NFH 03 Checkmate (48 page)

“
Oh, damn,” she said,
sagging his arms. “What about Jacob?”

“
Not until after six. You
know his rules,” Connor said, pressing another kiss to the top of
her head as he shot another glance at the clock, wishing it would
speed up so that they could call their assistant. If the man wasn’t
so damn good, Connor would have fired the bastard’s ass months ago,
but the man was a freaking god with a computer so they were
screwed.

For a few minutes she didn’t say anything
and he actually thought that she’d fallen asleep, so when she
climbed, with difficulty, off his lap and waddled over to the door,
he was taken by surprise, but her next words had him groaning.

“
I have to use the
bathroom,” she announced, cradling her stomach as she leaned
against the wall.

“
You have to wait for a
female officer,” the officer said, shooting her a sympathetic look,
probably thinking that would be enough to make Rory waddle back
over and sit down.

It wasn’t.

“
No, you’re going to have to
take me,” she said, shifting.

“
I’m sorry, ma’am, but
you’ll have to wait for a female officer.”

“
I am nine months pregnant
with a boy whose idea of fun is to play kick ball with my bladder
and you really think that I can wait?” she demanded and he knew
that if there wasn’t a set of bars separating them that she’d be
kicking the shit out of the officer’s shin right now.

Connor stood up and joined his wife at the
bars. “Just let her out. She doesn’t need to be in here. Have
someone take her home and I’ll stay.”

“
How in the hell is that
going to work?” Rory demanded, turning a murderous glare on him and
he knew that the hormones had taken over once again.

Yup, pregnancy was a fucking blast.

“
I need help getting up the
stairs and with Andrew in Boston, there won’t be anyone to help
me!” she snapped and he really wished at that moment that Andrew
had stayed home. Eleven months ago Andrew bought his old house so
that Connor didn’t have to watch it go to strangers and it had been
the best decision that any of them had ever made. Rory and Andrew
still liked to give each other shit, but they’d grown very close
over the past couple of months. He went out of his way to help Rory
out whenever he was home. He was very protective of her. She’d
saved his life after all and was always there for him.

“
Well, I-“

“
All I want to do is to use
the bathroom and maybe get a snack and he,” she said, gesturing to
the stunned officer, “won’t let me and now you’re willing to stay
in jail just to get away from me!” she sobbed just as the first
tear entered the picture and he knew, just knew that she was going
to go for his balls this time.

For years he’d wished that she’d act more
like a girl and cry a few tears and now he was getting that and
more. She cried at everything and he meant everything. If he got
her a cup of cocoa, she cried. If he told her that he loved her,
she cried. If Bunny did something cute, she cried. If the mail was
five minutes late, she cried. He could not wait for his sane,
normal, happy wife to return to him. God, he missed her.

When she buried her face in her hands and
sobbed loudly, he threw the bastard keeping him locked up with her
a murderous glare. The crying didn’t stop, oh no, it got worse and
soon the officer was fumbling with his keys and couldn’t open the
cell fast enough.

“
You know what? You can both
go home. I’ll talk to my sergeant. You don’t need to be here and
I’m sure you can clear this whole misunderstanding up with the
school board tomorrow,” the officer said, opening the door and
gesturing for them to leave, looking close to begging them to
go.

“
Are you sure?” he asked as
Rory somehow managed to sob louder.

“
Yes!”

“
Thank you,” he said,
comforting Rory as he guided her out of the cell, but the poor
thing was still pretty upset and wouldn’t stop crying. She didn’t
stop crying while they were being signed out, handed their personal
items, or when they walked out of the building. He was at a loss at
what to do by the time he helped her in the truck.

As he walked around the truck to the
driver’s side, he resigned himself to a night of sitting in the
damn nursery that he’d built her so that she could gush over every
little sock, diaper and teddy bear just to make her happy. He took
a deep breath before he opened the door, climbed in, and started
the truck. It wasn’t until he pulled out the parking lot that he
realized that his wife was no longer making rather frightening
sobbing noises.

“
Do you think that we could
stop at Roy’s Dinner on the way home? I have a craving for their
apple pie and hot cocoa,” Rory said, sounding chipper and scaring
the shit out of him.

“
You want to stop and get
pie?” he asked, cautiously, knowing that the wrong tone could get
him killed.

“
Mmmhmm,” she said, nodding
as she reached over and started playing with the radio.

“
Okay………..,” he said, not
really sure how to proceed so he went with a safe question, or at
least what he hoped was a safe question. “Do you need to use the
bathroom?”

“
No,” she simply said with a
shrug.

“
No?”

“
No, I’m good,” she said,
shooting him a sweet smile.

“
Then what was all that back
at the jail?” he asked, wondering if her hormones were starting to
make him go crazy.

“
I had a craving for pie,”
she said with another shrug as she settled back in her
seat.

He pulled to a stop at the light and for a
moment he could only stare at her in wonder. “You did all that for
pie?”

“
And cocoa,” she clarified
with a nod.

He laughed, he couldn’t help it.

“
What’s so funny?” she
asked, reaching over to hold his hand.

“
You are a dangerous woman,
Mrs. O’Neil.”

“
And don’t you forget it,
Mr. O’Neil," she said teasingly.

“
Or what?” he asked, raising
their entwined hands so that he could press a kiss to the back of
her hand.

“
Or I’ll go for my pliers,”
she promised, making him smile, because he knew damn well that she
would. She didn’t take any of his shit, drove him out of his mind
and he loved every single minute of it.