Chapter 10
“Rory!” Connor yelled again as he gripped the edge of the splintered wood floor and pulled, uncaring that the rotting wood was tearing into his hands as he widened the hole she’d dropped through. “Answer me, goddammit!”
Nothing.
“Andrew!” Connor said, clicking off and dropping the radio by his side so that he could widen the hole while he waited for a response. When one didn’t come quick enough, he tried again with the same results.
Cursing, he switched the radio to the channel he knew the James brothers used. “Craig, I need someone to call an ambulance and I need help down in the basement, fourth storage room to the right,” Connor said, releasing the button with a click and praying that someone heard that.
“Connor, what the hell is going on?” Craig returned almost immediately.
“Rory’s hurt. I need an ambulance and some fucking help!” he said, quickly releasing the radio and set back to work on the hole.
“If you hurt her, I will-”
“I didn’t hurt her!” Connor snapped, feeling his patience fray as his body shook.
Please let her be okay, he prayed as he ripped another chunk of wood away.
“Call a fucking ambulance and send some men down here now!” he snapped, tossing the radio aside, promising to kill the bastard if he didn’t move his ass.
Not even a minute later, he heard the sounds of men running in his direction.
“Rory!” he heard Bryce yell.
“In here!” Connor answered as he ripped another piece of wood off, but it wasn’t wide enough.
Shit!
He tore off another piece and then another until he was sure the space was big enough for him to fit through. He grabbed her flashlight off the floor where it had fallen, aimed it into the hole and squinted as he took in the stone steps below.
“Rory!” Connor yelled, but there was no answer.
“Shit!” he snapped as he dropped down onto his ass and shifted until his feet were in the hole. He shoved the flashlight in his pocket and moved to go after her.
“Where the hell is she?” Sean asked as he ran into the room with three of his brothers close behind.
Connor didn’t need to look to know that Craig wasn’t with them.
The last he’d seen of the oldest brother, he’d been on the roof tearing it apart, but he also knew that Craig probably wasn’t far behind them.
“Rory crashed through the floor. Make sure they send fire and rescue with that ambulance,” Connor said as he quickly lowered himself into the hole, ignoring the sharp splinters that sliced his skin as he went.
“Get the hell out of there and let one of us go. It’s our sister down there,” Johnny said, reaching to grab his arm and yank him out of the hole.
“Back the fuck off. I’ve got this!” Connor snapped as he sucked in a breath and worked his way through the opening.
Johnny paused in surprise just long enough to give him a chance to work his shoulders through the hole and when he dropped down, he released his hold on the splintered wood and did his best not to fall down the stairs and land on Rory.
With a grunt, he landed on his feet and quickly righted himself before he toppled over into the pitch-black room. He yanked the flashlight out of his pocket and turned it on, chasing away the darkness. He aimed the beam down the stairs and nearly dropped to his knees when he spotted her.
“Oh, God...” Connor mumbled even as he raced down the stairs. “Rory? Rory!”
He dropped by her side, careful not to brush against her and quickly looked her over with the flashlight.
She was on her side. Her left arm was obviously broken, blood trickled down her forehead and onto the dirt floor, forming a small pool beneath her head and she was out.
He wasn’t sure what else was wrong with her, so he didn’t try to move her, terrified that he’d make things worse.
“Rory? You have to wake up,” Connor said gently as he pressed his fingertips against the cut on her temple, careful not to hurt her.
“Is she okay?” Sean yelled down the hole.
“Her arm’s broken, she has a head wound, and she’s unconscious,” he yelled back, never taking his eyes off her.
He heard her brothers arguing over who was coming down but didn’t pay much attention to them as he placed the flashlight on the ground with the beam pointed at her. With a shaky hand, Connor pressed two blood-stained fingers against her neck and searched for a pulse.
When he didn’t find it, he promised everything that he had if she would just be okay. Hell, he couldn’t imagine a world without Rory in it, didn’t want to think about that happening. The moment his fingers came in contact with the proof that she was still alive, he released a shaky breath.
“Connor?” Rory said weakly.
