realized, not really caring. Let them stare, whisper and wonder how a woman like her landed a man like Trevor. Let them wonder, she didn’t care, because she knew that the large grumpy bastard loved her and that’s all that mattered. She splashed some cold water on her face, washed her hands and did her best to rinse her mouth out before she grabbed a handful of paper towels and headed for the door, mentally preparing herself for the next five hours of pouting until she could finally crawl into her own bed, go to sleep and ignore the man that she loved until he begged for her forgiveness with an extra large brownie sundae.
God, she’d kill for a brownie…
Maybe she should walk down to the coffee shop that she’d spotted in terminal C and see if they had any-
“Someone stole our bags,” Trevor announced as soon as she stepped out of the bathroom, interrupting her dreams of devouring a fudge brownie and making her realize that this honeymoon from hell wasn’t over yet.
Chapter 12
Ten Seriously Fucked Up Hours Later….
“Security said that all the stores are going to close in thirty minutes. Do you want anything?” he asked, not at all surprised when Zoe continued to sit there on the floor with her back against the wall and her forehead resting on her knees.
“No, thank you,” she murmured softly, tightening her hold around her knees, clearly still pissed at him for losing their bags.
Having absolutely no doubt that saying sorry again would be pointless and in no mood to chance saying something that might make her cry, he nodded like an idiot and walked towards the area of shops in the next terminal. He looked over his shoulder a few times to see her still sitting there, resigned to waiting another twelve hours before they found out if there were any available spots on the next plane heading to Massachusetts.
He should have never left their bags like that. He normally never would have made that mistake in a million years, but when he saw his wife go pale and run for the bathroom, he’d reacted. The idea of letting her go into that bathroom alone to suffer through this by herself had never even occurred to him. He only wished that the security officer had kicked him out sooner so that he could have caught the asshole, who simply picked up their bags and walked out of the airport, managing to grab another bag and two purses without anyone noticing.
Thanks to his fuck up, their bags were gone along with Zoe’s identification, credit cards, cash, their boarding tickets and her medication. They still had their phones and he had his wallet, but that was it. It had taken them five hours, a dozen phone calls to his Uncle, Jason and the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles before the airport would accept that Zoe was who they claimed she was, but by the time that they did they’d already missed their flight and the two heading to Boston after it.
While they’d waited for the airline to confirm her identity, they’d used the time to file a police report, report her credit cards and debit card stolen and found out that their travel insurance didn’t cover any of the shit that had been stolen. They’d also discovered that the cruise line hadn’t bothered to buy travel insurance for their plane tickets so he was going to be forced to replace the tickets on his own dime. The airline had been willing to honor his original ticket, but that would have meant abandoning Zoe and there was no way in hell that he would ever do that.
So, they were stuck here until they could grab two standby spots, which was just fucking perfect. Spending the night in an airport was the last thing that he wanted to make his pregnant wife do, but if they went to a hotel there was a good chance that they would have to go through all this bullshit to confirm Zoe’s identity again tomorrow.
Twenty-five minutes later his arms were loaded up with ginger ale, orange juice, candy bars, chips, a bunch of snacks, two throw blankets and a small Eeyore stuffed doll that he hoped would put a smile on her face. When he found her in the same exact spot that he’d left her in he realized that there was absolutely nothing that he could do to make this right for her and that made him feel like the biggest asshole in the world, because he’d failed her. Biting back a sigh and having absolutely no idea how to make this better, he placed the shopping bags filled with junk food and blankets and sat down next to her.
Dropping his head back against the wall, he repeated the only thing that he could think of saying since this whole thing started. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” she said, sighing heavily as she raised her head and let it drop against the wall, mimicking his position.
He chuckled without humor as he looked around the abandoned terminal. “There’s not much else that I can do.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“No?” he asked dryly. “I should have never brought you on this trip.”
“So, you keep saying,” she mumbled quietly, resuming her position and going back to ignoring him.
Shaking his head, he wrung his hands in frustration, desperately trying to figure out a way to fix this and make this right for her, but he was out of options and they both knew it. The only way to fix this now was to get her home and that might not happen tomorrow, not if they couldn’t get their hands on two tickets heading north and with the way things were going, he really didn’t see that happening.
“Look,” he said, rubbing his hands roughly down his face, “I’ll make this up to you. I promise, but for right now we’re just going to have to make the best of this. It’s not like this could get any worse,” he added with a shaky laugh as his words sank in and when they did, he got to his feet, trying not to think about exactly what could go wrong trapped in a steel contraption flying through the air thousands of miles above the ground as he grabbed Zoe’s hand and pulled her towards the exit.
*-*-*-*
“Are you really planning on driving the entire night?” she asked from where she sat, curled up in the passenger seat, doing her best to ignore how upset her stomach was.
