Hard as Stone (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnnon Sisters) (6 page)

“I’m sorry,” Jacob said
softly.  He was.  Nobody deserved what had happened to Honor; especially not
the sixteen-year-old girl she’d been when she’d been brutalized.  Christ, Honor
was petite now, but she must have been tiny then – certainly no match for five grown
men.

“Me, too.  But you
need to hear the rest.  There was more to it than even that – for both Honor
and Harmony.”  Running a hand over his face, Zeke swallowed hard.  “Jesus, I
haven’t talked about this shit in years,” he muttered. 

Jacob gave the
other man a sidelong look.  He felt for the guy.  It looked like his memories
were ripping him apart. “Wanna take me up on that beer now?  You look like you
could use it, Sheriff.”

“Screw the beer. 
I’m gonna need a whiskey,” Zeke declared, rising from the bench and turning to
face Jacob.  “And if you’re truly interested in Harmony in the way you claim to
be, you’re gonna need one, too.  This isn’t a pretty story, Stone.  It’s
ugly…sad… and totally fucking infuriating.”

Straightening from
his perch, Jacob squared his shoulders as he wondered how the hell much worse
it could get.  “Then we better order the bottle because interested is a mild
term for the attraction I feel toward Harmony.  I want to know everything,
Zeke.  I want to know it all.”

Jacob followed Zeke
inside the restaurant, frowning as the bell above the door drew the curious
stares of several patrons inside the bar.  He’d never liked being the object of
attention, but in the small town of Paradise, new people tended to garner
interest.  Ambling in with the Sheriff in tow only seemed to add to his
mystique, and he felt the stare of several pairs of curious eyes on him as he
moved toward his normal table. He nodded to the pretty waitress headed their
way as he shifted his bulk into the high-backed booth opposite Zeke.  

“Well, two fine ass
men are sittin’ in my station this evening.  I need to check the calendar and
see if it’s my birthday,” the woman, whose nametag declared her to be Sherri, greeted
them with a flirty wink in Jacob’s direction.  “What can I get you tonight,
sugar?  Beer?  Bourbon?  A little taste of me?” she asked lightly, dropping her
slim hand to the back of Jacob’s neck and rubbing her palm slowly as she canted
one rounded hip to the side and rested it against his shoulder.  Glancing at
the sheriff, she giggled.  “I know better than to offer the good Sheriff Monroe
here anything extra again,” she remarked to Jacob with a wink.  “I do believe he
still has both his heart and all his other important manly parts on hold for
another lucky lady, aren’t they, Zeke?”

Jacob took
uncharacteristic mercy on the man across from him and cut the flirty waitress
off abruptly.  Clearly Zeke was in no mood for the woman’s antics and
truthfully, neither was he. “Neither one of us is interested in what you’re
tryin’ to offer, babe.  Just do us both a favor and cut the idle chitchat and
get us both have a couple of fingers Jack Daniels.  Neat,” he ordered in a
surly tone that made the woman’s eyes widen slightly. 

“Anything else?”
she asked sharply, her face hardening as she narrowed her eyes on him and
withdrew her hand from his neck.

“No,” Jacob
returned flatly, watching as the woman nodded before scurrying back toward the
bar.  Meeting Zeke’s amused eyes, Jacob shook his head and shrugged.  “I don’t
think either of us is in the frame of mind to be hit on, do you?”

“Can’t deny that,
but not many men are brave enough to put a stop to Sherri when she’s on a roll. 
For payback, she’ll have it all over town by mornin’ that you’re as gay as
Liberace.”

Jacob snorted.  He’d
seen Sherri around the bar during the past month, and had already labeled her
as a harmless flirt.  “There’s only one woman that I give a shit what she
thinks, Zeke, and it ain’t Sherri.  Besides, that woman knows damn well that
I’m seeing Harmony tonight.  She was standing there when little Heaven arranged
our ‘date’ for me.  And any fool with a working set of eyes knows how you feel
about Honor.  Well, everybody with the exception
of
Honor, that is.  She’s
free to try and do her worst to me.  I won’t be leaving Harmony with any doubts
about my masculinity.”

“You have impressed
her; I’ll give you that much,” Zeke conceded, slouching into the corner of the
booth with the ease of a man who had been there many times before.  “The fact
that you got Harmony to agree to go out with you tonight might go down in
Paradise history as a genuine miracle.”

