Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4) (2 page)

Five men had stolen
his woman’s innocence that long ago night, leaving her nearly lifeless body in
a sinkhole while she’d prayed for a quick, merciful end.  Zeke knew that’s what
Honor had wanted because that’s what she’d begged him for when she’d been
laying in a hospital bed, her body struggling to recover from injuries that
should have killed her.  She’d begged him through her tears to just let her
die.

And those wrenchingly
heartbreaking pleas still haunted him to this day.   

After that, he’d
poured every bit of his energy into hunting down the monsters who had hurt
her.  Honor had five bogeymen, and he’d vanquished three of them.  If there was
any justice in the world at all, he hoped he’d sent them plunging straight into
the bowels of a fiery hell.

That still left two
demons walking around in human form.  And thanks to the dying words of
Harmony’s ex-husband (and, in an awful twist, first man that had raped Honor on
that distant October night) Tanner Suarez, those two faceless entities had
returned with a vengeance to taunt and torture Honor’s every moment.  Whether
awake or asleep, thoughts of those two fiends were never far from the young
woman’s fragile mind.  Like ghosts from her past, they haunted her – now more
than ever.

Before that nasty
fucker, Tanner, had come back into all their lives and detonated an emotional
bomb over the McKinnon clan, Honor had been making progress. It’d been slow…
sorta like watching grass grow, but it had been happening.  She’d slowly been
regaining her confidence and forging ahead with her life – a life that Zeke was
sure she was beginning to believe included him.  Tanner’s bold deathbed
assertion that those two bastards were out there, waiting and watching for an
opportunity to hurt his angel again, though, was enough to send the recovering
woman spinning onto a dark path that she seemed determined to travel alone.  Every
day, Zeke had watched as she’d disappeared just a little more before his eyes,
receding into herself until there were some days that she only spoke a handful
of words.  Hell, if it hadn’t been for having Harmony’s daughter, Heaven, and
Patience’s new triplets to concentrate her attention on, he wasn’t sure if
she’d just wither away entirely.  His woman had become a shadow, and over the
last year, Honor had become just a faded replica of the woman she’d once been.

And despite all his
efforts to the contrary, right down to his insistence that they share her house
together – ironically, to protect her – she’d continued to diminish before his
eyes.   He’d done everything he could think of to pull her out of this
depression she’d been immersed in lately, but nothing had worked.

And now… once again,
Honor was facing a scary unknown abyss without him by her side.

“It’s that bad?” he
managed to breathe, his voice raw and jagged with growing panic.

“Well, she wasn’t
carved up and beat to hell this time, but her heart stopped just the same as it
did then,” Orla returned truthfully, pressing a tissue to her lips as she
fought for composure.

“Fuck,” he clipped,
jerking off his gray Stetson and shoving a hand over his black hair, the
strands so short they were barely disturbed.  “I shouldn’t have left her this
morning.”

“Man, you had a job
to do.  How were you supposed to know that Honor needed a babysitter?  Face it,
bro.  That woman clearly needs more help than you can give her.”

Jerking his head
toward his brother, Zeke narrowed his eyes as Honor’s sisters collectively
turned to glare at the man that had just spoken.  “I don’t think I like your
tone, Ice.  And I
know
I don’t like the words comin’ out of your mouth. 
Why don’t you shut the hell up before you come up missing a few teeth and I
rearrange that pretty boy face you’ve got, big brother?”

Unfazed by the
warning glint in Zeke’s dark gray eyes, Ice scoffed, crossing his arms over his
chest as he ignored the baleful stares of the other occupants of the waiting
room and focused on his brother.  “Pull your damn head out of the sand, Zeke. 
Contrary to what you and everybody else here might think right now, I’m not the
bad guy here.”

“Couldn’t prove it by
me right now,” Patience hissed from beside Zeke, her eyes furious as they
stared a hole through Ice.

 Ignoring the
McKinnon sister’s outburst, Ice stared at his younger brother.  “Do you think I
enjoyed hearing Miss Orla scream bloody murder after she found Honor near dead
from an overdose, man?  Christ!  I fuckin’ breathed for that woman, Zeke, while
Diego pumped her damn chest… both of us prayin’ like hell that she’d just
try
to live.  Can’t you see by now that your girl is seriously
whacked
in the head, Ezekiel?  You’re not blind.  I know you’ve been watching the same
runaway train that the rest of us have been watchin’ over the last few months. 
It’s been
eight years
, man.  It’s time for Honor to stop hiding her
emotions inside a pill bottle, deal with her shit, and move the hell on.”

