Epilogue
“Who do you think we should call?” Rory asked as she snuggled closer to him.
“Your dad?” Connor suggested, not sure that calling his father-in-law at two in the morning to come bail them out of jail was the best idea, but that’s all he had at the moment.
“No,” Rory sighed, laying her arm across his chest as she did her best to get comfortable, but the small bench and cement wall behind them made it impossible.
“Why not?” he asked, pressing a kiss to the top of her still damp head.
“Because I’d have to explain to him why we got arrested,” she said with an adorable pout.
Connor chuckled as he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer. “In a couple of hours, everyone in town is going to know what happened.”
“This town sucks,” Rory muttered, making him laugh.
“You have no one else to blame but yourself,” Connor said, wincing when she poked him in his side, hard.
“You could have just said no,” Rory said, tilting her head back so that she could glare up at him.
“True, but then you would have gone for my nipples,” Connor said, laughing when she poked him again.
“At least it’s not the worst thing that we’ve ever done,” Rory muttered, giving up on trying to get comfortable on the wooden bench and moved to sit on his lap.
“Put some space between you both, now!” the police officer manning the desk barked at them.
Connor placed his hand on the large swell of Rory’s belly as he stared the officer down, “If you want to put some space between us, then let my wife out of here.”
“I can’t do that and you know it,” the officer said, not looking all that happy about having a pregnant woman locked up in a cell.
Connor wasn’t exactly thrilled about it either.
If his hormonal wife hadn’t reached over while he’d been driving them home after they’d made another late-night run for burgers and shakes and started rubbing him through his pants, he would have used better judgment.
He sure as hell wouldn’t have pulled into their old high school’s parking lot to help her take care of another craving.
In his defense, Connor really hadn’t thought that anyone would be able to spot his truck from the road, not with that storm making it difficult to see anything.
At least this time, they didn’t come banging on the window until after they’d finished and Rory was dressed.
He really hated anyone else seeing his gorgeous wife’s body, but it did happen on occasion when things got out of hand, kind of like tonight.
“Let’s call my brothers,” Rory suggested, laying her head on his shoulder.
“Can’t. They’re refusing to bail us out for five years because of what happened last month at the Strawberry Festival.”
“That wasn’t my fault!”
“Shhh, I know, baby,” Connor lied. It was completely her fault, but he wasn’t about to point that out to his hormonal wife. He wasn’t a fucking idiot after all.
“Andrew?” she suggested, sounding hopeful.
“Nope, he’s down in Boston for the weekend, helping with the walk to raise money for leukemia.”
“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 that it would speed up so that they could call their assistant.
If the man wasn’t the best at what he did, Connor would have fired the bastard months ago, but he couldn’t because they’d be lost without him.
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,” Rory 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,” Rory 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 kickball with my bladder and you really think that I can wait?” Rory demanded and he knew that if there hadn’t been a set of bars separating them that she’d already be kicking the shit out of the officer’s shin.
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 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!
” Rory 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 could have made.
Rory and Andrew still liked to give each other shit, but they’d grown very close over the past couple of months. Andrew went out of his way to help Rory whenever he was home. He was also 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,” Rory 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!
” Rory 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 wish 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, Connor 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 that 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?” Connor asked as Rory somehow managed to sob louder.
“Yes!”
“Thank you,” Connor 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 possessions, walking out of the building and by the time he helped her in the truck, he was starting to panic because she couldn’t seem to stop crying.
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 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 of the parking lot that he realized that his wife was no longer making those rather disturbing sobbing sounds.
“Do you think 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?” Connor asked cautiously, knowing that the wrong tone could get him killed.
“Mmmhmm,” Rory said, nodding as she reached over and started playing with the radio.
“Okay…” Connor 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,” Rory said, shooting him a sweet smile.
“Then, what was all that back at the jail?” Connor asked, wondering if her hormones were starting to make him crazy.
“I had a craving for pie,” Rory 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?” Rory 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?” Connor asked, raising their entwined hands so that he could press a kiss against the back of her hand.
“Or I’ll go for my pliers,” Rory 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.