Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4) (15 page)

“I’ve got it,
Zeke,” she replied with a heavy sigh.  “Now, please go do your work and let me
continue with mine.  I’ll be a good girl and treat your trained monkey to all
the pie and coffee he can handle.”

“So, we’re good?”
Zeke asked suspiciously.  “You’re not gonna wait until my back’s turned and plant
that knife in it or take off on Deputy Hightower as soon as I clear the
building, right?  This little war of ours is over?”

“That depends. 
Are you going to cease with your Hillbilly interpretation of Genghis Khan and
trust me to make some of my own decisions?”

“I’m gonna try,”
Zeke granted magnanimously.

“The laundry?” she
clipped.

“I’ll make sure I
do my fair share of the laundry and the other housework,” he offered
good-naturedly.

“Except the
kitchen,” she added swiftly.  “The kitchen is my domain.  You can have the
bathrooms.”

“Generous,” Zeke
returned, trying not to smile too widely.

“Are you going to
stop tampering with my TiVo programming?” she questioned tartly.

“All those soapy
programs will be safe, henceforth, Kitten,” Zeke agreed with a somber nod.

“You don’t like my
zombies, but you’ll watch that horrible Sports Center like it’s Moses speaking
from the mount?  Tell me, Sheriff Monroe, would you give that up to live with
me?” she queried hopefully.

Zeke shrank back
from her in feigned hurt.  “Seriously?  You would ask a man to give up his
daily dose of sports news?  Why don’t you just ask for one of my balls?  That’d
be easier to part with.”

Honor snorted.  “I
had to try,” she stated flippantly.  “Alright, Ezekiel.  I suppose we’ve staved
off World War III for another month,” she conceded.

~~***~~ 

Sadly, the cease fire
didn’t last a whole month, but even more surprisingly, it was neither Zeke nor
Honor that fired the shot that brought forth the craziness that descended over
the town of Paradise next.

February 14, 2016

From the day of their
showdown at the I Don’t Care Café and for most of the next month, Zeke and
Honor had a good run, making it to Valentine’s Day 2016 without any kind of
mass mayhem or murder between them.  Sure, there had been the occasional
skirmish to navigate, but that was to be expected when two people with
different personalities began to share a household.  Zeke had to learn that the
laundry hamper wasn’t a suggestion and Honor was forced to admit she might have
slight OCD tendencies where it came to cleaning, but mostly it had been a
peaceful few weeks between them.  Overall, in a lot of ways, they’d grown
closer.  Zeke had learned to appreciate Honor’s love of all things
zombie-related and Honor endeavored to tolerate Sports Center.  They shared
meals and chores, and tried to make the best out of their situation.

If there was a fly in
the ointment the last few weeks, it was the fact that those damned anonymous
messages to Honor hadn’t stopped appearing.  Every few days, Zeke found one. 
Sometimes they were in the mailbox.  Other times, he’d found notes stuck
beneath the windshield wipers on the passenger side of his SUV where Honor sat
when she was with him.  She’d even started getting them at the café, but thankfully,
Aunt Orla and Diego Fuentes, who lived above the cafe, were willing
co-conspirators in keeping those damned ominous ‘We’re watching you,’ notes
away from his girl.  She was already having enough trouble sleeping at night. 
And those damn headaches she’d been getting were beginning to put quite a
strain on her.   There were times -like when she woke shrieking in the black of
night - that he wondered if some of those fucking threats hadn’t slipped
through the cracks and landed in her hands, but he couldn’t imagine a universe
where she would keep that kind of information to herself if it had happened. 
She knew how important her safety was to him and her family. 

No, he feared that
the escalation in her nightmares and the severity of her headaches were
directly related  to the fact that he was still no closer to finding either
Angela Hastings’ murderer, the bastard who’d caused Honor and Patience’s car
accident, OR the two remaining pricks that had raped his woman.   It was a
bitter pill for them both to swallow, but it seemed every trail had gone cold. 
The only thing he had were those stupid typed notes that she kept getting, and
forensics couldn’t tell him anything besides the font and type of paper they
were printed on.  Not a single one she’d received had a touch of a fingerprint
on it.  If Zeke didn’t know better, he’d swear they were written by a ghost.

Since Christmas,
however, his attention had been demanded in other areas of Paradise.  Chiefly
by the town’s two newest residents, Cal Valentine and Melody Reardon. 
Truthfully, Zeke liked Paradise’s new additions. 

Melody was opening a
new storefront on the town square called Hooks & Books, and Cal was just
retired from the military and initially in  Paradise to keep an eye on Melody
at behest of Cal’s former soldier (and incidentally Melody’s brother).  It
seemed that Melody was just coming out of a bad break-up and her former fiancé
wasn’t exactly inclined to let her go.  Zeke had been forced to get involved in
the situation more than once since Melody had moved to town, and he could
honestly say that like Cal, he thought the ex-fiancé was an egomaniacal,
potentially dangerous prick.

