Hard as Stone (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnnon Sisters) (41 page)

BOOK: Hard as Stone (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnnon Sisters)
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Okay, it was safe
to say her statement pissed him off.  Yes, he knew she felt betrayed, but after
the month they’d shared together, she had to know him better than that.  He
should have checked his temper before he barked, “You serious with that shit?” 
Because, sadly, he found out she was.

Bolting to her
feet, she slammed a palm against his solid chest.  Unprepared for her attack,
she was mildly gratified when she sent him stumbling back a step as she yelled,
“I’m serious as a fucking heart attack!  Who the hell are you?  Are you working
with Tanner?  Are you one of his boys?  If you are, you can tell him I’ll die
before he
ever
gets my daughter!”

Locking a hand
around her wrist when she would have reared back to hit him again, he yanked
her forward and wrapped his other arm around her slim waist, plastering her
body against him as.  Bending his head until his nose touched hers, he felt her
ragged breathing escalate as she stiffened in fear.  “Stop it, Harmony.  Stop
this shit and settle down.  I’d never hurt you.  I’d never hurt Heaven.  And
somewhere in that stubborn mind of yours, I know you know that.”

Lifting her face to
his, she spat, “Fuck.  You.”  Her lips twisted in a cool caricature of a smile
then as she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes.  “Oh, wait…. I already
did
that.  Did you share that with Tanner, too?  Did he get off on hearing all the
dirty details of how you suckered me into your bed?  Was that all part of the
plan?”

“Jesus,” he
mumbled, staring down into her angry face, her hair whipping in the gentle wind. 
“Do you actually hear the shit you’re spewing at me?”

“Every word,” she
retorted, throwing his words from earlier back at him.  “I just don’t happen to
believe they’re shit.”

Tightening his grip
on her, Jacob shook his head.  “I am not working with Tanner Suarez, Harmony. 
I have
never
worked with Tanner.  If I ever get the opportunity, I
am
going to end the bastard’s fucking life for what he’s put you and Heaven
through, but that’s the extent of the involvement I ever plan on having with
the son of a bitch.”

“So, I’m just
supposed to believe it’s a wild coincidence that the man that I’ve been fucking,
who also turns out to be the man I found out this morning has been stalking me
and my family since he arrived in Paradise, has no connection to the psycho of
an ex-husband that’s just cannonballed his way back into my life.  Here’s a
newsflash, Jacob!  Being from the country does not make me stupid!” she
screamed, fighting his grip on her as she squirmed in his arms.  “Let me go!”

“Harmony, stop
fighting me before you hurt yourself,” Jacob ground out, winding his arms
tighter around her.  “You’re right, it’s not a coincidence, but you’ve got a
lot of your facts wrong, baby.  If you’ll just let me explain…”

“You mean lie.  If
I’ll just stand here and let you lie to me some more,” she corrected, viciously
twisting away from him and taking a step backward.  “I’m not interested in
hearing any more of your fairytales.”

“Nothing… and I
mean
nothing
I’ve ever told you has been a lie,” he replied softly,
watching as her face clenched in pain.  “I haven’t told you everything, but
nothing I
have
said has been untrue, including the fact that I love
you.”

“Just stop,”
Harmony whispered, shaking her head.  “I’ve had a long day.  A really, really
bad day.  It started when I found out the man I shared my body with turned out
to be some kind of a stalker.  It got worse when I turned around to find my
ex-husband standing in my restaurant and having to listen to him threaten my
daughter and me.  I had to deal with him having his hands on my body.  Then I
had to learn what he did to…” Harmony broke off, choking on a sob as she sank
her teeth into her bottom lip.

“What he did to
who, Harmony?” Jacob asked softly, his heart pounding as he watched two tears slide
out of her eyes and glide down her cheeks.

Shaking her head
quickly, she whispered, “That’s family business.  You are
not
my
family.  I need to go home to my family.  Spout whatever lies you’re gonna tell
so I can get back to people that really care about me,” she demanded hoarsely.

