“I-I really don’t think this is such a good idea,” Haley mumbled nervously as Zoe nodded in agreement.
She opened her mouth to point out once again that she knew what she was doing when two large arms suddenly wrapped around her from behind and yanked her clean from the truck, making her drop the saw and all three of them scream a bit hysterically. Before she could put up much of a fight, she found herself pulled tightly against a body that under normal circumstances she would have loved to touch, but the jackass had scared the living hell out of her and for that he would have to pay.
Unfortunately for her, he had her in a pretty good hold, but she wasn’t worried because she knew that her cousins had her back. They would kick his ass and make him pay for scaring them. She didn’t even bother to bite back the smug smile that played with her lips at the thought of the three of them kicking Connor’s ass and bringing him to heel. He more than deserved it and it would suit him right to get his ass kicked by the three of them.
Any minute now her cousins would come to her defense, she told herself as she waited for the ass whooping to begin. When a minute passed and she didn’t see any movement in the back of Connor’s truck she started to wonder what was holding up her rescue.
“A little help here would be nice!” she snapped, ignoring Connor’s rich chuckle as it teased her senses.
“Um,” she heard Zoe clear her throat and she tried to make the woman out, but it was too dark now to make out much of anything but a few shadows, “about that. I can’t really move. In fact, I think I’m stuck here so you might be on your own for a few minutes.”
She’d prefer Zoe’s help since the woman knew how to kick some ass, but that was okay. She still had Haley and even though Haley wouldn’t be her first choice in a fight, the woman always had her friends’ backs so she knew that she was all-
“If someone could help me find my glasses I would be more than happy to kick some ass for you, but I seem to have dropped them when Connor scared the hell out of me and I can’t see a thing,” Haley explained and Rory knew that this battle was over and that Connor won.
She really hated it when she lost to him.
Connor chuckled as he pressed a kiss against her nape and let her go, making sure that she didn’t stumble. “If I help you find your glasses would you promise not to kick my ass?” Connor asked, sounding deeply amused and making her smile, damn it.
Haley let out a long put out sigh before she grudgingly said, “Fine. I won’t kick your ass.”
“I really appreciate that,” Connor said, laughing as he climbed onto the back of the truck from the sounds of it.
“As you should,” Haley said with a sniff.
Feeling like an idiot just standing there, she quickly climbed back into the truck, thankful for the dim moonlight that stopped her from stepping on someone, and carefully joined the search. Zoe did her best to stay out of everyone’s way, only making a sound when she thought someone might step on her. Five minutes later, Haley had her glasses back and decided to commit the ultimate betrayal.
She ratted on Rory’s ass.
“She was going to cut her cast off with a saw!” Haley said, smartly moving behind Connor, who she really couldn’t see that well, but was guessing wasn’t happy with the news.
“Was she now?” Connor asked, sounding thoughtful seconds before a small flashlight was turned on. When the beam of light landed on the toolbox that she may have broken into, she may have made a move to make a run for it. Before she could manage to turn around, Connor had her good hand in his, effectively holding her prisoner.
Haley on the other hand did manage to make a run for it.
Traitor.
“Um, if someone could help me up and off the truck, I’d really like to make my escape now,” Zoe said softly, probably wishing like hell that she could have made her escape when Haley did. Not that she could blame her friends for ditching her ass. She really couldn’t. She just wished that she could join them and get away from Connor before he flipped out on her for doing something that he probably thought was stupid.
“I’ll help you down in a minute, Zoe,” Connor said, before his attention shifted right back to her. “Don’t move,” he warned as he released her.
For a moment she considered her chances of making a clean escape and although they were pretty good, she couldn’t just leave Zoe here. So with a sigh, she nodded and didn’t move, wondering, hell hoping, that Connor would at least wait until he helped Zoe down and the woman had a chance to waddle away before he laid into her.
“Could you hold this light and keep it pointed on the toolbox?” Connor asked Zoe.
A bit curious, she watched as Connor reorganized his tools while searching through them. When he managed to pull out a smaller skill saw with an even sharper looking blade, she had to smile. He’d bitched a few times over the last couple of weeks about allowing some quack that specialized in runny noses go near her arm with a saw. He was so damn overprotective of her and she loved that about him.
“Do you trust me?” Connor asked, closing the lid on the toolbox as he double checked the saw’s battery and blade. If it had been anyone else, even her brothers who she loved and knew would never hurt her on purpose, she would have said no. But, this was Connor. The man that she loved and the man that she was just starting to realize would never do anything to hurt her. So to answer his question, she placed her arm on top of the toolbox.
Connor leaned in and kissed her. “That’s my girl.”
“Just be quick. I want to go swimming,” Rory said, hoping to do a little more than that actually.
All summer they’d been restricted in their activities because of her arm and tonight, tonight she wanted to go skinny dipping with Connor. She hadn’t come to the reunion with that in mind, but when she’d been out walking a little while ago, trying to get over the way her father had been treating her, she stumbled upon a secluded little area not too far away with the perfect spot for a small fire and plenty of privacy. It would definitely be the perfect spot for a little skinny dipping and making love to Connor. As soon as they got rid of the cast, she planned on doing just that.
