“Please tell me that’s not City Hall,” Haley said, swallowing nervously as she pushed her glasses back up her cute little nose.
Jason sighed heavily as he shut the truck off and pocketed the keys. “I would, but I don’t think lying is really the best way to start a marriage.”
“M-marriage? What the hell are you talking about?” she demanded, sounding a tad hysterical as he opened his door.
He paused with the door halfway open as he considered her. What he saw had him releasing a long-suffering sigh and reaching for her. With a startled gasp, she tried to back up against her car door and move out of his reach, but it was really a sad attempt. In seconds, he had her out of the truck and thrown over his shoulder.
“Jason, maybe we should talk about this,” she said, gripping the back of his shirt tightly as he carried her towards City Hall.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said, opening the door and holding it for a large group of old women.
“There really is!”
“And why is that?” he asked around a yawn.
“Because you’re kidnapping me again!” she snapped, for some reason sounding kind of angry.
“I’m not kidnapping you,” he felt obligated to point out.
“Then what would you call it?” she demanded, wiggling in his arms.
“We’re getting married,” he said, stepping in line for the City Clerk’s window.
There was a brief moment of silence before she said, “Please tell me that you’re kidding.”
“I would never joke around about getting married, my little grasshopper. Bradfords take this shit seriously.”
“Oh my God! I can’t marry you like this!” she shrieked, sounding a bit hysterical and drawing the attention of the group of women standing off to the right, watching them warily.
“You’re not going to marry me?” he asked hollowly, making sure to let his bottom lip quiver just enough for the benefit of their audience.
“I just think that maybe we should think about-”
“You were just using me?”
“What? No! I wasn’t using you! I-”
“You had your dirty, filthy way with me and now, what? You’re done with me? Just like that? Like I was nothing but a whore?”
*-*-*-*
“No! That’s not how-”
“After the dirty, disgusting things that you made me do, you’re not going to marry me?” he demanded, sounding outraged.
“That’s not what I-” she started to say, but the bastard wouldn’t let her finish a sentence!
He also refused to let her go. With a huff, she gripped the back of his jeans and pushed herself up to tell him to let her go when she saw the group of women watching them, shaking their heads in disgust.
“You promised that you’d marry me!” he said, sounding a bit hysterical.
“I-”
“What am I supposed to tell my mother?”
“Well, I-”
“What?”
“If you could just calm down, I’m sure that we could discuss this like two rational-”
“How could you use me like that? How?”
Sighing, she released her hold on his jeans and let herself drop against his back, because clearly there was no talking to this man. When he realized that they couldn’t get married today, he’d calm down and start acting like the rational man that she loved.
Okay, so he’d hopefully just turn back into the man that she loved since the whole rational part was kind of hopeless. He was a Bradford after all. Any minute now this little fiasco would be over and they could go home, get some rest, have something to eat and discuss this.
“Next,” the City Clerk said, letting her know that this whole thing was almost over.
Chapter 2
“How,” Haley started to ask only to pause so that she could take a deep breath and count to ten before she continued, “did you get your hands on my birth certificate?”
“I have my resources,” he murmured absently, glancing down at his watch as he carried her into the empty courtroom.
She sighed heavily against his back. “Grandma gave it to you, didn’t she?”
“She may have helped a little,” he admitted, wondering what was taking so long.
“Maybe we should go home and talk about this?” she calmly suggested.
There was nothing to talk about, but since it would kill some time until his plan could come together, it sounded like a good idea. “We can talk here,” he pointed out, deciding that putting her down on her feet probably wasn’t a good idea. At least, not until after he’d heard what she had to say.
He felt her sigh against his back again just as he’d registered the feel of her nibble little fingers toying with one of his belt loops. “I can’t marry you today.”
“Well, this marriage license says otherwise,” he said, absently running his hand over the back of her legs as he looked around the courtroom, making note of all the possible exits.
There were too many of them.
“You blackmailed me into signing that!”
He shrugged, smiling when she released a little grunt as the move jostled her a bit. “I did what I had to do,” he said with absolutely no shame as he walked over to the first bank of windows and peered out the large window overlooking the front lawn, watching for any signs of a taxi or public transportation that could aide his little grasshopper in her escape if he fucked this up.
