Hard as Stone (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnnon Sisters) (59 page)

“I like that,”
Harmony whispered, staring out the window as she watched deputies mill around
the entrance of the café, securing the area.

“Like what,
darlin’?” Jacob asked, his voice distracted as he pulled onto the highway
behind Zeke.

“How you call
Heaven ‘our girl’,” Harmony confided. 

Turning his head,
Jacob frowned for a moment.  “What else would I call her, Harmony?  She
is
our girl.”

“Not really.  I
wish it were different, but she’s not yours.  She’s…”

“She’s mine,” Jacob
cut her off harshly with a hard squeeze to her hand.  “She became mine the same
time you did, Harmony.  I was real clear on that.”

“But…”

“No,” he denied
with a shake of his head as he steered the truck with one hand, closely tailing
Zeke’s SUV.  “Sharing some DNA with a kid doesn’t make a father, Harmony, and
thank God for that because no child should be stuck with Tanner Suarez.  A
father reads stories, and jumps on trampolines, and kisses boo boos better and
watches My Little Pony videos until his ears bleed because it makes his little
girl giggle. He fuckin’ loves that sound so much that he’ll put up with those
stupid songs that he can’t get out of his head and those freakin’ pastel
ponies.”  Running a frustrated hand down his face, he shook his head and took a
deep breath.  “Heaven’s mine, Harmony.  I’ve claimed her.  Christ, I’ve loved
that kid from the second you let me near her, and that feeling has only gotten
stronger every day that I’ve spent with her.  You came with strings, Harmony,
but darlin’, they’re the best kind of strings.  They’re the kind a guy would
happily wrap himself up in for the rest of his life if it means he gets to be
with both of you.”

“Tanner’s never
gonna let us be happy, Jake,” Harmony replied, giving voice to her greatest
fear. 

“He’s not gonna
have a fucking choice,” Jacob growled.  “He’s a dead man walking, Harmony.  He
just doesn’t know it yet,” he stated quietly, turning into the ER parking lot
behind Zeke.  Pulling into one of the slots, he killed the engine and looked at
the woman beside him.  “This isn’t the way our life is going to always be,
baby.  This
will
end.”

“He could have
killed Patience.  He could have killed all of us,” she whispered.  “I don’t
want you to get hurt because of me.  Any of you!  I don’t think I could live
with it.  Maybe we should…”

Covering her lips
with his hand, Jacob shook his head.  “Whatever you’re going to say, don’t. 
I’m not going anywhere.  I’m sure as hell not leaving you and Heaven at this
bastard’s mercy.  I love you.  I love Heaven.  We’re together, Harmony, and
that’s not going to change.  Say you understand me,” he demanded, swiping his
thumb against her lips.

“I understand,
Jake,” Harmony whispered.  “I love you, too.”

“Good.  Now, let’s
go make sure your sister is okay.”

 Harmony and Jake
walked into the ER just as they unloaded Patience from the back of the ambulance.

“The rest of the
family is already inside in the waiting room,” Cain called to them from one
side of the gurney as they rolled Patience toward the entrance.

“Harmony!” Patience
yelled, lifting her head and holding out her uninjured arm.  “They gave me
gooooooddddd drugs on da bus!  Did you know that’s what they call an amblance…I
mean inbalance.  I mean…”

“Ambulance?”
Harmony offered helpfully, hurrying toward her sister.

“Uh huh!” Patience
chirped.  “That’s it!”

“They gave her
something to take the edge off the pain because her blood pressure spiked in
route,” Abel explained, keeping one hand on Patience’s forehead as he kept pace
with the moving gurney.

“Is that normal? 
The blood pressure thing?” Harmony fired at Cain as she clutched Patience’s
hand.

“Dunno if it’s
normal, but it feels goooooooddddd!  Even Abel looks yummy on this stuff,” she
admitted, staring up at Abel with glazed eyes as she held up the IV in her good
arm for Harmony to see.  “I didn’t think I’d e-ver wanna do him again, but
now….ROAR,” she snapped her teeth at the attorney.

“Wh-what?” Harmony
gasped, turning startled eyes to Abel.  “You… you and Patience…together?  Like
together
together?”

“Yep, sounds like
some amazing drugs,” Jake choked from behind Abel, trying desperately not to
bust a gut at the rapidly paling man.

