Just like that all of her worries and fears were gone, but instead of smiling with relief, all she felt like doing was crying.
She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs, closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against her knees, releasing a shaky breath as she tried to remind herself that everything was okay now. They were fine. Danny was home and as long as he listened to his doctors and followed through with his physical therapy then he would be fine. He’d be walking in less than a year, they’d have children and everything would be fine.
Just fine, she told herself, wishing that she could believe it, but she couldn’t. She’d never been this happy in her life and she was terrified that something was going to happen and destroy this moment. At any moment, things were going to go wrong, something would go wrong with the babies, Danny would get hurt again and her heart would break and this time, there would be no coming back from that kind of pain.
So, when she realized that she was crying, she just let go. She needed this, needed to finally let go of the pent up terror that something would happen to Danny or their babies and let go.
Chapter 11
“Do something!” he yelled, terrified out of his fucking mind as he was forced to sit there while his wife sobbed hysterically in his arms, unable to much more than shake her head or nod against his chest when they asked her a question.
“Jodi? Sweetie, can you tell us what’s wrong?” Aidan asked with a kind smile, but Danny could see it in his eyes that he was just as scared out of his fucking mind as he was.
For two hours she’d been sobbing hysterically and no matter what he said or did, she wouldn’t stop. If he told her that he loved her, kissed her or told her how excited he was to be a daddy, she would bury her face against his chest, sob harder and hold on to him tighter like she was afraid that if she didn’t he would suddenly disappear.
He’d tried to calm her down, but absolutely nothing worked so he’d called his brother, praying that they weren’t losing the babies. It would kill him to lose their babies, but it would absolutely destroy him to lose her.
“Are you in pain?” Aidan asked as he rechecked her vitals while Danny sat there, praying that the answer was no.
He nearly sagged in relief when she shook her head against his chest.
“Then what’s wrong, Tink?” he asked softly, praying that she couldn’t tell just how badly she’d scared him, because-
“Mother fucker!” he yelped with a gasp when the vicious brat grabbed his nipple and twisted it.
“You bastard!” she snapped around a loud sob as she-
“Ow!” he snapped when the vicious woman successfully grabbed his nipple for another twist, making his eyes water.
He considered setting the woman down and scooting away from her before she could go for his other nipple, but realized that the move would give her access to his poor defenseless balls. So, instead he tightened his hold around her, careful of their babies, and made sure that she couldn’t continue with her malicious attack.
“You arrogant bastard!” she yelled, but before he could ask her which one of them she was referring to, she was trying to wiggle her way off his lap, but he wasn’t having it.
Mostly because he was terrified about the damage that an extremely hormonal woman could do to his balls, he kept her exactly where she was as he shot his brother a look that said it all.
“Right,” Aidan said, clearing his throat with a firm nod as he backed up towards their bedroom door. “I’ll just leave the two of you to talk this over.”
Keeping his eyes narrowed on his wife, he waited until he heard the door click closed behind his brother before he asked, “Are you done yet?”
Stupid question.
Really stupid fucking question, he decided as she shook her head and-
“Goddamn it, woman!” he snapped, resisting the urge to let her go so that he could rub his poor abused nipple. “Stop attacking me!”
“No!” she said with a pout that he absolutely refused to find adorable, especially while his nipples throbbed from their most recent attack. “You have this coming!”
“For making you the happiest woman on earth?” he demanded in outrage, wondering for the life of him why she wasn’t on her hands and knees thanking god for her good fortune instead of maiming him.
Had to be the hormones, he told himself as he glared at the small woman in his arms. There really was no other way to explain her ungrateful behavior. She had absolutely no idea how much work and planning went into kidnapping someone, otherwise she’d start showing some goddamn appreciation!
Just thinking about all those long hours he’d spent scheming, calling in favors so that certain officials would look the other way when they saw the name Bradford on the flight lists. It had taken him a lot of time and effort to make this happen, but that didn’t seem to matter to the annoying woman trying to make another grab for his nipple.
“You kidnapped me! Drugged me! Dragged me around Vegas! Didn’t bother to wake me up for our wedding! You’ve avoided me for most of this trip, ignored my questions, pissed me off and then when I had enough of your bullshit, you kidnapped me again! Dragged me back across state lines, fed me nothing but stale junk food, and forced me to sit in a car with three Bradfords who couldn’t seem to stop arguing about which ban was whose fault, further confusing me and making me want to go for your nuts!” she finished on a rant, confirming his suspicions that she’d made plans to go for his balls as well as making him reconsider his decision to wait until later to do a junk food run, because clearly she needed sugar soon or she was going to kill someone.
Since that person was going to most likely him, he decided that perhaps now would be a good time to check out the kitchen and see if there was any chocolate that might help soothe the wild beast within his normally sane, beautiful wife.