“I don’t think that I can watch this,” Zoe mumbled, her voice shaking, but thankfully her hold on the flashlight didn’t waver.
“Are you ready?” Connor asked, giving her one last chance to back out.
“No!” was Zoe’s answer, but she trusted her guy so with one nod, Connor turned on the saw and touched the blade to her cast.
She watched him work and was impressed by his focus and handling of the saw. He kept his cut straight and even, his hands steady. In a matter of seconds he was done, the saw was off and she was pretty sure that Zoe was mumbling something and hyperventilating a tad bit, but she was too excited to finally have this damn cast off to really pay attention.
“How does it feel?” he asked, once the cast was ripped off her arm.
“It feels good,” she said, sighing with relief to finally be able to move her hand and arm without that cast getting in the way.
“Um, actually it kind of hurts,” Zoe said, drawing their attention just as she leaned in to kiss Connor.
“What hurts?” Connor asked, looking like he wasn’t about to give up that kiss when Zoe’s next words stopped them both dead in their tracks.
“The contractions. My water breaking didn’t feel great either, but the contractions definitely hurt,” Zoe said as Rory moved past Connor and took the flashlight from Zoe, careful not to flash the light in her friend’s eyes and when she saw Zoe practicing her breathing exercises, she knew that the night just got interesting, mostly because they were a good hour away from the hospital.
“Your water broke?” Connor asked, fidgeting and for the first time in his life, not looking all that confident. Not that she could blame him since all she wanted to do at the moment was start screaming for help and give into panic.
“If your water broke then why didn’t you say anything?” Connor demanded, truly looking at a
loss at what to do next. Give the man a saw and he was cool, give the man a woman in labor and he shattered.
“Because I didn’t want you cutting off her arm, you jackass!” Zoe cried out, her words ending in a scream as she grabbed onto Connor’s arm and squeezed. Rory could tell by the strain on his face that it hurt, but he took it.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“You should be!” Zoe snapped. “You scared the hell out of me and now I’m about to give birth to two Bradfords out in the middle of nowhere with no drugs! Do you have any idea how big a Bradford’s head is? Huh? Do you?” Zoe demanded, between panting. Rory would have offered Zoe her hand to squeeze, but her broken arm just healed and she really wasn’t eager to have it broken again.
“I’m going to call for an ambulance,” Connor said, pulling his phone out of his pocket just as company arrived.
“What the hell is going on?” Trevor demanded, climbing onto the truck. He went to put his arms around Zoe, but stumbled back as the small woman suddenly turned the most vicious glare that she’d ever seen on the man.
“You!” Zoe said accusingly as her eyes narrowed to slits on her husband.
For a moment Trevor simply sat there, looking at his wife until finally he sighed and gestured to Connor. “Do you have any rope?”
“Rope?” Connor repeated as Rory asked, “What the hell do you need rope for? She’s in labor!”
“It’s to stop her from trying to rip my balls off,” Trevor said with a fond smile for his wife, who looked like she wanted to do just that.
Definitely the most interesting family reunion, she thought an hour later when the ambulance finally showed up just as the twins arrived and she decided against telling Connor that she was “late.”
Chapter 36
September
“What time is it?” Rory asked around a yawn as she rolled over onto her side so that she could face him as she struggled to keep her eyes open.
“A little after two,” he said softly, resisting the urge to go to her and kiss her, because he knew that if he did that he would want more, need more from her and he couldn’t do that to her, not now.
“You’re just getting home?” she asked, but made no move to get up or open her eyes this time. For the first time in months, he was thankful for the exhausting hours they put in every day. It was probably the only thing stopping Rory from asking a million questions that he didn’t want to answer.
“Go back to sleep, baby. We have to get up in a couple of hours,” he said, smiling for the first time in hours when Rory let out an annoyed little growl and flopped back over onto her stomach.
He walked into her bathroom, carefully closing the door behind him, wincing as pain shot through his battered hand. For the last couple of hours he’d been able to ignore the pain in his hands, but now that he wasn’t busting his ass and taking all his frustration and anger out on two by fours and sheetrock, he was starting to feel all the damage he’d done to his hands. He held up his hands and cursed.
Shit!
His hands were torn up, bloodied, blistered and he could hardly move them without agonizing pain shooting from the finger tips and down his arms. Over the past month he’d fucked up his hands with his late night adventures, but never like this. He’d be lucky if he could move his hands today, but with his luck, his hands would get infected and he’d be seriously screwed.
He walked over to the bathroom sink and carefully opened the medicine cabinet. When he didn’t spot what he needed, he closed the door and looked beneath her sink, cursing as crippling pain shot through his hands, but at least he found what he was looking for. He grabbed the bottle of peroxide and stood up only to have the bottle ripped from his hand.
“What the hell did you do to your hands?” Rory demanded, sounding very much awake now and looking extremely pissed.