“I….we….it’s a
long, complicated story,” Abel stammered as Harmony stared at him with shocked
eyes.

“No, it’s not.  It
was short.  Realllllyyyyy short.  Like, the sex succcckkkkeed short!  Abel is
quick draw McGraw!” Patience giggled.  “A one minute wonder!  A wayyyyy too
eager beaver!  A-“

Clapping a hand
over Patience’s mouth, Abel shook his head.  “She’s drugged.  Pay no attention
to the stoned woman,” he ordered, looking around at their small group.

Choking on his
laughter, Cain looked over at the middle-aged nurse accompanying them.  “Who’s
the attending on shift, Madge?”

“Doc Weaver,” she
replied, her lips twitching with amusement as Patience continued to make noises
behind Abel’s hand.

“Ouch!” Abel
yelped, staring down at Patience.  “You bit me,” he growled, jerking his hand
back from her mouth.

Tugging on
Harmony’s yellow tee shirt, Patience grinned.  “This is pretty.  I like this
color on you.  It’s bright and happy.  Did you know Abel’s junk is pierced!?  I
think he uses the jewelry as a detraction…”

“You mean
distraction?” Harmony asked, her eyes tearing up as she tried hard not to
giggle.

“Uh huh!” Patience
nodded eagerly.  Her face fell then as she said sadly, her words slurring as
she glared at Abel, “Didn’t work.  I still noticed when he called me by
her
name.”

“Patience, baby,
please…can we talk about this when you’re not high as a kite?” Abel begged,
smoothing her hair off her face as they steered her gurney into a tiny
cubicle.  “How the hell much of that shit did you give her, Cain?”

“Not enough,”
Patience sing-songed. “I want more, more, more!!!  Tell ‘em to give me more,
Harmony!  I said that to Abel the night he screwed me, but he just didn’t have
no more to give.  I really hope this joint is better prepared than he was.”

“Oh, holy Christ,”
Jake whispered, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.  “What was it man,
performance anxiety?” he asked Abel gruffly.

“Fuck off,” Abel
grunted, unable to tear his gaze away from Patience.

Cain interrupted
the drama just then, holding up a hand as he gestured at the nurse.  “Madge,
Weaver’s a hack.  He’s not touching my sister-in-law.  Is Dr. Daniels still up
in OB?”  

“Think so,” the
woman replied hooking her patient up to the heart monitors.  “Want me to page
him?”

“Yeah.”  Cain
nodded, wrapping the blood pressure cuff around Patience’s good arm.  “And I
think it goes without saying that anything you’ve heard from our patient….”

“I’m a vault,
doctor.  Besides,” she said with a long, regretful look in Abel’s direction,
“Nobody would believe me anyway.”

Grabbing the
nurse’s arm, Patience lifted her head.  “I’ll be your witness, Madge.  Just
bring me back some more nummy drugs, ‘kay?”

Patting her hand,
Madge nodded solemnly.  “Only if you promise to tell me more about the lagging
pierced junk later.”

“Deal,” Patience
announced with a firm nod.

Watching the nurse
hustle out of the room, the thin curtain swishing behind her, Harmony inhaled
deeply.  “Somebody needs to go outside and fill Honor and Faith in on what’s
going on.”

“I’ll go.  I wanna
make sure Heaven and Miss Orla got here, too.  I’ll be back in five,” Jake
murmured, moving beside Harmony to brush a kiss against her cheek.  “Hang in
there, Spitfire,” he ordered Patience with a wink.  “I wanna here more about
the most terrible sex ever when I get back.”

“Again, fuck off,”
Abel growled, shooting Jake a hostile look.

“”Kay!” Patience
waved.  “He’s sweet, Harmony.  I like Jake.”  Turning her drugged eyes towards
Abel she continued, “Harmony got a stud that gave her nine inches worth of
lovin’ whenever she wants it.  Faith married the guy that took her virginity
AND rocked her world.  I got a dude with a decorated, but highly defective
dick.  Life’s not fair.  You’re the
bad
twin, Abel.  Bad, bad, bad.”

Gripping the rails
of her gurney, Abel bent until they were nose to nose.  “That’s it,
sweetheart.  You get out of this hospital bed, I’m getting a do-over.  My dick
is not defective; I was having a bad night.  I promise when I’m done with
you….”