“I’m here,” he said softly as he told himself that she was going to be okay. He’d make damn sure of it.
“We’re all coming down!” Johnny yelled down.
“She’s awake!” he yelled back, only to bite back a curse when Rory released a pained groan. Her head was probably killing, he realized and having five brothers fussing over her wasn’t going to help with that. “Stay up there and make the hole big enough for the EMTs to get a stretcher down here!”
There was a short pause before they started bitching, but thank-fucking God they did as they were told. He looked back at Rory and even in the dim light cast off by the flashlight, he could tell that she was pale. Her mouth was pinched tightly and he had no doubt that she was struggling not to cry.
“Where does it hurt, Rory?” Connor asked quietly, trying to keep his tone soothing even though he was fucking panicking. What the hell was he supposed to do? He didn’t know jack shit about first-aid. The one and only time he’d attended a class on first aid hadn’t ended well.
Then again, if the instructor had read the memo the school had given her, she wouldn’t have made the mistake of placing them in the same class.
She certainly wouldn’t have ignored the other students’ pleas, shouts and warnings about placing them in the same group.
Of course, he could have said something, and Rory sure as hell could have said something, but they’d both been more than eager for a little payback after the incident at the convenience store the night before.
It really shouldn’t have surprised anyone when a demonstration in the Heimlich maneuver turned into him on his back with Rory straddling his waist and trying to shove a fistful of gauze down his throat or him flipping her off of him and onto her stomach so that he could hogtie her with medical tape.
He still wasn’t sure why the principal kicked them out of the class or blamed them for the woman’s meltdown.
It’s not like it took her an hour to spit up all that fucking gauze.
Curling up into the fetal position beneath the desk had been a bit much for something so minor.
Clearly, the woman had no business teaching kids if something like that would set her off into a full-blown panic attack that needed five teachers, four cops, and the paramedics to get her to come out from beneath the desk.
Now, he was regretting not taking that course they offered every year at the community center.
After this, he was going to make sure that he went and he’d make his men do it as well.
It was stupid not to have all his men trained in first-aid, Connor realized as he grabbed the flashlight and ran it over Rory’s body, taking a closer look to make sure that there wasn’t any other damage.
“I think my arm’s broken,” Rory said, sucking in a breath before she continued, “and a few ribs might be bruised.”
“Well, then try not to move,” he said lamely, feeling like an idiot.
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that,” Rory said dryly as she noticeably cringed.
Her smart-ass remark helped ease some of his worries, but that only made way for the anger that had been simmering in the background. Now he couldn’t hold it back any longer. She’d scared the shit out of him when she fell through the floor.
“What the hell were you doing down here by yourself in the first place?” Connor demanded as he continued to look her over, ignoring the way his hands shook.
“My job,” Rory said tightly as she sucked in another deep breath.
“You had no business being down here, Rory,” Conner said, noting the way she shivered. He pulled his shirt off and laid it over her, leaving him in a white tee-shirt.
“McGill called and asked me to look into making the wine cellar bigger,” she explained with a tremor in her voice as she did her best to hold it together.
“Then you should have waited for me, Rory,” Connor snapped, feeling like an asshole for yelling at her, but he couldn’t help it. He knew that he was taking it out on her, but God help him, he really couldn’t help it. He’d never been this fucking scared before.
“You were kind of tied up at the moment,” she said, smiling weakly.
“And if you weren’t interfering with my job, Rory, I would have been here!”
“Stop yelling at me, you insensitive bastard! You had it coming and you damn well know it,” Rory said, forcing her eyes open to glare at him, then immediately winced and closed them again as she grimaced in pain.
“All I know is that better be the last time you pull a stunt like that, Rory. Whether you like it or not, this is my project and if you want to stick around, you’re going to start doing things my way and that includes not taking any more chances,” he bit out through clenched teeth as he fought against the urge to pull the infuriating woman into his arms and hold her.
“Doing my job is not taking chances and this is my project as well, so you need to get the hell over-ow!” Rory cried out, turning her face towards the dirt floor as though she was trying to hide from the pain.
“Rory?” Brian yelled down the hole.
