“Yes!”
“And why is that?” he asked, reaching over and turned on the satellite radio to Haley’s favorite stations, The Highway. Although she enjoyed pretty much every genre of music with a few exceptions, she seemed to really enjoy modern country music. Before they’d started dating, he would have cringed from just hearing the words, country music, but that had quickly changed after the first time she’d commandeered his radio.
“Because I hate you,” she said with a haughty little sniff that had him smiling.
So. Fucking. Cute.
He reached over and placed his hand on her thigh, loving the way that she shifted closer even as she continued to mope. As he drove down the busy highway he contemplated stopping for food to prolong the torture, but after a minute he decided against it. He couldn’t wait to see her face when she realized where he was taking her for their honeymoon.
It was going to be perfect, absolutely fucking perfect, he thought, knowing without a doubt that he was about to prove his family’s bullshit theory on honeymoons was just that, bullshit.
Chapter 5
“Let me go!”
“No,” Jason said, chuckling while he kept his arm wrapped tightly around her waist as she struggled to free herself.
“Please!” she begged, trying to shove his hands away so that she could make a run for it, but the large bastard that was supposed to love and adore her refused to let her go.
“After we check in,” he promised with a chuckle as he leaned down and kissed the top of her head.
With an over-the-top sigh, because she knew fighting him right now would be pointless, mostly because he’d stolen her wallet to keep her from running off, she gave up. “Fine,” she said with another heavy sigh as she walked back to the front desk where the attractive brunette who’d been eying Jason since they’d walked in was waiting to finish checking them in.
“I’m sorry about that,” Jason said with the same charming smile that he usually used on her to get her to make him pancakes late at night when all she wanted to do was curl up on the couch with him and watch mindless reality television.
“It’s no problem,” the brunette said, giving him a flirtatious smile as she typed away on her keyboard. “What was the name on the reservation?”
“Bradford,” Jason said, pulling out his wallet.
“Thank you,” the brunette murmured with an appreciative smile as she accepted Jason’s driver’s license.
“You’re welcome,” Jason said absently as he reached back and returned his wallet to his back pocket just as Haley decided to try her hand at pickpocketing.
Glancing around the large lobby to make sure that no one was watching, she shifted closer to Jason. When he smiled down at her, she returned the smile, making sure to look appropriately innocent. His smile turned into a slight frown as his eyes narrowed suspiciously on her.
“What’s-”
“Mr. Bradford, I have the king suite with whirlpool tub with the park view ready for you,” the brunette said with another smile that managed to drag Jason’s attention away from her attempts at thievery.
“No, I’m sorry. There seems to be a mistake. I reserved a room with a queen bed,” he explained as Haley shifted a little bit closer to him.
“Let me see what I can find out,” the brunette said, typing once again as Haley glanced around the lobby one more time to make sure that no one was watching. After one last glance to find Jason frowning at the desk clerk, she shifted closer and-
“Please tell me that you’re not seriously trying to pick my pocket,” Jason said, sighing heavily as he reached back and helped pull her hand free where it may have become stuck when she reached inside his pocket and tried to steal his wallet.
“No, of course not,” she said with a smile that she hoped was convincing, but judging by the way his lips twitched with amusement he probably wasn’t buying it.
“Sad, just sad,” he said with a chuckle as he leaned down and quickly brushed his lips against hers. “Be patient, my little grasshopper.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she grumbled, knowing that she was pouting and not really caring, not when he was keeping her from a carnival lover’s dream come true.
“Your reservation was upgraded by your Grandmother last night,” the front desk clerk announced, drawing Jason’s attention away from Haley’s pickpocketing ways.
“What?” Jason asked, looking stunned.
“Typical,” Haley mumbled with a bemused shake of her head.
“Mrs. Blaine called last night and requested that your room be upgraded to a suite,” the clerk explained as Haley once again discretely reached over to-
“God, this is just getting sadder and sadder by the minute,” Jason said, sighing heavily as he took her hand into his and entwined their fingers before he returned his attention to the clerk. “How much is the suite?” he asked, reaching up with his free hand and rubbed the back of his neck as he waited for the blow.
