Honeymoon from Hell V (7 page)

“
Don’t. Even. Fucking.
Think. Of. It,” Danny snarled, yanking on his cuffed hands as the
officer reached for her.

Jason, Trevor and Ethan, who was now
her father-in-law it seemed, all glared at the officer, looking
ready to get to their feet and rush the officer if needed. When the
officer caught their glares, he hesitated and even took a step back
away from her as all four men followed the movement with their
eyes.

Wanting to get this over with without
ending on the ten o’clock news, Jodi put her hands in front of her
and held them out to the officer and waited. With a nod of
understanding and a nervous glance towards the four men watching
his every move, the officer carefully handcuffed her hands together
and gently placed his arm, leading her towards the exit where a
curious crowd was waiting with their phones out, taking pictures
and ensuring that she never forgot this trip.

“
Are you okay, ma’am?” the
officer asked with a kind smile as he walked beside her.

“
I’m fine,” she said with a
small wince when over two-dozen cellphones went off, clicking
lights in her face and making her realize that she had the start of
what promised to be one hell of a headache. “Just a small
headache,” she said, as she was escorted outside into the bright
Nevada sunlight.

“
Don’t worry. I’m sure that
we can find you something at the station to help with that,” the
young officer promised.

She opened her mouth to argue, to
explain how she reacted to medication, but in the end she simply
mumbled a, “Thank you,” and continued walking towards the police
cruiser parked in front of them, too tired to argue right now when
all she wanted to do was go to the police station, get processed
and take a long nap on a lovely wooden bench that she would call
all her own until she could make bail.

Chapter 7

“
Oh, my God!”

“
No, please, God,
no!”

“
Somebody help
us!”

“
Not the face! Not the
face!”

“
Mommy!!”

“
I’ll never do it again!
Please, just let me go!”

“
Help us!
For the love of God why isn’t anyone helping us?” one of the
officers screamed as he ran past the holding cells, stumbling and
tripping along the way as he frantically glanced over his shoulder
to make sure that
she
wasn’t coming after him.

“
Maybe we should rent two
cars and drive back,” Jason suggested, looking a little bored as he
leaned against the bars and continued to watch as all hell broke
lose around them.

“
That might be the best
idea,” his father agreed with a cringe when Jodi managed to make a
two hundred and fifty pound officer drop to the floor in a fetal
position and sob quietly to himself.

“
Flying would be faster,”
Trevor pointed out from his spot on the bench where he was trying
to catch a few minutes of sleep before the SWAT team was called
in.

“
We’re banned,” Jason
reminded him with a lazy gesture towards Jodi, who was now utterly
fascinated with a box of donuts.

That earned a frown from Trevor. “For
what?”

“
Drugging Jodi,” his father
answered with a shrug.

“
We’re on the ‘No Fly’
List?” Jason asked, sounding genuinely worried, which was
understandable since that would make things a hell of a lot harder
on the father of three.

“
No, we’re just banned from
the Vegas airport,” Danny explained, watching as his wife jumped up
on the edge a desk with a jelly donut in her hands and a smile on
her lips as she closed her eyes and took a bite of her donut
sighing with satisfaction while the officers that hadn’t made their
escape yet, ran for the door.

“
Maybe we should take a
bus?” Trevor suggested only to snort in disgust at his own
suggestion and shook his head a few seconds later when he realized
what being stuck on a bus for over twenty hours with Jodi, who was
not only pregnant, but seriously pissed probably wasn’t the best
idea.

And yes, he knew without a doubt that
she was pissed at him since the glare that she’d shot him when
they’d placed him in the back of the squad car with her had said it
all. It also didn’t hurt that she refused to say anything to him.
Instead she’d simply sat there, staring forward with her jaw
clenched as she pointedly ignored everything that he said to
her.

Well, that part wasn’t exactly true.
She did seem to get particularly pissed whenever he tried to
apologize to her. When nothing he said or did seemed to help, he
decided that it would probably be for the best if he kept quiet at
the point and gave her some space while he tried to figure out
another way out of this.

Four hours later and he still had no
fucking clue how to make this up to his wife. His cousins and
father had shared their infinite wisdom with him, but since
crawling to her on his hands and knees and begging for forgiveness
was probably out the question at the moment, he decided to use this
time tucked safely behind bars to figure out a way to fix this. The
fact that they’d drugged her and all hell had broken lose wasn’t
exactly helping with the situation.

“
Renting two cars is
probably our best bet,” his father said with a nod.

Trevor sighed heavily as he closed his
eyes and settled in for the long haul. “It should definitely give
the asshole enough time to get out of the dog house.”

“
I’m not in the dog
house,” he said just as his wife, doped up on liquid Advil, chose
that moment to glare at him, putting everything into that one look
and letting him know that he’d be fucking lucky at this point to be
in the doghouse.

“
I wouldn’t do that if I
were you!” Jason yelled to the plump detective reaching for the box
of donuts, obviously needing the comfort that only the sugary treat
could provide him, but unfortunately for him, he wasn’t able to
grab a donut and run away fast enough.

The man barely got out a mumbled, “Oh,
God, help me,” before Jodi’s head snapped in his direction, her
eyes narrowed dangerously on him and before the man could blink or
mutter another prayer for help, Jodi had his donut and he was
curled up in a corner, hugging himself and rocking himself as he
mumbled, “It’s not real. It’s not real.”