“That was more
Heaven’s doing than mine,” Jacob replied evenly as Sherri returned with their
drinks, sliding them in front of each man without a word or a backward glance
as she walked away.

Glancing at the
waitress, Zeke smirked.  “Yeah, you’ve made a real friend there,” he chuckled as
Sherri shot a glare in their direction.

“Don’t give a
shit.  Sherri doesn’t matter to me and Harmony does,” Jacob dismissed him
unapologetically.  “I’m surprised that Patience didn’t fire the woman last week
when she insulted that customer by sitting in the woman’s husband’s lap.  Now,
can we move past the horny waitress and focus on what’s important?  Tell me
about what happened, Zeke,” Jacob demanded, reaching for his glass and lifting
it to his lips. 

Zeke slowly took a
long sip from his own glass before fixing his pale gray eyes on Jacob. 
“Harmony and Tanner dated all through her high school years.  Nobody liked him,
but everybody loved Harmony, and Tanner was smart enough to see it.  Even if
people couldn’t stand him, they’d tolerate being around him for her.  I’ve
never been quite sure what she saw in the guy, but not even her parents’
dislike of him was even to sway her from being with him.  God, her daddy
hated
that boy.  I couldn’t blame him.  Everybody, except Harmony, could see he was
using her.  He sure as hell wasn’t in love with her – not with the way he
fucked around behind her back.  Of course, at the time, Harmony didn’t have a
clue.  She thought the boy was as wrapped up in her as she was in him.”

“Sounds like a good
actor,” Jacob mused aloud as a muscle flexed in his jaw.

“Only for Harmony.”

“I don’t get it.” 
Jacob tapped his fingers against the table.  “A woman that looks and acts like
Harmony…why the fuck would anybody step out on that?”

“Harmony was a
means to an end for Tanner, Jacob.  Personally, I think Tanner stayed with her
because he had dollar signs in his eyes.  See, Harmony’s parents were
well-off.  Their farm was profitable, and their restaurant and bar were
successful even back then.  I think the man always figured that he’d inherit a
share of that when her parents passed away.  Nobody ever expected that to
happen as soon as it did, though.”

“Wait?  She didn’t
inherit?  I thought she owned a share in this place.”  Jacob lifted a curious
eyebrow as he waited for Zeke to respond.

“She does now. 
Back when her parents first died, no.”  Seeing Jacob’s mouth open again, Zeke
held up a hand.  “Just listen,” he ordered.  “When Harmony married Tanner right
out of high school, it infuriated her daddy.  They ran off to Gatlinburg after
graduation before anybody even realized where they were going.  When they came
back three days later, married, Harmony’s father marched right into his
attorney’s office and had his will changed.  There was no way he was gonna
leave it where Tanner could get his hands on what he and his wife had worked so
hard to get.”

“Why didn’t Tanner
divorce her then?” Jacob asked, confused.  “If he knew he wasn’t gonna get what
he wanted out of the marriage, why not cut her loose and move onto greener
pastures?”

“Because he didn’t
know.  Hell,
nobody
knew – even Harmony’s sisters – what their father
had done until after her parents were killed in a drunk-driving accident.  When
the will got read, Tanner was furious.  He blustered all over town that he was
gonna contest it, but Harmony was heartbroken.  There she was… she’d been on
the outs with her folks over this man, and suddenly, they’re gone.  The money
was the farthest thing from her mind.  She didn’t care about any of it, and without
her initiative, Tanner couldn’t do anything about contesting it anyway.  Oh,
they fought about it, but Harmony stood her ground.  She already felt guilty
for disappointing her parents; there was no way she was gonna make a stink
about the will.  Tanner was determined, however, and it wasn’t until Abel
Turner explained in no uncertain terms that there wasn’t jackshit he could do
unless Harmony backed him up that the bastard tried going another route.”

“What did the
jackass do?” Jacob seethed, hating this man that had been with Harmony more
with every passing second.

Zeke snorted.  “He
tried to ingratiate himself with Harmony’s sisters and weasel his way into the
heart of the McKinnon clan.”

“And they just
accepted him into the family with open arms?” Jacob asked, disbelief leaking
from his tone.  “These ladies are sweet, Zeke, but I didn’t think
any
of
them were stupid!”

