“I’m not banned!” she once again pointed out with a glare that shifted on Danny, who was cuffed to his wheelchair and noticeably cringing as he did anything and everything to avoid making eye contact with her, but he did manage to mutter an, “Oh, shit,” and “fucking hell,” every few seconds whenever someone mentioned “the ban.”
“Are you Jodi Bradford?” the officer in charge asked, cocking a brow in warning as though he expected her to lie.
She opened her mouth to tell him no, but the guilty look on Trevor and Jason’s faces made her hesitate. She looked down at the wedding band on her finger and then at the one on Danny’s hand. With a groan, she closed her eyes and nodded, accepting the truth of the matter.
She was now one of them.
She was a Bradford.
Which apparently was a crime in this state, she realized with a small groan as she put her arms behind her back and waited to be handcuffed.
“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 th
ere. 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.
“Besides,” his father continued with a careless shrug, oblivious to the nervous glances that he was sharing with his cousins, “this whole thing will be cleared up in the morning when it goes in front of a judge.”
“Tomorrow?” he snapped, right along with his cousins as they shared a horrified look before glancing back at the small woman sitting across from them with her arms folded over her ample breasts, glaring at them and clearly not willing to accept any more of their bullshit stories any longer.
Not that he really thought for one second that she was buying any of the half-assed bullshit stories that they’d been feeding her since they’d left Vegas. But since she hadn’t called them on their bullshit, mostly because she was too busy ignoring them as she glared at them, he figured that he had plenty of time to figure out how to explain this mess to her later, when they were safely home and this fiasco was officially over.
Thanks to his father’s unhealthy obsession with Hostess products, they were once again fucked. They couldn’t afford to stay overnight and risk anything else happening, especially with Tink pregnant. He would rather die than risk anything happening to his wife or children.
He didn’t give a flying fuck if the curse was nothing more than just bullshit stories passed down from generation to generation to fuck with their heads. The only thing that mattered was his family and he wasn’t going to take any risks, which meant that they needed to continue heading home tonight. They couldn’t afford to add an extra day to this fucked up trip, especially with the rate that things were going.
“We can’t stay,” he stressed, meeting his father’s bored glare with a murderous one of his own, reminding the father what was at steak here.
With a frown, his father shifted his attention back to glaring pregnant woman behind them, cringed, cursed under his breath and then finally in typical Bradford fashion, sighed heavily. “Someone needs to help Danny get Jodi home before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?” his inquisitive wife asked evenly with a suspicious glare that had his balls pulling up tight in an attempt to hide in terror.
“To find a hotel for the night?” Trevor said, trying to help, but sadly there probably wasn’t anything at this point that would save his ass.
“Really,” she drawled heavily with sarcasm. “At five o’clock at night?” she asked, cocking her head to the side as she considered them and the officers, who were starting to squirm nervously from her glare.
“Very busy weekend,” he suggested, struggling against the urge to swallow nervously and avert his eyes, but then she would have him by the balls and that was not a place that he could afford to be right now.
“It’s Tuesday,” she pointed out dryly.
Swallowing hard, he slowly nodded. “Yes, yes it is.”
“Are any of you gentleman finally going to tell me what’s going on or do you want to keep on pretending that I don’t know anything about this curse of yours?”
As one they blinked, “What curse?”
*-*-*-*
Closing her eyes, she shook her head, because she’d finally had enough. “That’s fine,” she said, grabbing her bag, threw it over her shoulder and decided that enough was enough.
She was getting her ass home, taking a hot bath and ordering as much takeout as her credit card could handle.
“Tinkerbelle, stop!” Danny yelled, shoving his cousins away so that he could push his wheelchair after her, but seriously, after waking up from a baby aspirin hangover, getting arrested, banned, a police escort to the city border and then one to the state border where the Governor awaited to give them a warning not to fuck up his state and cause another state of emergency, being ignored, exhausted and dragged from here to there and every damn where, she was so done.
“Jodi” he yelled, coming after her, but she knew that if she didn’t get away from him right now and get a chance to calm down