“Exactly how am I getting in the way of your men if none of them are up here?” Rory asked, leaning over to mark a weak spot on the roof with a can of orange spray paint.
Connor glared at her as he stepped up onto the arched roof. Rory cocked a brow as she looked him over from his baby blue shirt with the dark blue tie pulled loose at the neck to his dark tan cargo khakis and finally, down to his black leather hiking boots. Only a man as hot as Connor would be able to pull off that look, she thought with disgust as she returned her attention to marking the roof.
They were going to have to replace the entire thing thanks to poor upkeep, but they liked to know which spots to avoid when it was time to rip it off. They’d learned that lesson years ago when they worked for their father. Brian hadn’t marked the roof before he’d started working. He fell through the roof, broke his arm, and got his ass chewed out by their father in the ER while his arm was being set in a cast, scaring off more than a few nurses in the process.
Brian sat there quietly, taking it because he knew that he’d fucked up. He didn’t even bother complaining when their father made him do all the grunt work for the next three months. It was a job they all hated and worked their asses off to avoid, but once you got grunt work, you knew that you’d really fucked up. They worked hard to avoid grunt work, real hard.
“Because they should be up here doing this instead of you,” Connor said, stepping onto the roof and gesturing for her to get off. With an amused snort, Rory continued checking the roof.
“And what exactly should I be doing?” she asked, not bothering to look up as she tapped her metal pole against another spot.
“Getting my coffee. What else?” Connor asked in that cocky tone that always rubbed her the wrong way, and worst of all, he’d said it in front of her brothers.
She looked up, hoping that they were getting offended on her behalf and moving to throw Connor’s ass off the roof, but of course, they only let out amused chuckles as they continued working. For a moment, she glared at them, wondering, not for the first time, why they hadn’t beaten the crap out of Connor for her since they beat everyone else up that screwed with her.
Whenever she’d asked them about that, they’d either shrugged it off like it was nothing or told her that she was handling Connor well enough on her own. She secretly suspected that they got a kick out of this sick and twisted rivalry she had going on with Connor. Even her father, who hated it when a man looked at her the wrong way, never mind made her life a living hell, never said anything.
There was something seriously wrong with the men in her life, Rory decided as she marked off another area. When she stood up, she nearly jumped off the roof, but Connor’s grip on her hips kept her firmly in place. That was good because it meant that it wouldn’t take a year to heal in order to kick his ass. She could do it right now.
She moved to turn around and let him have it, but he held her firmly in place. “You don’t belong up here, Rory,” Connor said, keeping his tone light even as his hands tightened on her hips.
“I’m not fetching your coffee, Connor, so drop it,” Rory said, taking a step forward only to have the jerk move with her.
“I don’t care what you do as long as you get off the roof and let some of my men up here,” Connor said, keeping his hold on her as they continued to move forward with her ramming the end of her pole against the roof with a little more force than necessary. When she found a soft spot, she bent down without thinking and placed her bottom firmly against his lap.
As soon as the action registered in her mind, she stood up, praying that no one else noticed the blush creeping up her cheeks, and tested the area around the weak spot. Connor’s soft chuckle in her ear made the blush worse.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Rory asked him as she tried to ignore just how good the brief contact had felt.
“Well, I do have about a hundred things that need my attention, but at the moment, I’m trying to get a pain in the ass woman off the roof so that my men can get to work. As soon as she moves her ass, I’ll be out of your hair,” Connor explained, sounding amused.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Rory said stubbornly as she bent over, making sure that she backed into him hard enough to earn a pained grunt and marked off another area.
“Then, neither am I,” Connor bit out tightly when she stood up.
Rory shrugged it off as she focused on what she was doing and not on the large hands at her waist. “Suit yourself.” It was a difficult task, but she somehow made it through the next hour without tossing him over the side of the roof. Of course, when they were done, the life-ruining bastard insisted that he go down the ladder first and waited patiently until she moved her ass and joined him on the ladder.
“Careful,” Connor said, making her grind her teeth together as she glared up at her brothers as they nearly fell off the roof while they laughed their asses off at her. It would serve them right, Rory decided as she was forced to move at Connor’s slow pace as she climbed down the ladder. Once they reached the bottom, the bastard actually had the nerve to place his hands on her hips as if she needed the help.
She was seven when her last babysitter quit after a rather unfortunate incident at the playground between her, Connor, and the McCaffie’s dog, Snowflake. Since no one else in town had the guts to watch her, her father decided that she was old enough to work. He’d started her off with grunt work and he hadn’t taken it easy on her because she was a girl or only seven.
It figured that the one man that treated her like a woman was the one that made her wish that she was a man so that she could kick his ass. Ever since she could remember, she’d been treated like one of the guys. Even her boyfriends treated her like one of the guys.
They’d never once told her that she was pretty, brought her flowers, chocolates or did a hundred things that other women took for granted. When they went out, it was to a fast-food joint or a bar. For movies, they always picked action movies or horror flicks, never once asking her if she wanted to see whatever romantic comedy was playing, she didn’t, but it would have been nice to have been asked. For gifts, she got tools and nothing but tools. She liked tools, but she could have gone for some sexy lingerie or something equally feminine.
The fact that Connor seemed to be the only man on earth that remembered that she was a woman even as he tortured the hell out of her annoyed her. She didn’t want him to notice her and she sure as hell didn’t like the fact that on some level, she liked it. She hated him and always would.
“Where are you going now?” Connor demanded as she shoved him away.
“I need a drink,” she bit out between clenched teeth as she headed for her trailer.
“Hold up! We need to talk,” Connor said, but Rory didn’t stop.
Oh, no, if anything, she moved faster. If she didn’t get a drink soon, she was afraid that she was going to do something stupid like strangle the bastard. Then, she’d lose the contract on Strawberry Manor and as good as she wanted to wring his damn neck, she couldn’t do it. She’d waited too long for this project and she wasn’t about to let him wreck it.
By the time she reached her trailer, her nerves were frayed and she was trembling with the need to kick Connor’s ass. She stormed inside the trailer and ignored Jacob’s questioning look as he spoke on the phone, probably handling one of the hundreds of boring things that she hated doing. She walked over to the coffee cart that she paid Jacob well to keep stocked and turned on the electric kettle.
While the water was heating up, Rory scooped out an insane amount of hot cocoa mix and placed it in a super-sized coffee cup. Once it looked like enough, she opened the mini-fridge and grabbed a small carton of coffee creamer. She poured a dab of creamer into the cup. She stirred the cocoa powder and creamer until the mixture was nice and creamy. Then, she added a spoonful of fluff and mixed it until it was well-blended. When she was done, she stood there with her hands on her hips as she glared at the electric kettle, urging it to hurry up.
