Hard as Stone (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnnon Sisters) (58 page)

Nodding, Harmony’s
eyes drifted over to where Faith sat at one of the booths against the wall
cuddled against Cain’s chest.  “You okay?” she called, offering her sister a
sympathetic smile.  She and Cain had both tried to get Faith to go home
earlier, but the poor woman was barely able to move without losing the contents
of her stomach. 

“You didn’t tell me
that morning sickness
isn’t
just for the morning,” she accused hoarsely,
her face wan and tired.  “So far, the only time I’m not sick is when I’m
sleeping.”

“It’ll pass,”
Harmony offered knowingly, smiling at Jake as she walked around the counter to
join him.  “Give it another couple more months.”

“That’s what I told
her,” Cain offered, pressing a kiss against Faith’s temple.

“Months?” Faith
moaned.  “Did you say months?”

Harmony opened her
mouth to reply, but her attention was suddenly drawn to the raised voices
coming their way.

“Seriously, Abel,
all I did was mention to the girl that she might wanna request your shot record
before she dated you!  It’s not like I told her you had the clap,” Patience
yelled as she stomped into the dining room from the bar.  “She asked my opinion
about you, and I just answered honestly.  Besides, you started it when that
stud asked me out last night, and you told him you’d recommend he allow the
doctor to get my dosage right before he went out with me!”

“Uh oh,” Harmony
mumbled, leaning against Jake when he slipped an arm around her waist.

“Oh, good.  The
three o’clock floor show has started,” Honor remarked dryly as Zeke chuckled.

“You had that man
convinced that I had split personality disorder, Abel!” Patience continued to
rail as she whirled to face the red-faced attorney.  “He offered me the name of
his
therapist
as a tip!”

“Hey!  I’m pretty
sure you have some kind of undiagnosed mental condition, woman!  Maybe you
wanna do the rest of the world a favor and dial the number on the card!  Get
that shit upstairs handled before you try and reel in some unsuspecting
bastard.” he yelled back.  “That woman you ran off is the niece of one of my
biggest clients.  Bet me she’s not on the phone right now telling her Uncle
Arlo that his lawyer has VD!!!”

Cain howled with
laughter just as a loud pop echoed through the diner.  Startled eyes glanced
around as everyone tried to determine the source of the noise.

“What was…,” Harmony
began to ask as Jake dove toward her knocking her to the ground and rolling her
underneath him. 

Trying to lift her
head, Harmony heard Zeke’s frantic shout for Honor to get down and watched from
the corner of her eye as he leapt toward her, pushing her sister to the floor
and covering her with his body the same way Jake shielded her.  The sound of
shattering glass and gunfire filled the diner, and she could hear Faith’s faint
screams.  Like a nightmare in slow motion, she turned her head toward the booth
where her pregnant sister had been sitting and saw Cain shoving her sister
underneath the table, blocking her smaller body with his.  Squirming, she tried
to find Patience with her eyes.  “Patience,” she whispered, trying to crawl
from underneath Jake to find her other sister.  “Where’s Patience?”

“Stay down,” Jake
barked in Harmony’s ear as glass continued to explode around them, raining down
on their bent heads.  Pressing more of his weight against her when she tried to
move from under him, he kept one hand around his gun and pushed her head down
with the other. 

As quickly as the horrible
noise began, it stopped, leaving the café eerily silent.

“Is it over?”
Harmony wheezed as Jake came to his knees beside her, gun drawn.  “Jake?”

Jake’s eyes were
busy scanning the front of the restaurant.  “I think we’re clear, Zeke.  Looks
like it was a drive-by.”

Turning her head,
Harmony’s eyes went to Honor first.  Zeke still shielded her with his body, but
now he had her pressed against the counter, his back against her chest as his
eyes and gun did their own sweep of the area.  Distantly, she heard him talking
into his radio, but her eyes were glued to Honor’s frightened face.  Blood
dripped from a jagged cut on her cheek but she seemed unaware of it.  “Are you
hit?” she screamed as she shoved away from Jake and began crawling toward her
sister.

Honor blinked. 
“What? No.  I don’t think so,” she denied, shaking her head.

“You’re bleeding,”
Harmony cried, scrambling toward her sister, glass digging into her knees.

