Page 331 of Romeo

“Yet.”

Jasper laughed as he stood. “Have you met our families? If we wait until everybody wakes up, Mama’s gonna have breakfast planned, Granny’s gonna want answers, C.C. will spend three hours tellin’ me what an asshole I am, and Georgie will probably sit between us to make sure I don’t touch my own wife.”

That last part was believable enough to make me smile. Somewhere downstairs slept enough Bourbon Kings and Sons of Hell to make privacy nearly impossible. Add Granny, Glorianna, Aunt Marabella, our siblings, their spouses, and all the children, and sneaking away before sunrise suddenly sounded less suspicious and more like self-preservation.

Still, Jasper had planned this. I could tell by the way everything was already packed and waiting. He wasn’t a man who accidentally ended up with both bags ready before his wife woke.

“Where are you taking me?”

“The bayou,” he answered as he collected his wallet from the dresser.

“The actual bayou?”

His eyebrows lifted. “Louisiana hidin’ another one?”

“I mean how far into it? Is there a hotel?”

“No.”

“A restaurant?”

“No.”

“Indoor plumbing?”

He paused for half a second.

I stared at him. “Jasper.”

“There’s plumbin’,” he assured me, laughing as he shoved his wallet into his pocket. “Jesus, Ma Belle, I’m takin’ you away for a few days, not droppin’ you into a swamp with a tent and wishin’ you luck.”

“That pause was disturbing.”

“You’ll survive.”

I watched him move around the room, gathering the last few things. Nothing about him looked tense. He was the same Jasper who had teased me awake and called me wife as if he planned to do it every chance he got. Yet I had spent nearly a year learning how much that easy humor could conceal. He didn’t lie. That was one of the things I trusted most about him. He could dodge a question until I wanted to scream and somehow answer without actually giving me what I asked for, but I had never caught him telling me something untrue.

If Jasper said he wanted a few days alone with me, I believed him.

I just wasn’t sure that was the only reason he had packed our bags before dawn.

By the time we slipped downstairs, I had dressed and convinced my body that walking normally was possible. The Bourbon Bar looked as if the wedding had finally exhausted it. Empty glasses and abandoned plates covered several tables, flowers leaned crookedly out of arrangements that had looked perfect hours earlier, and a tiny child’s shoe sat near the edge of the dance floor with no sign of its owner. One of the Bourbon Kings slept beneath a blanket on the couch, his boots still on and one arm hanging toward the floor.

Jasper stepped around him without slowing. I followed with my shoes in one hand and whispered, “You’re suspiciously good at this.”

He looked back at me. “Walkin’?”

“Sneaking out before witnesses wake up.”

The grin he gave me suggested there were stories attached to that skill I might not need to hear. “I’ve lived a full life.”

“That wasn’t reassuring.”

“Wasn’t supposed to be.”

He reached the back door just as it opened from the other side. Gator stood there holding two travel mugs, already dressed despite the hour, and behind him a dark SUV idled near the building. Its back hatch was open, revealing a cooler, several grocery bags, bottled water, blankets, and enough supplies that my eyebrow rose before I could stop it.

I looked at Jasper, then at his cousin. “What did you two do?”