“Yes, I really do,” Darrin said, keeping his arm wrapped around Marybeth as he reached down and grabbed their suitcase. “We’ll be back in a week,” he announced as he headed to the door, dragging her along with him as she was torn between coughing and laughing her ass off.
In the end she settled for a weak mixture of the two as Darrin helped her inside his truck and she snatched a bottle of water from the console, slowly sipping it as she tried to stop laughing, but the annoyed little grunts and glares that her husband was sending her had her smiling as she carefully sipped the lukewarm water.
She considered mocking her husband, for her own entertainment of course, but the look that he sent her had her rethinking her comments and slowly sipping more water as she considered her options. As her gaze landed on the large group of Bradfords standing in front of their truck, trying to stop them from going on this trip, she had to admit that there were many ways that she could screw with her husband’s head right now and most likely get away with it, but she had to ask herself…
Was that really the best way to start a honeymoon?
Probably not, but she was going to do it anyway.
“Maybe we should listen to your mother,” she said with an innocent little shrug as she worried her bottom lip, mostly to stop herself from laughing at the murderous expression on Darrin’s face.
“We’re. Going,” he said firmly, narrowing his eyes on the men determined to stop them.
“But it feels wrong,” she said in a mock whisper as she let her bottom lip tremble and her eyes watered as she sat there, toying with her fingers waiting until she was sure that she wasn’t going to start laughing before she shot Darrin an imploring look. “It feels so wrong,” she whispered harshly, wrapping her arms around herself. “So wrong.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” was all Darrin said with a sigh as he put the key in the ignition and turned it. There were three sputtering sounds as the engine desperately tried to do its job before absolute silence. They shared a look before shifting their gaze to the two-dozen Bradfords standing in front of their truck, blocking their exit.
When they grinned smugly and crossed their large arms over their chests, looking triumphant as a few of them pointedly looked around at the parked cars and trucks blocking any further attempts to escape.
They were good and blocked.
There was a small tap at her window, and without bothering to look to see who it was, she grabbed her duffle bag, threw it over her shoulder and waited for Jason to finish opening the door for her. Once it was open, she jumped out and headed into the house where a dozen more Bradfords were waiting, making sure that they got their point across.
They weren’t going on a honeymoon before the year mark was over.
Sighing heavily, she headed into the house, already knowing that Darrin, who was understandably pissed since they’d fucked with his truck, was right behind her. She didn’t bother acknowledging the Bradfords standing in the hall, lounging in her living room or helping themselves to everything in the kitchen, she simply headed up the stairs towards her bedroom, promising to strangle any Bradford foolish enough to be in her room with her bare hands.
Thankfully they all knew her well enough to stay out of her room as well as give her a wide berth when she was pissed, which she should be right now, but then again, she’d married Darrin, one of the cagiest Bradfords alive so she had absolutely nothing to worry about.
She walked into their room, tossed her duffle bag on the chair, climbed onto their large, comfortable bed and closed her eyes with a sleepy little sigh. “How long?” she asked, not bothering to open her eyes as she heard her husband walk into the room, closing and locking the door behind him.
“Two hours,” he said, joining her on the bed and sat back against the headboard with the remote.
“Perfect,” she said, cuddling into his side as she wrapped her arm around his waist and settled in for what she already knew was going to be a very enjoyable nap.
That is, until the screams for help and mercy began, but even that didn’t wreck the enjoyment she’d found from one of the best naps she’d ever had. The sobbing was a little unnerving, but she’d been to a lot of Bradford get-togethers so it really didn’t bother her, but it did alert her to the fact that the house was pitch black.
“Ten minutes,” Darrin said into darkness just as she registered the feel of his lips brushing softly against her temple.
Nodding, she stifled a yawn against her hand and threw her legs over the side of the bed. She carefully made her way to the bathroom, used the bathroom, washed up and even had time to brush her teeth before she walked back into the bedroom, grabbed her bag and headed for the window. She threw the lock, pushed the window open and tossed her bag out, not bothering to make sure that the coast was clear, because she knew how her husband worked.
Less than sixty seconds later she was carefully dropping to the ground with a soft “oomph,” grabbing her bag, she dusted her pants off and headed towards the backyard where she knew he would be waiting.
She hadn’t counted on all the Bradfords lying on the ground, moaning and bitching, but then again, it wasn’t as though it was really all that unexpected. Shifting the bag over her shoulder, she carefully stepped over Bradfords curled up and bitching and made her way to the silhouette of the man leaning against the fence, waiting for her.
“What did you do?” she asked, smiling as she handed her bag over to him.
“Do you really want to know?” he asked in a seductive whisper that made it impossible to care about the big babies curled up on the ground, begging for medical attention while others were begging for pot roast.
“No,” she said, shaking her head with a smile as she reached up and wrapped her arms around him, “I’m good.”
“Help…us…,” Jason? said, but she simply ignored him, leaned up and kissed Darrin’s chin before she stepped back, grabbed hold of the top of the chain-link fence and climbed over it and headed towards the woods.
Before she made it to the path, Darrin was there, taking her hand in his and leading her through the pitch black woods and towards the car he’d parked three streets over the other night as their backup just in case his brothers and cousins tried to pull something like this.
Sure, she felt bad that they had to do it, but sometimes there was no other way to deal with a Bradford other than to temporarily maim him or distract him with food and since they hadn’t bothered to go grocery shopping since last weekend…
Well, she was sure that they’d be okay eventually.
Chapter 2
“Did you get me some?” he asked the greedy little thing as she tossed another package of Snow Balls into the hand basket he was carrying.
“No,” she simply said with a pop as she pulled the lollypop that she’d been suckling on out of her mouth so that she could stick her cherry red tongue at him with a wink.
He sighed heavily even though they both knew that she was going to share every last delicious morsel with him. She loved to tease him and heaven help him, but he fucking adored it when she did it. So, like the dutiful husband that he was, he followed her from the junk food aisle to the beverage coolers and began adding bottles of water, chocolate milk and soda to the basket without sparing him a glance and moved on to the ice cream cooler where she grabbed a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and carried it with her as she stepped in line to pay.
“Are they still calling you?” he asked, coming up behind her so that he could place his hand on her hip as he breathed in her intoxicating butterscotch scent that she wore every now and then just to drive him out of his fucking mind
.
“Yes, yes they are,” she said, reaching into her pocket and pulled out her phone and held it up so that he could see that she had over a hundred missed calls and texts waiting for her. “Have they tried calling you yet?” she asked as she put away her phone and grabbed a King-size Almond Joy candy bar and tossed it in the basket.
He chuckled as he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. “No, they know better,” he said with a boyish grin that made her wish that they were somewhere alone so that she could show him just how much she liked that smile of his.
“They’ve given up all hope of talking any sense into me so now they’re going to rely on your fear of dying in a horrifying, tragic death to talk you into calling this honeymoon off for another year,” he explained as he placed the basket on the counter and began unloading all the junk food that they’d grabbed.
“I see,” she murmured as she added a bag of peanut butter M & Ms to the large pile of obscenely fattening food that they would probably end up devouring in less than an hour.