Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4) (6 page)

~***~

“Shit, Abel!  The
goddamn tree is stabbing straight through her side,” Zeke yelled at the other
man over the roof of the car, his gray eyes desperate as he tried to open the
car’s door.  Glancing at the hood, he noted the bright orange flame glowing
underneath the wrecked metal as the acrid aroma of smoke filled his nostrils. 
“The damn engine’s on fire!” he growled, redoubling his efforts to get inside
the vehicle to Honor as Ice, Jake and Diego joined them in the water.  
Glancing to his left, he saw his brother offer him a large metal wrench. 

“Try to pry it
open with this, man,” Ice suggested, dropping the heavy tool into Zeke’s
outstretched hand.

Desperately trying
to wedge the tool into the door, Zeke shook his head as he heard Honor moan
inside the vehicle. 

“Hey, sweetie,”
Zeke heard Patience croon to her sister.  “I know it hurts, but you’ve gotta
stay still.  The guys are trying to get us out of here.”

“Wh-what?” Honor
grunted in pain as she tried to lift her bruised face away from the pillow of
the air bag.

“Honor, stay
still, baby,” Zeke ordered sternly, grimacing when she turned her face toward
him.  Christ, she looked like hell, he thought as he saw Diego bust the back
windshield of Honor’s wrecked car.

“Get into them
this way, amigo,” Diego ordered, jerking his head toward the busted rear window
as Zeke moved to the back of the car and made quick work of sliding through the
glass into the back seat.

“Zeke?” Honor
whimpered from her slumped position in the front seat beside her sister.  “Why
can’t I move?” she questioned, growing more panicked as she began to squirm
around.

Zeke’s heart
stuttered in his chest as he heard Honor’s unnaturally high voice call for him
as he quickly scooted across the broken glass, barely aware of the sharp edges
dragging against his legs.  “Hang tight, Kitten,” Zeke grunted as his soggy
boots finally made contact with the back floorboard of the car.  Leaning
forward, he pushed his hand over the front seat to carefully feel for Honor’s
pulse. 

“Zeke? I don’t
underst-stand,” Honor stuttered as his fingers found the cold skin on her neck.

“Baby, you were in
a car accident.  I need you to keep real still for me now.  Calvary’s here and
tryin’ to get you girls out of this,” he explained with a look toward
Patience.  White-faced and shaken, the pregnant woman’s worried eyes met his. 

“Hey, Sheriff,”
the expectant mother greeted him with a tremulous smile.  “Nice night, huh?”
she queried brokenly, a tear running down her cheek as Abel cursed roughly
outside her jammed vehicle door.

His heart went out
to the scared woman.  “How you doin’, honey?  Those babies okay?” he asked,
glancing down at her swollen belly.

“I think we’ll be
okay,” Patience assured him shakily.  “But then none of my body is bein’
impaled on anything,” she whispered, her concerned gaze glued to the tree
branch stabbing through her sister’s midsection.

“Oh, dear God,”
Honor gasped, her head jerking as she tried to turn toward her sister.  “The
babies!  Ezekiel, don’t just sit there!  Get Patience out of here,” the injured
woman demanded frantically, crying out in pain as she shifted in her seat. 
“Patience can’t be in here, Zeke!  Help her!  Get her out!” the younger woman
screamed as she tried to push the tree limb away from her.

Reaching forward
to capture her hand before she could do any more damage to herself, Zeke hissed
as he saw the blood flowing freely from the puncture site.  “Damn it, Kitten! 
Stay still before you make it worse,” he instructed as her struggles became
noticeably weaker. 

“Peanut, listen to
Zeke,” Patience urged her sibling.  “Listen to those voices outside.  All the
guys are workin’ hard to get us out of here, but you have to listen to what
they say and stay still.”

“Patience goes
first,” Honor insisted, struggling for breath as her face tightened in obvious
pain, her watery blue eyes finding Zeke’s.  “Please…important to me, Zeke,” she
whispered as her eyelids fluttered.  “Do this for me,” she said faintly before
her body went limp.