“Yes,” came the firm answer, which didn’t really surprise her since he’d obviously lost his mind a few hours ago when he’d dragged her to the rental car counter, rented the last car on the lot, which also happened to the be the one without a working radio or air conditioner and announced that he wasn’t taking a chance on the curse getting them while they were stuck ten thousand feet up in the air and decided that driving for the next twenty-two hours would be safest course of action.
Normally she would have argued, but with the way things were going they probably would have been stuck at that airport for a few days before they were able to get two seats on the same flight home. Now she just wanted to get home and she didn’t care if that meant sitting in a car for the next twenty-two hours with a man, who for the most part, was still ignoring her. The only time he’d spoken to her over the last ten hours was to ask her if she was okay, thirsty, hungry or if she needed to use a bathroom. They’d only stopped once so far and that was to get gas and for Trevor to make a few quick calls to make sure that she had a new bottle of pills waiting for her at home.
“Oh, come the fuck on!” he suddenly snapped, drawing her attention to the fact that he was slowly steering the car over into the breakdown lane.
Almost too afraid to ask, but knowing that she couldn’t pretend that something was seriously screwed up with this honeymoon, she forced herself to ask, “What’s wrong?”
“Everything,” he snarled, throwing the car in park, threw on the hazard lights and before she knew what was happening, he had her out of the car and walking towards the next off-ramp.
As they walked along the litter decorated highway, Trevor started making phone calls. She only half listened since every other word that came out of his mouth were colorful curses, some of which she’d never heard before. Apparently the rental car place had given them a lemon and the game plan was to find a hotel and stay there until Jason, who’d volunteered to come get them and bring them home so that they could, and she was quoting both men on this one, “Put an end to this seriously fucked up honeymoon.”
Yeah, that made he
r feel great, she decided as she stepped around what appeared to be a small pile of used condoms. She didn’t say anything and he didn’t ask her to as they kept to the side of the off-ramp and followed it until they came to an intersection that sat directly in front of what she could only describe as a flea motel. She didn’t need to ask to know that was their destination.
When he took her hand into his and led her across the deserted road she simply went with him, too exhausted physically and emotional to argue at this point. Twenty minutes later, they were standing in a room that hadn’t been renovated since the early eighties. It even had one of those fat little televisions with bunny ears set up in the corner alongside a VCR that was flashing the 12:01.
As Trevor once again pulled out his phone and started making calls, she took in the rest of the room, idly wondering if he had any quarters on him since that’s what the television operated on and apparently so did the bed. She couldn’t even say that was all that shocked when she looked up and saw the mirror above the bed. When she pulled open the top drawer of the nightstand and saw the collection of condoms and empty condom wrappers surrounding a worn copy of the Bible, she decided that the chair by the door would make an excellent bed for the night.
First thing she needed to do though was to lower the heat. It had to be ninety degrees in here. She walked over to the thermostat and turned it down only to discover that the cover spun freely and there was no way to set it. She also discovered that she was wrong. It wasn’t ninety degrees in here, but a crisp eighty-four degrees. Turning around, she walked past Trevor, who was now pacing the length of the small room while arguing with Jason about whose honeymoon had been more fucked up, and attempted to open the window only to discover that it was painted shut.
Shaking her head, because she really should have expected it, she walked past Trevor, headed into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She focused on doing what needed to be done and not on the questionable state of the bathroom. After five minutes of inner turmoil and deep soul searching, she decided to risk it and take a shower in the rust stained tub.
She closed her eyes and did her best to ignore the feel of the hard water coating her skin and hair. After two minutes she decided that she was clean enough and shut off the water. She grabbed a threadbare towel, telling herself that it was clean, and did her best to dry off before she reluctantly wrapped it around herself. She stood there for another moment, contemplating her choices, put her clothes back on that she’d been wearing all day and take the chance of contaminating her only set of clothes with whatever was out there or wear the towel, pretend that the hotel was clean, the linen freshly washed and that she wasn’t going to have to jump back in the shower first thing in the morning and scrub her skin raw to kill whatever bacteria she’d picked up during the night.
Deciding that the idea of sleeping in her clothes and then being forced to wear them tomorrow once they were freshly coated in whatever that funky smell was coming from was not for her, she resigned herself to scrubbing her skin off tomorrow morning in the rust coated tub. She grabbed another threadbare towel to use as an added layer of protection between her and the chair and opened the bathroom door only to groan in disappointment when she spotted Trevor, shirtless and asleep in her chair.
Great, just great…
For a few minutes she stood there, contemplating shoving the large bastard off the chair and reclaiming it as her own, but it would probably only earn her a glare and another one of those apologies that made her want to beat the shit out of him with one of the lumpy, yellow stained pillows on the bed. Shooting him a glare of her own, she turned around and carefully laid the towel on the bed and then added the one that she was wearing, deciding that Trevor’s discarded shirt would have to be sacrificed this night to save her skin from the questionable stains and odors decorating the bedspread.