“They weren’t
stupid, Stone,” Zeke snapped, his eyes flashing as he looked at the other man. 
“But they
did
want their sister back in their lives.  After losing their
anchors, they wanted to find a way to keep Harmony close to them.  It was clear
to anybody that Harmony loved Tanner to distraction and wasn’t gonna give him
up.  So, in order to avoid losing Harmony, they accepted Tanner.  At least, on
the surface.”  Noting the furious look on Jacob’s face, Zeke continued
quickly.  “Nobody threw the girls to the wolf baying at the door.  Aunt Orla
took charge of Faith, Patience and Honor after their folks died, and she kept a
close watch on Tanner.  Cain and Abel Turner kept their eyes on him, too. 
Hell, I fucking tailed him myself.  We thought we were doing everything we
could to protect Harmony and the girls,” he murmured, staring into space as his
eyes clouded.  “We didn’t do enough.”

 “So, what happened
that finally tipped the scales and made Harmony see Tanner for the shit he is?”

Jacob watched Zeke
reach for his glass again and drain it in a single swallow.  Whatever happened,
it had been bad.  A man only needed to take a look at the tortured sheriff to
know that.

“The night that
those bastards grabbed Honor, it was Tanner that was supposed to pick her
up.    Unfortunately, he got sidetracked while he was fucking another woman. 
Because of him, Honor nearly died.”

Jacob hissed. “Fucking
hell,”

“Yeah,” Zeke
muttered tonelessly as he reached for the remainder of the whiskey in Jacob’s
glass.  Picking it up, he looked at the other man.  “You mind?”

Shaking his head,
Jacob could only stare at Zeke. 

Zeke took a sip
from the glass before speaking again.  “Here’s the part where it gets worse for
Harmony.  You sure you wanna know the rest?”

“Wanna know?” Jacob
echoed.  “No.  I don’t wanna know, Zeke,” he said with a growl.  “I
need
to know.”

Taking a deep
breath, Zeke nodded.  “After we got Honor to the hospital and made sure that
she would survive, Harmony left to confront Tanner.  She was blaming herself
for what happened to her sister, and she wanted her pound of flesh from Tanner. 
I can’t blame her.  If I’d gotten my hands on the son of a bitch that night,
I’d have killed him with my bare hands.   At any rate, we were all so exhausted
from the search and wrapped up in what was happening to Honor that none of us
were thinking straight.  Nobody noticed until hours after she left that Harmony
hadn’t come back to the hospital.  If I’d known what was going on between the
two of them behind closed doors, Jacob, I swear to Christ I’d never have
allowed her to leave that night.”  Zeke choked, his face clenching as he got
lost in the memory of that night.

Jacob stiffened as
he heard Zeke’s voice crack.  “What the fuck did that bastard do to my
Harmony?” he snarled, gripping the edge of the table in a white knuckled grip.

“He beat the ever-loving
shit out of her.  Busted her face up, gave her a concussion and bruised three
of her ribs.  It’s a goddamned miracle that he didn’t kill her and an even
bigger miracle that she didn’t lose the baby.”

“She was pregnant?”
Jacob asked through lips that barely moved.  White-hot fury rolled through his
body like a tidal wave as he waited for Zeke’s response, his legs clenching as
fought the urge to run from the booth and protect Harmony right then.

Zeke’s head dipped
an affirmation.  “Yeah.  We didn’t know until Cain checked her over that
night.  She didn’t even know.  Sad part was, that hadn’t been the first time he
hit her.”

“Tell me it was the
last,” Jacob demanded, his voice a primal growl.

Zeke nodded again. 
“Harmony
isn’t
stupid.  She made some bad decisions, but she was a young
girl in love with the only boy she’d ever really known.  She grew up fast that
night and cut him loose.  The son of a bitch was relieved to be free when he
found out she was carryin’ his kid.  He didn’t want any part of being a daddy. 
The bastard didn’t waste any time signing the divorce papers and the
termination of parental rights that Abel served him.  He burned rubber leaving
this town before the ink was even dry.  Of course, that could have been because
I had a gun aimed at him,” he explained, shrugging negligently as he dropped
the glass back to the table.  “Either way, that was the last time we saw the
prick.”