Checkmate (Neighbor from Hell 3)

He loved her too much to f**k this up. He had five months to prove to her that he was the man for her, and he was going to make them perfect.

Chapter 32

July

“Are you still not talking to me?” Rory asked, shooting Jacob a glance as she sorted through the large pile of mail that he’d left on her desk.

“Yes.”

“Are you going to tell me why?” she asked, already guessing that it was going to be another big fat “no.”

For the past couple of weeks he’d been giving her the silent treatment. He only answered her when it was absolutely necessary and he made damn sure that it wasn’t necessary. His mood had been sour since she started this thing with Connor and only got worse when she had to call him up at three in the morning to come bail her and Connor out of jail. Grudgingly, he agreed and came down to the police station two hours later with the checkbook for petty cash. He only stayed long enough to bail her out, confirm that she was engaged and send her a glare as he stormed out of station, leaving her to bail Connor out.

She tried to make it up to him and find out why he was so upset, but the stubborn bastard just kept on ignoring her and sending Connor glares whenever the two men were in the same room. Speaking of stubborn bastards………

“You need to sign this so that we can have more lumber delivered,” Bryce, another bastard that wasn’t happy with her, demanded as he stepped into the trailer.

Word about her engagement to Connor had spread very quickly. Her family’s reaction varied greatly. Her father simply called her up while Connor was arguing with the guard that had impounded her Jeep. He’d been very direct and unemotional as he asked if the news was true. She’d been scared to death of his reaction when she explained that it was true, but she needn’t have worried. There was a small pause after she told him that she was engaged to Connor. She almost asked him if he heard her when he simply told her to make sure that she made it next Sunday for fishing and then he hung up.

Her brothers’ reactions were a bit different. As soon as she managed to make it into work, two hours late, they hunted her down in her office and blocked off her exit, demanding to know if she was out of her f**king mind. Johnny went as far as to demand that she take a drug test. After a lot of arguing, a few threats to have her locked away and a few shin kicks, her brothers agreed to let it go for now and get back to work. As they walked out, a few limping, they all glared at her and she’d been fully prepared to keep Connor company in the emergency room that night, but they didn’t touch him. They only glared at him. Okay, there was that one time that Craig had to wrestle a hammer out of Brian’s hand when he went to throw it at Connor, but other than that they hadn’t beaten the shit out of him or harmed him in any way.

The fact that they hadn’t sent Connor to Intensive Care actually scared the hell out of her. Every guy that spent time with her got the warning. It used to piss her off, but now she was wondering why the guy that she’d agreed to spend the rest of her life with, if he met her conditions, hadn’t received the same warning. Actually, one would think that the man that she planned on marrying would receive a more thorough warning, but so far, nothing. That could only mean that they were trying to handle this a different way and she knew exactly how they thought they were going to do that.

By having their cousins drive her and Connor out their goddamn minds.

Well, that probably was the plan, but it was failing miserably. The first week Trevor and Jason stayed with Connor. The next week they were replaced by two of her other cousins and every week after, two fresh Bradfords showed up at Connor’s door. This week the twins were staying with him. Well, they stayed in Connor’s house, but not with him since Connor ended up sleeping in her bed, holding her all night. The first night he tried to get her to sleep in his bed with him, but having two Bradfords getting into a shouting match at two in the morning over the last jar of pickles quickly changed his mind. He hadn’t brought up who was selling their house and neither had she. She was too happy to ruin it and God, was she happy.

Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined a man treating her the way that Connor did. He was sweet, funny, attentive, and he went out of his way to make her feel special. The other night they came home after putting in a fourteen hour day, looking forward to a quick meal, a hot shower and bed. Instead of the relaxing night that they’d hoped for they’d been greeted with a nightmare, a Bradford nightmare to be more exact. They pulled into her driveway only to find a terrified pizza delivery kid stuck up in a tree where he’d been forced to run for his life.

Not that she could really blame the kid for being scared. He had forgotten her cousins’ double order of chicken tenders and honey mustard sauce back at the restaurant. It probably wouldn’t have turned out so bad if the kid hadn’t got lazy and offered a credit for the chicken tenders instead of going back and getting them. At that point, her cousins had been seeing red and the delivery boy was lucky that all he got was the hell scared out of him. She’d actually been pretty scared that their little secret was going to get out and that they were not only going to end up in jail, but lose the extra help that they desperately needed.

Just as the kid in the tree finally managed to pull his phone out and started to call the police, Connor climbed up the tree and snatched the phone out of the kid’s hand and somehow managed to talk the kid down. Then of course her cousin Devin just had to go and make the kid cry, again, which sent him right back up the tree. It took Connor an exhausting half hour and a hundred bucks to get the kid to come back down and get him to promise not to call the cops. When Connor was done with that, he sent her cousins off to yet another buffet since Jason and Trevor had unintentionally shut down the last one.

After that she’d been more than ready to settle for a peanut butter sandwich and bed, but they quickly discovered that her cousins had cleaned out both kitchens to hold themselves over while they waited for their delivery. She’d been tired, hungry and was starting to get pretty pissed that she had to run out and hit the grocery store for the second night in a row when Connor, who she knew was just as tired as she was, gave her one of those sweet kisses and told her to go take a shower and relax.

By the time she was done with her shower, dressed, and ready to go get the trip to the grocery store over with, Connor surprised her with a large hot chocolate from Brennigan’s and a sandwich with all the fixings from her favorite sandwich shop. As she took her first sip of that lifesaving elixir, Connor kissed the top of her head and told her that he’d be right back, which turned out to be a bit of a lie.