“Stay still,” Jake
growled, catching Harmony’s arm before she could move any closer.  “Glass is everywhere.”

Zeke turned sharply
to look at Honor, his eyes narrowing as he spotted the crimson blood staining
her jaw.  Touching her bloody face with gentle fingers, he probed it carefully. 
“Glass cut.  It’s probably gonna need a stitch or two, but she’s alright.” 
Staring into her terrified eyes, he murmured, “You’re okay, aren’t you,
Kitten?”

Nodding dumbly, she
slowly seemed to become aware of her surroundings, her pupils dilating as she
jerked forward.  “Faith?  Patience?” Honor yelled, slapping at Zeke’s restraining
hands when she tried to stand up.  “Where are they, Harmony?” 

“Faith’s okay,”
Cain barked back, keeping his wife pinned under the table.  “Just scared.”

“I’m not scared,
I’m
pissed
,” Harmony heard her sister’s shaking voice object shrilly.

“Okay, she’s that,
too,” Cain amended, shifting partially out of the booth to look at the damage,
a gun in his hand, too.

“Patience is hit!”
Abel’s hoarse voice roared from somewhere near the front of the restaurant. 
“Get an ambulance in here, Zeke!  Now!”

Shoving Jake to the
side with a strength she didn’t know she possessed, Harmony rushed to the front
of the café, Honor on her heels.  “Oh my God,” she breathed when she saw Abel
straddling Patience’s waist, pressing down on her arm.

“Get off me!” she
heard her sister demand as she twisted her torso beneath Abel’s weight, trying
desperately to squirm out from under him.  “Dammit!  That hurts, you animal!  Are
you deaf?  That freaking hurts!  Get. Off. Of. ME!!!” she screamed, lifting her
head from the floor to glare at Abel.

“You’ve been shot,”
Harmony heard Abel bite off through clenched teeth, his jaw flexing as he
applied pressure to her arm.  Swallowing hard as her eyes focused on his hands,
stained bright red with Patience’s blood, she dropped to her knees. 

“No shit?  I had
no
idea
,” Patience retorted sarcastically, her pain-filled eyes glittering
ominously as she tried to move, wincing.  “Is that what the freakin’ hole in my
arm is all about?  Just let me up and…”

“Patience, calm
down,” Harmony soothed her sister, pressing her hand to Patience’s uninjured
shoulder as Cain crouched beside his brother. 

“Calm down?”
Patience echoed, focusing on Harmony’s face.  “Those assholes shot up our
diner!  And this one,” she yelled, jerking her head toward a pale Abel, “He
pushed me into the bullet!”

Harmony’s eyebrows
lifted, and she heard Abel growl low in his throat.  “I did not!” he hissed as
he moved his hands for his brother to examine the wound.  “If I hadn’t pushed
you down, the fucking bullet would have hit your heart instead of your arm,
Hellion!  God damn it!  You just robbed me of at least ten years of my life
with that stunt.  When I tell you to get down, you get the fuck down!  By God,
if anybody’s gonna take you out, I’m doin’ it – hell, I’ve earned the right -
not some piece of shit with a grudge!” he bellowed back at her, pushing a lilac
strand of her hair back from her face with a shaking hand.

“You didn’t get
down?” Honor asked shrilly, crouching next to Harmony.  “You always get down,
Patience.  If there is gunfire, you duck!  It’s lesson number one!”

“Ouch, shit!”
Patience groaned, jerking when Cain rolled her to her side to look at the
wound.  “I was getting down, Honor.  Then, Mr. Bulldozer mowed me down and
right into the path of….crap, that hurts, Cain!”

“I see an exit wound. 
It’s a through and through,” Cain muttered, his jaw tight.  “I don’t think
it’ll need surgery, but it’s definitely gonna require a trip to the hospital. 
She’s lost a lot of blood.”

“Oh, just sew it up
here.  I’ll be fine,” Patience hissed as her body was moved again.  “I swear,
when I get my hands on Tanner Suarez, I’m gonna reach down his throat and rip
off his scrotum.” 

“Not if I find him
first,” Abel muttered ominously, his eyes never leaving Patience’s pale face.

