Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4) (26 page)

“Baby,” Zeke
whispered, reaching out to her.

Honor recoiled. 
“No!  Don’t you touch me.  I think you made me hate you today, Zeke,” she wept
brokenly.  “You!”

“You need to listen…”

“I’ve done enough
listening. 
I’m through
talking
.  I want you out of my house.  I want you out of
my
life
!” she ordered, furiously wiping her tears off her face, which
was a lost cause since more just reappeared seconds later.

Zeke shook his head. 
“Honor, I refuse to leave you unprotect…”

“Diego!” Honor
whirled to find the scarred face of her upstairs tenant sitting in the corner,
looking worried.

“Si,” he said, rising
as he exchanged a look with Zeke.

“Can you stay with
me?  Apparently, I’m in danger.   I don’t know for how long I’d need you, but
since local law enforcement
suck
at their job, it could be a while,” she
said with a disgusted look over her shoulder at Zeke,

Diego waited until
Zeke nodded unhappily.  Slowly nodding, he murmured.  “I’ll stay, Preciosa.”

Turning to face Zeke
again, Honor shrugged.  “Problem solved, Sheriff.  Now, since I’ve obviously
upset everyone here with the truth about my feelings, I think I’m going home.” 
Looking around at the people that were supposed to care most, Honor shook her
head.  “It’s ironic really.  You all look like you just went through a war, but
it was one that you asked for.  That whole ‘be careful what you wish for’
really does work, doesn’t it?” she asked before storming out the back door,
Diego on her heels.

Zeke

Ezekiel Monroe had
never really understood what it meant when victims described themselves as
feeling numb.  He’d heard that account from victims countless times over the
course of his career.  He’d listened to victim after victim report those
feelings.  He’d just never really gotten it.

Until now.

Numb meant the
absence of all feeling … and Zeke finally understood the sensation well.

Because as he heard
Diego’s footsteps following Honor out the back door of the I Don’t Care Café,
there was no other way to depict how he felt.

He was numb.

He was almost
grateful for the feeling.

Because he knew, when
the numbness ebbed, the crippling pain would replace it.  And he wasn’t sure
how he’d survive that.

Her words echoed in
his ears, the agony in them threatening to split his skull into two halves.

‘I think you made
me hate you today, Zeke!’

Yeah, being numb was
definitely the mind’s way of protecting the body’s heart.  Running a shaking
hand down his face, he inhaled deeply.  Christ, if that woman didn’t hold his
heart in the palm of her hand, he’d walk away.  Fuck, he probably
should
walk away.  He should probably run after the hatred he’d seen in her livid blue
eyes.

He wouldn’t, though;
he couldn’t.

Even though he felt
as if he’d had his heart carved out and all that remained was a hollowed out
cavity in his chest, Zeke still knew she was exactly what he wanted.  Scars,
secrets, and all.

Because despite the
anger and betrayal that had been burning in those gorgeous eyes, he’d also seen
the almost unbearable pain.  Knowing he was one of the causes of that hurt that
had shined in her gaze was like a knife in his gut.

Well, fuck… he’d
known all along that blessed numbness wouldn’t last forever.  Too bad.  Numb
wasn’t so bad when you compared it to feeling gutted.  Shifting his gaze to
where Dr. Aubrey Daniels still stood beside the door, Zeke broke the silence,
his voice scratchy and rough with the same feeling written all over everyone’s
face.  “What the fuck was that?” he growled, directing the question at the
woman he’d counted on to guide Honor past her pain.

“I warned you it
would be this way, Sheriff.  What you just witnessed was a perfectly normal
first reaction.  I call it the purge.”

“The purge,” Orla
echoed incredulously. 

The doctor nodded. 
“Yes ma’am.  The purge.  Honor needed to get rid of some of the poison she’d
been carrying around with her.  Surely, you all recognized that it had do go
somewhere.”

“Yeah.  She just
spewed it at
us
,” Harmony said tonelessly, staring into space as her
husband, Jake, wrapped her in his arms.

“She just needed to
get it out, Wildcat,” Jake murmured against his wife’s temple, holding her
close.

