
food joint or the bar. For movies they always picked action movies
or horror flicks, never once asking her if she wanted to see
whatever romantic comedy was playing, she didn't, but it would have
been nice to have been asked. For gifts, she got tools and nothing
but tools. She liked tools, but she could have gone for some sexy
lingerie or something equally as feminine.

The fact that Connor seemed to be the only
man on earth that remembered that she was a woman, even as he
tortured the hell out of her, annoyed her. She didn't want him to
notice her and she sure as hell didn't like the fact that on some
level she liked it. She hated him and always would.

"Where the hell are you going now?" he
demanded as she shoved him away.

"I need a drink," she bit out between
clenched teeth as she headed for her trailer.

"Hold up, we need to talk," he said, but she
didn't stop. Oh no, she moved faster. If she didn't get a drink
soon she was going to do something stupid like strangle the
bastard. Then she'd lose the contract on Strawberry Manor and as
good as she knew it would feel to do it, she couldn't. She'd waited
too long for this project and she wasn't about to let him wreck
it.

By the time she reached her trailer her
nerves were frayed and she was trembling with the need to kick
Connor's ass. She stormed into the trailer, ignoring Jacob's
questioning look as he spoke on the phone, probably handling one of
the hundreds of boring things that she hated doing. She walked over
to the coffee cart that she paid Jacob well to keep stocked and
turned on the electric kettle.

While the water was heating up, she scooped
out a large amount of hot cocoa mix and placed it in a super-sized
coffee cup. Once it looked like enough, she opened the small fridge
and grabbed a small carton of coffee creamer and poured just a dab
into the cup. She mixed the cocoa powder until the mixture was nice
and creamy. Then she added a spoonful of fluff and mixed it until
it was blended. When it was done she stood there with her hands on
her hips as she glared at the electric kettle, urging it to hurry
up.

"I hate to tell you this since you're
already in a bad mood," Jacob said as he stood up and approached
her.

"I'm not in a bad mood," she said tightly as
she narrowed her eyes on the kettle, making all sorts of mental
promises to sell it for scrap metal if it didn't hurry the hell up
so that she could make her precious and much needed hot cocoa.

"Then why are you having a large hot
chocolate during a work day, hmm?" he asked, stepping beside her
and with an amused smirk that she could have happily bitch slapped
off his face at the moment, he reached over and plugged the kettle
in.

She clenched her jaw tighter as she fought
against letting out a frustrated scream. Jacob smartly said nothing
about the kettle as he leaned against the paneled wall.

"I have some bad news."

"Does it have to do with the life wrecking
bastard?" she asked, wondering just how much more she could take
before she lost it. The fact that the first day wasn't even over
and she was close to a breakdown wasn't lost on her.

"No," Jacob said, shaking his head before
frowning at her. "Are you ever going to tell me why you call him
that?"

"No," she said evenly while she continued to
direct her attention on the kettle that was just now starting to
release steam.

"Alrighty then. I guess this is the part
where I tell you that your father just called to let you know that
he's on his way," he said, taking a healthy step back just as
Rory's glare swung from the kettle to him.

"
This is how you tell me
?" she
demanded in disgust.

Jacob shifted nervously under her murderous
glare. "He just called," when she looked towards the door,
wondering, heck hoping that she could make a run for it before her
old man came, he added, "he was on his cell phone and less than two
minutes away."

She couldn't do this. Oh god, she really
couldn't do this. Not today. Not when Connor already had her
contemplating manslaughter. Her eyes shot back to the kettle just
as it began to whistle. Wasting no time, she picked up the kettle,
filled the mug and stirred it until the creamy concoction was
perfect. She picked it up, gave it the customary thirty second blow
and sipped.

When she felt the hot creamy chocolate go
down her throat and into her stomach some of the tension in her
body disappeared. Three long sips later and she felt close to being
able to face the day. By the time half the cocoa was gone she was
in her special place, the place where everything was fine and she
could face anything including Connor and a visit from her dad. By
the time she finished the rest of the cocoa she'd be able to keep
this calm going for the rest of the day, but of course she needed a
second cup. She quickly made another cup and was just about to take
a sip when the trailer door flew open and Connor stormed inside
looking pissed.

"I told you that I had to talk to you," he
said, tossing his hard hat on one of the guest chairs as he headed
over to her. Her lips barely touched the rim of the cup when she
found her large mug suddenly ripped out of her hands.

For a moment she could only stare in
disbelief as Connor drank, more like chugged, her cocoa down. When
he was done he handed the empty cup back over to her and gestured
for her to go into her office, but she couldn't move. She just
couldn't.

She looked down at her empty mug as her mind
struggled with the knowledge that not only had he touched her hot
cocoa, but he'd drained her mug, again. All those calm feelings
she'd had a minute ago quickly vanished as she looked up and glared
at the bastard who dared touch her much needed hot cocoa.

"You.......bastard," she bit out slowly in a
harsh whisper as she took a step towards him, closing the distance
between them. "Do you have any idea how much I needed that?"

"She really did," Jacob agreed, retreating
back to the safety of his desk and for good reason.

"Too bad," Connor said, moving impossibly
closer to her as he leaned down until they were practically nose to
nose.

Her fingers flexed by her side with the need
to slap that smug look off his face. Just one slap, that's all she
was asking for. She really didn't think that she was asking for too
much. Connor's smile became knowing and her urge to slap him
shifted to the need to throttle him.

"I tell you what, Rory," he said in a
seductive whisper that would probably make other women tremble with
need, but only managed to set her rage off by another notch, "if
you're really good I might just let you make me some hot cocoa
instead of just fetching my coffee."

That was it! She was going to kill the
bastard, she decided just as Jacob cleared his throat. She glared
at Connor for about ten more seconds before she moved her glare to
her assistant who had the balls to look amused.

"I probably should remind
you that your brothers said that they wouldn't bail you out of jail
again for the next three years after what happened the last
time
and
that if
you kill him then you'll probably lose this contract," Jacob
reminded her, which is of course why she kept him around. He kept
the business running smoothly and kept her from doing anything
rash, most of the time anyway.

Fortunately, today was one of those days
that he managed to stop her from doing anything particularly stupid
like lose the contract for Strawberry Manor, because she killed the
bastard.

"Fine," she gritted out, hating the fact
that she'd have to resist the urge to throttle the man until the
project was done. "Then I'm going back to work," she said, moving
to step around the jerk, but he simply shook his head, grabbed her
by the arm and hauled her ass towards the office.

"Let me go!" she snapped, trying to pull her
arm away, but he refused to release her.

"Not until you and I go over a few things,"
he simply said as he opened her office door.

"Let go!"

"No."

"Don't worry. I'll hold your calls," Jacob
said, sounding amused and if she didn't rely on the man so damn
much she would have fired him then and there, but she did, so she
couldn't.

Stupid job security, she thought as Connor
hauled her ass into her office.

Chapter 6

"Let me go!" Rory snapped as he kicked the
office door shut behind him.

"Sure thing," he said, releasing her just as
she tried to yank her arm free. The move sent her stumbling back
and muttering a few choice words about him and his ass, which he
easily ignored. He walked around her desk and sat down in her
surprisingly comfy chair.