Cain cleared her
throat from the other side of the bed.  “Uhmmmm, Abel?”

“…you are gonna
feel me so deep you’ll swear that the first night I touched you was just a bad
memory.  First, I’ll….”

“Abel!” Harmony
yelled, elbowing him in the side and nodding toward the curtain.

Looking up, he
found Faith and Honor staring at him with wide, surprised eyes.  “Well, hell,”
he muttered.

“Well, I think
we’ve finally learned the source of Patience’s animosity toward Abel,” Faith
remarked with a grin.

“You slept with my
sister?” Honor growled, narrowing her eyes on him.

“Yep!  But he was
really
bad at it so it doesn’t really count,” Patience shared with a smile.  “Did they
bring me more drugs yet, Cain?  I gotta an owie and it’s starting to really
ache again,” she said, lifting her injured arm and crying out.

“Don’t move,”
Harmony ordered, helping Patience lower her arm back to the bed again.

 All attention
shifted a moment later when a deep, irritated voice yelled from outside in the
hallway, “Why in the name of Hell did somebody page me to the ER for a gunshot
wound?  I deliver babies, for crying out loud!”

Turning, Cain
parted the curtain and stuck his head out into the hallway.  “That was me, Mack! 
I paged you.  Get in here.  The patient is my sister-in-law,” he ordered.

“Whoa!” the man
objected.  “Which one?” he asked suspiciously.  “The sweet one, the nice one,
or the crazy one?”

“The crazy one,”
Cain growled.

“I resent that,”
Patience called out, lifting her head off the gurney to frown at Cain’s back.

“No, you resemble
that,” Harmony returned with a sigh.  “Lie back.”

“Of course it’s the
crazy one,” the Voice grumbled.  “I’ve been up for thirty-seven straight hours,
and God sees fit to send me the crazy McKinnon sister.  I hate this town.”

Harmony watched as Cain
took a step back an incredibly tall, broad man stepped inside the cubicle with
them.  With messy blonde hair and golden brown eyes, he could have been
considered handsome if he didn’t look so rumpled and exhausted.

Barely sparing
Patience a glance, he asked, “Is she shot in the uterus, Cain?  If not, I’m not
your man.”

“Oh, I wish,”
Patience moaned.  “I don’t need my uterus.  It’s just a space filler.  I
need
my arm.”

Cain glared at the
other doctor. “No, it’s a through and through in the upper arm, but Weaver’s on
shift.”

“Weaver’s a hack,”
Dr. Daniels retorted, echoing Cain’s earlier sentiment about Paradise’s oldest
doctor.

“That’s why I had
them page
you
, asshole.  I can’t treat her; she’s family.  I went to med
school with you, Mack.  I know you’re capable of taking care of this,” Cain
pointed out.

“Fuck.  I was going
home, Cain,” the other man complained, reaching into his pocket for a pair of
gloves.  “To my scotch.  And my dog.  And my bed.  None of which I’ve seen in the
past day and a half.”

“You wanna quit
bitching and take care of her,” Abel bit out, glaring at the man as Cain moved
out of the way.  “She’s in pain!”

“Ohhhh, not any
more.  He’s pretty,” Patience declared with a loopy grin as she looked up into
the doctor’s face.  “You don’t have pierced junk, do you, ‘cause that’s my deal
breaker.”

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

“Well, it is!” she
yelled.  “Had one…didn’t do anything for me.”

“God,” Abel groaned,
rubbing a hand over his face.

“Dilaudid?” Dr.
Daniels asked Cain with a raised eyebrow.

“Morphine.”

“That’d explain
it.  Okay,” he said, peeking underneath the pressure dressing on Patience’s
arm.  “Let’s get antibiotics on board and stitch this up for you, Miss
McKinnon.  Clear the room,” he ordered Cain, jumping as Patience’s tiny hand
cupped his crotch.

“It doesn’t feel
pierced,” Patience whispered loudly to Harmony.

 “Aaaand, if
someone could convince the patient to quit fondling my balls, that’d be
splendid,” Dr. Daniels bit out through clenched teeth.

Grabbing Patience’s
hand before it could injure her doctor, Harmony shot the man an apologetic
smile.  “Sorry,” she whispered.