“She’s fine!” Connor yelled back, never taking his eyes off her. Not knowing what else to do, he reached over and took her good hand in his and held it. He was surprised when she didn’t try to pull her hand away.
“This is my project too, Connor, and if you can’t accept that, then we’re going to have a problem,” Rory said evenly after a minute.
He sighed heavily, knowing that she was right.
They were going to have a problem.
“I’m going to kick his ass,” Craig said, earning approving nods from the rest of her brothers.
“I told you,” Rory said, sucking in a breath as a sharp pain shot up her left arm and raced around her ribs as she slowly made her way from the bathroom to her bed, “he didn’t do this.”
Her brothers grumbled something but let it go, which she would forever be grateful for. Her head was pounding, her side hurt, she was starving, and her arm was killing her. She couldn’t wait to get in bed and take the painkillers the doctor sent her home with.
As soon as she made it to the bed, she let out a sigh of relief and proceeded to take her pills.
She considered asking her brothers to get her something to eat, but that would mean having them stick around longer.
Unfortunately for her, her brothers weren’t exactly known for their domestic skills or their ability to be quiet, and right now, peace and quiet were the things that she craved more than anything.
Carefully, Rory lay down and closed her eyes, releasing another sigh of relief. Sleep, she just needed a little sleep and she’d be fine, Rory decided as she felt the first tendrils of sleep pull at her.
“Who’s staying the night?” Sean asked, yanking her right back into reality, but since she was comfortable, she decided not to bother with opening her eyes as she said, “No one is staying. Now, get the hell out so that I can sleep,” she mumbled around a loud yawn.
Her brothers weren’t the coddling type and took her at her word.
Craig took Bunny home with him for the night and they promised to give Dad an update so that he wouldn’t worry.
Not that he would. If it wasn’t serious enough to warrant a night in the hospital, then it wasn’t serious.
He checked up on her at the ER, spoke with the doctor, and when she told him that she was fine, he took her at her word.
Her brothers hadn’t been so easily deterred but giving her a ride home was pretty much the extent of their nursing abilities.
They’d made her promise to call them if she needed anything, but other than that, they’d left her to get a good night’s sleep.
That was all she needed, Rory thought as she drifted off.
It was pitch-black when she woke up, biting back a cry of pain. Why the hell did it hurt this much? It didn’t hurt this badly when it broke and that had definitely been a memorable occasion. Her head pounded with every breath she took as her ribs screamed in protest.
Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to send her brothers away, Rory realized as she turned over to bury her face against her pillow and let out a scream of agony. She needed her pills or, at the very least, someone to knock her out so that she didn’t have to experience this much pain.
“Shhhhh.”
She barely heard the whisper or registered the large, strong hands on her shoulders as she was turned over onto her back and a pill was pressed against her lips.
Once she opened her lips, the rim of a water bottle quickly followed.
She swallowed the pill as she struggled not to scream as more pain tore through her head.
This was too much. She couldn’t handle this, couldn’t do this, Rory realized, panicking at the thought that there would be no escaping this pain. She would have to-
“Shhhh, I’ve got you,” the deep familiar voice said soothingly as she was carefully shifted until she was lying on her right side with her injured arm resting across a firm stomach and her face was pressed against a warm shoulder as a large arm pulled her closer.
“Connor?” she whispered softly, only to gasp in pain when the sound tore through her already throbbing head.
“Go to sleep, Rory,” Connor whispered against the top of her head.
If Connor was taking care of her, it could only mean one thing...
“How long do I have?” she asked, squeezing her eyes shut.
She felt him go still beneath her. “How long do you have for what?”
She scoffed even as she adjusted herself so that she was lying tightly against him, accepting the comfort that he was offering during her last hours on earth.
“Before I die. What the hell do you think I’m talking about?” Rory snapped, immediately regretting it when it sent a sharp pain through her skull.
“That really depends on how much you piss me off,” Connor said as he pulled her impossibly closer as if he needed the comfort as much as she did.
She thought over what he said and came to only one conclusion. “So, it’ll be soon, then?”
He chuckled softly. “Probably.”