Honeymoon from Hell V (2 page)

“
That’s very big of you,”
he said, grinning against her lips.

“
It really is.”

*-*-*-*

“
She finally fell asleep,
huh?” his father asked softly as he glanced down at Tinkerbelle,
who was snuggled up by his side.

“
Yes,” he said, smiling
down at the woman who loved him.

Not that he was surprised, he was a
fucking catch after all.

“
Looks like we finally
found the right combination of pills,” his father said, picking up
a blanket off the other bed and carefully placed it over them
both.

Frowning, he looked down at the woman
softly snoring in his arms. “You drugged her?”

“
Put it in her apple
juice,” his father said with a shrug. “She was in pain and refused
to take anything for it so I drugged her.”

“
I see,” he mumbled and
just like that, the silence became awkward.

That is until his father decided to
pick up where they’d left off.

“
I’d raised you to face
your mistakes, Danny.”

“
Don’t start this shit
again,” he said, grinding his jaw as he looked up to face his
father.

“
You ran off, Danny,” his
father said, rubbing the back of his neck as he shook his head,
looking a little lost. “You just ran.”

“
You didn’t give me much of
a choice,” he said evenly.

His father met his gaze as he said,
“No, I didn’t. I kept pushing you when I should have just accepted
the fact that you weren’t perfect, Danny.”

“
I never said that I
was.”

“
No,” his father said
softly, “you didn’t, but in my eyes you were. You were a smart kid,
a great brother, a wonderful son, a cocky little bastard, but to me
you were perfect. When you proved me wrong, I lost it. I’ve never
been so scared in my life as I was that morning, Danny. I thought I
was going to lose you and when you pulled through and I thought
about how easily I could have lost you over something so stupid,”
he paused, shaking his head, “I just lost it.”

“
Things worked out,” he
said, surprised by just how much it hurt him to hear his father
admit that he’d fucked up. For years he’d imagined this moment,
imagined his father taking the blame, but right now, for the first
time since he’d come out of that coma, he wished that his father
would stop talking.

His father nodded. “For the most part,
they did. The Marines did for you what I never could, but at a
cost.”

“
Why did you stop talking
to me?” he forced himself to ask.

“
Because I didn’t know what
to say to you without pushing you away again, Danny. I just…..,” he
shook his head, looking away, “I just didn’t know what to say that
would make what I did to you okay.”

“
You didn’t do anything to
me,” he said, sighing, because his father wasn’t to blame for how
his life had turned out. “You were right. I was cocky and when I
fucked up I acted like a spoiled brat and ran off, thinking that I
was taking the easy way out with the Marines. They taught me a
great deal and helped me grow up.”

“
I still pushed you away,”
his father said, looking tormented. “I never should have done that.
I never should have done that…”

“
Yes, you did, but so did
I. We both fucked this up.”

His father raised his hand and laid it
over his where it rested on Jodi’s hip. “I won’t make that mistake
again,” his father promised, giving his hand a squeeze.

He opened his mouth to promise his
father the same when the small woman in his arms cut him
off.

“
If you girls are done
talking, I could really use a double chocolate donut.”

He looked up at his father just in
time to catch the panicked expression on his face. “Oh, shit…….,”
his father mumbled, swallowing nervously as he released his hand
and stumbled back away from the bed as Danny sighed, resigning
himself to the next twelve hours of hell with the woman that he
loved.

Chapter 1

Orlando, Florida

“
You shouldn’t be carrying
that,” Ethan said with a smile and a wink as he took the large bag
from her and carried it the rest of the way to the rental car she’d
been using for the last couple of months.

“
Thank you,” Jodi said,
trying to force a smile for him, but unfortunately it came out as a
grimace when the babies that she was carrying decided to start
kicking, which unfortunately hit her bladder in just the right
way.

“
What’s wrong?” he asked
as his smile quickly morphed into a look of concern. He dropped the
bag he was carrying and rushed back to her side, placing a hand
over the large baby bump, that was actually starting to concern
her, and one on her back.

“
It’s fine,” she said with
a heavy sigh as she looked back over her shoulder and nearly
whimpered, because she was going to have to walk all the way back
to the house and use the bathroom, again. “I just need a minute,”
she explained with a sad little pout that had Ethan chuckling,
earning a murderous glare that was quickly changed into a wince as
the boys kicked her bladder, harder.

“
I’ll wait,” he said,
gesturing back to the house and looking amused, which was either
gonna get his ass kicked or make her start crying.

And crying it was…

With a sniffle that she may
have done on purpose to make him feel bad for laughing at her, she
slowly turned around and started the long walk back into the house.
Twenty minutes later and two additional trips to the bathroom, she
was finally in the car and heading towards the hospital.

“
What are your plans when
you get home?” he asked, bring up the topic that the rest of the
Bradfords, and Danny for that matter, had been avoiding since it
was discovered that she was pregnant.

She had absolutely no idea.

Well, that wasn’t exactly
true. She knew what she wanted to do, but since Danny hadn’t
brought it up and he was going to be busy recuperating when they
went home she didn’t think that was going to happen. Danny was a
sweet guy, who loved her and was excited about the babies, but he
also needed time to heal and it wouldn’t be fair of her to expect
to deal with her and two newborn babies. She’d keep her apartment,
take care of Danny and allow him some time to do what he needed to
do in order to walk again.

She wasn’t going to make any
suggestions or ask him for anything. She’d work until she couldn’t
any longer and then…

Sighs, she really had no idea what she
would do, because she really didn’t want to continue working at the
library. It was a boring, stressful and a tedious job that made her
hate going to bed at night, because she knew that she had to go to
work the next day and it depressed the hell out of her.