“I know this is
difficult, but everyone here needs to understand that a lot of what was just
said by Honor was inflated by her out of control emotions.  She felt raw. 
Exposed.  And she struck out at you.”

“Yeah, we got that,”
Zeke snapped, his jaw clenching.  “The question is, what’s next?”

“Nothing,” Bree
stated simply.  “We wait.  The ball is in Honor’s court.  The most important
thing is for everyone here, with the exception of Mr. Fuentes, to stick to
their guns.  You have to let her know that without help, you can’t keep
traveling down this road with her.”

“You’re asking us to
abandon our sister,” Patience seethed through gritted teeth.  “And the simple
truth is that I don’t know if I can do that,” she declared, looking at her
family and shrugging her shoulders helplessly.  “I’m sorry, but I don’t.  I
don’t understand how making Honor feel like even
more
of an outsider is
going to help anything.  I know my baby sister.  I
taught
her how to
hold a grudge, and there is no shortage of McKinnon pride in this family. 
Convincing Honor that she’s wrong and actually needs help isn’t going to be the
easy task you seem to think it is.  In fact, I think both you
and
Zeke
are underestimating her.  This little pow wow here,” she continued to berate
them as she pointed at the floor.  “This just pissed her off.  I don’t think it
accomplished a damned thing.  If five assholes that kidnapped and raped her
over and over again for two and half days couldn’t break her, you two don’t
have a shot in hell,” she hissed, looking from the psychiatrist to Zeke with
peeved eyes. 

“You think I’d
ever
try to deliberately break your sister, sugar?” Zeke asked softly, turning
to face the pint-sized fury that was his favorite McKinnon sibling.  “You made
me godparent to your kids, Patience.  You think I’m the kind of man that would
ever put your little sister in pain if there was another option available? 
I’ve tried
everything
...everything but this.”

“Maybe that’s true,
Zeke,” Patience conceded, her eyes glittering with tears she wouldn’t allow to
fall.  “But how successful do you actually think this
was
?  She’s gone. 
She’s thrown you out of her house.  Her aunt, sisters and uncle basically just
told her that unless she got help, we didn’t wanna see her…”

“That’s not exactly
how it went, Hellion,” Abel murmured, settling his hand around the back of
Patience’s slender neck.

“That’s what Honor
heard
from us, Abel.  You can bet your ass on that,” Patience retorted.

“Honor also finally
told all of you what she felt.  It was blunt.   It was incredibly painful.  But
it was also
honest
,” Bree stated softly.  “It hurt to hear and it’ll
take you all a while to recover, but it was a
start
.”

“You call that a start? 
‘Cause it sounded like a finish to me, Doc.  I changed that baby’s diapers,”
Orla whispered, clutching her husband’s hand for support.  “I’ve never, not
ever
,
seen her that mad.”

“Nobody’s ever forced
her to talk about the things that bother her, either,” Bree countered gently as
she looked around at the shell-shocked family members of Honor McKinnon.  “I
know it doesn’t feel good, but in order to take a step forward, this had to
happen.  Honor has to recognize that she needs help and she has to now draw
that conclusion on her own.  You’ve now told her how you feel and the only
alternative you’ll accept.  She knows the offer of help is on the table.  Now,
we have to wait for her to take it.  It’s vitally important to give her
distance now.  If you’re standing in the dark with her, holding her hand, then
she’s never going to be brave enough to take a step out of the shadows.”

“She’s got a stalker
that’s obviously determined to cause her more harm.  The shadows are exactly
where I don’t want her!” Zeke spat, the knowledge that there was an unknown
entity out there gunning for his woman making him feel vaguely homicidal.  “I
can’t afford to just stand by and twiddle my thumbs.  Not if she could be hurt
in the meantime.”

“Oh, please,”
Patience scoffed.  “Right now Honor wouldn’t serve you a glass of ice water if
your tongue was on fire.  You really think she’d let you in the house with
her?”

Zeke frowned even
though he recognized Patience was right.  It was pretty much a foregone
conclusion that if he stepped foot on McKinnon land right now, it’s likely he’d
leave in a body bag.  Like Honor’s aunt, he’d never seen his Kitten so irate. 
“How long do we wait?” he bit out, directing his question toward Bree.

