Double Dare (A Neighbor from Hell Book 6) (20 page)

Chapter 34

              “Ummm, what exactly are you doing?” she decided to ask when she felt him place something else on her back.

              “Shhh, not while I’m learning,” he whispered, placing what felt like another piece of paper on the growing pile of papers on her back.

              “Umm, learning about what exactly?” she asked, turning her head so that she could see what he was doing.

              “How to take care of you,” he said, throwing her a quick smile before he returned his attention to the large stack of papers on his lap.

              “When exactly did I come with instructions?” she couldn’t help but ask as she awkwardly reached back and grabbed the haphazard stack of papers covering her lower back so she could see what had her husband up at the crack of dawn.

              Gripping the stack of papers, she sat up and leaned back against the headboard. Yawning, she reached up and rubbed her eyes with her free hand, tempted to curl up and go back to sleep, but she was thirsty and needed to use the-

              “What the hell is this?” she asked, blinking her eyes as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

              “Information about endometriosis, treatments, diets, hysterectomies and after care. The surgery won’t cure your endometriosis, but it will stop it from getting any worse. There are a lot of decisions that we have to make before we get back, but I think we should look into natural remedies first before we try hormone replacement drugs,” he explained as he handed over the piece of paper that he’d been reading and picked up the next one off the large pile.

              Frowning, she looked down at the piece of paper that he’d handed her and felt like she was going to be sick. “There’s still time to figure all of this out later,” she said hollowly as she placed the stack of papers down on the small space between them and stood up, needing to put some space between them for this conversation.

              “Dad and Aidan managed to call in a few dozen favors for us. The surgery is scheduled two weeks after we get back,” he explained as he continued to read through all the paperwork covering the bed.

              “I didn’t ask them to do that,” she mumbled, leaning over her suitcase to find some clothes.

              “You didn’t need to ask.”

              Ignoring the way that her hands shook, she grabbed a change of clothes and swallowed hard. “I’m not having the surgery. At least not yet.”

              “This was the best date they could get for us, Marybeth. If we pass it up we might not be able to get in for a few more months,” he explained distractedly as she knelt there, listening to him shuffle through more papers.

              “I’m not having the surgery yet, Darrin,” she said more firmly as she stood up and turned around to face him.

              “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, looking up from the paper in his hands to frown at her.

              “I can’t have the surgery yet.”

              “What the hell are you talking about? You need this surgery!”

              Licking her lips nervously, she hugged the clothes in her arms against her chest. “I’m not saying that I won’t have the surgery,” she hedged, “I’m just not going to have it now.”

              “You need this surgery, Marybeth,” he said evenly as he tossed the papers aside and got up, probably to shake some sense into her.

              “And I’ll have it, but just not yet.”

              Eyes narrowing dangerously on her, he demanded, “What exactly are you trying to say?”

              “I want to have a baby first.”

*-*-*-*

Two Days Later…

              “You still not talking to me?”

              “Go to hell,” his loving wife bit out as he sat down next to her on the bus that would take them all to Disneyworld.

              At least she wasn’t throwing things at his head anymore, he thought with a sigh, deciding that he was making some progress since his rather unfortunate response to her announcement the other day. Asking her if she had lost her fucking mind probably hadn’t been the best way to handle his wife’s asinine deceleration to have a baby instead of the surgery that she desperately needed.

              Now that he’d had some time to calm down, read up on the dangers and complications for a woman with a severe case of endometriosis attempting pregnancy and spoken with his father, brother and a few specialists that they’d called yesterday he felt more confident when he said, “You’re out of your fucking mind if you think that I’m going to allow you to do it.”

              “Last time I checked, I didn’t need to ask your permission to do anything,” she said acidly as she grabbed her backpack and squeezed past him, only pausing long enough to discreetly kick him in the shin before she stormed off down the narrow aisle, shoved past Aidan and sat down next to Reese.

              Wondering when she’d become so heartless that she’d willingly drag his twin brother in the middle of this, he got up, shoved Aidan out of the way, ignored Arik who was trying to get his attention, and went after her. He was barely four feet away from her when Reese shifted his attention from Marybeth, who was pointedly glaring out the window, to him. When Reese’s eyes locked on him, he swore soundly as he reached down, grabbed his backpack and jumped up to get out of the way, but unfortunately for him, he hadn’t moved fast enough.

              “Sorry,” Darrin mumbled with a shrug as he grabbed Reese by the back of his neck and shoved him aside.

              “You bastard!” his twin gasped as Darrin sent him flying.

