Hard as Stone (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnnon Sisters) (45 page)

“Honor, I’m an
astute enough lawman to recognize when somebody is deflecting my questions,” he
reminded her softly.  “I’ve been doing this a long time and I know you know
that I’m a patient man.  I’ll wait you out.  I won’t like it, but I’ll do it.   What
did Tanner say to you all, Kitten?” he asked, keeping one eye on the road and
one eye on her. 

 “I have asked you
repeatedly not to call me that,” she snapped, her teeth grinding as she turned
her head to glare at him.

Zeke’s lips
twitched when he watched Honor’s lips purse.  Pleased when her face finally
registered some kind emotion, even if it was irritation, Zeke grinned.  “Can I
help it if it suits you?  Sweet as spun sugar one minute, spitting and hissing
at me the next.”

Honor rolled her
eyes before facing front again.  “I still hate it,” she muttered, frowning when
Zeke pulled the SUV to the side of the road.  “What the devil are you doing?”
she asked, gripping the door handle with one hand as she shot him a bewildered
look.

“Waiting you out,”
Zeke informed her easily, crossing his arms over his chest as he met her stare
with a hard look of his own.  “Told you, I’m patient, Honor,” he reminded her
as he watched her swallow and her eyes dart to the road.

“Ezekiel, put this
automobile in drive and take me home,” Honor demanded tightly as her free hand
gripped the seatbelt across her chest.

“Tell me what
Suarez said that had you looking like you’d seen a ghost when I got in that
kitchen with you,” he countered, watching as the color leeched out of her face
and her eyes glazed.

“Take me home.  I
want to go home,” Honor replied faintly.

“Honor, sweetheart,
I need to know….”

“You saw him!  He
was hurting Harmony,” she said shrilly, her words bouncing in the cab of the
truck.  “He was scaring Heaven to death.  I think that was enough to turn my
face pale, don’t you?  Instead of sitting here wasting valuable time asking me
stupid questions, why don’t you get out there and find him before he hurts
somebody else?”

“Honor, I’ve got
men out all over the county searching for the son of a bitch,” Zeke returned
calmly, reaching for Honor’s hand.

Honor recoiled from
his outstretched hand with the force of a bullet, throwing her body against the
SUV’s door.  “Don’t touch me,” she ordered sharply, her high voice piercing the
silence in the vehicle. 

Letting his hand
drop to the armrest between them, Zeke’s face tightened and his gut clenched at
the very real fear he saw etched on Honor’s face.  Her chest rose and fell
quickly beneath the seatbelt, and God help him, she looked on the verge of
hyperventilating.  “Honor, tell me what’s happening here,” he urged, carefully
keeping his voice low and soothing as he watched her sink her teeth into her
full lower lip.  “You
know
I’d never lift a finger to hurt you.”

Honor fought to get
her rapid breathing back under control and it felt like dragging air into her
lungs took what little energy she had left.   “Please, Zeke,” she whispered,
lifting a shaky hand to rub her temples.  “It’s been a long, awful afternoon. 
I just want to go home.  Will you please take me home now?”

Staring at her for
a long, tension filled minute, Zeke slowly nodded.  “I’ll take you home,
Kitten,” he averred huskily.   “You’ll get some rest and then we’ll try this
again, okay?”

Honor simply turned
her head to stare out the window, neither affirming nor denying him.  Sighing
heavily, Zeke shifted the SUV into drive and silently reminded himself that all
good things in life were worth the wait.

And Honor McKinnon
was definitely the very best thing in Zeke’s life.

Pulling the Little
Mermaid bedspread over her daughter’s sprawled sleeping body, Harmony planted
her forearm in the twin bed beside Heaven’s arm and leaned forward to brush
another kiss against the girl’s temple.  Staring down at her baby, Harmony was
grateful that Heaven slept deep and peacefully. 

No one would argue
that it had been a traumatic afternoon for her little girl, but she appeared to
be handling it in stride.  Heaven had awoken from her nap not long after Jake
and she had gotten back to the house, and no one there had wasted time spoiling
her.  She’d cuddled, Jake had played, and her sisters had stuffed Heaven with
every junk food known to man.  Her upsetting day had ended okay, though; the
preschooler had eaten the fries from the Happy Meal her Uncle Cain had brought
her, sitting  in Jake’s lap while her eyes had been glued to her newest movie
obsession, Frozen.

