Honeymoon from Hell III (7 page)

“
Sick
bastard
,” Trevor mumbled, looking panicked
as he moved even further away from Connor.

Yeah…

There were definitely some things that she
didn’t want to know about, she decided as she hopped up on the
counter and sat next to him, loving the way that he placed his hand
on her knee with a look that pretty much dared any of her brothers
and cousins to bitch. She tensed up and opened her mouth, ready to
remind her brothers that she was a married woman now and to back
off when the most amazing thing happened.

None of them said anything about it, which
meant that they’d accepted Connor. More importantly, it meant that
they trusted him to take care of her and put her first, which was
something that didn’t come easily to the men in their family. They
always had a hard time trusting that someone outside the family was
going to do right by the women in their family. Whatever happened
during the last week, and she’d already decided that she really
didn’t need to know the details, it had changed their minds about
Connor. He was one of them now, whether he wanted to be or not and
something told her that most days he probably wouldn’t want to be,
but that was a problem for another day. Right now, she had to
figure out how to get rid of her brothers and cousins so that she
could climb back in bed with Connor.

“
We came to warn you,”
Jason bit out, folding his large arms over his chest.

“
Not that you deserve it,
you sick son of a bitch!” Trevor muttered with a pout and a glare
that had her rolling her eyes as she waited for the men to get on
with it so that she could tell them that the “talk” wasn’t
necessary when something in Jason’s expression made her stomach
twist with fear.

That look…

She’d seen it before, but she just couldn’t
for the life of her remember when. That is, until she shifted her
gaze to Trevor and saw the same expression on his face, the same
one that she remembered seeing on Uncle Alex’s face when she was
five years old, sitting around the campfire with her brothers and
cousins as he explained for the first time about the Bradford
curse.

“
Warn us about what?”
Connor asked, sounding bored as she sat there, trying not to panic
and failing miserably.

She needed to get them out of there before
they could say something to clue Connor into the fact that he’d
married into a crazy fam-

“
The curse,” Jason said,
sighing heavily as he reached up and rubbed the back of his neck,
suddenly looking exhausted and like he’d rather be anywhere but
here, probably because he knew that she had no choice but to kill
him now.

“
Jason,” she said in
warning, leveling a glare all her own on the large bastard that was
about to give Connor enough reason to file for a divorce based on
insanity, because really, there was no other way to explain the
bullshit that the Bradfords bought into and like it or not, she was
a Bradford.

Speaking of her Bradford roots…

Shooting Jason an additional glare to warn
him to keep his big mouth shut, she hopped off the counter and
walked around the kitchen island to the cabinet near the sink, the
same one that she’d claimed as her own last week when she’d moved
in, and opened the cabinet, silently promising to kick every last
one of her brothers and cousins’ asses if they so much as-

She released a pleased little sigh when she
saw that her hot cocoa supply cabinet was just as she’d left it
last night. Deciding that offering them a cup of hot cocoa would
only encourage them to stay, and since that was not in her best
interest, she grabbed two of her favorite mugs and set them down on
the counter. Connor walked past her, barely pausing long enough to
press a kiss against the top of her head and brush his hand down
her back in a slow caress as he made his way past her and filled a
kettle with fresh water.

“
Rory,” Jason said with a
touch of annoyance, “we have to have this talk.”

“
No,” she said, focusing
her attention on making two cups of hot cocoa, “we really
don’t.”

“
He knows what he’s talking
about,” Johnny said, not really surprising her since all of her
brothers, like most of their cousins, had always bought into the
bullshit Bradford traditions and dire warnings of doom.

“
No, he really doesn’t,”
she said, adding an extra spoonsful of cocoa to her mug, because
she knew that she was going to need it.

“
Then explain Dad,” Bryce
said, sounding a touch too smug for her liking and for that alone,
she decided to argue just to shut the large bastards up and get
them out of the house.

“
That doesn’t count,” she
said firmly, because it didn’t and it shouldn’t and the fact that
they didn’t see that still pissed her off even after all these
years really pissed her off.

“
Someone want to tell me
what’s going on,” Connor said, reaching over and added two small
pieces of Belgium chocolate to her mug, knowing her well enough to
know that she was going to need it this morning.

“
No,” she said, right
around the time that Craig took it upon himself to add, “The
curse.”

“
The curse, huh?” Connor
repeated with an amused chuckle and a wink.

“
It’s not a joke, asshole,”
Bryce snapped with a slight pout, sounding offended as most of the
men in her family who took the curse seriously usually did when it
was questioned or mocked, which was pretty much guaranteed to
happen anytime it was mentioned.

“
This is serious,” Brian
added before Darrin stepped in with a sigh and an expression on his
face that told her that even though he didn’t buy into the whole
curse bullshit, he was still here to watch out for her.

“
Even if it’s bullshit,
it’s still better to be safe than sorry,” Darrin said, gesturing to
Connor, who was watching her cousin with an odd expression that
she’d never seen before. It was more thoughtful than anything and
was gone seconds later, but it was still enough to instantly put
her on alert. It was a reaction that had been instilled in her
after twenty years of making each other’s lives a living hell and
something that she couldn’t easily ignore.

Well, she actually could since it wasn’t
aimed at her, she mused a moment later when Connor handed her a cup
of delicious hot chocolate. It wasn’t as good as hers, but it was a
close second so she happily sipped her cocoa while she sat back and
decided to watch the show since convincing her brothers and cousins
to drop this whole thing probably wasn’t going to happen. They
really were a bunch of stubborn, loveable bastards, she thought
with a resigned sigh as she sipped her cocoa, absently noting that
her husband was definitely making progress with the ratio of cream
and cocoa mix.

