Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4) (18 page)

“I want so badly to
be normal, Zeke,” she confided, her thin voice almost despondent.  “I want to
be strong enough to rely on just myself.”

“First of all, normal
is just a setting on the washing machine, Honor.  There’s no such thing. 
There’s no standard healing time for what you’ve lived through.  There’s no
playbook for enduring the shit you’ve been forced to swallow in your life. 
You’re handling it the best you can, and you’re strong enough to keep putting
one foot in front of the other.  That’s all any-fucking-body can ask of you. 
Anybody that expects anything more than that from you can go straight to hell. 
In the meantime, you can do and say whatever you need to do and say to get
through the day intact.  If anybody is brave enough to voice a problem with it,
I’ll handle them.  Got it?” he asked, squeezing her gently to let her know he was
serious.

“Got it,” Honor
assented.

“Now, tell me what
movies you want to watch and what kind of ice creams you want on hand.  You and
I have a movie and sweats day to plan.”

~*~

Armed with a list of
Honor’s favorite movies, Zeke made the trip to their local superstore before
stopping in at the diner to grab the ice cream that Honor had mentioned was in
the freezer.  Nodding to a few familiar faces as he entered through the side
door into the busy bar, he grinned when he saw Harmony behind the counter. 

“You pulling a double
today, Harmony?” he greeted the eldest McKinnon sister as he walked toward
her.  “Because I distinctly recall seeing you this morning.”

“Look around,
Sheriff.  We’re packed tonight.  It’s payday and game night over at the
college.  Plus, I’ve gotta be off tomorrow night for that engagement party I
booked last month,” she replied, referring to her other career as a party
planner.  “So, Verlena and I are closing the place down tonight,” she
continued, winking at the big, buxom black woman that stood at the end of the
bar sliding a frosty mug of beer to a customer sitting on a stool in front of
the bar.

Zeke’s lips twitched
as he tipped his cowboy hat at one of Honor’s last hires.  The muscular woman
with the flawless rich mocha skin was a handful.  He’d been called out to the
bar on more than one night when the buxom African beauty had chosen to kick the
ass of a rowdy customer.  Honest to God, he privately thought the woman was
part Amazonian and had wondered more than once if she might not be a first
cousin to Wonder Woman.  He’d debated asking the feisty woman to pull guard
duty for Honor more than once over the past few months, but Honor didn’t think
it was fair to ask the woman to babysit her on her rare time off.  “Miss
Verlena,” he addressed the woman.  “How’s things?”

Shading her eyes, the
black woman batted her long false eyelashes at him.  “Do my eyes deceive me or
is that our very own lean, luscious Sheriff gracin’ us with his presence
tonight?” she drawled dramatically, strutting toward him and Harmony.  “I
haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays, Lawman,” she greeted him, her plump
brightly painted red lips pulled up in a wide, welcoming smile.  “Where’s you
hidin’ my pretty boss lady at, Cowboy?” she asked, looking around for Honor.

“Yeah, where is my
baby sister?” Harmony asked curiously.  “I’ve got her birthday present in the
car if she’s here.”

“Birthday?” Verlena
echoed, dropping her hands to her ample hips.  “Is my honey chile fixin’ to
have a birthday and nobody told me?” she pouted, looking between Zeke and
Harmony.

Harmony smiled at
their employee.  “She wanted us to keep it quiet this year, Vee.  You know
she’s not been feelin’ real good.”

“That’s true,”
Verlena tsked, shaking her head as she nodded.  “Anyhooo, where is she?  I
wanted to show her my new hot pants,” she explained, striking a pose as she
modeled the pair of hot pink spandex hot pants.   “I found ‘em on sale over in
Knoxville.  I thought maybe we’d go get her a pair or two.  They had a pair of
lilac ones that I thought would look slammin’ on that tight little tail of
hers.  We gotta get our girl out of those khaki skirts she’s always wearin’
round here.  Pretty little thang is too damn young to dress like a matron, you
know?”

Maybe his idea of
letting Verlena watch over Honor hadn’t been such a great thought after all,
Zeke thought as Harmony chuckled. 

“Honor’s mighty
attached to her clothes, Vee,” Harmony laughed, using her friend’s preferred
nickname.  “Perhaps you should start with something a little less extreme than
hot pants.  Like maybe a headband.”