“
Are you going to move in
with Danny?” he asked casually, making her frown a bit.

“
No,” she said slowly,
unable to help but wonder why he was asking her about shaking up
with his son instead of suggesting marriage.

Didn’t most parents push
for marriage when there was a baby on the way? Her father had
certainly been pushing for marriage since the moment that she found
the courage to call him and tell him that his unmarried daughter
was knocked up. That phone call hadn’t gone so well, which she’d
been expecting. She’d expected a few comments about him being
disappointed in her and a few suggestions of what she should
do.

Instead there was sobbing.

A lot of sobbing, which
made it difficult to hear what her father was trying to say, but
she was able to piece enough of his blubbering and sobs to know
that he was terrified for her and wanted her to come home so that
he could help take care of her. By the end of the conversation, his
sobbing had shifted and he’d told her that he couldn’t wait to be a
grandfather. Every day since that first phone call, he’d called
twice a day to make sure that she had everything that she
needed.

“
I picked up the
anti-nausea medication for you, so you should be all set for the
plane ride,” Ethan said, making her sigh with relief, because she
really hadn’t been looking forward to see how motion sickness would
affect her morning sickness.

“
Thank you,” she said with
a small smile as she sat there, staring out the window, trying to
decide what she should do for her and their boys.

She should have never let
that asshole have access to her bank account and credit cards. It
was by far the stupidest thing that she’d ever done. Well, besides
agreeing to go out on a date with him in the first place. God,
she’d been so damn naïve to think that he’d changed for her. It was
definitely a life lesson, one that she never wanted to
repeat.

*-*-*-*

“
What the hell did you do
to her?” Danny demanded with a glare for the bastard carrying his
woman.

Jason snorted at that as he
carefully placed Jodi on his lap, careful of the arms on the
wheelchair, which probably saved the bastard’s life. Danny pulled
her closer and cradled her in his arms. Keeping his eyes locked on
the bastard who already looked bored, he pressed a kiss to Jodi’s
forehead. She mumbled something in her sleep as she shifted in his
arms and curled up closer to him.

“
It wasn’t me,” Jason said,
glancing around the terminal.

“
Then who the hell was it?”
he demanded, but Jason was too busy starring at the small bakery
down the hall to answer him so he shifted his glare onto the other
bastard.

“
Wasn’t me,” Trevor said,
following Jason’s gaze and licking his lips hungrily as his eyes
locked on the sight of extra large muffins and donuts.

“
Then who was it?” Danny
snapped, struggling not to follow their gaze.

“
It was me,” his father
admitted as he joined them, carrying a large white bag from
McDonald’s as he devoured what looked like an egg sandwich, making
Danny’s stomach growl, demanding that he wrestle the bag away from
his father and see what other delicious morsels were in that
bag.

“
What did you do to her?”
he demanded, struggling not to lick his lips and make a mad grab
for that bag. It didn’t matter that he was in a wheelchair or that
his father was out of reach, he wanted that bag, had to have
it.

“
I gave her a sedative,”
his father announced with a careless shrug, making everything
inside him go still as he slowly, ever so slowly, looked down at
the woman sleeping in his arms and swallowed hard, wondering how
long he had before everything went to hell.

“
How long ago did you give
it to her?” he somehow managed to get out as his heart sped up in
terror at the thought of this beautiful woman terrorizing everyone
on the plane, because his father had foolishly decided to drug
her.

He couldn’t imagine what
his father had been thinking when he gave her medication. God,
they’d be lucky if she didn’t try opening the emergency door and
make a jump for it, simply because she had a craving for a double
chocolate donut. There was no way that this was going to end
without them landing on the “No Fly List.”

“
Don’t worry,” his father
said with a shrug as he reached into the bag and pulled out two
wrapped sandwiches and handed them to him, “she’ll be out for the
entire trip.”

Shaking his head, he took
the sandwiches, placed one on top of the large swell of Jodi’s
stomach before shoving the wrapper down on the sandwich in his
hands and took a big bite, not really tasting it as his mind raced
with thoughts of everything that could, and probably would, go
wrong.

This definitely wasn’t
going to end well, he thought absently with a groan of pleasure
when he realized that his father had given him an egg and bacon
sandwich. After five months of hospital food, this was like
devouring a perfectly cooked steak with all the sides. When Jason
licked his lips and reached for his other sandwich, Danny shot his
asshole cousin a glare that said it all.

Danny would kill the
bastard if he touched his Egg McMuffin sandwich.

“
No,” his father simply
said, earning a glare from Jason, who reluctantly dropped his hand
and took a step back.

“
Selfish bastard,” Jason
mumbled as he returned his attention to the bakery. When he saw
Trevor heading in that direction, his eyes narrowed to slits and he
would swear to his dying day that the asshole actually
growled.

“
Why the hell would you
give her medication?” Danny asked his father as he devoured the
first sandwich and moved onto the second.

“
It will be fine. Trust
me,” his father said, sounding smug as he bit into another
sandwich.

“
Why would you give her
medication when we’re about to go on a plane? You just fucked us
all over!” he snapped at his father as he finished his sandwich in
one bite. Keeping his arm locked around Jodi so that she didn’t
fall off his lap, he held out his hand in silent demand.

When his father shook his
head and grabbed another sandwich, Danny did what he had to do.
“I’ll tell mom,” he threatened, earning a look of disgust from his
father even as he reluctantly handed over the last two
sandwiches.