Closing his eyes,
Jacob fought the urge to take a step forward and shake the truth out of her. 
More had gone down in that kitchen than he’d ever imagined, and all of it was
bad.  It was written all over Harmony’s agonized face.  And to help her deal
with it, he had to know what the fuck had happened.  First, though, he had to
convince her that he wasn’t the bad guy.  “Baby, I’m a lot of things.  Some are
good.  Some are bad.  I’m human, and I make mistakes.  Sometimes, I make big
ones.  The one thing that I’m not is a liar.  I haven’t told you things. 
Important things.  But, I haven’t lied.  I am not working with your ex-husband,
and I haven’t been stalking you.  I’ve been trying to protect you.  Damn it, I
love you, Harmony.  And this is true, too.  You are the only woman that has
ever had those words from me.  The
only
one, darlin’.”

“I think every
stalker I’ve ever read about said that exact same thing,” she noted
dispassionately, unmoved by his declaration as she stared at him with wet
eyes.  “Is there some kind of stalker handbook that you all read before you
make your plays?”

Jacob ran a
frustrated hand through his long hair. “Baby.” 

“Who are you?  Is
your name even Jacob Stone?” she whispered painfully.  “Did you even bother to
give me your real name before you fucked me?”

“Jesus Christ!”
Jacob exploded, throwing his hand in the air as he took an angry step toward
her. “Are you listening to a fucking word I’m saying to you?  Yeah, I fucked
you last night, but it was a fuck of a lot more than that, Harmony, and you
damn well know it.  We made love.  You touched me in ways I never thought
existed, and I’m not just talking about my body though, darlin’, I’ll tell you
straight up that I never had better from anybody.  Swear to Christ Almighty, at
times I thought you caressed my soul with yours.   I know I felt that inner
light you carry inside you shining on me.  It was the warmest fuckin’ thing
I’ve ever felt, bar none. That’s how close I felt to you.  You’re not blind,
deaf or dumb, so I know you felt it, too.  So, don’t you dare relegate it to
something as cold and emotionless as fucking!  Don’t you fucking do it!  You
fucking felt it.”

“You didn’t answer
my question,” she remarked tonelessly, sinking back to the iron bench and
looking out over the water.

“Say you felt it,
Harmony,” he demanded in response.

“What. Is. Your.
Name?” Harmony bit out each word.

“Say you felt it,”
Jacob countered again, his eyes going dark and smoky as they locked with hers
in a silent battle of wills.

Harmony looked away
first, her shoulders sagging underneath her heavy coat.  “You know I did,” she
whispered, her voice barely audible.  “Does that get you off?  Hearing me admit
it?”

“No, but it does
give me a little bit of hope that I haven’t completely fucked this up,” he
replied, some of the tension ebbed from his body at her low admission.  It
wasn’t a declaration of love, but he’d take it since it was more than she’d
offered him so far.  Now, he’d taken, so it was his turn to give.  “I’ve been a
lot of people in the last twenty years.  Truthfully, I’ve been whoever I needed
to be to get my assignments successfully completed.  That said, my birth name
really is Jacob Anderson Stone.  My middle name is my mother’s maiden name. 
Until I came to this town, nobody on earth called me Jake other than my mom. 
Until I heard you call me by that nickname, I’d hated it.  Now I live to hear
it fall off your lips,” he shared quietly, watching as she absorbed what he
said. 

He felt her staring
at him, but he didn’t look at her.  Instead, he sat down beside her and clasped
his hands between his knees and forged ahead.  “Most of my colleagues call me
Widowmaker.  I possess a certain skill set that makes the name
self-explanatory.”

“Holy shit! 
Patience was right, wasn’t she?  You’re a hitman for the Mafia!  That explains
all the big, scary guns at your house,” Harmony groaned, burying her face in
her hands and shaking her head.  “My taste in men
sucks
!”

“What?  No!” Jacob
denied quickly, reaching for one of her hands and peeling it away from her
face.  “I’m
not
in the mob, Sweetness, and there’s nothing wrong with
your taste in men,” he insisted while she tried to pull her hand out of his.  “Harmony,
my name is Jacob Stone and I’m an operative for the Drug Enforcement Agency. 
More often than not, I was an undercover operative while on assignments – but I
wasn’t on assignment here in Paradise.  Although, I guess if I’m gonna get
technical about it, I should say I’m a former operative now, or I will be once
the retirement paperwork I submitted this morning is processed.  The reason I
have all the big, scary guns is that when you’ve done what I’ve done for the
last twenty years, a man collects enemies.  I have those gun to protect myself and
everyone else I care about if the situation arises where I have to do that.”