“Hmfff,” Vee
scoffed.  “I guess we all gotta start somewhere,” she sniffed, adjusting the
buxom of her black leather bustier.  “So, my girl?  Where she at, Sheriff?”

“Actually, she’s at
home.  I left Deputy Hightower and her on the sofa watching The Real Housewives
of Atlanta while I ran some errands.”

Harmony and Verlena
nodded.  “Oooohhhhweeeee!  The Lord proved he had a sense of humor with that hunk
of a man,” Verlena lamented with a heavy sigh.  “That tasty dep-u-ty is sex on
a stick and all a girlfriend can do is look and salivate.”

“Why?  He’s single,”
Zeke noted, frowning his confusion.

“He’s also gay,”
Verlena informed him.

“He is not,” Zeke
denied.  “Where in the world did you get that idea?”

“Uhhhhh, when I asked
him out for a night of hot, sexy fun and he said he was, Officer Oblivious”
Verlena replied knowingly.  “Told me straight up that his flag wouldn’t fly for
my country.  The man nearly broke my heart.”

“Huh,” Zeke grunted. 
“I guess that’s why Honor feels so comfortable with him.”

Verlena shrugged. 
“He’s a fine piece of man candy, that’s all I know.  Wish I could convince him
to bat for my team is all.  Oh, hell no! I gotta go lay the smack down on some
asshole now.  See ya later, Sheriff,” she said in parting as a customer
whistled for service for a second time.   

“I’m sorry!  Do I
look like a dog to you? You do not whistle for me – e-vah!”  Zeke heard the
woman yell to a man at the end of the counter.   Turning his attention to
Harmony, Zeke made a face.  “That woman is….”

“One heck of a
handful,” Harmony supplied with a smile.  “But worth every penny we pay her.”

Zeke nodded.  “I need
a favor.  Honor said there was a tub of rocky road in the freezer.  Can
somebody grab it for me, Harm?  She wants it for tomorrow,” Zeke shared with
the woman.  “Evidently, I’m celebrating her birthday tomorrow with…”

“Movie and Sweats
day,” she informed him with a nod.  “She told me when I called to check on her
earlier.  Why don’t you go sit down with the guys?  They’ve got a table in the
back.  Once I get this crowd under control, I’ll go grab it for you,” she said,
quickly uncapping a beer for him and sliding it across the counter toward him. 
“On the house, Zeke.  You’re family,” she said when he would have grabbed his
wallet from his back pocket.  “Go on, now.  Jake, Diego, and your brother are
here somewhere.  I think Abel was back there, too, unless he already left.”

Walking toward the
back of the bar, he found his table of friends easily, weaving through the
packed place to reach them.  Pulling out of a chair when he reached them, he
nodded at the chorus of ‘Hey, mans,’ he got from the group.

Lifting his chin at
his brother, Zachariah ‘Ice’ Monroe grinned.  “What brings you out tonight,
man?  I haven’t seen you lately.”

“Honestly, movies.  I
had to hunt up a few of Honor’s favorites for her birthday tomorrow.  She
wanted to stay in and relax and mentioned wanting to watch a few of her
favorite films.”

“That is kind of you,
Sheriff,” Diego noted, tipping his half full glass toward Zeke in salute.

“Kind,” Ice repeated
with a smirk.  “Try whooped, Diego.”

“I would not mind
being… how do you say it?  Whooped?  If I had a decent woman waiting at home,
that is,” the foreign man noted easily, shrugging his shoulders.

“My sentiments
exactly,” Zeke returned, lifting his longneck to his lips and taking a sip of
the bitter ale he preferred.

“Uh oh.  Which ones
did she make you get?” Abel asked with a shudder.  “The last time Patience
pulled that movie crap on me, I had to sit through The Notebook, man.  That was
two hours of my life that I will never earn back.”

“Well, she already
had Steel Magnolias and Bride Wars at home, but she got a yen to watch Gone
with the Wind and Fried Green Tomatoes.  I had to go through about three
thousand movies at the superstore, but I finally found them both.  Fiftieth
Anniversary Edition of Rhett and Scarlett, too.  She should be happy.”

Ice’s jaw dropped. 
“And you did this shit to yourself ON PURPOSE?  You do realize you could have
told her that you just couldn’t find that shit, right?  That flick is like
seventeen hours long.   Really, boys, check your groins.  Are you sure you
don’t have vaginas down below?  Do a ball check real quick,” he urged, shaking
his head at the full table.

