Thank you for your patience, your continued interest and your continued support. I appreciate it.
I do not own Glee or the characters, neither do I own Checkmate.
'First, my poor defenseless nipples and now my ass,' Sam thought with disgust. He barely resisted the urge to rub the sore spot on his bottom, even as he narrowed a glare on Mercedes' retreating back.
If that wasn't bad enough, her men were already causing problems for his men and cutting into the work day with their bullshit.
Not only was he going to have to find out what her men did to interrupt his work day, but he was going to have to find a way to get his trailer brought onto the property.
There was no way that he was going be stuck doing his paperwork in his truck while she had a large comfortable trailer to work in.
Oh, she was so going to pay for this shit...
When his eyes landed on her old man, he knew exactly how to get the little brat back and out of his hair.
As long as he had the use of her men and equipment, he'd be able to get this project done on time.
What he didn't need was the little pain in the ass getting in his way... And he knew just the man to help him with this little problem.
If there was one thing he knew about Mr. Jones, besides the fact that the man absolutely hated him, it was that he took the job very seriously.
Everyone in town knew the man didn't believe in bullshit at work and he stressed that little rule big time to his kids.
It didn't exactly take a genius to figure out that Mr. Jones was pretty pissed off about what just went down with their employees, so of course he had to cash in on that...
"If you can't handle your men, then I suggest that you find someone who can," Sam said to Mercedes' back, loving the way she suddenly went tense and stumbled over her own two feet.
He wasn't at all surprised when she threw a murderous glare over her shoulder or mouthed a few unpleasant words in his direction, making her father's scowl intensify.
"We have a deadline that we need to make and we're not going to be able to do that unless you get your men organized and under control," he said firmly, as he sent Mr. Jones a nod of acknowledgement.
He was heading off to see what his men were up to and of course, to hide his shit eating grin.
Was it wrong that he enjoyed making Mercedes' life a living hell?
He really didn't think so.
In fact, he decided that if he was going to get her out of his hair, then he was going to have to up his game...
"This is a big project," Mr. Jones needlessly reminded his daughter quietly. But not low enough that she missed the familiar disapproval lacing his words. "Maybe you should step aside and let one of your brothers handle this just to make sure that it's done right," he said, confirming her suspicions.
Even after all these years she still wasn't good enough in his eyes...
Why she thought landing this project would mean anything to him, she didn't know. She was neither a daughter nor a son in his eyes, but something in between.
When she was little she hadn't been girly enough in his eyes to be a daughter and growing up she hadn't exactly been boyish enough to be treated as a son.
Nothing she did ever seemed to be good enough for him...
He busted her ass over the years...just as hard, if not harder than her brothers...but instead of telling her that she did a good job, he simply grunted and told her that she needed to move her ass faster or work harder.
Even when she'd mastered the skill saw and far surpassed even his abilities, he made her practice more.
It didn't seem to matter what she did, he always found a flaw or pushed her to do better. Nothing she did made him happy.
When she started Contour Construction, she thought that he'd be happy that she was following in his footsteps...
But instead of being proud of her, he sighed heavily and suggested that perhaps she should go work for one of her brothers instead.
Her brothers, who had been proud of her, had all gone deathly silent at their father's announcement...
Then, one by one they each told her that they'd be working for her and that she damn well better not try bossing them around or they'd kick her ass.
It was one of the sweetest things her brothers had ever done for her.
"I have it under control, Dad," Mercedes said, forcing herself to sound casual, when all she wanted to do was scream at the man.
"This is a big project, Mercy," her dad mused as his eyes shifted to follow Sam as he walked away. "Maybe you should let Sam take the lead," he said, shocking the ever loving hell out of her.
She couldn't believe how much it hurt to hear her father say that...
It was one thing to constantly have him second guess her, but quite another for him to suggest the one person on earth that he knew she couldn't stand, to take over.
In that moment, she realized something, in her father's eyes she might not be good enough...
But Sam was.
"He's got a great reputation and as much as I hate to say this, his work is some of the best that I've ever seen. The boy has talent, Mercedes and maybe it would be for the best if you let him take the lead on this one," her father said, stunning her into silence further, because really, there was nothing to say to that.
"Where are you going? I thought you were going to give me a tour?" her father asked as she walked away.
She knew that she was being rude, but she couldn't help it. If she didn't get away from him now, she knew that she'd do something stupid like cry and that wasn't happening.
Her father might think that she was weaker than the boys, but that didn't mean that she had to go and prove him right.