Jake had waited
until Heaven began drooling in her sleep to believe she was actually out for
the night and Harmony’s lips twitched as she remembered the way he’d seemed to
hold his breath as he tucked her underneath the covers.  With a light touch on
her shoulder, however, he’d left her alone with her child, almost as if he
sensed that she needed some time to come to terms with what had happened today.

Now, staring at her
daughter’s slack face, with her little hand tucked underneath her chin, Harmony
allowed herself to be relieved.  Heaven was safe; they both were.  Outside
milling around the front yard and inside the house were a whole host of family
and friends that were ready and willing to take on her battle, and more were on
the way. Zeke had stationed deputies outside of the house, and one was assigned
to stand outside of Heaven’s bedroom window.  Harmony had heard Slade come in
as she’d been following Jake to Heaven’s bedroom, and Abel had mentioned that
Margaret, a longtime family friend and also Abel’s paralegal, was also going to
stop by.  She was actually looking forward to seeing the free-wheeling
redhead.  Now, Maggie was a woman that she doubted even Tanner Suarez would
cross on a bet.

Honestly, Harmony
was grateful for any distraction that shifted her attention from the shit storm
that had descended over her family.  She tried to tell herself not to worry;
that everything would be okay.   Faith had a loving, devoted husband in Cain. 
Ezekiel would give his last breath for Honor.  And despite their acrimonious
relationship, Harmony knew Abel would do anything in the world for Patience. 
Most importantly, no matter what happened to her, she knew that her sisters
would always make sure her child was safe and loved.  And if the look on Jake’s
face when he’d dropped a kiss against Heaven’s forehead before leaving the
bedroom was any indication, her little girl had changed his life, too.  He’d
find a way to move mountains if it meant keeping her safe.

She still wasn’t
sure what to do with her mixed feelings about him.  It would take time and
energy she couldn’t afford right now to sort through that tangle of feelings,
but she suspected he wouldn’t remain patient long.  Hell, if the looks he’d
been shooting her all afternoon every time she withdrew from him were any
indication, he wasn’t exactly patient now.  She wasn’t exactly rebuffing him on
purpose, but that old adage, ‘Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame
on me’ kept running through her mind any time he got too close.

Adjusting the
covers one more time over Heaven’s still body, Harmony whispered, “Everything
is going to be okay, baby.   Momma loves you.”

Hearing the door open
a crack behind her, she turned toward the sound.  “Darlin’, people are starting
to gather.”

Giving her daughter
one last look, Harmony nodded before getting carefully back to her feet,
careful not to jostle her daughter.  Stepping into the hallway, she pulled the
door almost closed and turned to find Jake leaning against the wall.  “Have you
been out here the whole time?”

“Told you I wasn’t
gonna leave you alone, Harmony.  I meant it,” Jake reminded her in a hard
voice.

Harmony felt her
blood begin to boil in her veins.  “I hardly think I need a bodyguard inside my
own home.  In case you haven’t looked around, I’m surrounded by people that
care about me.  You can
go
, Jake.”

“Not leaving,” Jake
declared simply, his face shadowed in the faint light from the hallway lamp.

“I need time, Jake”
Harmony ground out, her body going solid in the face of his obstinacy.

“Take it,” he
offered agreeably.  “Still not leaving.”

“Time which doesn’t
include you breathing down my neck, dogging my every footstep like some kind of
love starved puppy,” she elaborated on a hiss.

“Sorry, can’t give
you that.”  He shrugged his broad shoulders.  “I’m.  Not.  Leaving.”

She wanted to curse
and swear at him.  She even opened her mouth in preparation to blast him back
to Hell and gone.  Unfortunately, however, she had a sleeping daughter in the
bedroom behind her that she needed to keep in that bed, and she closed her
mouth abruptly.  By the faint grin playing around his lips, he knew all this; the
look on his face told her that he didn’t mind using her situation to his
advantage.  He had her; he knew she wouldn’t do anything to disturb Heaven,
damn him.  “This isn’t over,” she promised, whirling to walk angrily toward the
kitchen, aware that he was following on her heels.