Careful not to make any sudden movements, he wrapped his arms around her, sort of thankful that she’d stopped crying, but since she was now focused on violence he sort of wished that she’d return to the crying since he would leave his balls intact and it was probably something that he could fix with a box of donuts and a chocolate milkshake.
Christ, he could go for a chocolate milkshake and a box of donuts, he thought with a heavy sigh, wondering if his cousins had been considerate enough to leave them fully stocked, but knowing his cousins they’d probably eaten every fucking thing in the house each time his mother or one of his aunts went shopping.
Selfish fucking bastards, he thought with a grumble as he gently placed his wife on the bed next to him, reached over and grabbed hold of his wheelchair and slowly, or so very fucking slowly, shifted away from her and closer to his wheelchair, his only means of escape.
“You finally feel like talking?” his seriously pissed off wife asked in a tone that did not convey the overwhelming love and affection that she should be feeling for him. But, it did make him move his ass faster, sensing that it could end badly for him if he didn’t get out of there right now.
“Umm, sure,” he said absently as he tightened his hold on the wheelchair and used his hold to drag himself off the bed as casually as he could manage it and sat down.
“So,” Jodi said, unfortunately following him so that by the time his ass hit the chair, she was straddling him and had her arms wrapped loosely around his neck, but he was no moron.
She could turn on him at any moment.
His only hope was to get them into the kitchen and distract her with a shitload of food before she could remember that she was pissed at him and renew her vicious attack or worse, start crying again. God, please don’t let her start fucking crying. He’d take anything else, do damn near anything else if it meant that he wasn’t forced to sit there helplessly while his wife cried her heart out.
“Why don’t we talk about Vegas?” she suggested in a light tone as he felt the arms around his neck tighten slightly, but it was enough to let him know that he was going to make it out of this room alive if he didn
’t start talking.
“Sure,” he agreed casually, making his body relax as he placed his hands on the large wheels, hoping it wouldn’t tip her off to his intentions. “What would you like to talk about?” he asked as he gave the wheels an experimental push to see what she’d say, but they moved a foot and she didn’t respond, he decided to keep playing along.
“Oh, gee, I don’t know,” she said with a slight shake of her head a sigh, “maybe we could discuss the kidnapping?”
He blinked at her as he asked, “What kidnapping?” right around the time that he gave the wheels another, firmer, push towards the door and what he hoped was his salvation.
“Oh, you know the one where your father and cousin drugged me, somehow got me on a plane to Vegas, somehow managed to find someone to marry us even though I’m pretty sure that I was still unconscious at that point and then for shits and giggles you decided that it would be fun to add ignoring me to list of fun things to do to pass the time. Does that refresh your memory, hmm?” she asked with an endearing smile as she ran her fingers lovingly through his hair, but he wasn’t fooled.
Not one fucking bit.
This woman was pissed and out for blood.
His blood.
Since she was obviously pissed and there was absolutely no way to make her forget about the “kidnapping,” drugging, and the hundred little things that they’d been forced to do to her to get what they wanted, he decided to take a different tactic, one that would put him on every Bradford’s shit list, but was guaranteed to save his ass.
“It was Jason’s idea,” he said even as he sent a silent apology to the annoying bastard who’d stuck his neck out for him.
He hated to do it, hated to fuck over someone that he cared about so much and had gone through so much shit to help him, but then again, what choice did he have?
“Really?” she said absently, looking a little distracted and not really sounding like she believed him as she continued to toy with a short lock of his hair.
“Yes,” he said firmly with a nod as he pushed the wheels ever so slightly in the direction of the bedroom door, praying that they’d find something, anything to distract his wife in the kitchen before it was too late.
“I see,” she murmured, sounding thoughtful as he sat there, trying to resist the urge to squirm in his chair.
“I’m glad that you do,” he said, swallowing hard as he tightened his grip on the wheels and-
Oh, fuck no…
She set the brakes.
Chapter 12
“So, you’re a victim in all this?” she asked, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes as he looked her in the eye, letting his bottom lip tremble and said with heavy, tortured sigh, “Yes.”
“I see,” she said, forced to look away before she started laughing, because there was just something so unbelievably cute about a large man like her husband trying to pout his way out of trouble.
It was definitely the Bradford pout, she thought even as she couldn’t help but compare it to Jason’s, who’d most likely perfected the pout before he’d left the womb. Jason could probably pout his way out of anything, but not Danny. For some reason the large ex-marine just couldn’t pull it off. It was adorable even if he couldn’t pull it off.
“They made me do it,” he said in a mock whisper that had her biting her lip and struggling not to laugh. “I’ve never felt so dirty before…so used…”
“And this, um, ban?” she asked, relaxing her hold around him as she settled more comfortably on his lap as she managed to keep a straight face as she looked him in the eye.