"Where's your sister?" Sam asked as he stepped into the once impressive kitchen, which was sadly nothing more than a room full of broken tile, rust and debris.
None of the Jones brothers looked at him, never mind paused in demolishing the room and the connecting pantries.
That really didn't surprise him, since the whole family seemed to hate him...
Not that he could really blame them. He did seem to go out of his way to make Mercedes' life a living hell.
And he was actually surprised that none of them had tried to kill him yet...
"She's checking the attic," said the deep voice that used to give him nightmares as a kid.
It was a little unnerving that the man still had the power to make him want to run and hide.
However, he forced himself to relax as he turned around and once again, forced himself to stay where he was when brown eyes very much like Mercedes', but colder, so much colder, locked on him.
"She shouldn't be up there by herself," Sam said, ignoring the disbelieving snorts from her brothers.
"Oh? And why's that?" Mr. Jones asked in a bored tone as he crossed his still impressively large arms over his chest.
"Because she could get hurt," he said with an annoyed sigh, even as the Jones brothers once again snorted and chuckled. "She's also getting in the way and holding back this project," he said firmly, never taking his eyes off the man in front of him.
He wasn't an idiot after all.
"Oh puhlease," Benjamin said, chuckling. "You're acting like she's some chick."
Sam blinked.
"That's because she is," he said incredulously, wondering what the hell was wrong with these men.
Of course, her brothers laughed while Mr. Jones considered him with a hard glint in his eyes...
What in the hell was wrong with them?
They overprotected her everywhere else in life except for this, when they should be dragging the damn woman away from the tools and dangerous conditions.
Hell, it was taking everything he had not to run up to the attic and drag her ass away from his job site...
She had no business here.
Sam wasn't a sexist pig or anything...
Okay, maybe just a tad, but Mercedes had no business working here. And it wasn't because she was a woman, but because it was Mercedes.
He had several women working for him that could easily keep up with the men. But her...
For some reason he just couldn't stomach the idea of her doing this. Not only because she was going to get in his way, but because he didn't want to see the stubborn woman get hurt.
Sure, he liked to torture her and make her miserable, but he had never done any permanent damage and that was really all that mattered.
This was the biggest project of his career and if he could pull it off, it would mean bigger and better things for Uplands Construction... But that wouldn't be happening as long as Mercedes Jones was around.
He didn't want her screwing with his site and he sure as hell didn't want to have to worry about the strong-willed woman getting injured.
But judging by the amused smirks on her brothers' faces, he was the only one that was concerned.
Hell, he knew he was never going to get any work done while she was around...
The only choice he had was to drive her off... Just her.
He still needed her men and equipment if he was going to finish this project on time after all.
With an inward sigh, he decided that he was going to have to go ahead and make her life tons more miserable...
"Sunday," Mr. Jones said, interrupting Sam's thoughts.
"Sunday, what?" he asked, unable to hide his confusion, even as he noted the looks of shock on the rest of the Jones men's faces.
They'd all stopped working to stare at their father in wonder and shock.
"Dad, you can't be serious," Josiah finally said.
But Mr. Jones never took his cold eyes away from Sam as he addressed his sons...
"Last time I checked, I was still head of this family and if I decide that Sam needs to join us this Sunday then he's going to join us," he said firmly, giving Sam the impression that he wasn't exactly being asked to come...but commanded.
And since this could actually worked in his favor, he didn't argue.
"What's going on Sunday?" Sam asked.
"Every Sunday, rain or shine we go fishing as a family at six," Mr. Jones said. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he added, "No women allowed. We take our fishing seriously. So if you bring a woman you better make sure that she knows she's to stay at the house with the rest of them. And while we're fishing you can tell me all about the plans you have for this old house."
Sam nodded even as he thought that over. No Mercedes... That could actually work for him.
He'd be able to get her old man on his side and work on starting to convince her brothers that their lives would be so much better if they came to work for him.
'This could really work in my favor,' he thought as he looked at the men in question and had to bite back a smile. 'Oh yeah, the Jones boys are as good as mine.'
"We're having Dad committed," Benicio said in way of a greeting, as he climbed up the rickety steps to the enormous attic that even at this moment, his sister was making plans for.
The client wanted the roof fixed, a new attic floor, the stairs fixed and updated utilities...
But they were passing up a golden opportunity with this space and Mercedes was going to try to convince them to allow her to make three very large, luxury suites out of the space.
Then she was going to make damn sure that Sam stayed away from the area.
It was going to be her signature touch to the hotel... The thing that drew people to it and the thing that came to mind when Sunset View Manor was mentioned.