Harmony froze, her
breaths coming fast as white puffs of air formed in front of her lips.  “You’re
what
?” she whisper screamed at him as she finally came unglued from her
seat and hopped to her feet.

Slowly reaching
inside the back pocket of his jeans, Jacob kept his eyes on her face and pulled
out his wallet.  Flipping it open, he passed her his credentials.  “I’m an
agent with the DEA, babe.”

“You… what… how is
that…” Harmony floundered as she stared down at the badge in her hand.  “Are
you for real?” she finally managed to ask, lifting her head to stare at him
with suspicious eyes.

“To make you
understand everything, I need to start at the beginning,” he explained gently. 
“Please, Harmony, sit down and give me that chance.”

 

 

Chapter Thirty-six

“I
gave
you
a chance.  In fact, you had six weeks of chances, Jake,” Harmony whispered, her
blue eyes troubled and confused as she faced him.  “You wasted them all.”

“You’re wrong, darlin’,”
Jake replied calmly.  “I took those six weeks of chances to show you who I
am
,
not what I do.  I wanted you to know
me
.  The real me, not the DEA’s
fabled star agent. 
Me
.”

“You said you were
in security,” Harmony retorted, her hands dropping to her hips as she narrowed
her eyes on him.

“I am in security. 
Security for our nation against the drug trade.  That wasn’t a lie,” he stated
adamantly.  “I also do plan on opening a private security firm in Paradise. 
Doing what I’ve done for the last twenty years, I got pretty good at being a
private investigator.  I’ve already talked to Abel, and his office is chomping
at the bit to throw some business my way.  So, that wasn’t a lie either. 
Again, I have
not
lied to you.  I just haven’t shared everything.  Yet.”

Blowing out an
irritated breath, Harmony glared at him.  “You get that a sin by omission is
still a sin, right?”

“Yeah, I do,” he
agreed with a guilty wince.  “But, I had my reasons.  Let me explain them to
you, baby.  Give me that much,” he encouraged her softly, holding at a hand to
her. 

Harmony ignored his
hand, but she did sit – as far away from him as she could get on the narrow
bench- but she still sat.  “Talk,” she demanded, balling her fists in her lap
as she stiffly settled against her seat.

“Okay, babe, I’ll
talk.  It’s kind of a long story, but it’s important you hear it all and that
you hear it from me,” he began, draping an arm across the back of the bench. 
“I started my career nearly a quarter century ago in the Army.”

“The Army?” Harmony
questioned, turning her head toward him and furrowing her eyebrows.

Nodding, Jacob
murmured, “101
st
Airborne.  I’d just graduated high school, Desert
Storm had just started, and I was ready to get the hell out of my hometown.  It
was selfish, really.  My mother had just lost my father the year before and my
sister was still in school, but I couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of our
little town.  There were too many memories.  Everywhere I looked I saw my dad. 
We were close and I missed him.  So, I signed up to serve our country on the
day I got my diploma.  I figured it was a way out and I’d get to see the
world.  The next week, I was at boot camp at Fort Benning, Georgia.  That
lasted about ten weeks then I was assigned my first duty station out of Fort
Campbell.  Next thing I knew, I was in a dry, dusty shithole called Kuwait.  I
don’t regret signing up though things might have turned out a lot differently
for me if I’d gone another route.  But, I didn’t and I’ve made my peace with
that.  The military laid the foundation for the man I’d become.  They taught me
control and discipline.  I learned about brotherhood.  I learned that some
fights are worth the blood, sweat and tears a man has to shed to win it.”

It wasn’t hard for
Harmony to believe that Jake had served their country; he had that way about
him.  What she couldn’t believe was that he had a sibling she’d never heard
about before now.  “Wait, you have a sister?” Harmony questioned.  She remembered
him mentioning his mother in passing and knew the woman was still alive, and
he’d shared that his father had passed, but this was the first time she’d
ever
heard him talk about his sister.

BOOK: Hard as Stone (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnnon Sisters)
4.43Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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