“Four hundred and fifty-nine dollars a night for seven nights. That with taxes and room fees brings the total to just under thirty-five hundred dollars,” she announced with a polite smile as Jason made a choking noise that she’d made a time or two over the years thanks to her Grandmother.
“Thirty-five hundred dollars?” Jason repeated, looking a little ill.
“Yes,” came the answer with a blinding smile.
“Shit,” Jason whispered softly, so softly that she almost missed it, but she didn’t miss the way that he released her hand and reached back for his wallet or the fact that he pulled out his credit card, willing to put himself in debt to give her the perfect honeymoon.
“Is the room that my husband originally reserved still available?” Haley asked, deciding to ignore the stunned expression on the desk clerk’s face when she said husband since she was pretty sure that she’d be seeing that expression a lot and probably should get used to it.
“Haley, it’s fine,” Jason said, handing over the credit card to the woman, who appeared even more confused by the gesture than the fact that Jason had married someone like Haley.
“The suite is already paid for,” the desk clerk said with a bemused frown.
“By who?” Jason asked with a frown as Haley sighed, wondering when Grandma would learn.
“Mrs. Blaine paid for the room as well as provided a credit to cover room service and incidentals.”
“What are you talking about?” Jason asked, looking even more confused, which meant that when he’d called Grandma last night to give her a status report that he’d never expected Grandma to swoop in and take over.
Poor man….he’d learn.
“That woman is sneaky,” Haley muttered with a sigh as she gestured for Jason to put his credit card away, because she knew that her grandmother had found a way around her rules.
Again.
“I’m paying her back,” Jason bit out through clenched teeth, not sounding all that happy about this, which only made her love him more.
Most of the guys that she knew would have simply smiled as they put their wallet back, more than happy to have her Grandmother pay their way, but not Jason. Nope, definitely not Jason, she decided absently as she took in the furious expression on his face. She was also glad that Grandma wasn’t here at the moment, because she was pretty sure that cane of hers wouldn’t protect her from Jason.
“There’s a note on the reservation, Mr. Bradford. Mrs. Blaine said that this is her wedding gift to you and if either one of you so much as complains then she’s going to beat you senseless with her cane,” the desk clerk read aloud with a pleasant smile that had Jason sighing in defeat.
“Fine,” he said, not sounding particularly happy about it.
“There’s also a note here about your luggage,” she added, making them both frown.
“We don’t have any luggage,” Jason pointed out as he returned his credit card to his wallet.
“Your luggage was delivered to your room this morning compliments of Mrs. Blaine. I believe she had her assistant pack your bags and had them delivered shorty after your grandmother changed your reservations,” the clerk explained, placing two keycards on the counter in front of them. “Is there anything else that I can help you with?”
“No, we’re fine,” Jason said, looking a little lost as he picked up the keycards and shoved them in his pocket.
“Good,” Haley said with a firm nod as she gestured towards the front door. “Now we can move onto more important matters.”
With that, she moved to take a step towards the front door only to find herself scooped up in Jason’s arms.
“Oh, come on!” she said, trying to get out of his arms, but the big bastard refused to let her go.
“We’re going upstairs,” he stated calmly as he carried her across the foyer to the elevators.
“We can go upstairs later,” she pointed out as she continued to struggle to get free.
“No, we’re doing this right,” he said firmly as he pressed the call button for the seventh floor.
“Going there is the right thing to do!” she explained, wondering why he was fighting her on this.
“No.”
“But-”
“No!”
“But, they’re going to close in a few hours!” she desperately pointed out as she tried to crawl over his shoulder just as he stepped into the elevator.
“They’ll be open tomorrow,” he calmly explained as the elevator doors closed slowly behind them.
“But there’s still several hours of fun left in the day!”
“I said no, woman!” he said, adjusting her so that she was thrown over his shoulder and unable to dive to freedom.
“But-”
“I said no! So stop trying to ruin my fucking special night!” he snapped with typical Bradford drama.
Rolling her eyes, because she knew there was no use wasting her breath trying to talk sense into her irrational husband, she slumped over his shoulder and relaxed, waiting for the perfect moment to escape his clutches.
Chapter 6
“Are you hungry?”
There was a slight pause before Haley whispered, “No.”