“You wouldn’t let me use the bathroom until I signed it!” she said, grabbing hold of the back of his pants as she tried to push herself up only to give up a few seconds later and return to toying with his belt loop with an annoyed little sigh.
“You have no one to blame but yourself for that one. No one told you to drink all that water and soda,” he absently pointed out as his eyes narrowed to slits on the taxi parking in front of the courthouse.
“Are you kidding me? You’ve been pushing liquid on me since the moment that I woke up!”
“You looked thirsty,” he murmured absently as he pulled his phone out of his back pocket and sent another text message.
“That’s because you jacked the heat up in your truck, you manipulative bastard! It was either drink everything that you shoved at me or die of heat exhaustion!”
He sighed heavily. “Are you going to keep throwing the past in my face?”
“Keep throwing the past in your face…” she repeated back, sounding a tad hysterical. “It happened an hour ago!”
“More than enough time to let it go and move on,” he murmured, wondering if he should try to get her to drink a few more bottles of water just in case she managed to escape. It was probably wrong to use her small bladder against her, but he’d do whatever it took to ensure that she was legally required to put up with his bullshit whenever he fucked up, which according to his father and Uncles, would be often.
“I should have kicked your ass when I had the chance,” she said, sounding completely serious, which of course left him biting back a chuckle as he reached up and gently rubbed her bottom.
“You’ll get plenty of chances to kick my ass after this,” he reminded her as he walked back to the double doors at the back of the room and peeked his head out into the hall to find the Bible Study group still standing there, waiting to make sure that Haley made an honest man out of him.
“True,” she agreed with a heavy sigh, making his lips twitch.
She was just so damn cute.
“What are looking for?”
“Nothing,” he lied, looking down at his phone and silently cursing his family to hell and back. They should have been here ten minutes ago.
“Then why are you stalking around the room like a caged animal?” she asked.
“I thought you wanted to discuss this?” he reminded her, hoping to distract her.
When she didn’t say anything after a minute, he reached up to pull her off his shoulder, afraid that she might have passed out from staying in that position for so long, but just as
he gripped her hips, she said, “I don’t think we should rush into this.”
*-*-*-*
“Get the hell off me!” she snapped as she wiggled to free her legs, but the large bastard sitting across them refused to budge.
“Shhhh,” Jason whispered as he gave her ass another one of those patronizing rubs that was going to get his ass kicked. “I’m on the phone with Grandma.”
“Oh thank God,” she murmured as she reached back and wiggled her fingers in demand. “Give me the phone.”
“She’s not going anywhere,” Jason explained as he continued to rub her ass.
Frustrated beyond belief, she shifted until she was on her elbows and could glare back at the large bastard sitting on her. “Let me go, Jason,” she bit out, not even bothering to beg her Grandmother for help since she already knew where her grandmother’s loyalty now stood.
“That’s really not going to work for me,” he said absently, as he shifted to get more comfortable, which she took as her cue to try to wiggle her way to freedom.
She managed to shift forward an inch only to growl in frustration when he used his hold on her ass to pull her back. “Let me go!”
“Shh, still talking,” he whispered loudly, giving her ass another rub, which she really seemed to hate.
She turned around and dropped her face in her hands, needing a moment to calm down while she listened to Jason promise her Grandmother that everything was going according to plan and that he’d call her after the deed was done. When she heard him end the call, she took another deep, calming breath, something that she seemed to do a lot around him, and tried one last time to talk some sense into him.
“Jason, we don’t need to do this today. We could-”
“We’re doing this today,” he said, humming happily as he continued to rub her ass.
“But-”
“We’re getting married today,” he said firmly before adding, “Stop wrecking my special day!”
With a sigh, she shook her head and muttered, “I give up.”
“That’s probably for the best, my little grasshopper,” he murmured as she resigned herself to wait for the Justice of the Peace to show up and talk some sense into Jason.
She didn’t want him rushing into this only to regret it later. She loved him and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, but not until she was sure that’s what he wanted as well and she didn’t count this impulsive move as any indication that he was ready to spend the rest of his life with her.
“What time will Grandma be here?” she mumbled against her folded arms, hoping that she could catch a ride back home with her Grandmother since Jason would probably be pouting over the fact that she made him wait to get married.