Harmony looked up
to see Jake and Zeke coming back through the front door of the restaurant,
their faces like granite.  “Where did you go?” she asked Jake as more deputies
poured into the café.  

“Perimeter check,”
Jake replied before turning his attention to Patience.  “How you doin’,
Spitfire?” he asked, kneeling at her head and running a finger over her cheek.

“This looks way
cooler on television,” Patience said with a growl as she closed her eyes.  “And
a hell of a lot less painful.” She hissed as Cain began wrapping her arm with a
towel Faith brought him. 

“You’re lucky to be
alive
, Patience,” Harmony whispered, squeezing her sister’s hand. 
Looking at Jake, she whispered fearfully, “Heaven?  Aunt Orla?”

“Already spoke to
Ice, darlin’.  He’s bringing them both to the hospital.  He’s got two deputies
tailing him.  They’ll be okay,” he assured her calmly. 

“Is that a good
idea?” Honor asked, looking at Zeke. 

“I want everybody
in one location until we locate the car that did the drive-by.  My deputies
have a pretty good description of it.  I’ve got every cop in a hundred-mile
radius looking for it.”

“This is my fault,”
Harmony whispered as paramedics bustled in the door.

“Ow!  Bullshit!”
Patience cursed, glaring at her sister.  “Don’t you dare try to take this on
your shoulders, Harm.  This is Tanner and his crew of fucktards fault.  Not
yours!”

“That’s the blood
loss talking,” Harmony replied with a sniffle, shrugging her shoulder and
wiping her tears on her sleeve.

Turning her head to
look at Cain, Patience complained, “Is an ambulance really necessary?  I mean,
I think if you’d just let me up, I could…”

“What?” Abel
snapped, keeping his hand on Patience’s belly when she would have tried to sit
up.  “Walk it off?  You just had a bullet tear through a part of your body, Hellion. 
I’ve got your blood all over me! You’re going to the fucking hospital if I have
to sit on you to get you there.”

“Fine,” Patience
huffed petulantly.  “Will I get the good drugs?” she asked Cain hopefully, her
eyelids growing heavy as her brother-in-law continued applying pressure to the
gunshot wound.

“All the morphine
you can handle,” Cain promised, straight-faced.

“Thasss niceeee,”
Patience slurred, her eyelids fluttering before closing completely.

“Patience!”
Harmony, Faith and Honor screamed in unison.

“Cain, what’s
happening?” Abel barked, his eyes growing wild as he watched Patience lose
consciousness.

“Pain and blood
loss.  They’ll give her a couple of units of blood and a nice IV drip of
morphine when we get her to the hospital,” Cain returned evenly, helping the
paramedics shift Patience onto the gurney.  Thankfully, the two men had worked
with Cain before, and asked few questions as they relied on the doctor to fill
them on the details while they quickly attached all manner of tubes to their
patient.

Climbing to his
feet, Abel gripped the gurney.  “I’m not leaving her,” he clipped, glaring at
one of the paramedics as they began rolling her toward the door.

“Faith, ride with
Zeke to the hospital,” Cain ordered over his shoulder, staring at the Sheriff
and seeing Zeke nod his agreement.  “I’ll go with Abel.”

“We’ll be right
behind you,” Harmony said, following behind them with Jake’s arm around her
waist.  She knew the others trailed them out of the restaurant.  Looking over
her shoulder, she found Honor’s dazed eyes.  “Do
not
leave Zeke’s
sight.  You either, Faith,” she ordered. 

Both sisters nodded
as Jake opened the door of his truck and helped Harmony inside.  Automatically
moving to fasten her seatbelt, it took her three tries to try and fasten the
latch.  Cursing her numb fingers, she fought tears as Jake brushed her hands
aside and latched the catch for her.  Lifting her eyes to his, she whispered,
“If I’d stayed home like you told me to, none of this….none of it would have
happened.  If ever there was an I-told-you-so moment, this is it.”

“No, it’s not.  If
this hadn’t happened here, it could have happened at home, baby.  These guys
are getting desperate and they made a play today.  Luckily, our girl was safely
at home and away from the action.  I want to rip the shooter’s arms off for
hurting Patience, but I’m glad if it had to happen that Heaven wasn’t here,” he
replied, starting the truck before reaching for her hand and gripping it
tightly in his.