              Ignoring his brother’s pained grunt, he sat down, grabbed Marybeth when she tried to storm off again and yanked her down on his lap where he fully planned on keeping her adorable ass until she started to see reason.

             
“Let me go.”

              “Not until we finish this,” he said, settling back in the seat while he kept his arms locked tightly around her.

              “We’re done,” she said, reaching down to shove his arms away, but he simply ignored her.

              “We’re really not.”

              “I’m not having the surgery, Darrin,” she grumbled as she squirmed in his arms as she tried to climb off his lap.

              “You really are.”

              “I’m really not.”

              “We’ll see,” he said confidently as he watched the rest of his family board the bus. When Kenzie stepped onto the bus, she rolled her eyes and muttered something when she spotted Marybeth on his lap. After making a mental note to have a word with his sister so that she would stop the bullshit, he focused his attention back on his wife to find her trying to ignore him.

              It’s like she didn’t know him at all, he thought with a sad shake of his head as he pulled her closer so that he could whisper in her ear. “You aren’t doing this, Marybeth.”

              “It’s not up to you, Darrin,” she whispered back.

              “You really think so? Because the last time I checked, it took two to make a baby.”

              “Just leave me alone,” she whispered, sounding exhausted and making him wonder if she’d spent the entire night missing him as much as he’d missed her.

              “You know that I can’t do that.”

              She shifted on his lap so that she could stare out the window and away from the curious stares of the rest of the bus’s occupants. Shooting them a glare that told them to mind their own fucking business, he shifted his attention back to his wife and said the one thing that had damn near killed him to accept.

              “Children just aren’t in the cards for us, Marybeth.”

Chapter 35

              “You need to stop screwing with my brother’s head,” Kenzie announced as she sat down on the bench next to her while the others tried to figure out what rides Danny could go on without aggravating the old back injury he’d received courtesy of Uncle Sam and a bullet that had lodged itself a little too close to his spine.

              “And you need to mind your own business,” she said, instantly dismissing the woman who’d made it her personal mission to shove Marybeth out of Darrin’s life since the moment that she’d met the youngest Bradford, who’d made her feelings clear by chucking a juice box at Marybeth’s head.

              “He is my business,” Darrin’s overprotective sister said casually as they both watched Danny pull a blushing Jodi onto his lap and kissed her cheek.

              “Shouldn’t you be hovering over Danny with the rest of your siblings?” she asked, barely stopping herself from rolling her eyes as all the Bradford boys narrowed their eyes on the small woman making their older brother smile.

              “He doesn’t need my help.”

              “And neither does Darrin,” she shot back.

              “It would appear that he does,” Kenzie murmured with a slight tilt of her head, drawing Marybeth’s attention to the left where Darrin stood among his arguing brothers, watching her. “You need to let my brother go.”

              “Oh, but I already did,” she admitted as shifted her attention to the soda bottle in her hands.

              “Doesn’t look like you tried hard enough,” Kenzie said, taking the empty bottle from her hands and tossed it in the trash barrel next to her.

              “Oh, but I did,” she said dryly as she leaned back against the bench and watched her husband laugh at something Garret said.

              “Apparently not hard enough,” Kenzie pointed out with a mocking smile.

              “Apparently not,” she agreed with a nod as she held up her left hand and wiggled her ring finger, showing off the Celtic wedding band that Darrin had placed on her finger only an hour ago after he’d stopped by one of the many stores located throughout the park and purchased it along with a matching ring for himself.

              Kenzie froze seconds before her eyes narrowed suspiciously on her. “Is this a joke?”

              “No.”

              “You really married my brother?”

              “I prefer to think of it as the time that I gave into blackmail, but yes, yes I did.”

              “How long ago?”

              “A little over three weeks now.”

              “I see,” Kenzie murmured thoughtfully as she glanced over at her brothers.

              “I’m sure that you do now.”

              “Well,” Kenzie said, sighing heavily as she got to her feet, “that takes care of that I suppose.”

              “I suppose it does,” Marybeth agreed, wondering if this was going to change things between them now that she’d married Darrin.

              “Hurt my brother and I’ll break every bone in your body,” Kenzie said with a friendly smile and a wink as she sauntered off, leaving Marybeth slumping in her seat.

              Maybe not.

*-*-*-*

              “Why exactly are we standing in this line?” he had to ask as he joined her in line for what was probably the most hated ride in the history of amusement parks.

              “I just needed a break,” she admitted with a sigh as she reached over and relieved him of the cold drink that he’d purchased for her while he did his best to block out the music playing over the sound system that still had the power to make shudder with dread even after all these years.

