Hard as Stone (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnnon Sisters) (23 page)

“The best kind,”
Tanner Suarez replied with a slow, evil grin.  “It’s the kind of game Harmony
hates.  Mind games.  They drive the bitch crazy.”  His cruel laugh rang through
the vehicle.

“She almost saw
you, you idiot.  I know Diego told you to
watch
her only. No contact. 
Not fuckin’ yet.  You tryin’ to make her think she’s going loca and almost
getting caught in the process is not part of the plan,” Dante spat.  “You only
have the element of surprise one time, Suarez.  If she figures out we’re here
before Diego is ready, you’re dead, amigo.  Use your head,” he ordered, tapping
his finger against Tanner’s temple.

Shrugging, Tanner
jerked away and reached for his pack of cigarettes.  “It’s just a matter of
time before I get to deal with that punta.  And believe me, I plan on enjoying
every fucking second of tormenting that bitch,” Tanner growled.  “That fucking
cunt had her merry band of redneck thugs chase me off once, but she never
counted on me coming back.  I’m living for the moment she realizes that her
world is fucked.  I’ll take her precious baby girl and watch that heifer’s
agony.  It’ll be better than HBO.”

“Yeah, well, Diego
hasn’t given the go ahead yet, and I work for fucking Fuentes.  Not you,” Dante
spat, his eyes almost black with rage.   “Try that shit again before Diego says
to roll with the plan, and I’ll put a fucking bullet in your head.  He’ll
understand that you were a loose cannon, and I’ll help him find another way
into Paradise.  Using your kid….man, that’s just fucked up.”

“I
am
your
way into Paradise… the only way and you both know it.” Tanner smirked.  “And my
little daughter shall lead the way for us… after I deal with her fucking
mother,” he muttered, lighting his cigarette and inhaling deeply.  “Just chill,
hermano.  I got this shit under control.”

“Just keep your
head in the game, Tanner, and not on all the ways you wanna fuck the piece of
ass you used to be married to,” Dante ordered.

Twisting the key in
the ignition, Tanner offered the other man a cold smile.  “I’m a talented man,
Dante. Believe me, I can do both.”

The short drive to
Zeke’s house was accomplished in a few minutes, and Harmony smiled at him when
he turned to look at her.  “Are you sure that you ladies don’t want to come
inside?  It’s only gonna take me a few minutes to change.”

“We’ll wait here,”
Honor replied almost instantly, folding her arms against her chest. 

“Suit yourself,
hardhead,” Zeke said with a sigh as he cut the ignition, winking at Harmony
before he pushed open his door and hurried up the sidewalk to the cute Cape Cod
that he’d bought just a short mile from their own home. 

“Honor, don’t be
mad at Zeke,” Harmony urged quietly from the backseat.  “He’s just trying to
look out for us the same way he always has.” 

Turning in her
seat, Honor rolled her eyes.  “I’m upset at him for fussing at you.  You’re a
grown woman.  You can chase down an acquaintance if you want.”

“That’s not exactly
what happened,” Harmony returned, shifting uncomfortably in her seat as Honor
narrowed her eyes on her. 

“What do you mean?”
Honor asked suspiciously.

“The person that I
thought I saw back at the store… I thought it was Tanner,” Harmony acknowledged
softly.  “It wasn’t,” she added quickly when her sister’s eyes dilated and her
breathing quickened.  “It was just a Hispanic man with black hair and kinda the
same build as Tanner had, but I freaked and went chasing after him around the
side of the building.  That’s why Zeke was upset with me.”

“In that case, Zeke
was right.  That was a foolish thing to do.” Honor frowned at her sister.  “And
if you tell him I said that, I’ll burn your pancakes for a month.” 

“Don’t worry.  I
won’t take off on a wild chase again,” Harmony assured her little sister
softly. “I just needed to be sure it wasn’t him.”

“He’s gone, Harm. 
He can’t hurt you anymore.  Zeke and Abel saw to that,” Honor reminded her
gently. 

“I know, but I had
the strangest feeling that he was there, Honor.  It’s silly.  It’s probably
just my cold feet about Jake projecting itself on my mind.  I’m looking for a
reason to run from a good man, and memories of Tanner would qualify for that.”