“Fuck!  Kitten,
don’t do this to me.  C’mon, sweetheart, show me that pulse,” Zeke begged
huskily as he desperately searched for the pulse of the woman he loved.  “Damn
it!” he roared.  “Guys, you need to move your asses,” he ordered, his eyes wild
as he exchanged a look with a terrified looking Abel over Patience’s head.  “We
need to hurry,” he informed the other man harshly as he finally found the
barely detectable throb of Honor’s pulse against his chilled fingers.  “I can
still feel her pulse, but it’s barely there, Abel.  I’m not losing her like
this, damn it!”

“Nobody is gettin’
lost today,” Zeke heard his brother’s voice grit out as Ice slid beside him in
the back seat behind Patience’s seat.  “The doors are stuck down in the mud
below the water’s surface.  Zeke, turn loose of Honor’s neck, man, and push
against the driver’s side door while Diego pulls on it from outside.  EMS is
here and their job will go a lot damn faster if we can get these doors broke
open.  You work on your woman’s side, and Abel and I will work on Patience’s.”

The next several
minutes were some of the longest of Zeke’s life.  Relief flooded him when he
heard Ice and Abel’s shouts of triumph when they finally broke through the
impacted mud and got Patience’s door open.  Hearing the paramedics, Ice, and
Abel working in tandem to get Patience out of the car gave him the burst of
energy he needed to get Honor’s door pried open as well. 

Seconds later, when
he’d managed to climb over the seat to get to Honor’s side while they waited
for the saw that would carefully separate her body from the tree branch
impaling her, he met his woman’s eyes.  Over the years, he’d seen all kinds of
looks on her.  Frightened.  Angry.  Pained.

But this look… this
bone deep weariness that shined in her gaze… it scared him to death.

“Baby, you hang on
for me,” he ordered tightly as she slowly blinked at him and bit her lip. 
“We’re almost out of here,” he reassured him, coughing as the smoke from the
engine began to invade the interior of the car and the flames began to climb
higher.  He could hear men yelling outside, the situation for the emergency
workers becoming even more critical.

“You need to go,
Ezekiel.  You all do,” Honor managed to say between shallow breaths.  “Too
dangerous now.  Let me go.”

Stiffening as he
realized what she was telling him to do – to abandon her - he automatically
shook his head as his face darkened.   He knew she was in a substantial amount
of pain, but surely she understood that there was never a chance on Earth that
he’d leave her side.  “Like hell I will.  Where you lead, I follow, Kitten. 
Whether it’s to the hospital, into the pits of Hell, or straight through the
Pearly Gates of Heaven, I am always going to be one step behind you.  You’re
never gonna get away from me, Honor.  Never.  Understand?” he growled, lifting
a hand to wipe the single teardrop that had slipped from her glassy eyes. 

“Zeke,” she
whispered, fighting through the agonizing pain to focus on him.  “Can’t put you
in danger.  You have to go,” she repeated, coughing a little as the smoke
thickened.  “Tell my family…”

“Fuck that,” Zeke
swore.  It felt as if a cold hand had reached into his chest to grip his
heart.  “You don’t give up on us.  We’re going to get you out of here and get
you all fixed up.  Whatever you wanna tell your family, you can say yourself,”
he continued, watching as one of the firemen’s gazes met his eyes as he held up
the saw in front of him.

“We need to do
this fast, Sheriff.  We’re not sure how much time we’ve got before the engine
blows.”

“Oh, God,” Honor
panted.  “You need to go, Zeke.  Go, go, go!” she cried, lifting one arm to
push at his arm as she hissed in pain.

“Damn it, Honor! 
I told you.  Stay still,” Zeke bit out as he watched her face grow impossibly
paler.  “Please, baby.  For me.  Just stay still and let us get you free.  This
guy is gonna cut you loose, baby.  Just keep those pretty eyes on my face,”
Zeke directed, cupping her jaw as her pain filled eyes met his.  “I love you,
Honor.  You just fight a little bit longer for me and I promise we’ll get you
out of here.”

“Okay, Zeke,”
Honor agreed softly as she blinked back tears.  “I believe you.”

Those words were
music to Zeke’s ears.  Nodding wordlessly to the firemen that waited, he
focused on the woman in front of him as the loud saw began to do its work at
her waist.  Honor’s trusting gaze didn’t stray from Zeke’s as he held one hand
against her face and clutched her fingers with the other.