And it was going to be Contour Construction that got all the glory.
She had a meeting set up this Friday and she was going to make a case for the owners to stretch their budget just a little more to accommodate her dreams.
While other little girls were day dreaming about their wedding, she'd been thinking about all the things that she would do to this large old mansion to make it perfect...
And now that it was all hers, well, half hers to remodel and she was going to make damn sure that it lived up to her dreams.
"Did you hear me? I said we're having Dad committed," Benicio said as he carefully stepped up onto the plywood she'd laid down for safety and glared at her.
"Yeah, I heard you," she said distractedly. She looked at the ceiling and frowned at the structure beams that were going to have to be replaced.
She'd hoped that they could salvage some of them to help get the new roof on faster, but it looked like they were going to have to tear the entire roof off and start from scratch.
Actually, that could work for her because...
"Mercedes? Don't you even want to know what he did?"
"Nope, just tell me where to sign," she said, wondering if she would be able to convince some of Sam's men to do a little side work for her. Only the ones that met her standards of course.
She didn't tolerate sloppy work and she sure as hell wouldn't tolerate substandard work on this project either.
Unfortunately, she already had a feeling that she was going to have some of her guys double check Sam's men's work...
"You really don't care?" her brother asked, eyeing her cautiously as he stepped up to stand beside her.
"Not at all," she said as she considered using skylight windows and just as quickly dismissed the idea. The whole point of this project was to give it that eighteenth century feel and placing modern day skylights on the roof would wreck the effect.
No, it was better to go with her original plan, she decided.
"Fine. Then I won't tell you," he said, clearly fighting back a smile as he crossed his massive arms over his chest.
"Uh huh," Mercedes said absently, earning a loud drawn out sigh of annoyance from her brother and an eye roll.
"Shouldn't you be working?" she asked checking her watch. It was a quarter to five but she was too excited to call it a day. Not that she would and she doubted that her brothers would either. They'd probably put in another three or four hours until hunger forced them to head home.
"Probably," Benicio mused.
"Is there a special reason why you're not working?" she asked as she turned to face him.
He shrugged.
"We wanted to know if you wanted us to handle Sam's men the next time they pull any bullshit or just let him deal with it," he said, reminding her of the earlier mutiny that she'd been forced to handle in front of their father.
"What the hell happened?" she asked, walking over to a rotting post and to grab her bottle of lukewarm water. "And more importantly, why didn't you guys handle it?"
Her brother gave her a look as if it should obvious as he said,
"We had our hands busy with the fire inspector."
"The fire inspector was here?" When he nodded, she asked, "Why the hell didn't someone come get me?"
"Because they were all fighting over petty bullshit. It wouldn't have been too bad, but Sam's foremen are incompetent and started bitching about being in charge. So we got sick of their bullshit and decided to let them beat the shit out of each other while we made sure that we weren't shut down."
Mercedes groaned. Being shut down this early in the game would kill their schedule. They needed to get off the ground running.
"Did he shut us down?" she asked, trying to stay calm.
Her brother snorted.
"He almost did, but lucky for you Dad showed up."
"Shit!"
"Yup, seems the fire inspector wasn't too happy having to duck out of the way of morons shoving each other and leaving equipment running and unmanned. But Dad took him aside when he went into the building and convinced him to ignore the bullshit. He's coming back Monday so I suggest that you and Sam come to some sort of an agreement before this bullshit gets us shut down."
She sighed heavily and ran her hands down her face.
"I don't want to have to deal with Sam. Can't you do it?" she asked, knowing that she was whining and not really caring.
Benicio chuckled, even as he reached out and hooked his arm around her neck, pulling her tightly against his side and headed for the stairs.
"Relax, Mercy. I don't think it will be that bad."
"But I hate him," she mumbled pathetically. "He makes my life a living hell."
"I know, but if it makes you feel any better, I think that you do a fair job of making his life a living hell, too."
'Well, that was something,' she thought as she carefully stepped over a missing stair.
"Look on the bright side, you'll probably get a break for the next five months from all of his bullshit," Benicio said, sounding hopeful. "He'll be too busy with this project to give you a second thought..."
"Oh, I'm sure I can make time for you," Sam drawled from the bottom of the stairs...
Their gazes locked and in that moment Mercedes knew... She just knew that there would never be a break from the daily bullshit.
In fact, if that little wink he sent her way before he sauntered off was any indication, she could count on it getting worse and there wasn't a damn thing that she could do to stop it.
Stay safe!