“My dick swings just
fine, asshole, and unlike you, it sees action on the regular,” Jake growled to
Ice.  “Besides, Zeke couldn’t lie,” he denied as Abel bobbed his head in
agreement.

“Why the hell not? 
She’s not omniscient, guys.  She’s just a woman, for Christ’s sake.  She
doesn’t know everything,” Ice mocked, clearly unaware of just how clever the
McKinnon ladies were.

“Trust us, Honor
would know, asshat.  The McKinnon sisters always know when we lie to them. 
It’s like their superpower or something,” Abel added with a grimace.  “And
trust me, Ice, you do NOT ever want to be caught fibbing to one of the Fearsome
Foursome.  Educate your brother, Zeke, before he accidently goes and gets
himself whacked by Patience and I have to represent my wife in a murder trial. 
You’ve met my babies.  There’s no way I survive raising my kids on my own.”

“Ignore my brother,
gentlemen,” Zeke directed with a disgusted look at his sibling.  “He still
thinks women should be seen and not heard, too.”

“Life would be a hell
of a lot easier if it still worked that way,” Ice mumbled into his bottle of
beer, hissing as a hand connected with the back of his head.  “OUCH!” he
yelped, grabbing the back of his head and glaring over his shoulder.

“I heard that, jerk! 
You and I are gonna have words if that nasty attitude of yours doesn’t change,”
Harmony hissed, glaring at him as she reached past his shoulder to hand a paper
bag to Zeke.  “Honor’s ice cream.  Two gallons of Rocky Road.  You’re all set,”
she informed the sheriff, though her irate gaze remained glued to Ice. 

“Thanks, sweetheart,”
Zeke said, getting to his feet and brushing a kiss against Harmony’s cheek
before sending his cowering brother an indifferent look.  “Good luck, man. 
You’re gonna need it,” he remarked before nodding to the rest of his friends
and walking toward the door and whistling a happy tune.

 ~**~

Watching the final
scene of Gone with the Wind fade to black the next afternoon, Zeke watched
Honor swipe her crumpled Kleenex against her damp cheeks.

“I don’t know why I
cry every time I watch this.  The ending never changes,” Honor confided with an
embarrassed chuckle.  “Rhett always leaves.”

“To be fair, Scarlett
forced his hand.  A man can only tolerate so much, Kitten, and old Rhett had to
choke down more than his fair share of crap.  Especially with that whole Ashley
situation.”

“I thought a man
liked a stubborn woman,” Honor asked, leaning her head back against the couch
as Zeke went to change the movie. 

“Stubborn, yeah. 
Sweetheart, I’ll chase you all day long if you’re bein’ your sweet, sassy self
and giving me hell, but you wanna go sniffin’ around some weak-ass married man
and keep me waiting while YOU are waitin’ for his wife to die…yeah, I’m not
gonna give much of a damn about you at the end of the day either.”

Honor smiled sadly. 
“Good point.  Scarlett couldn’t see a good man standing in front of her face, I
suppose.”  Seeing Zeke raise his eyebrows at her, Honor shook her head and
pointed at him, ordering harshly, “Don’t start, Ezekiel.  I can see you just
fine and am fully aware that you are a good man.  Unfortunately for you, I just
don’t happen to want ANY man.  Ever.”

Sighing, he stared at
her.  “You know that isn’t true, Kitten.  We were making progress for a while. 
Then, we stopped.”

“Zeke,” she groaned,
tossing her spoon into the empty carton of ice cream as she got up to carry it
into the kitchen.

Rising back to his
feet, he followed her, unwilling to let his question go.  Damn it, he wanted
answers.  Like Rhett, he deserved some explanations and also like Rhett, he was
getting damn tired of dancing to Honor’s tune.   “Just tell me why, Honor.”

“And here I thought I
was going to get through the entire day without having to get upset,” she
muttered, shaking her head at him.  “For the last time, Zeke, nothing has
changed.  I don’t know what kind of progress that you thought you and I were
making, but it was only in your imagination.”

“I imagined those
kisses we shared over your birthday?  How about holding you in my arms while we
watched television last month?  Is that my faulty memory?  Did I also dream
sleeping in your bed three nights out of the last week, Honor?”