Praying that she didn’t end up contracting lice, bed bugs or worse, she walked over to where Trevor’s shirt laid on the bureau and-
“I’m sorry,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and pulled her against his warm body. “I’m so sorry about this whole fucking trip, sweetheart,” he said, kissing her bare shoulder before he added, “but don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you.”
Closing her eyes, she sighed, hating herself for what she had to do, but he’d left her with no other choice, now had he?
Chapter 13
“What the hell are you doing?” he snapped, doing his best to avoid her next assault even as he tried his best not to do anything that would make the crazed woman get hurt while she was attacking him with the lumpiest pillow that he’d ever seen, or rather, felt.
“Stop saying that you’re sorry!” she yelled, landing an impressive blow to his back with the pillow that was starting to give off the scent of urine, vomit and some other unknown and equally offensive odor with every blow.
Unable to take another second of that nauseating odor, he grabbed the pillow from his wife, pretending that he didn’t notice the greasy texture coating the stained pillowcase, and tossed it over his shoulder. “What the hell is wrong with you, woman?” he demanded as he was forced to place himself between her and the bed when she went to grab the other pillow.
“Stop saying you’re sorry!” she repeated with a vicious glare that had his balls pulling up tight in a desperate attempt to get out of her reach.
“Why?” he snapped, frustrated beyond belief that he had absolutely no idea what to say to this woman to make this right for her.
“Because even though this trip wasn’t perfect, it was still the best trip that I’ve ever been on and you ruined it!” she snapped through trembling lips as she yanked his shirt on and roughly wiped away the tears beginning to spill down her face and making this a thousand times worse for him.
“I didn’t know that I was going to get sick!” he snapped right back, having absolutely no idea how to talk to her when she was this pissed and praying like hell that he didn’t end up saying something stupid that was going to end up pushing her away.
“I’m not mad because you got sick, you jerk! I’m pissed because you were so damn determined to focus on what went wrong with this trip that you didn’t even try to enjoy it!”
“It’s pretty fucking hard to enjoy something when I’m locked in a bathroom, our luggage getting stolen, being unable to stand without feeling like shit or being forced to watch my wife suffer since I couldn’t fucking get your pills because I was fucking dying!” he shouted and he would have said more, oh so much more, but the little snort of amusement had his rant coming to an abrupt halt and his eyes narrowing suspiciously on the small, deliciously curved woman in front of him, desperately trying to hold back her amusement, but he could see it in her eyes that it was a quickly losing battle.
“Yeah, it was a close call,” she managed to get out with a snort of amusement as she bit her bottom lip and looked away, clearly struggling not to laugh, which of course pleased him.
It was the closest that she’d come to smiling in days and he’d be damned if he was going to let her keep it from him. So, biting back a smile of his own, he did what he had to do.
He used typical Bradford bullshit to make his wife smile.
“I could have died!” he pointed out dramatically, deciding that even Jason couldn’t have done a better job.
She cleared her throat and said, “Yes, yes you could have.”
“I could have!”
“Mmmhmmm,” she murmured, pressing her lips tightly together as she struggled not to laugh so he kept pushing, refusing to stop until he got that smile from her.
“It was a close call! I’m lucky to have survived!”
A snort of amusement escaped those beautiful lips before she asked, “From seasickness?” obviously forgetting just how close to death he really came.
Typical, he thought with an inward sigh…
“From starvation!” he snapped, insulted that she could belittle his brush with death.
“Ummm,” she muttered as
her lips twitched with amusement as she reached up and rubbed the back of her neck as she searched for the right words, “it was only a couple of days.”
“It was thirty-six hours of hell!” he snapped, wondering how a woman that was supposed to love and adore him could forget something like that. “I’m dangerously underweight now!”
Her eyebrows shot up in stunned surprise as she shot him a questioning look while she took in his large frame. “You weigh over two hundred pounds,” she pointed out unnecessarily in his opinion.
“I lost ten pounds!”
“Really?” she said with that same stunned expression that was going to get her beautiful ass spanked, “because you really can’t tell.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
Her answer was a shrug that had his eyes narrowing on her.
“Are you calling me fat?” he demanded, his eyes narrowing to slits on the woman who was clearly enjoying herself.
“Well…,” she said with a shrug, letting her words trail off with a look that said it all.
God, he fucking loved this woman, he thought with a wicked smile as he grabbed her by his shirt and yanked her up on her toes and kissed the cruel woman, who so easily dismissed his brush with death.
*-*-*-*
There really was nothing like teasing her husband, she thought with a smile as she wrapped her arms around him and happily returned his kiss.
“You’re a cruel woman,” he said against her lips as he tore open her shirt.
“You knew that when you married me,” she reminded him with a groan as he released the remains of the shirt on the floor, leaned down, grabbed her by the back of her thighs and picked her up.
Honeymoon from Hell II Page 8