“I can’t answer
that,” Bree returned.  “It’s different for every patient.”

“Look, Zeke, I know
you’re second guessing yourself now, man, but my sister is the best at what she
does.  No bullshit about that.  She’s not a miracle worker, though.  Right now,
the ball is in Honor’s court and it’s going to take time,” Mack Daniels
reminded the lawman solemnly.

“Waiting isn’t my
strong suit, Mack, and time isn’t something that we have an endless supply of
here.  She’s got a week.  Then, I’m storming the gates, putting her in
handcuffs and dragging her to Bree’s office.”

“I’m not exactly sure
how therapeutic
that
would be,” Bree remarked uneasily, shooting an
uncertain look toward Honor’s sisters.

“I’m not certain I
care,” Zeke retorted, lifting a hand to wrap around the back of his tense
neck.  “Going a week without her is already gonna be hell.  I won’t agree to
stay away from her longer than that.”

Bree inclined her
head toward him slightly.  “Let’s just agree to take it day by day.”

Zeke ran a hand down
his weary face.  “I need some air.”  Crossing the room to squat in front of
Aunt Orla’s chair, he took the elderly woman’s fragile hands in his.  “Thank
you for being willing to try this, Miss Orla.  I know this isn’t any easier on
you, Jethro, and the girls than it is for me.  It meant the world that you were
willing to back me up.”

“Son, listen to me. 
I could ask for no man better to love my Honor as well as you do,” Orla praised
the sheriff gently, patting his warm cheek.  “Just keep faith.  Our girl will
come around.  She has to go now.  Let her lick her wounds and think on what got
said here today.  She’s a bright one, our Honor.  She’ll reach the right
conclusion, Zeke.  We just have to wait for her to get there on her own.  You hear
me?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am.  I
hear.  You’re right.  We’ll bring her around; I’ve no doubt of that.  We might
have to hogtie her and drag her to the conclusion we want, but we’ll get her
there,” Zeke vowed, squeezing the old lady’s hand before rising to his feet,
nodding at Honor’s sisters and heading toward the door.  He meant what he said,
but like Honor, for the moment he just wanted to find a quiet place to patch up
his own emotional injuries.

Yeah, he just wanted
to find the nearest open road, point his SUV toward the sun and drive until the
pain in his chest ebbed.

He had a feeling he’d
be driving for a while.

Five Days Later

4:30 am

Honor

Running her fingers
through her tangled blond hair, Honor stood, naked, in front of the full length
mirror in her bathroom.  Glaring at her reflection, her nose curled as she
forced her eyes to travel up and down her body.  God, she despised what she
saw.  Mostly because the image looking back at her hadn’t changed.

It never did.

It was the same flawed
form she always saw when she took off her clothes.  From abdomen to breast, her
midriff was riddled with puckered scars.  Most were old, present but faint.  A
couple were newer, still appearing dark and raw, compliments of her car
accident several months ago.  All of them, however, had one thing in common. 
Each one was ugly, a blatant reminder of a past she’d rather forget. 

Even now, from her
belly to her abdomen up to the underside of her breasts, her skin looked like a
spider web of scars.  Some of the cuts she’d endured had been shallow, leaving
behind only faintly, barely raised lines.  But the other slashes… they’d been
deep, leaving behind marred flesh and roughly raised skin.  Then there were all
the incision marks where surgeons had operated to try and repair the damage
those savages had left behind.  Tracing one particularly bumpy ridged scar with
her index finger, Honor’s eyes clouded as she stared at the mutilated flesh. 
When it had been fresh, the wound had run down to her belly button and it had
hurt so badly it had kept her up at night. 

Now, it
still
kept
her up at night, just for different reasons.  Truthfully, she could probably
name a thousand different memories of her ordeal eight years ago that kept her
awake while the rest of the world slumbered peacefully.  Lately, she’d found
herself jealous of those that could slide into dreamland so effortlessly.  She
envied their ability to sleep more than a few minutes without waking up
startled or screaming.

Thankfully, her new
bodyguard was a sound sleeper.  In the past five days Diego Fuentes had stayed
in her home, she’d only awakened him twice with her nightmares.  But unlike
when Ezekiel had stayed with her, Diego didn’t crawl in bed and hold her in his
strong arms until her tremors stopped.  He didn’t whisper gentle words against
her ear until her panicked heartbeat slowed. 

