Free Honeymoon from Hell Part I by R.L. Mathewson Page B

alarm at the hotel had gone off the night before, he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. “You’re welcome, sweetheart.”
    “ The stories?” she reminded him with a soft chuckle.
    Brushing his lips against hers one last time, he leaned back with a smile simply because he couldn’t be around her and not smile. Christ, there was just something about her…
    “ Right,” he said, shoving his fingers through his hair and realizing that it had been way too long since he’d had a chance to see his barber. “I’d always thought the stories were just more bullshit to screw with our heads, but as it turned out they were dead on,” he admitted on a sigh. “I should have waited a year to bring you on a honeymoon.”
    “ Why a year?” she asked with a curious frown as she gently moved her feet through the water.
    “ Every Bradford that waited a year to take his bride on a honeymoon has always been able to give his wife the perfect trip, but every Bradford that took his wife on their honeymoon before the year mark has always wished that he’d waited.”
    “ I see,” Haley murmured thoughtfully as she gazed away from him to squint down at the water as she worried her bottom lip.
    “ And what exactly do you see?” he asked, reaching over to pluck a leaf out of her tangled hair.
    “ Nothing,” she said after a slight pause before adding, “Just that I don’t think that your family is cursed.”
    “ Then what would you call the nightmare that we’ve been dealing with?” he asked, spotting a tiny twig in her hair and decided to pluck that out as well.
    “ Bad luck,” she said with a careless shrug similar to the one that he’d always used when someone in his family mentioned one of the stories meant to screw with his head.
    He chuckled. “You call what’s happened over the last few days bad luck?”
    “ Mmmhmm,” she said unconcerned as she squinted down at the pool where she was tracing lazy circles in the water with her feet.
    “ And the rest of my family that suffered similar circumstances?” he asked, curious to hear how she was going to argue a fact that he was only now starting to accept.
    Instead of answering him, she asked, “Were the honeymoons planned or left to the last minute?”
    “ What does that have to do with anything?” he asked with a frown.
    “ Everything. Now, are you going to answer my question?” she asked, shifting her attention towards him as she gave him another one of those sweet smiles that he loved.
    “ No, they weren’t planned.”
    “ I see,” she murmured, somehow still managing to look thoughtful as she squinted off in the distance.
    “ What exactly do you see?” he asked, shifting into a sitting position so that he could pull off his ruined sneakers and socks and toss them aside, deciding to join Haley and see if the cool water would help soothe the muscle that he’d pulled when he’d tried to dodge that vicious attack.
    “ Well, it sounds to me like it was probably more of a case of poor planning and bad luck than a curse,” she explained with a shrug.
    “ Bad planning, huh?” he asked as he yanked his pants up to his calf. Wincing, he carefully lowered his legs in the pool and nearly groaned with pleasure as the cool water immediately went to work on his sore muscles.
    “ Mmhmm,” she murmured absently as she reached up and pulled the blanket loose from around her chest.
    “ That’s your explanation for two hundred years worth of fucked up honeymoons?” he asked as he watched her pull the blanket loose and push it down, making him lick his lips hungrily. Even though he knew that none of the other neighbors had a clear view of their backyards, he still looked to make that no one else could see his beautiful wife strip naked.
    “ Well,” Haley began, dragging his attention back to her as she pushed the blanket off her lap and carefully lowered herself in the pool, “if they’re anything like you, and I’m guessing that they are, then they