Honeymoon from Hell V (6 page)

Jason chuckled as he
scooped more mashed potatoes onto her plate. Without being asked,
he added corn, barbeque chicken and biscuits to her plate. When he
couldn’t fit anymore on her plate, Trevor stepped up to his side
and started filling another one for her. With a wink and a smile,
he said, “Zoe always needed two plates at a time when she was
pregnant.”

“
Thank you,” she mumbled
with a watery smile that he unfortunately knew was all too real.
His incredibly beautiful, pregnant wife was overly sensitive these
days and the littlest things seemed to set her off, he thought,
unable to help but smile as his realized that she was finally his
for good.

There would be no more
shouting matches with nurses or doctors about visiting hours
because they weren’t married, no more nights of falling asleep
alone, willing to give up his very soul just to feel her in his
arms, or living in terror that she would realize the full
implications of being with a Bradford and make a run for it. She
was his now and-

“
Something feels wrong,”
his father announced as he stepped up next to him, which in itself
wasn’t at all alarming since Bradfords were a bunch of paranoid
bastards when it came to buffets and places that they’ve been
banned from.

No, what alarmed him was
the fact that his father was standing next to him at a buffet
without a plate of food in his hands when most Bradfords would be
loading as much food as possible onto their plates before the
manager figured out who they were. Telling himself that his father
was just being overprotective, he glanced back at his wife and
cousins to find them talking and smiling as they moved onto the
pasta station.

There was nothing strange
about the way they were behaving, but he couldn’t shake the feeling
that his father was right. Something felt…off.

“
Did you do something to
initiate the curse?” his father asked with a frown as he continued
to watch the trio load various pasta entrees onto their
plates.

“
No,” he said slowly as he
thought about his naked wife straddling his lap, kissing him in a
way that should be a sin as he ran his hands over her generous
curves that he fully planned on acquainting himself with as soon as
they were safely back home and didn’t have to worry about this
fucking curse getting them.

“
Are you sure?” his father
asked, his frown deepening as he glanced around the large
restaurant.

No, he really wasn’t, but
since admitting that wouldn’t exactly be helpful at the moment, he
decided to keep his mouth shut and hope for the best. Hoping to
change the subject, he grabbed two plates off the end table and
gestured towards the carving station.

Thankfully his father was a
Bradford and didn’t exactly require much prompting to get him to
shift his focus back onto the food surrounding them. As his father
pushed him along the line, filling their plates to the brim with
food, Danny kept a close eye on his wife, looking for any signs of
the curse.

When Jodi sat down a few
minutes later, smiling at something that Trevor said, he felt
himself relax. There was no way that this trip could be mistaken
for anything but an errand. They’d come here to get married before
they went home where Jodi’s father was waiting with a Priest and a
church full of people to see them get married in uncomfortable
clothes and to toast them with overpriced champagne.

That simply wasn’t the Bradford
way.

No matter how many times he’d
explained how a traditional Bradford wedding happened, Jodi’s
father, a really stubborn son of a bitch who’d promised to kick his
ass one second for knocking his daughter up and the next threatened
to get a shotgun and blow his balls off if he didn’t do right by
Jodi, refused to listen to reason. He wanted his daughter to have a
proper wedding and was willing to do whatever it took to make that
happen no matter what Danny or any of his relatives told
him.

Bradford weddings were
tricky, which basically meant that if the marriage didn’t occur
through a desperate act such as your basic Bradford kidnapping,
then the marriage didn’t have a chance in hell of making it past a
year. Over the past two hundred years any Bradford that had made
the mistake of proposing and actually going through with a church
wedding where everything was planned, invitations were sent out and
a small fortune had been spent had regretted it.

The marriage either didn’t happen,
because the bride was caught fucking someone before the reception,
the groom was too drunk to go through with it, or the rest of the
Bradfords decided to knock some sense into the dumb bastard and
stop him from making a huge mistake. The few marriages that
occurred through a traditional wedding hadn’t lasted even a year,
most ending before the first month was over.

Since Danny fully planned
on keeping Jodi, he’d refused to allow his father-in-law to fuck
this up for him. There was a tradition to uphold and he’d made damn
sure that he’d done everything by the book to make damn sure that
this marriage wasn’t going to end in divorce, or worse, in the ICU.
Bradfords might only be capable of marrying when they were out of
their fucking minds, desperate to make whatever woman was foolish
enough to fall in love with them their wives, but they didn’t take
any risks and taking a honeymoon before the year mark was
definitely a fucking risk.

It was a risk that he hadn’t been
willing to take.

So, when he’d schemed and
planned this elopement, he’d made damn sure that there was
absolutely no way in hell that this trip could be mistaken for a
honeymoon. Not only had he brought his father and cousins to ensure
that they were never alone, but he’d also managed to keep his hands
to himself.

For the most part, but
since he’d stopped himself before he’d seriously considered
consummating their marriage, they should be safe, he reasoned as he
pulled his wheelchair up to the large table where his wife and
cousins sat, focusing completely on their plates and ignoring each
other, which definitely worked for him since it gave him a little
more time to figure out how to explain why they were here
to-

“
So,” Jodi said, pausing to
take a sip of chocolate milk before she placed her glass on the
table and locked her eyes on him, “are you ready to tell me exactly
why we’re here and why we’re suddenly sporting matching wedding
bands?”

And just like that, he knew that his
carefully orchestrated plans had just gone to hell and they’d be
fucking lucky if they didn’t follow.