No, Diego had kept an
acceptable distance between them as he had stood stiffly in the doorway of her
bedroom, his big body on red alert, and asked her if she was alright, and very
unlike Zeke, Diego had taken her word at face value when she’d said she was
fine and to go back to bed.  The tall, scarred man had simply nodded and gone
back to the couch without a word.  He hadn’t gently urged her to talk about
what had woken her the way Zeke did.  He hadn’t drawn her head against his
chest and let the soothing sound of his heartbeat console her.

Honor sighed as she
glanced at the wrist watch Zeke had given her for her eighteenth birthday.  It
was only half past four in the morning and she knew she’d never go back to
sleep now.  Not that she’d slept much at all in the past five nights without
Zeke.  Even with Diego here in her house with her, she was still scared and
afraid to close her eyes.  And while she knew the dangerous Spanish man had a
soft spot for her and would protect her with his life if necessary, he didn’t
have that unique ability to chase away her nightmares in the way Zeke did.

Oh, she knew it
wasn’t fair of her to compare the two men.  In the scope of things, while Diego
had proven himself time and again to be an ally to the McKinnons, she barely
knew anything about him other than the fact that he was a reformed criminal
that had willingly helped the DEA bring down his father, Esteban Fuentes, one
of the premiere drug lords in Mexico.  Diego now worked with her
brother-in-law, Jake, in his security business and the foreign man mostly kept
his thoughts and comments to himself.

Zeke, however, had
been around all her life and had been watching over her for years, she thought
as she reached up to touch the dreamcatcher charm on the necklace he’d given
her on Valentine’s Day.  Until the past week, a day had never passed that she
hadn’t seen him at least once.  And the same was true with her family.  The
fact that she hadn’t spoken to any of them over the last several days was
beginning to wear on her.  She wanted to know if everyone was alright.  She
wanted to see her triplet niece and nephews and measure how much those babies
had grown.  She wanted to steal her six year old niece, Heaven, and spend a day
making cookies with her.  She wanted to gossip with her sisters and get a hug
from her aunt and uncle.  But most of all, she wanted Ezekiel to hold her until
the noise in her head quieted.  Depressingly, ever since that God awful
intervention nearly a week ago, she’d avoided all of them.  Partly because she
was still hurt that they’d felt the need to gang up on her, but mostly because
she was embarrassed over the things she’d said to those that loved her. 

Especially to her
Ezekiel, she thought as shame nearly choked her.

She still couldn’t
believe she’d told him that she thought she hated him.  God knew it wasn’t
true.  She could
never
hate a man who had devoted his own life to making
sure she was safe.  But she’d felt so blindsided by what he’d done, made
vulnerable and exposed in front of the very people she wanted to keep from
knowing how very out of control she felt
all the time. 
Foolishly, she
had struck out at the one man that she
knew
cared the most for her. 
She’d done a lot of thinking this past week.  Alone, with only a silent, mostly
uncommunicative Diego for company, she’d had plenty of time on her hands to
mull things over in her mind.  And while she couldn’t allow herself to believe
Zeke was actually
in
love with her, she had come to accept that he did
love her in a fashion.  The evidence was in everything he did for her.  Up to
and including planning a horribly public intervention in an effort to force her
to get help facing her demons.

And she’d paid him
back by telling him she thought she hated him.

Certainly not one of
her proudest moments.

Tiredly reaching for
her warm flannel robe hanging on the back of the door, she slid it on, cinching
the belt tightly at her waist before reaching for the hairbrush on her
vanity.   Quickly taming her tresses into some semblance of order, she drew her
hair into a high ponytail, grimacing when she noticed how pale and sunken her
cheeks had become.  She knew she’d been neglecting herself, barely eating or sleeping,
but her appetite was gone and sleeping meant dreaming.  Since her dreams were
exclusively of the nightmare variety, she avoided closing her eyes like the
plague.

