NFH 03 Checkmate (11 page)

"Just thought I'd swing by and thank you for
having my Jeep towed," she said, smiling sweetly.

"Uh huh," he said slowly as his sleep dazed
mind worked to take everything in, "you woke me up at two in the
morning to thank me?" he clarified, sighing.

Clearly the woman was losing her touch. It
was annoying and a bit frustrating to be woken up this early, but
once he tossed her ass out onto his balcony and crawled back into
his warm comfortable bed he'd fall back to sleep without a problem.
He moved to do just that when something on his foot caught his
attention.

She wouldn't have.......

After throwing her one last glare, he tore
the sheets away, uncaring that he was only wearing a pair of
boxers, and glared at the evidence that the damn woman had lost her
mind.

"You chained me?" he asked in disbelief as
he examined the handcuff clasped around his ankle and the thick
chain that was attached to it.

"Mmmmhmmm," was Rory's only reply as he
jumped off the bed and followed the chain to his bathroom where the
crazy woman had tied it off around the base of the toilet with
three padlocks. He tried to pull it up, but the damn woman hadn't
left any slack in the chain. After a minute, he realized that
trying to get the chain off the toilet was useless and so he
focused his attention on the cuff.

Thankfully, she hadn't placed the cuff too
tightly around his ankle and cut off circulation, but it still
wouldn't go over his ankle bones. With a muttered curse and a few
promises of violence to her beautiful ass, he grabbed a bottle of
shampoo and coated the damn cuff. The only thing the shampoo seemed
to do was make a mess.

By the time he washed his foot off in the
shower and stormed out of the bathroom he was ready to kill her
with his bare hands. He kept his eyes locked on her as he stepped
around the bed and headed for the bureau.

"You went too far this time, Rory," he bit
out tightly even as he imagined wringing her neck. He would take
his time and savor it, he decided.

"And what are you going to do about it?" she
asked tauntingly, making no move to run away, he noted.

"I'm going
to-
what the hell
?"
he roared with rage as his chain stopped short mere feet from his
prey. Maybe he could still reach her, he hoped as he reached out to
grab her and drag her over to him only to discover that she was
safely out of his reach.

"Unfucking chain me, Rory," he snapped,
standing up. Every muscle in his body literally ached to go after
her and drag her over his knee to give her the spanking that she
was practically begging for.

"Well," Rory said brightly as she ignored
him and got to her feet, "as much as I'd love to hang out with you,
I'm afraid that I have to get some more sleep since I have a big
day ahead of me." She walked over to the sliding glass doors with a
pleased smile on her face.

"Don't do it, Rory," he warned as he yanked
at his restraint.

She blinked, looking innocent as she pulled
the remote to his stereo out of her back pocket. "Do this you
mean?" she asked seconds before the most frightening song in the
history of mankind started playing.

"
Mmmmbop, mmmbop, mmmmmmbop
," blasted
throughout the room, taking his rage to a whole new
level.

"Don't worry!" she yelled over the
incoherent noise, "I set it to repeat so you don't have to worry
about it ending!" With a wink she left.

He rushed over to the stereo only to
discover to his horror that it was out of his reach. After a quick
search, he discovered that the little brat had taken his cell
phone, his house phone, and his tools.

Oh, Rory James was going to pay for this
shit. He'd make damn sure of it.

Chapter 9

"Where's Connor?" Craig asked as Rory handed
him a crowbar.

"I, um," she had to swallow back a chuckle
and force herself to keep a straight face as she continued, "I
think he's taking the day off."

"Are you serious? The second day on the job
and he's taking the day off?" Craig asked in disgust.

"It's shameful," Rory said, struggling not
to laugh.

"It's bullshit. We have enough to do without
adding supervising his men to the list," Craig said, sighing
heavily as he grabbed a pair of work gloves off the top shelf in
their double wide portable storage unit.

"It won't be that bad," she said, initialing
the order form before tossing it back to Eddie, one of the few
supervisors she had working for her that wasn't blood related. He
looked it over before nodding and heading out to get the supplies
they needed. "Decide which of his men are qualified to help you
with the roof today. Have Sean put the rest to work on gutting the
first and second floor. I don't want anyone working outside unless
they're on roof detail. We don't need accidents this early in the
game," she explained, knowing just how quickly accidents happened
when people swarmed areas that should be kept cleared.

Today and probably for the next few days
they'd work on taking the old roof off. The last thing they needed
was men working on the grounds around the manor where boards, nails
and shingles were going to fall. They'd have a small ground cleanup
crew working the property that was trained to move their asses and
knew better than to take any chances.

The rest of the men would work on gutting
the walls and checking for damage to the frame and while they were
doing that she was stuck with basement duty. She'd been looking
forward to getting to work on the roof, but McGill called this
morning while she was on her way to work and asked if she could
reconfigure the plans for the basement. Apparently after a talk
with his partners, they decided that they wanted to double the size
of the planned wine storage.

Even though it changed her plans for the day
she agreed to look into it today and draw up new plans for the
basement. Having the client call up with changes this early in the
project was not a good sign, but she wasn't about to complain since
it meant more money for Shadow Construction and it made the client
happy, which is what she really cared about since she needed them
to okay her plans this Friday. As long as they allowed her to
design and build the attic suites she'd bite her tongue and nod
when they suggested something that irritated the hell out of
her.

"That sounds fine," Craig said, heading for
the open double doors. "Do you want me to send any of the men to
help you in the basement?" he asked over his shoulder.

She shook her head as she grabbed a
flashlight. "No, I shouldn't be more than a few hours. I'm going to
measure the rooms again and see what I can shift around," she said,
biting back a sigh. A few hours was being optimistic. She had a
feeling this particular project was going to take up most of her
day. "As soon as I'm done I'll come up and help," she promised as
she grabbed her water bottle and headed towards the manor that was
already bustling with activity.