“You son of a bitch!”
Maggie Winstead, a longtime friend of all the McKinnon sisters spat from a few
seats down from Zeke before bolting to her feet and moving to wrap her arm
around a quietly sobbing Faith.  “Who in the ever-lovin’ hell do you think you
are?  And when exactly did the Almighty appoint
you
as Honor McKinnon’s
judge and jury?” she bit out, her green eyes blazing as Ice lifted one shoulder
in an indolent shrug.

“He’s not!  I’ll tell
you what Ice is.  He’s a walking, talking dead man,” Zeke growled to his
brother, his deep voice whisper quiet even as his eyes promised bloody
retribution, his big body lunging before he realized he was even moving. 
Pinning his flesh and blood sibling to the painted cement block wall of the
waiting room with a forearm against his windpipe, he stood eye to eye with his
brother.  “What in the actual fuck, Zachariah!  Let’s get a couple things
real
clear here.  First of all, if any woman has a right to her feelings, it’s
Honor.  She’s lived in fucking hell for those eight goddamned years you mentioned,
you son of a bitch.  I should know since I’ve been watchin’ over her the entire
time.  Don’t you dare fuckin’ try and make light of what she’s endured and the
nightmare that she’s had to survive.  No, fuck that.  The nightmare she’s
still
trying to survive.  Second, as for your asinine theory on an overdose, I
don’t know what the hell you’re even talking about.  I have to hold the woman
down and force her to swallow a fuckin’ aspirin for a headache.  There’s no way
she overdosed on anything, you know-it-all fucker!”

“Zeke, amigo, let him
go. Es tu hermano, no?  Let him go before you kill him, amigo,” a deep accented
voice said from behind Zeke’s left shoulder as a set of tan hands gripped his arm,
pulling his grip from Ice’s throat.

Gasping and coughing,
Ice shook his head.  “Zeke, man, I love Honor, too.  Not like you do,” he
amended quickly, seeing his brother’s eyes narrow “But, you know I consider her
a little sister,” he somehow wheezed. “There’s no denying that the girl needs
help, though.  Diego and I didn’t imagine that pill bottle in her hands when we
found her.  Your woman made a choice to try and end her own life.  The sooner
you get your head around it, the faster you can get her the help she needs.”

Surging toward his
brother again, Zeke growled when both Diego and Patience’s husband, Abel, got
in his way. 

“Ice, shut the hell
up before we all make the unanimous decision to let Zeke end you once and for
all.  You’re jumping to conclusions and it’s makin’ an ass out of you,” Abel
growled without looking back at the other man.  “Zeke, bud, take a deep breath
and let Aunt Orla and
Diego
tell you what happened,” he said, flashing
Ice a quelling look over his shoulder.

Shifting his eyes
between Honor’s aunt and the scarred face of Diego Fuentes, the one-time
Fuentes drug cartel general turned DEA informant and now a partner in Jake
Stone’s security business, Zeke made himself take a step back and focus his
attention to the Mexican man standing in front of him.  “You think she
overdosed?” he asked Diego hoarsely. “Are you sure?”

“Sheriff, we are sure
of nothing yet,” Diego replied cautiously.  “And, truthfully, no one, save
Honor, can answer that question for us.”

“Then why the fuck
would Ice say something like that?” Zeke asked sharply, gesturing angrily
toward where his brother leaned against the wall, pinned there by the irate
stares of every woman in the room.

Never knowing when to
keep his trap shut, Ice made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. 
“Because, unlike all of y’all, I know Honor McKinnon isn’t a fuckin’ saint,
Ezekiel, and I’m not afraid to say it out loud,” Ice noted quietly, ignoring
the hateful looks being pointed in his direction.  “She’s a real woman made of
blood and flesh, and she’s been about two breaths away from a full breakdown
since we pulled her away from Tanner Suarez’s dead body over a fuckin’ year
ago!  She’s not perfect, man.  She’s got problems.  Serious fuckin’ problems. 
Hell, she’s
had
problems, but everybody just turns a blind eye and lets
her smile that sweet fuckin’ smile that she has and get away with saying she’s
just fine when we
all
know she’s definitely
not
.”