Chapter 6

Sighing, because she really wasn’t
sure what else there was to do, Jodi carefully pushed her chair
back and decided to get another plate of food while Danny and the
rest of the Bradford men sat there, trying to avoid making eye
contact with her and looking absolutely terrified.

Not that she could blame them since
she did have a tendency to cry over the littlest things these days.
Not that she was proud of this or anything, but it was kind of
interesting to see a bunch of Bradfords fall all over themselves to
get her to stop crying, or when that didn’t work, watching them
beat the shit out of each other as they tried to get away, more
than willing to screw each other over in an attempt to get away
from her before she turned her sad eyes filled with tears on
them.

Since they clearly expected whatever
they were keeping from her to make her cry, she decided that it
would probably be a good idea to prepare herself for the worst with
the help of the dessert tables. They’d obviously taken advantage of
her drug intolerance, brought her to Vegas, helped Danny marry her
and for whatever reason they were now doing everything they could
to avoid talking about it.

She considered sitting there, quietly
crying with a sniffle here and there to screw with their heads
until they finally caved and told her what was going on, but she
decided that whatever they were hiding from her could wait.
Besides, she’d been craving a slice of that triple chocolate mouse
cake since the moment she’d spotted it when she’d walked inside the
large restaurant.

Since she was starving, a bit cranky
and admittedly amused by the way that all the men were walking on
eggshells around her, she decided not to push the subject any
further and just sit back, eat a slice of cake or two and simply
enjoy the show. She’d eventually find out what was going on, but
until then…until then…

She swallowed hard as the rich scent
of warm chocolate teased her senses. She shifted her attention to
the new table being rolled out and nearly whimpered with pleasure
as her babies shifted approvingly in anticipation as her eyes
locked on the large fondue surrounded by every tasty morsel known
to man. Shifting nervously, she glanced back at the large chocolate
mouse cake that was waiting for her and found herself take a step
towards the large decadent treat that she’d been craving for the
past hour only to stop and glance at the chocolate fondue table
with a sigh.

Heaven help her, but she couldn’t make
up her mind.

Oh, she would have both, there was no
doubt about that, but she wasn’t sure which one she should start
with. It was then that she realized that she didn’t have to choose,
not while she was carrying Bradfords.

*-*-*-*

“
He can’t tell her,” Jason
argued as he shove his plate of food aside and joined the
conversation.

“
He has to,” Trevor bit
out, reaching out and grabbed Jason’s neglected plate and
immediately begin to dig in, his glare locked on Jason who was
against keeping their mouths shut.

“
I’m not going to lie to
her,” Danny said, shoving a spoonful of mashed potatoes in his
mouth, wishing that he could actually allow himself to enjoy the
bounty that surrounded them, but he had much bigger problems to
deal with.

“
We need to leave,” his
father repeated absently as he sat down with two large plates of
food overflowing with food.

“
Yes, we do,” he said with
a pointed look for each them, glaring at them until they got the
message, but since two of them were still focusing on their food
out of fear of what his hormonal pregnant wife would do to whoever
was foolish enough to make eye contact first.

Giving up on the cowards hiding behind
their food, he shifted his gaze to his father to find him calmly
eating his dinner, looking almost peaceful when they should all be
panicking out of their fucking minds. They’d been here too long and
even with the three of them tagging along, there was still a very
good chance that the curse would take notice and decide that this
was a real honeymoon. They needed to grab Jodi, get in a cab and
get their asses to the airport, praying that the damn plane didn’t
get struck with the curse and make this a truly fucked up
trip.

When his glare went unnoticed, he
decided to shift his attention to his wife and see what she
was…oh…fuck…no.

“
Get up,” he said hoarsely,
unable to take his eyes off the scene in front of him, terrified
that if he looked away even for a second that it would get
worse.

A whole hell of a lot
worse.

“
What?” his father asked,
reaching for the salt.

“
Get up,” he said, unable
to take his eyes off the scene unfolding in front of him, telling
him everything that he needed to know.

The curse had started.

*-*-*-*

“
What the hell are you
talking about?” she snapped, stepping out of reach when the officer
went to grab her again.

“
You violated the ban,” the
officer said firmly, gesturing for her to turn around with a pair
of handcuffs.

“
What ban?” she demanded,
crossing her arms over her chest as she glared at the
officer.

“
The one you violated when
you entered Las Vegas,” the officer said, sounding annoyed while
she stood there trying to figure out how one second she was filling
her plate with every chocolate treat known to man and the next she
was surrounded by police while Danny, his father and cousins were
shoved down to the ground and handcuffed. The odd part was that
none of them had looked particularly surprised to find themselves
on their knees with their hands handcuffed behind their
backs.

“
I’m not banned!” she once
again pointed out with a glare that shifted on Danny, who was
cuffed to his wheelchair and noticeably cringing as he did anything
and everything to avoid making eye contact with her, but he did
manage to mutter an, “Oh, shit,” and “fucking hell,” every few
seconds whenever someone mentioned “the ban.”

“
Are you Jodi Bradford?”
the officer in charge asked, cocking a brow in warning as though he
expected her to lie.

She opened her mouth to tell him no,
but the guilty look on Trevor and Jason’s faces made her hesitate.
She looked down at the wedding band on her finger and then at the
one on Danny’s hand. With a groan, she closed her eyes and nodded,
accepting the truth of the matter.

She was now one of them.

She was a Bradford.

Which apparently was a crime in this
state, she realized with a small groan as she put her arms behind
her back and waited to be handcuffed.