Actually, he and Cal
had a lot in common and had bonded over beer and pretzels during more than one
night at the I Don’t Care Café’s bar, and he was glad that Cal’s plans now
included opening a gym in Paradise with Melody’s brother and calling their town
home for the foreseeable future.    From their mutual intense dislike of local
realtor, Henry Watson, to their love of country music, he and Cal got along
great and he now counted the other man as a friend.  It also helped that Honor
and all the McKinnon girls were friends of Melody and Melody’s late
grandmother. 

Hell, it had actually
been Cal (and Cal’s relentless pursuit of Melody) that gave him the idea to
quit giving Honor an option where their relationship and her safety were
concerned and simply move in with her.  It’s what Cal had done in order to
protect Melody from her ex despite the woman’s protests, and it had actually
worked out pretty well for them both.   Especially since he had it on good
authority that Melody would very definitely be wearing a diamond engagement
ring before Valentine’s Day was done. 

Now, he knew his
Honor was nowhere near ready to receive his ring, but Zeke wouldn’t deny that
it gave him hope for their combined future.  If he could just convince Honor to
seek some help for the invisible phantoms terrorizing her sleep instead of
burying the pain, he knew he’d reach his goal of having her as his wife a hell
of a lot sooner.  Sadly, he had barely been able to convince her to see her
doctor brother-in-law, Cain, about her headaches.  She’d finally reluctantly
conceded to what had become his almost constant harping and gotten a prescription
for her migraines. Cain had warned her that sometimes a patient had to try a
variety of medications before the right one was found, but Zeke couldn’t help
praying that they’d nailed it on the first try.  Otherwise, he knew he’d play
hell getting her back into an exam room.

Shaking his head, he
reminded himself that this was going to be a good day.  Valentine’s Day.    He
was going to join Honor over at Melody’s store for the grand opening of Hooks
& Books, relieve Deputy Hightower from watchdog duty, and then he was going
to steal her away for a Valentine’s Day lunch at a steakhouse a few towns over
from Paradise.  He’d decided to go with lunch because he knew Honor would
consider dinner out together to be too intimate, too much like a date.  Lunch,
however, he felt confident he could convince her to accept. 

Opening his desk
drawer, he reached inside to withdraw the crushed red velvet box that contained
Honor’s gift and slid it into the inside pocket of his jacket, grinning the
whole time.  He knew she was going to complain about the fact that he’d gotten
her a gift, but he couldn’t help it.  Whether she understood it or not yet, she
belonged to him, and as long as he was breathing, he’d try to spoil her when he
could get away with it.  Valentine’s Day was definitely a holiday where gifts
were acceptable, and not even Honor would convince him differently.

~~**~~

“Alright, Deputy
Lindsey, you’ve got command for the remainder of the day,” Zeke called to his
second in charge as he stood from his desk.  “I’m about to head over to Hooks
& Books and then I’m out for the rest of the afternoon.  If there are any
problems, call me…but do me a favor and try real hard to not have any, okay?”
he requested with a grin.

“Gotcha, boss,”
the older man declared with a knowing grin.  “I heard you on the phone
earlier.  Reservations at The Block, huh?  You’re pullin’ out all the stops for
Miss Honor this year,” he noted, lifting a hand to scratch his graying beard.

Zeke nodded,
unwilling to pretend that he wasn’t actively pursuing the woman he loved.  It
didn’t really matter anyway.  Unless you were blind, deaf, AND mute, if a body
lived in Paradise, a person knew how he felt about his girl. “She deserves it,”
he offered the other man with a shrug.  “Plus, I’m in the mood for a good,
juicy steak and as much as I love Honor’s restaurant, that’s just not something
she has on the menu.” 

His cell phone
rang on the corner of his desk as he was pulling his gun from his desk drawer
and sliding it into his holster.  Glancing at the screen and seeing that it was
Honor, he answered quickly.  “Hey, Kitten,” he greeted her.  “I’m running a
few—“

“Sorry, sugar, but
we’re gonna have to stop your sinfully sexy ass from doing that.  And you’re
gonna need to put that phone down real nice and slow,” Zeke heard an unfamiliar
voice order.

“Honor?” Zeke
barked, his eyebrows furrowing as he gripped the phone and listened, trying to
distinguish what was going on.  “Honor, answer me, damn it!”  he demanded as he
heard a phone ringing outside his office.  Hearing cursing outside in the
common area, Zeke stomped toward his office door, holding his cell phone away
from his ear.  “What’s going on out here?” he snarled at one of the young cops
standing outside his door.

“Sir, we’ve got
calls of a disturbance at that new store, Hooks & Books.  Reports of two
women entering the premises with guns.  The two calls we’ve gotten say that
they’ve taken the store hostage.  Dispatch has already rolled black and
whites.  It’s gotta be a mistake, right?”