All humor vaporized from his expression as he bit out, “Political bullshit meant to keep us down.”
She couldn’t help but frown at that as she slowly said, “From a buffet?”
“Yes,” he said without any hesitation.
“And from Vegas?” she asked, unable to hide the doubt in her voice, because really, how did an entire family manage to get themselves banned from a city?
“A simple misunderstanding,” he murmured as he looked away.
“I see,” she said with a frown, trying to figure out how that was even legally possible.
“Besides,” he said, bringing her attention back to him and away from all the terrifying possibilities running through her head, “it’s not important.”
Since that ban apparently applied to her now, she thought it was kind of important, but since it was also something that was probably going to terrify her, she decided that it was probably a conversation left for a later time. Right now they had other things to focus on.
“Okay, so how exactly would that explain you ignoring me and refusing to touch me since you left the hospital?” she asked, not realizing how much his disinterest had really hurt until that moment.
He sighed heavily as he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her for the first time in days. “The curse,” he said unhappily as though that explained it all.
She waited for more, a better explanation, something that started off with, “We’re not fucking crazy, but…”, however, nothing else followed except for a sigh of relief that told her that he was not only done, but that a huge weight had been lifted off his chest by telling her.
Unfortunately for her, having him wrap all the bullshit over the last couple of days with the phrase, “The Curse,” really wasn’t all that enlightening. It definitely didn’t explain things like the kidnapping, the quick elopement that she really couldn’t remember, why they were all stuck sharing the same hotel room with his cousins and father or why he did everything that he could to make sure that they were never within touching distance.
On top of that they’d been forced to flee the state like criminals, surviving on whatever stale junk food they could find in vending machines, out of the way convenient stores and fast food joints that should have been condemned years ago, which sadly, she was pretty sure that a few actually had been. When they hadn’t been scavenging for stale food to fight over, they’d all been jam packed in a rental car that smelled like feet and ass.
It had made the trip truly memorable.
Not that she was ever going to forget about the time that she got kidnapped, dragged across state lines and came back married to a man that was apparently paranoid. Granted, it appeared that the majority of men in his family were paranoid, but that was a problem for another time.
Right now they needed to settle a few things, find something to eat and hopefully sleep for the next month without having to worry about doctor’s appointments, trying to figure out a way to eat non-stop to appease the very demanding babies shifting anxiously inside her, reminding her that it had been at least an hour since the last time she’d ate, and just relax and enjoy being in his arms without worrying about hospital staff or his family barging in and ruining what little time they had together.
“Any chance that you could explain this whole curse thing as well as the need to drug and kidnap me to get married while we roll into the kitchen and make pancakes?” she suggested, undecided whether or not she was going to share the pancakes once they were done, but that really depended on how well was he able to satisfy her curiosity.
Otherwise…
She’d probably have one cranky Bradford on her hands, but on the bright side, she’d be pleasantly full and ready for a nap. Grinning that sexy grin of his, he reached down, released the brakes on his wheelchair and carefully pushed them towards the extra wide bedroom door and down the hallway towards the large country-style kitchen that his brothers and cousins had designed for them.
As soon as he’d rolled them off the polished wood floor and onto the smooth, shiny kitchen tile, she was climbing off his lap and headed towards the cabinets, searching for everything that she needed to make her famous fluffy buttermilk pancakes and nearly weeping with relief when she found everything that she needed and more.
Setting a large mixing bowl on the kitchen island, she grabbed the eggs and a whisk and gestured for Danny to continue, hoping that something
he said would help her make sense of this past week or at the very least make that paranoid side of her that demanded that she say goodbye to everything in the world she owned and make a run for it, but she figured that she owed it to their babies for her to hear him out.
Besides, she was starving and the pancakes wouldn’t be done for twenty more minutes so she figured she’d give him a chance to explain what happened before she ate all the pancakes, grabbed her stuff and made the walk of shame back to her father’s house where she would have to move back in, knocked up and in need of her daddy to make everything better.
“Will there be bacon or eggs?” he asked with a cocking of his brow, obviously deciding that some negotiation had to be done before he explained his behavior.
“For me?” she said as she opened the refrigerator door and selected the delicious items and set them on the kitchen island near the bowl. “Yes, but I haven’t decided if I’m in a sharing mood quite just yet.”
“I see,” he murmured thoughtfully with a calculating look in his eye as he shifted his gaze from her to the food, obviously trying to decide just how much he was going to have admit to in order to get what he wanted.
In the end, it was the drop pure vanilla extract that she added to the pancake batter that helped him make up his mind. With a heavy sigh, he said, “We were supposed to be married, back on a plane and home before the curse kicked in,” he said, licking his