The firefighter had
managed to cut the tree limb away seconds later, and the next several hours had
been a blur of frenetic activity.  He’d held his breath through the breakneck
ride to the hospital as he watched Honor lose huge amounts of blood in the
ambulance.  He’d held her hand as orderlies had rushed her gurney through the
endless hallways when they arrived at the hospital.  And he’d paced the narrow
corridor outside the operating rooms where both his woman and her sister had
been taken.

He’d had company;
Abel had been as lost as Zeke while they’d waited for news of their loved
ones.  Neither man had any idea how extensive the damage to Honor or Patience
had been.  The only thing either of them had known for sure was that Patience
was indeed giving birth via a C-section.  Other than that, both men were in the
dark.

Finally after what
felt like an unbearable wait, Dr. Mack Daniels, Patience’s obstetrician, came
out of the OR with some good news.  Patience and her kids had come through
surgery with no lasting complications.  And as an added bonus, the twins she’d
been expected to give birth to had actually been triplets.

Zeke grinned as Mack
gave Abel the good news, clapping the other man on the back in
congratulations.  Waiting to address the doctor about Honor until Mack had
given Abel all the details, Zeke waited until the man finished speaking. 

“Doc, I know
you’ve had a busy evening, but you don’t happen to know anything about Honor’s
condition, do you?” Zeke questioned the green scrubs-clad man worriedly.  “I
know you were in there with Patience, but…”

Nodding, Mack held
up a hand.  “I had a feeling the family would want an update, so I looked in on
her before I came out here.  You both know that Cain is in there with her,
right?”

“Yeah, he said
he’d send someone out with updates when he could, but so far we haven’t heard
shit,” Zeke stated gruffly, unhappy that he was still waiting to hear word
about the woman he loved. 

“Listen, Sheriff,
they’ve been pretty busy in there,” Mack shared quietly, his deep voice
cautiously.  Grimacing, he stared down the empty corridor, obviously torn over
something.  “Look, this is a difficult situation.  Technically, neither of you
are family to Hon-…”

Jaw hardening as
he caught the gist of what Mack was saying, Zeke shook his head.  “Don’t say
another fuckin’ word,” he spat.  “Honor’s mine.  She’s been mine for years. 
And since you’ve been in my town more than five fuckin’ minutes, I’m pretty
sure you know all about my feelings where the woman inside that OR is
concerned, Mack,” he shouted, jabbing a finger toward the heavy door that
separated surgery from the hallway as he advanced.  “Understand this, every
single thing about Honor McKinnon is my business, and not even God will change
that.”

“Zeke, stand down,
man.  He’s just trying to…” Abel began, catching the lawman’s arm when Zeke
would have reached for Mack’s throat.

Shrugging off
Abel’s hand, Zeke shook his head and growled angrily, “Due respect, Abel, but
FUCK THAT noise.  You heard him.  Not technically family?” he asked the man in
front of him.  “Shit, maybe you’re right.  Maybe I haven’t gotten my gold band
around her finger yet, but you should know I’ve been in love with that woman
since she turned eighteen years old.  One of the most memorable days of my
fuckin’ life in all the best and worst of ways.  See, it was the first time she
ever looked up at me with those big blue eyes that still have the power to
break my fuckin’ heart every damn day and told me that she was just too broken
to ever be fixed.  It was also the first time I held her in my arms while she
cried.”  Seeing Mack drop his gaze to the floor, he forged ahead.  “Yeah, I
held that sobbing woman against my chest while she cursed me for not letting
her die the night those bastards stole her innocence, Mack!  I promised her
then that I was gonna make her life worth living again if it took me the rest
of my life.  I made my vows to her eight years ago and believe me when I tell
you that they mean as much as any marriage vow I’ll give her in the future. 
She stole my motherfucking heart that afternoon, Doc.  I knew right then – in
those moments – that there would never be another woman for me.  There would
never be ANYONE that would hold my heart the way Honor has a grasp on mine. 
So, for the sake of your safety and my sanity, do not ever tell me that I’m not
Honor McKinnon’s family again.  Because while you’re right and while she may
not claim me as hers, make no mistake - she is for damn sure MINE!”