Checkmate (Neighbor from Hell 3)

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 f**ked 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.