As she made her way through the large foyer
she wasn't at all surprised to find a decent amount of her men
already working on gutting the first floor and tearing down the old
grand staircase. Her men knew what was expected of them. When
things needed to be done they did them without having to be told.
It was one of the benefits that she found from treating her men
like equals and making sure they knew the game plan from start to
finish and she kept them updated of any changes.

She wasn't too surprised to find a few of
Connor's men standing around, talking. Honestly, she didn't know
how he built the reputation he had by having slackers work for him.
The majority of his men were hard workers, but the rest of them
left a lot to be desired. From what she'd seen it was his friends,
the men he'd made foreman, who caused most of the problems.

When Connor wasn't around they seemed to
give up the pretense of working, instead choosing to hang out while
the rest of the men worked. Connor must have to micromanage the
hell out of each project, she realized, nearly wincing in sympathy
for the man. She couldn't imagine the kind of time and effort it
would take to go around supervising each part of the job and having
to take the time out of her day to explain each and every job as it
came up. She didn't have time for that nonsense.

"Gentlemen," she said, gesturing to the men
standing in the foyer and getting in the way of the men working,
"if you're not working then you need to leave the site."

"We're waiting for Connor," Andrew, Connor's
oldest friend and one of the biggest assholes she'd ever met,
explained.

She hadn't liked the jerk back in school
when he was nothing more than one of Connor's lackeys and she sure
as hell didn't like him now. He was cocky, arrogant and lazy. As
much as she hated Connor, and dear god did she hate the life
ruining bastard, she thought he could do better. She wasn't sure
why the man kept this asshole in his life for so long, but that was
his problem. As long as they didn't interfere with this project she
didn't care what they did.

"Then wait for him outside," she said,
gesturing to the wide open battered doors that were going to have
to be replaced sometime today since construction sites had the
unfortunate luck of drawing vandals.

With a nod, they headed for the door. They'd
probably bitch and moan to Connor the next time they saw him, not
that the man was going to need much encouragement to flip out on
her. The last time she checked on him, he was making all sorts of
promises to her ass that didn't sound like fun for her so she left
him where he was.........

After she taunted him one more time of
course.

Not only had she gotten back at Connor first
thing in the morning, but she'd made damn sure that he wouldn't be
bothering her for at least a day....or two. She'd definitely have
to let him go before the forty-eight hour mark passed just so she
could avoid someone filing a missing person's report on him since
the last time that happened hadn't exactly ended well for her.

Then again the judge clearly agreed with her
that the circumstances of his "imprisonment," weren't really her
fault. No one had forced Connor to follow her into the old shed on
the back of her uncle’s property. Just because she might have
“accidentally” locked the padlock and ignored his demands to
release him didn't make her responsible.

Of course, the judge may have thrown the
case out because they'd only been seven at the time and he had kind
of asked for it by chasing her with his pet python. It also didn't
hurt that the judge thought that Connor's mother had overreacted to
the whole thing. Not really a big surprise since the woman always
overreacted to everything that involved the two of them.

It didn't matter whose fault it really was,
it was always Rory James' fault according to Janice O'Neil. Her son
was a perfect angel and only acted up because of Rory. It never
mattered how many witnesses there were or if the incident had been
captured on camera, it was Rory James' fault and Janice made damn
sure that everyone knew it. Not that anyone believed her, they
didn't, but that hadn't stopped Janice O'Neil from bitching about
Rory since the first time Rory and Connor came to blows.

The only thing that had saved Connor from a
broken nose for all the trouble his mother caused her was the fact
that he seemed embarrassed by his mother. Again, not that she could
blame him. The woman gushed over him and treated him like a baby up
until about five years ago when she passed away. It had always been
that way. She knew it embarrassed Connor when his mother showed up
at school or at one of his games and fussed over him, making a huge
scene if someone got too close to her son on the football field. So
of course Rory made sure that his lovely mother had a front seat at
all of his games and then sat back and laughed her ass off at
him.

She turned on her flashlight and opened the
thick oak door leading to the large basement. She closed the door
behind her as she carefully navigated the old stone stairway. The
stairs were in pretty good shape, but like the rest of the house it
had been damaged over the years by wear and tear and needed a
little TLC. She was reminded of that fact several times as her foot
landed in ruts where rocks were supposed to be and she almost went
flying on her ass.

Thankfully, the designers of this basement
had the foresight to add plenty of windows so that the area wasn't
pitch black, but she still needed her flashlight to get around.
Although she knew the measurements of the entire manor by heart as
well as the layout, she still needed to look around the large
basement rooms to get a better idea of how she was going to work a
much larger state of the art wine cellar into the plans.

A half hour later she still wasn't sure how
she was going to do this without causing some serious damage to the
foundation. She looked over at the cracked plank door of what she
assumed was used as a storage room since it still had a wall lined
with old crates. Maybe she could break through that room and keep
the original spot she had planned for the wine cellar, but that all
depended on what was behind those crates. If it was stone then
she'd have to come up with something else, but if it was wood then
she'd have the space that she needed and could go up and help the
guys with the roof. She'd change the plans later tonight.

Eager to get this over with and help the
guys with the roof, she made her way over to the crooked door and
pushed it open with her shoulder. She swung her flashlight around
the damp dark room, praying that she wasn't about to have a run in
with some furry little friends or some of the eight legged variety.
When nothing came running out or dropped from the ceiling she
focused her flashlight and attention on the wood crates stacked
against what she was hoping was a wall constructed of wood.