“You’re still not
answering my damn question,” Zeke growled, his anger swelling the longer he
stood there.  “Why would you say she tried to overdose?  What makes you think
she purposefully tried to take her life?”

Clearing her throat,
Orla lifted her chin as she stared at Zeke.  “We
don’t
know that,” she
stated insistently, flashing Ice a narrow look that warned him to remain
silent.

“Miss Orla…” Ice
sighed, shaking his head at the elderly woman. 

Holding up her hand,
Orla waved the man off.  “I’m tellin’ it, boyo!” she growled to Ice before
looking to Zeke.  “It’s just… when I found her, Sheriff, Honor had one of her
prescription bottles clutched in her hand.”

“Yeah, and given the
fact that she was unconscious, unresponsive, and her fuckin’ heart stopped, I
don’t think it’s too hard to put all those facts together, do you?  You people
can’t keep sticking your heads up your asses, dammit, and the next time, Honor
just might accomplish the job of getting herself dead,” Ice barked, shaking his
head at the room in general.

Zeke staggered back a
step, his legs bumping the chair as his brother’s words penetrated his psyche
with the force of a plunging dagger.  Christ, had Honor really tried to take
her own life?  He knew she’d been suffering.  Hell, he was the one that held
her at night when those faceless fuckers visited her in her dreams.  Had she
really grown so desperate that this was what she’d chosen to do?  He knew that
she had the means to do it.  Her general doctor had prescribed her all manner
of sleeping pills and medications for her headaches over the years, but she’d
never used any of it for more than a night or two.   He simply couldn’t comprehend
the idea of his obstinate, strong-willed girl willfully swallowing pills that
would take her away from him… from ALL of them, for that matter.  No, his Honor
wasn’t selfish.  She wouldn’t do this.

“No!” Zeke heard
Patience deny abruptly, her face turning red with anger.  “It’s not freakin’
possible.  My baby sister would not kill herself.  That’s not who Honor is and
every freaking one of you know it.”

“Hellion, she did
have a bottle of pills in her hand when she was found,” Abel pointed out gently. 
“Maybe it’s not quite as impossible as you think.”

“And we all know that
Peanut hasn’t been herself since… well… since Tanner died,” Harmony
acknowledged painfully.

“First, Tanner didn’t
die.  He was put down like the rabid dog he was.  And second, Honor had a
frickin’ headache,” Patience retorted in a tight voice.  “The pills in that
bottle were prescribed to her for headaches, Harmony!  Cain prescribed her a
new medication just last Thursday.  Remember?  The day she got that blinding
migraine and could barely hold her head up?  Why are you all so insistent on
assuming the worst of her?  Every bit of this could have a logical
explanation.”

“Patience is right,”
Faith declared with a sniffle and a firm nod.  “I remember Cain mentioning
something about Honor’s migraines when he got home that night.  He was a little
worried about her blood pressure, too.  He said the pain was causing it to
shoot up and that if she didn’t get it under control, she’d have even bigger
problems.  He thought that her headaches were actually migraines brought on by
stress, but the blood pressure element could make it even more serious.  He’s
been keepin’ his eye on her.  Did she mention it to you, Zeke?”

“I’m the one that
insisted she talk to Cain when she flat out refused to go back to the quack
she’d been seein’,” Zeke answered on a mutter, his mind moving a mile a minute.

“All I know is that
Honor wouldn’t kill herself,” Maggie said, supporting one of her best friends
with a loyal conviction that rivaled Ice’s doubts.  “That woman is a special
kind of stubborn and a hell of a lot stronger than
any
of you jackass
men give her credit for being,” she proclaimed with a meaningful look at Ice. 
“Look at what the hell she’s lived through, for God’s sake.  In her life, she
has survived losing both her parents, kidnapping, gang rape, attempted murder,
a drive-by shooting, having to use lethal force to defend herself, a hostage
standoff, AND she’s still managed to deal with all of our crazy asses on a
regular basis.  There’s no way she goes over the edge now.  I’m sorry, but
there’s just no way.”