“Shit,” Zeke
swore, pressing the phone back to his ear. 

“I want to
concentrate on the real reason that we came up here to the back of beyond,”
Zeke could hear a women sneer.  “Get over here and gag him!  And if you try
anything funny at ALL, Rhythm, I’ll put a bullet in you,” he listened to the
faceless woman threaten.

Zeke closed his
eyes at that.  “Fuck,” he ground out.

“Uh, Boss?”

Deputy Lindsey had
joined the younger cop outside his doorway and both men were staring at him,
looking for guidance.  “Get every unit we’ve got over to Hooks & Books.  
Nobody makes a move until I get there.  Tell ‘em to go in quiet.  No lights. 
No sirens.  The customers inside the store have been taken hostage, and MY woman
is among those hostages.  I mean it, you tell everybody to stand down and
access until I arrive,” Zeke ordered as he rushed toward the door.  The station
was only a couple of minutes away from Melody’s store.  “And call Slade
Cansler.  Tell him I’m gonna need his help and where I am.”

“Slade Cansler,
the former Seal that lives up in that shack at Miller’s Peak, Slade Cansler?”
Deputy Lindsey called as Zeke raced toward his SUV.

“He’s a former
Seal and the McKinnon girls’ cousin.   Ice is in the store with the rest of the
hostages.  I can hear his voice in the background.  And since my brother’s out
of commission, if I need a sharpshooter, Slade’s gonna be my next best bet.  
Tell him to move his ass double time,” Zeke ordered, mentally calculating it
would take Slade at least ten minutes to get into town and get positioned. 
Ripping open the door of his vehicle, he climbed behind the wheel and held the
cell to his ear with his shoulder as he shifted the SUV into drive.  “Honor,
babe?  Can you hear my voice?” 

He drove with heart
thumping down the mostly empty downtown streets of Paradise, his gut clenching
painfully as he pressed the phone harder to his ear, trying desperately to pick
up any scrap of conversation.  The idea that his woman had stumbled his way
into senseless danger made him want to put his fist through somebody’s head. 
Preferably, whatever idiot was holding a gun on her.  If his gut was right –
and his gut was seldom anything but – this all revolved around Melody’s
ex-asshat of a fiancé.  And if that son of a bitch got Honor or any of his
other extended family hurt, he’d take the bastard apart piece by motherfucking
piece.  “Honor?  C’mon, baby…just say a couple of words let me know that you’re
okay,” he begged into the phone, throwing on his break when a teenager decided
to bolt across the street in front of him.

Unfortunately, it
wasn’t the sound of Honor’s sweetly modulated voice he heard in his earpiece. 
It was his brother’s agitated tone instead. 

“Woman, if you
draw those two crazies attention over here I will personally feed every last
pair of those fancy ass shoes you love so much to my Rottweiler,” he heard his
brother threaten on a low rumble.  And it didn’t take rocket science to figure
out who the recipient to that threat was.  For some reason, Ice and Maggie
Winstead got on like cats and dogs, each one rubbing the other the wrong way. 

Silently praying
that for once Maggie would keep her cool, Ice couldn’t help but chuckle when he
heard Maggie hiss back at him, “Like hell you will!  Are you feeling up my ass,
you horny hillbilly?  Now, of all times!”

“Stay still,” he
heard his brother growl back at the woman, his tone a warning.

Like a lightning
strike out of the blue, it dawned on Zeke what Ice was doing and his smile
widened.  For the first time, he was thrilled to know that Maggie Winstead was
always locked and loaded.  And unless he missed his guess, Ice would be trying
to get his hands on that gun.

Reaching the
perimeter that his deputies had set up around the store, Zeke quickly pulled
his SUV to the side of the road and climbed out, hurrying toward his waiting
officers.  As he’d ordered, they were surveying the scene without approaching. 
Looking across the street, Zeke could see bodies inside the store, but nothing
clear through his naked eye.  “Update,” he clipped to his subordinates as he
saw Deputy Hightower running up the street on his left.  Jerking his head
toward the younger man, Zeke commanded, “Please tell me that there’s a good
reason that you’re out here instead of inside with the woman you’re supposed to
be guarding, Hightower!”

Hanging his head
in defeat, Deputy Hightower shook his head.  “She sent me back to the car for
her sweater, sir.  She said she was cold,” the man almost whimpered holding up
the pale pink sweater in one hand.

Shaking his head
as he fought a howl, he muttered, “Of course she was.”  Looking at the other
man again, Zeke growled, “You’re lucky that she’s still in one piece, boy.  If
anything happens to her in there, I’m gonna skin your ass alive.  I’m only
lettin’ you live now because I’ve got more important chores to do and because
Honor would be pissed if I ended you.  For some reason, you’re the only deputy
she’ll let near her without throwing up a fuss.  I’m guessing it’s because
she’s got you wrapped around her little finger.  That changes today,
Hightower.”