“She’s not coming,” he announced, making her frown, because this was her Grandmother, the person that she loved more than anything in this world, besides Jason that is, and she should be here for this.
“What do you mean she’s not coming?” she demanded as she pushed herself back up on her elbows just as a tall man with graying black hair walked in the room.
“It would only delay this,” Jason said, getting to his feet.
“Finally,” she muttered as she shifted into a sitting position and-
“Oh, come on!” she groaned when Jason swept her up in his arms. “Put me down!”
“Not yet,” Jason said, shifting her in his arms as he carried her towards the front of the courtroom.
“I’m not kidding, Jason!”
He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. “You’re marrying me today and that’s final.”
She opened her mouth to demand her freedom when she caught sight of the panicked expression on the other man’s face. He looked down at the paper in his hands, looked back up at Jason only to look back down at the paper again, swallow and mumble, “Bradford.”
She watched in horrified fascination as he dropped the paper, turned right back around and ran towards the door he’d just come through when Jared stepped inside the courtroom, blocking his path. The terrified man gasped, turned around and ran towards the back of the courtroom where ten more Bradfords suddenly appeared, blocking his path as more of them filed into the room, taking up positions in front of the windows and doors.
It was then that she realized that she wasn’t leaving until she’d said, “I do.”
*-*-*-*
“I’m in my safe place. I’m in my safe place,” the Justice of the Peace mumbled around soft sobs from where he sat, huddled in the corner, rocking himself gently back and forth as he kept his hands firmly locked over his ears and his eyes squeezed shut. “I’m in my safe place…”
Biting back a yawn, Jason shifted his attention away from the man having some sort of meltdown to his lovely wife, who was currently trying to fight her way past a group of his cousins and uncles in an attempt to kick his ass.
“I’m only going to hurt him a little,” she said, desperately trying to push past his Uncle Ethan before adding, “I promise!”
Deciding that she just needed a few minutes to come to terms with the overwhelming sense of joy that she was obviously struggling to accept, he returned his attention to the display of brochures by the door. There were quite a few places that would be ideal for a honeymoon, bed and breakfasts, romantic inns, nature walks, cottages on the beach, resorts, but none of them were good enough for his wife.
“Don’t do it,” his father said, stepping up next to him to stare down at the brochure display.
“Do what?” he absently asked as he picked up a brochure on cave exploration.
“You know what,” his father said, reaching over to tap a brochure back in place.
“You’ll regret it,” his Uncle Ethan said, joining them.
“You really will,” his Uncle Seth said as he walked over and leaned a shoulder against the wall, “trust me.”
“The curse is bullshit,” Jason pointed out as he returned the brochures on caves and picked one up for an outlet shopping mall.
“Really?” his father drawled, sounding amused, “Then what would you call the fucked up time that your mother and I had on our honeymoon?”
“Bad luck,” he said, wondering if Haley would be interested in getting matching tattoos this week before quickly dismissing it, knowing her well enough to know that she’d probably get that bastard Derek Jeter’s name tattooed on her ass. Since that just wasn’t going to work for him, he moved on.
“So every Bradford that ever attempted to take his wife on a honeymoon within the first year of marriage in the last two hundred years and barely made it out alive was just having bad luck?” Uncle Ethan asked, sounding more amused than insulted.
“Yes,” he said with absolutely no hesitation, because if there was one thing that he knew, it was when someone in his family was trying to bullshit him.
Uncle Seth pursed his lips up thoughtfully as he considered that. “Is that what you really think?”
“Absolutely,” he said with a heavy sigh as he moved onto a brochure pushing the wonders of bird watching.
“Don’t do this, Jason,” his father said softly.
“She deserves a honeymoon,” he simply said, dismissing the idea of being trapped in a plastic tent with ten thousand butterflies and grabbing a brochure for mineral hunting instead.
“Then give her one, but not yet. Wait until after your first anniversary and take her somewhere special,” his father whispered urgently. “The moment that you announce to her that you’re taking her on a honeymoon all hell will break loose, things will get fucked up quickly and you’ll be lucky to make it out of this thing alive.”
“What do you expect me to do now? Take her home, get up early in the morning and go to work like nothing’s changed?” he asked,
Honeymoon from Hell I Page 2