“Do you want to take a bath?” he asked, gesturing towards the whirlpool tub in the corner of the large suite that was theirs for the next week.
She sighed, long and heavy as she continued to stand there, with her face pressed against the window along with her hands as she stared off towards the bright lights that marked the large Ferris wheel spinning in the distance. “No,” she mumbled, making his lips twitch.
“We can go tomorrow,” he reminded her as he walked around the large suite, absently noting the prices on the mini bar stocked with liquor and overpriced nuts.
“I know.”
“Do you want to watch a movie?” he asked, absently gesturing towards the large flat screen television mounted on the wall.
“No,” she sighed softly as she continued to stand there, staring at the colorful lights.
“What do you want to do?” he asked, smiling when any other man would probably be pissed that his new wife was more interested in pressing her cute little nose against a window, staring off longingly at a theme park instead of spending time with him.
“Nothin’,” she said with another one of those sighs that had him chuckling as he shook his head, giving up. This was why he loved this woman after all….
She was like no other woman that he’d ever known and she was his.
“Why don’t we go for a walk and I’ll let you buy me some fried dough,” he suggested, grabbing one of the keycards off the bureau and headed for the door, deciding that there was no better time like the present to prove that his father’s theory was typical Bradford bullshit passed down from generation to generation with the sole purpose of fucking with each other’s heads.
“Okay!” Haley said excitedly as she ran past him, grabbed the door and threw it open.
Resigning himself to a long night of chasing after his wife, he followed after her, closing the door behind him and wondering if Haley was going to end up being the first Bradford wife in the history of his family to earn a ban.
*-*-*-*
“Haley-”
“No!”
“Haley, let go!” Jason said, clearly struggling not to laugh as she fought for her rights as a vertically challenged person.
“I’m tall enough!” she argued, tightening her hold on the barrier that stood between her and the ultimate rollercoaster ride.
“Sweetheart,” Jason said, adjusting his grip on her as the ride attendant shifted nervously even as he gestured for the rest of the line to move through the gate, “you’re half an inch too short for this ride.”
“I was slouching!”
“All ten times that you demanded a re-measure?” he asked with a mocking tone that she really didn’t appreciate, not right now when she was being discriminated against.
“I’m tall, damnit!” she snapped as she tightened her grip on the barrier.
“Sure you are,” Jason said, readjusting his hold on her.
“I’m going on that ride!” she bit out, more determined than ever to-
“Oh, come on!” she snapped when Jason finally managed to pull her off the barrier and carry her away from the ride that she’d waited forty-seven minutes in line to go on.
“There’s no line for the Ferris wheel,” he calmly pointed out while she struggled to free herself and go claim her rightful spot in the front of the line for the ride that pretty much guaranteed that she wouldn’t be able to eat another bite tonight without praying for death.
“I don’t want to go on the Ferris wheel,” she said with a sniff and a pout.
“Do you want another caramel apple?” he asked, placing her on her feet, apparently believing that he could catch her if she decided to make another run for it.
“No, no I do not wish for another caramel apple, sir,” she said, pointedly looking away from the man that had already betrayed their wedding vows even as she allowed him to hold her hand.
“Would you like to play some of the games?” he asked, using her weakness against her.
She nibbled on her bottom lip as she looked around, noting all the games surrounding them, boasting large prizes that she could definitely see herself snuggling, and nodded. “We could do that.”
*-*-*-*
“I’m so tired,” Haley mumbled with a slight whimper as she climbed on the big bed, kicking her shoes off as she went.
“Me too,” he said, dropping all the loot that he’d won for her on the floor by their suitcases.
“That was so much fun,” she said with a sleepy smile as she curled up on her side and closed her eyes.
“I’m glad that you had fun,” he said, pleased beyond words that he’d been able to give Haley the perfect day.
“I can’t wait for tomorrow,” she said, her sleepy little smile turning impish, letting him know that she was still determined to get on that damn rollercoaster. Not that he’d expected her to give up.
He hadn’t.
Besides, he knew how to keep her distracted, he thought as he grabbed his car keys. “I’m going to run to the store. Do you need anything?”
She shook her head as she snuggled her pillow. “I’m good.”
“I’ll be back soon,” he said, watching her for a moment, still unable to believe his good luck.