“Jacob is
not
Tanner.  I could skin Zeke alive for askin’ his nosy questions and makin’ you
doubt him,” Honor muttered, glaring at Zeke’s front door.  “That man is always
lookin’ for shadows in the sunlight.  I swear, one day I’m gonna attack him
with my rolling pin for breathing down all our necks.  He’s an irritating pain
in the butt,” she complained, clearly annoyed by Zeke’s interest in their
lives.

“Honor, that’s not
true. Zeke loves you,” she pointed out quietly.  “There’s nothing in the world
he wouldn’t do for you.  When are you gonna see that?”

“Ezekiel sees me as
somebody he failed a long time ago, Harmony.  Ever since then, I’m just the pet
cause he’s takin’ up to try to salve his conscience.  He doesn’t love me.  He
pities me.”

“You know that
isn’t true,” Harmony denied, meeting her sister’s eyes. 

Swallowing hard,
Honor averted her gaze.  “It doesn’t matter, Harmony.  I can’t offer Zeke or
any other man what they’d eventually want from me.  I just… I can’t.  When I
remember what happened all those years ago,” she began tightly.  “My skin
crawls, Harmony.  The idea of a man touching me… even a good man… I can’t
handle it.  I wanna claw off my skin,” she whispered, unconsciously scratching
her arms.

“Hey,” Harmony
murmured, leaning forward to cover Honor’s nervous hand before it could do any
damage.  “Zeke is
not
one of those awful animals that hurt you.  He’s
the man that sat with you every single day after you were hurt and read to
you.  He’s the guy that slept on the couch for three months because it’s the
only way you could sleep… with him there.  And that man is waiting for
you
,
Honor,” Harmony pointed out gently.  “With Zeke, you’d be safe – he’d never
hurt you and he’d kill anybody else that tried.”

“Harmony, I love
you, but I really don’t wanna discuss this for the umpteenth time.  I’ve told
him to move on… to find someone else to focus his attention on,” Honor replied
huskily, before she added bitterly, “He won’t.”

“I know.  He’s
never going to, either.  It’s you or nothing for him,” Harmony said, watching
as Honor began to rub her temples.  “You feel another headache coming on, don’t
you?”

“I’m fine,” Honor
managed tightly, staring out the window.  “I just wish… I wish things could be
different, but they’re not.  Besides, you need to stop worrying about me and
focus your attention on that man of yours.  Whether intentional or not, I know
Zeke made you nervous, Harmony.”

“I’ve been nervous
all along, Sis.  Zeke’s right.  I don’t know very much at all about Jake. 
Seriously, he could be an axe murderer for all I know.”

Laughing, Honor
shook her head.  “I think your head is safe from the axe, Harmony.”

“Yeah, but what
about my heart?” she muttered.  “You think that’s safe, too?”

“I think that like
most of us, Jake has a past.  He didn’t get to be the age he is without
accumulating one.   I’m sure he’ll share when he’s ready.  Give him time.  You
know that most men make me anxious, honey, but Jake doesn’t.  He’s solid.  He
might be a mystery, but I suspect he’ll let you solve it if you give him a
chance.”

“You like him,”
Harmony surmised with a slight smile.  “He’s somehow gotten the Honor seal of
approval.”

“I do like him.”
Honor nodded.  “The way he looks at you… that’s the way Momma and Daddy wanted a
man to look at you, Harmony.  They’d be pleased with him, I think.”

Harmony blinked
back tears.  “You really think so?”

“I really do, and I
think they’d be happy for you and Heaven.”

“Okay, now you’re
gonna make me cry,” Harmony warned as her nose started to burn.  “Happy tears,
but I really don’t wanna explain them to Zeke when he gets back,” she added
with a shaky laugh.

Returning her
smile, Honor clutched Harmony’s hand.  “I want you to be happy, big sister.  I
want you to be happy enough for both of us.  Jake is your second chance at
that.  Don’t let your past have control of your future.”

“Honor, honey, you
need to listen to your own advice.  I promise, I will try, but you need to
start thinking about taking your
first
chance.  You didn’t die that
night everything went to hell.  Neither of us did.  It took me a long time to
realize that, but we didn’t,” Harmony countered, squeezing her sister’s
fingers.  “Promise me that you’ll at least
entertain
the notion of
looking at Zeke as something other than a thorn that got buried in your side.”