“Nothing. They’re fine,” he said, trying to close his hands and when that didn’t work he tried putting them behind his back and out of her sight, but of course Rory was too damn stubborn to let it go and leave him alone.
She grabbed onto his left arm and yanked it forward. Before he could pull it back, she was holding his bloodied hand and glaring up at him. “Yeah, they’re real fine, Connor,” she said with disgust as she released his hand and stepped past him.
“What are you doing?” he asked, kind of hoping that she’d just go back to sleep and forget all about this so that he wouldn’t be forced to lie to her.
“Helping you get cleaned up before your hands get infected,” Rory said, turning the shower on.
“I don’t need help, Rory. Go on back to bed and get some sleep,” Connor said, trying not to think about how exhausted he suddenly felt.
For the past couple of weeks he’d been running on barely two hours of sleep a night and putting in about twenty hours a day and it was catching up to him. As much as his body was begging for him to stop, he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. If he didn’t stay busy, stay focused on something other than his life, then he was afraid that he was going to lose it.
“Is this about Andrew quitting?” Rory asked and although he’d been waiting for her to get around to bringing it up since Andrew decided to quit and cut him out of his life, he wasn’t ready to talk about it. He didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to think about it. He sure as hell didn’t like waiting around for the phone call letting him know that his best friend died all alone, because the stubborn asshole was too damn proud to let Connor be there for him.
“Leave it alone, Rory. It’s over,” he said, shoving aside the agony that once again threatened to take over.
“I know that you’re upset that your friend quit,” Rory said, sounding sympathetic as she checked the temperature of the water, “but it’s probably for the best. He wasn’t showing up at work. When he did show up he was late and he always left early and I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I think he had a problem.”
“Like you said, he quit so let it go,” he said, yanking his shirt off and tossing it aside, ignoring the fresh wave of pain that shot through his hands as he forced his hands to work through the pain and remove his pants and boots.
“I can’t,” Rory said, moving to step in front of him, but he was in no mood to deal with her or anything else at the moment. He just wanted to take a shower, pass out for a few hours and get his ass back to work where he could work himself into exhaustion and forget about how fucking bad it hurt losing his best friend.
“You can’t or you won’t?” Rory demanded as he stepped into the shower.
“Both,” he snapped, yanking the curtain closed.
He stepped beneath the hot water, allowing it to seep into his pores and work its way down to his hands, stinging his sensitive skin as it washed away the blood. It wasn’t enough to make him completely forget, but it was enough to keep him from losing it, something he’d been fighting since Andrew told him over beers and a Yankees game that he had a rare form of Leukemia and that he wasn’t going to fight it.
Andrew had type AB negative blood, a very rare blood type. The chances of finding a matching donor were very slim and Andrew didn’t hold out much hope of finding a match, but the main reason why Andrew was refusing to look? Because he would rather see the bone marrow go to a child or someone with a family, someone that would be missed. Andrew wasn’t married, broke up with his girlfriend last year and his parents died years ago leaving him all alone so in his book, his death wouldn’t be a loss. The asshole was trying to be noble to the end and Connor fucking hated him for it.
“We’ve put this off for long enough,” Rory announced as she stepped into the shower behind him.
“Go away, Rory,” he said, feeling his hold on the situation slipping and he didn’t want her around when it did.
“Not until we talk,” she said, stubbornly.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said, tightly, forcing his eyes shut while his hands clenched by his sides as he tried to stay calm. He needed her to leave so that he could focus
on pretending that everything was okay just for a little while longer.
“Oh really? How about the fact that I’ve barely seen you over the past month? You don’t smile. You barely say more than a few words to me when you do see me. All you want to do is work. You look like you’re going to kill someone anytime someone mentions Andrew. You haven’t touched me in a month and-“
“You want me to fuck you?” he demanded harshly as he turned around and faced her, feeling his control snap. Even knowing that he was probably going to do something to lose the love of his life, he couldn’t make himself reign it back in. He didn’t want to hold it back any longer, couldn’t. He wanted to put his fist through the wall, scream at the world, and have someone to take his anger out on and right now that someone was Rory.
“Is that the problem, Rory?” he asked, stepping into her. “You’re pissed because I haven’t fucked you?”
“No, it’s not!” Rory snapped as she tried to stand her ground against him, but he was done playing games.
“Then what’s the problem, Rory? Huh?” he asked, stepping into her until she had no choice but to back off and once she did, he didn’t stop until he had her back against the shower wall.
“My problem is that you’re being an asshole and I want to know why!” she snapped, trying to shove him back, but he refused to move. He moved into her, resting his arms against the wall near her head and caging her in with the rest of his body.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, leaning in to kiss Rory when she turned her head away.
“Yes, it does,” she said in that mutinous tone that used to drive him crazy, but now it just simply pissed him off.
“No, it doesn’t,” he snapped as he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her neck in the spot that he knew drove her crazy. If he wasn’t going to be able to work himself into exhaustion then he’d fuck Rory until he couldn’t remember his own name, never mind the pain that was driving him out of his fucking mind, he decided as he continued to kiss her neck.