Yawning, Danny shifted his attention
back to the bench where Trevor was curled up, softly snoring and
considered shoving the large bastard off and getting a nap in
before he was forced to deal with his wife. Unfortunately for him,
that’s when the police chief finally decided to ask for
help.

“
Please,” he said, looking
as though he’d aged twenty years since he’d shoved them in here an
hour ago, “save us!”

*-*-*-*

“
Maybe we should separate
them,” Jason suggested as she sat there on one of those hard
plastic chairs, sipping water and trembling as she slowly came down
from a Tylenol high.

Trevor laughed without humor. “Do you
really think that’s going to help now? There’s no way in hell that
they’re getting out of this now.”

“
Out of what?” she mumbled,
slowly swallowing a sip of water as she prayed that it wouldn’t
make her already queasy stomach worse.

Instead of answering her, which they
seemed unable to do since yesterday at the buffet when she’d
innocently inquired about the matching wedding bands, the men
continued to talk as though she wasn’t there. Normally that would
piss her off, but right now…

Ah, who the hell was she
kidding?

It still pissed her off, but
fortunately for them her stomach decided that it really didn’t
appreciate that last swallow of water that she’d forced upon it and
demanded that she find the nearest bathroom. Knowing better than to
sit there and see if it would pass, because she knew that it
wouldn’t, she shot the men ignoring her a glare only to once again
be ignored and stood up, placed her bottle of water on the seat and
went in search of a bathroom before she-

“
Oh, God,” she said when
she barely made it five feet when the water and everything else
she’d eaten in the last five hours decided to make an
appearance.

“
Oh, shit,” she heard Danny
curse as Ethan, Jason and Trevor descended upon her, putting large
arms around her and guided her to the bathroom, which was sweet,
really it was, but unfortunately she wasn’t quite done and left an
embarrassing trail behind her, marking her way back to the chairs
in the suddenly quiet rental car waiting area.

She was thankful when they brought her
to the family bathroom, but that soon changed when all three of
them decided to stand there, hovering over her as she continued to
get sick, adding that special touch to this trip from
hell.

“
I’m fine,” she managed to
get out as leaned over the toilet, struggling not to embarrass
herself any further, but of course they once again ignored
her.

“
Maybe we should take one
vehicle,” Jason suddenly suggested, throwing her a nervous
glance.

“
We’ll be able to get them
home faster that way,” Trevor said in agreement, shooting her a
pitying look that she really didn’t care for, not at
all.

“
I think the best bet is to
get them out of Las Vegas and to the nearest airport so that we can
put an end to this fiasco quickly,” Ethan suggested as he grabbed a
handful of paper towels and poured cold water on them before
applying it to her head and giving her a small amount of relief so
that she could once again ask what was going on, but apparently
they were still hell-bent on ignoring her.

It was either that or they
hadn’t heard her over her body’s renewed attempts to cleanse itself
of every last drop in her stomach. It was probably the later, she
decided as the men continued to discuss the best way to get them
home before the curse, and she made a mental note to ask about that
later, could do any more damage.

Once she was done, which wasn’t for
another ten minutes or so, she was helped to her feet, led over to
the small sink and manhandled by three large Bradfords that meant
well. By the time they whisked her out of the bathroom and into the
hallway where Danny sat waiting, looking worried, she was too tired
to argue or ask any questions.

So, instead she allowed
them to place her on Danny’s welcoming lap. She closed her eyes and
laid her head against his shoulder, deciding that it was probably
for the best if she left the details up to the men for now. But
once she was rested and had something to settle her stomach, they
were going to have a very long discussion about all the bullshit
they’d put her through over the last couple of days.

Chapter 8

“
You dumb bastard,” he
groaned, closing his eyes in resignation as he sat there, staring
in disbelief at his father, who was actually fucking
blushing.

“
You dumb fucking bastard,”
Jason reiterated, shaking his head while the blood drained from his
face as he stared at Ethan, unable to look away from him as Ethan’s
fuck up just caught up to them all and bit them in the ass,
effectively fucking them all over and ensuring that this nightmare
wasn’t going to end anytime soon.

“
It
wasn’t my fault
,” his father stressed as
the understandably pissed off police officer gestured for his
father to turn around and place his hands behind his back. With a
resigned sigh, his father turned, put his arms behind his back and
waited to be arrested for the second time that day…in a separate
fucking state!

“
Then whose fucking fault
was it?” he snapped, barely resisting the urge to reach up and
strangle the son of a bitch that was making ending this nightmare
nearly fucking impossible.

His father pursed his lips up in
thought as the first cuff locked in place. “Hostess
Cupcake.”

And yup, just like that, he went for
his father’s fucking throat. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately
for his father, the fact that he couldn’t fucking stand on his own
two feet yet, and the fact that his cousins were holding him down,
kept the son of a bitch breathing. As his cousins held him down, he
narrowed his eyes on his father, imagining all the things that he
was going to do once he got his hands on him and nearly smiled in
satisfaction, but it was the fact that his wife of only two days
still wasn’t talking to him, looking at him or acknowledging his
existence in any way that instantly destroyed the miniscule amount
of joy that he’d been able to find in his fantasies.

There was a heavy sigh as the second
officer reached into his back pocket and pulled out another thick
white envelope. “That reminds me. You’re in violation of a second
restraining order.”

His father sighed heavily as he shook
his head that told everyone there, every Bradford at least, that
his father wasn’t taking this seriously.

“
I have to come within
one-hundred yards of their corporate office in order to violate
that restraining order,” his father said, sounding bored while he
sat there, trying not to panic, but it was a quickly losing
battle.