Honor huffed
self-defensively. “Do you know how hard that man makes it for me to like him? 
He’s a domineering, dictatorial pain in my rear end.  He’s not happy unless
he’s tellin’ me what to do.”

“I know how hard
you try to convince yourself you feel like that, but I also know that when
things were the worst, only one person made your nightmares stop …. one human
being on Earth brought you peace, little sister.  It wasn’t me or Patience or
Faith.  It wasn’t even Aunt Orla or Uncle Jethro.  It was him,” Harmony said
with a nod to where Zeke now stood outside, locking his front door.

Following Harmony’s
gaze, Honor’s face softened for a brief instant.  “I’m not good enough for
him,” she whispered.

“You’re wrong. 
You’re better than all of us combined, Honor,” Harmony replied gently.  “Most
importantly, you’re everything to him.”

“You’re still a
romantic after everything you’ve been through,” Honor murmured as the Sheriff
walked toward them.

“And you’re not as
hopeless as you wanna believe you are,” Harmony said with a gentle smile.  “But
don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret.  For now.  And in the meantime, I’m gonna
hold out hope that each one of us McKinnon girls gets the man we deserve.”

This time when
Honor looked over her shoulder, it was
her
eyes glimmering with tears. 
“You’re happy.  Really, truly happy.”

“I think I am,”
Harmony whispered as thoughts and images of Jake and Heaven played through her
mind like a movie reel on fast forward.  Jake swinging Heaven on her swing set. 
Heaven grinning proudly up at Jake after she’d caught her first fish at the
pond at the back of the McKinnon homestead.  Jake’s serene face when Heaven
fell asleep against his chest.  Jake’s smile when she’d excitedly informed him
that she’d booked six more weddings in the next three months.  His eyes, dazed
and happy, after she’d made him come.   Yeah, she could safely say she was
happy.

“Then you hang onto
happy, Harmony.  No matter how hard it gets or how scared you are by what you
feel.  You hang on tight to it,” Honor demanded before turning back around to
face the front of the car.

Hang onto happy,
Harmony thought.  She could do that.

At least, she hoped
she could.

Frowning down the
long gravel driveway that led to the main road as he stirred the charcoal
inside the grill, Jacob reminded himself for the third time in ten minutes that
Harmony wasn’t a child.  She’d lived in Paradise all her life and she was with
her sister and the Sheriff, for God’s sake.  He couldn’t help feeling like
something was off, however.

He quickly glanced
to where Heaven sat on her swing set being pushed by her Uncle Cain while her
Aunt Faith lounged in a lawn chair talking to her Aunt Orla and Cain’s father. 
 By the laughter falling from her lips and her feet kicking freely in the air
as she went higher and higher, she was having a blast and was obviously just
fine.   

If it hadn’t been
for that damned text his old partner, Luis, had sent him last night, this would
be a near perfect day.  Unfortunately, the message he’d received indicated that
those wonderful days he’d been experiencing lately were nearing an end.  At
least temporarily.  It was another fucking thing that he needed to talk to Zeke
about...whenever the hell the other man decided to bring his woman back, he
thought irritably.

He hadn’t realized
that he was scowling at the road again until he heard Patience’s low, throaty
laugh behind him.  Glancing over his shoulder at the slender woman, her now
violet locks blowing under the slight breeze, he rolled his eyes.

“Caught ya lookin’. 
Again.  She’s fine, you know.  She’s with Honor and Zeke.  She couldn’t be safer.”
Patience grinned as she handed him a package of hot dogs.  “Heaven likes her
dogs,” she explained when he merely stared at the Oscar Meyer wieners in her
hand.

“I know she’s fine. 
I just thought Harmony and Honor would be here by now,” he muttered, stirring
the glowing coals before taking the package from her.

Reaching into the
metal tub that he’d used as a makeshift cooler for their beers and colas,
Patience smirked at him.  “You are sooo not what I expected for my sister,” she
remarked, twisting off the cap on her longneck and shooting it toward the
trashcan with a practiced hand before taking a long pull off the lip of the
bottle.