              “From…,” he prompted, taking back the cold soda and took a sip before he handed it back.

              Sighing heavily, she looked off. “From everything.”

              “That really narrows it down for me,” he said dryly, earning a mocking glare that had him smiling.

              “I just needed a break from the glares, looks of pity and your mother asking me if I knew any nice men that might be interested in you or Reese,” she said with a shrug as the line came to stop.

              He rubbed his hands roughly down his face. “I’m going to kill those meddling bastards.”

              “As you should,” she murmured in agreement as the line started to move again.

              For several minutes neither one of them said anything as they walked into companionable silence until finally, he couldn’t take it anymore and he had to ask.

              “What do I need to do to fix this, Marybeth?”

              She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. “I don’t know that this can be fixed, Darrin.”

              “And why’s that?” he asked, placing his hands in his pockets to keep himself from grabbing her and shaking some sense into her.

              “You know why,” she said, sounding sad and confirming his earlier opinion that she’d been put on this earth to drive him out of his fucking mind.

              “You’re turning this whole thing into one of those seriously fucked up Lifetime movies that you’ve got my brother addicted to, you know that, don’t you?”

              “I am not!” she said, gasping in outrage as they walked around a turn and headed down a long slope.

              “Oh, but you really are,” he said, not really caring at this point if he was pissing her off, because she was certainly doing a hell of a job of pissing him off.

              “I am not!”

              “Really?” he asked, arching a mocking brow. “Then what would you call this bullshit that you’ve been putting me through?”

              “Trying to make sure that you didn’t throw your life away,” she grumbled with a scowl as she quickened her step and tried to

              He rolled his eyes, not bothering to quicken his pace since there was nowhere for her go. “Yes, because marrying the woman that I’m madly in love with and want to spend the rest of my life with is throwing my life away,” he said dryly as he followed after her, noting the way that her shoulders went tense as she rounded another corner. “That bullshit line is getting old, Marybeth, so why don’t we get to the real reason why you’re willing to do something so fucked that you’re willing to risk your life, hmmm?”

              “I’m not risking my life,” she bit out, shooting him a murderous glare that said it all.

              Once again, he was right and she fucking hated it.

              “Really? Then what would you call putting off a surgery that you need so that you could take a bunch of drugs that have dangerous side effects and get off medication you need to slow down the tissue wrapping around your lungs on the off chance that you could find a doctor willing to do a procedure that doesn’t have a chance in hell of working?”

              “You don’t know that,” she snapped, but the way that she couldn’t quite meet his eyes when she turned to glare at him told him that she knew that he was right.

              Since he was on a roll and all, he decided to keep going.

              “Don’t I? I thought that we’d already covered this. How exactly are going to do this without my help?”

              “Look,” she said, “I get it. I can’t have children. I managed to accept it before and with some space, a little time and a lot of chocolate, I’ll be able to do it again,” she explained tightly just as she was forced to come to stop when they reached the loading line.

              “How many?” a college kid with a big smile asked.

              “One,” Marybeth snapped just as Darrin said, “Two.”

              Ignoring Marybeth, probably because the kid sensed that Darrin would have beat the shit out of him if he separated Darrin from Marybeth, he gestured for them to go to the last loading line.

              “You’ll never be able to accept it,” he pointed out as he got in line behind her.

              “I did it before,” she snapped back, clearly getting pissed.

              “No, you didn’t,” he said, never more sure of anything in his life.

              “And you know this how?”

              “Because I know you.”

              “Clearly that’s not the case,” she said dryly as they waited for the boat full of passengers to unload so that they could get in.

              “Really? Because I bet it is.”

              “And I bet that you don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped back, keeping her back to him as she tapped her foot impatiently.

              “Really? And how much are you willing to bet that I know the real reason behind this bullshit plan or yours and the one that you used to try and push me away.”

              “I never tried to push you away!”

              “What would you call the last six years, then?” he demanded in a whisper while they watched the boat finally come towards them and lock in place.

              “Keeping my options open in case something better came along?”

              Knowing that she was just trying to piss him off, he ignored her and decided to keep going. “You’ve never accepted it, because for some fucked up reason you think that not being able to have children somehow makes you less of a woman.”

              He’d expected her to glare at him, to argue and deny it, but what he hadn’t expected was for her to suddenly climb out of the boat just as the boat started to enter the ride, leaving him sitting there with no other choice but to suffer through “It’s a Small World.”