“Bet your ass it
isn’t over,” she heard him rumble behind her.  Harmony gasped when she felt his
warm hands catch her hips and pull her back against his chest.  She was never
quick enough to outrun him; she wasn’t sure why she even bothered.

“Harmony, after
this family discussion, you and your sisters need to have another kind of talk
with Honor.  Tonight.  Patience has already…medicated Honor’s tea.  Cain says
it won’t knock her out, but it’ll take the edge off her enough so that it’ll be
easier for her to talk.”

Turning, Harmony’s
jaw hung open.  “You had them
dose my sister
?” she whisper-yelled,
stiffening in the circle of his arms.  “Isn’t that nine kinds of illegal? 
Being a DEA agent, I’d think you, of all people, would frown on the action!”

“It’s Honor’s prescription,
Harmony.  One that Patience and Faith shared that she’s had for years.”

“She doesn’t use
it,” Harmony snapped, angry for her baby sister. 

“Maybe, but it’s
always been here if she needs it,” Jake reasoned.  “She’s going to need it
tonight, darlin’.  We need to know what Honor remembers.”

“Why?” Harmony
asked suspiciously.

Jake stared at her
for a long second.  “Honestly?” he asked quietly, lifting a hand to touch the
ugly bruise on her cheek.  “There are a lot of reasons, but the primary is that
what she tells you decides who’ll put the final bullet in Tanner Suarez.  Me or
Zeke.  One of us has earned that right; it’s just a matter of which one of us
deserves it more.”

“Zeke doesn’t even
know,” Harmony whispered worriedly.  “Hell, none of us are sure what Honor
remembered today, if anything.”

“Well, you and your
sisters are gonna find out.  Then, Zeke’s gonna know.  No man in this house is
gonna keep that kind of secret from him, Harmony.  Not with the way we all know
he feels about her,” he warned.  “If Zeke kept that kind of shit from me, I’d
beat him to death, and he’d agree that he had it coming.  I am not going to
offer that man any less than he’s given me.  I like the man too much for that;
but more, I respect him.  So do the others, only more so because they’ve known
him longer.  He’s gotta be told.”

Harmony flinched
and looked away.  “I love Zeke.  He’s always been there for us, but Honor won’t
like it.”

“Probably not,” he
agreed.  “That still doesn’t change anything.  He deserves to know the truth
about what happened to his woman, whatever that is.”

 “If you value your
life at all, for the love of God, never,
ever
let Honor here you say
that shit,” Harmony muttered. 

“What shit?”

“She’s Zeke’s
woman.” Harmony informed him with a shudder.

“Newsflash, babe,
she
is
Zeke’s woman,” Jake replied evenly.  “I’m newer than a shiny
penny around here, but even I know that.”

“If you don’t want
to see Honor’s head spin around like that scene in The Exorcist, you’ll keep
that opinion to yourself,” Harmony warned.  “She doesn’t see it the way you do,
and I don’t know if she ever will, Jake.  Seriously, those kind of comments
will get your ass banned around here.”

Jake’s lips
twitched.  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Rolling her eyes,
she turned toward the dining room again.  “Everybody here?” she asked.

“Some of the boys
are still out by the barn, but I think they were wandering this way earlier,”
Jake replied as he followed Harmony into the dining room.

Faith smiled from
the table.  “There you are. We wondered if you’d fallen asleep, too.”

“Heaven okay?”
Honor questioned from her position at the head of the long oval table.

“She’s fine and out
like a light,” Harmony said, moving to the sideboard and pouring a cup of
coffee.  “I think the day caught up with her.  She never moved once Jake slid
her in bed.”

“I think I envy the
kid’s ability to sleep through anything,” Patience noted enviously.  “Those
were the days.”

“Well, maybe once
we have this discussion, everyone can get some rest,” Honor said, wrinkling her
nose as she sipped her hot tea.  “Good Lord, Patience, how is it possible that
you were born into this family and can
not
make a single cup of drinkable
tea.”