“
Enlighten me,” Connor
said, leaning back against the kitchen island as he sipped his
cocoa, causing the muscles in his perfectly sculptured torso to
ripple and flex, earning a sigh of appreciation from her that
earned a few eye rolls and muttered curses from her brothers and
cousins that she easily ignored as she focused on her husband and
wondered if they could get right to the point so that she could get
her husband back in bed where they belonged.

Chapter 6

“
Did Rory ever tell you about the curse?” Jason
demanded, looking completely serious and making it difficult for
Connor to keep a straight face, but somehow he managed
it.

“
No,” he said, technically
not lying since it had actually been Mr. James that had taken him
aside at the emergency room and further explained Bradfords and
their seriously fucked up traditions and bullshit
beliefs.

If the warning had come from anyone other
than Mr. James, he would have called it bullshit, told him to fuck
off and walked away, but the fact that Mr. James had been so
worried about his little girl getting hit with the Bradford curse
that he had actually taken him aside and forced himself to explain
the whole thing to Connor even though it had clearly embarrassed
him to do it had caught his attention. Even though he was clearly
skeptical about the “curse” and thought it was foolish, he had
still forced himself to tell Connor with the hopes that he would be
saving his little girl from a nightmare.

So of course Connor had listened…

And then immediately came up with a plan of
his own that would save them from hearing about this bullshit for
the next year while still taking his incredibly beautiful wife on a
honeymoon. Not that she would know that they were going on a
honeymoon, because really, did it matter if she knew that she was
going as long as he kept her safe? As long as he didn’t make the
mistake of referring to their little trip away as anything more
than a business trip, they should be safe from hearing anymore
Bradford bullshit and get him exactly what he wanted.

His wife, naked and smiling, in his arms for
the next two weeks without any interruptions from the overbearing
assholes in her family.

It was going to be fucking perfect.

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly what he’d had in
mind when he’d been thinking about bringing her on a honeymoon, but
as long as he had her to himself for the next two weeks then he
could wait a year before they went on their real “honeymoon.” He’d
bring her to a tropical island where the only thing that she needed
to wear was a skimpy bikini that he would remove every night with
his teeth before he slowly licked her-

“
Look,” Trevor cut in,
drawing his attention away from his plans for Rory’s incredible
body and back on the men that he needed to get out of his house,
“here’s the deal,” the large bastard that screamed like a girl
whenever a spider was around, said as he rubbed his hands roughly
down his face. “If you take her on a honeymoon before the year mark
you’re going to seriously fucking regret it.”

“
You have to wait a year. I
know it sounds stupid, but-,” Jason cut it in while the rest of the
men began nodding in agreement, but he didn’t have time for this
bullshit so he decided to end it before it could get out of hand
and he was stuck with a houseful of Bradfords and James boys for
the night.

“
Let me stop you right
there,” he said, holding up his hand to stop the large bastards,
because honestly he wasn’t sure that he could listen to another
moment of Bradford bullshit no matter how good their intentions
were. “We’re not going to be able to go on a real honeymoon until
sometime late next year.”

“
What are you talking
about?” Craig asked, sharing a look that he couldn’t read with his
brothers and cousins.

“
We’re merging our
companies after completing an extremely large renovation on time
and under budget. We’re going to have more work than we can deal
with in a few weeks and probably have to hire more men. We’re in no
position to turn down the work right now, not if we want to take
advantage of all this good press we’re getting right
now.”

“
So,” Trevor said,
narrowing his eyes suspiciously on him, which would have hurt if he
really cared at all, “you’re not going to take Rory on a honeymoon
until next year?”

He sighed heavily as he shook his head
regretfully. “I don’t think we’re going to have a chance, Rory,” he
said, sending his wife an apologetic look that had the rest of the
men visibly relaxing and his wife busied herself with her cocoa,
clearly suspicious of him, but not foolish enough to point that out
in front of her relatives, not if they wanted to get rid of
them.

“
That’s okay,” Rory said
with a shrug and a questioning look that he easily ignored, because
it meant that she was willing to go along with whatever plans he
had and he had plenty.

He released a long-suffering sigh, careful
not to go overboard with it and adding just enough regret to his
expression as he placed his nearly full cup of hot cocoa next to
her on the counter as he leaned back against the counter and folded
his arms over his chest, making damn sure to look pissed when he
said, “I’m afraid that I’m not even going to be able around much
for the next two weeks.”

“
Why’s that?” Craig asked,
cocking his head in question, clearly suspicious, which was fine
with him since he was used to dealing with the paranoid James
boys.

“
Because,” he said,
reaching up to rub the back of his neck, “I have to head up to
Maine for a few weeks and do a consultation job that I’ve been
putting off since last year. As much as I’d like to put it off for
a few more months, I can’t. I promised that I would come up there
after Strawberry Manor was done and help get the old place off the
ground and ready for the spring season.”

He dropped his hand down by his side and
took Rory’s hand in his. He gave it a small squeeze as he leaned
down and brushed his lips against hers in apology. “I’m sorry,
baby,” he said, resisting the urge to look up and see if the
assholes he’d enjoyed torturing over the past week were buying this
line of bullshit.

“
But, we just got married,”
Rory whispered softly, sounding hurt as she entwined her fingers
with his and looked up, sending him a look that would have normally
had his stomach twisting and his heart breaking, but the discrete
little caress she ran over the back of his hand with her thumb let
him know that she was on board with whatever he had
planned.

“
I know and I’m sorry,” he
said, dropping her hand and pulled her into a hug, kissing the top
of her head as he held her tight. “I’ll make it up to you. I
promise.”