Satisfied that she
looked as well as she could with only an hour and forty minutes of sleep during
the night, Honor slowly and quietly made her way into the kitchen, surprised to
see that Diego had beaten her up and to the coffeepot this morning.  Meeting
his keen eyes – eyes that saw entirely too much – she offered him a
half-hearted smile.  “Good morning, Diego,” she greeted as the towering man
leaned against the counter beside the coffee maker.  Watching him from the
corner of her eye as she reached inside one of the overhead cabinets for a mug,
Honor noted that Diego’s normally swarthy skin looked even darker in the early
morning shadows of the kitchen.  “Did you sleep well?” she asked as she poured
herself some of the coffee from the pot. 

“No.  Sleep was
difficult to find last night, Preciosa,” his deep voice rumbled as he lifted
his own cup to his lips and took a sip as he seemed to clock her progress
across the room as she moved to sit at the kitchen table. 

Already dressed in
one of the immaculate suits he seemed to favor, Honor wondered if he had some
kind of meeting later in the morning as she studied him over the rim of her
blue enamel mug.  “I’m sorry.  You know, that offer of one of the spare
bedrooms upstairs is still open,” she offered hopefully.  “I hate the thought
of you being uncomfortable when you are staying here to help me.”

“The living room has
a direct line of sight to your bedroom, Chiquita.”

“Chiquita?” Honor
repeated softly, mimicking his pronunciation of the word.  “That’s a new one? 
You aren’t calling me a banana, are you?” she asked, giving him a hard look.

Diego chuckled.  “In
my language it means ‘little one’, Honor.”

“Oh,” Honor remarked
with a small nod.  “That’s okay then.  It’s still dark out,” she noted, nodding
toward the window above the sink.  “Have you been up long?”

“A few hours,” he
answered, his deep voice thick with his Spanish accent.

“My roaming
throughout the house kept you up again, didn’t it?” Honor asked huskily, her
cheeks turning pink with embarrassment.  He didn’t answer her question, but she
saw the truth in his dark eyes.  If only that stupid phone call on her cell
hadn’t awakened her, maybe last night would have been the night that she’d
finally been able to sleep through until morning.  And the kick in the teeth
was the call had been yet
another
damn hang-up.  Empty air followed by
the sound of somebody breathing.  The first couple of times it happened, she
thought maybe it was Zeke, but he never would have called from an unavailable
number and he wouldn’t have been able to stay silent after she started
lecturing.  No, it was probably some moron that had programmed the wrong number
into his phone.  If it kept up, she was gonna have to ask her cell company for
a new number.  Guiltily, she met Diego’s eyes.   “I’m really sorry, Diego,” she
mumbled, humiliation swamping her as she realized that now her demons were
keeping more than just her awake at night.

“No te preocupes,”
Diego declared dismissively.  Seeing the look of confusion in her eyes, he
grinned.  “It means ‘don’t worry about this’ in your language.”

“Thanks,” Honor
murmured, staring down into her steaming cup.

“You miss him,
Preciosa,” Diego noted gently.  “This, I can see clearly.”

“What?”

“Your sheriff.  You
miss him, mi querida.  It is written all over that very pretty, but very sad
face of yours.  It is why you don’t sleep.  It is why you walk the floors like
a ghost during the night.  Why do you do this to yourself?  Why not go to the
man who loves you so deeply?”

“I….Zeke isn’t mine,
Diego.  Besides, he betrayed me,” she asserted.  “Ambushing me in front of half
the town is not exactly the action of a man in love with a woman.”

“He was desperate,
Preciosa.  A desperate man will take volatile actions.”

“Zeke isn’t
reckless.  Trust me, Diego, that wasn’t a desperate move on his part.  He
thought it out.  He planned it.”

“Perhaps, but when a
man feels as though he is out of all other options, he would try things he
might normally never consider.  But even you must see that his heart is in the
right place, yes?”

Honor shifted
anxiously in the chair before lifting her eyes to meet Diego’s.  “He hurt me,
Diego, and he promised me he’d never do that,” she confided in a low voice.

“Did he hurt you,
niña
?  Or is it more accurate to say
that the truth injured you more than your Sheriff did?” 

Honor dropped her
gaze to the tiled floor.  “Some of both, I suppose,” she admitted.  “I was just
caught so off guard, Diego.  I know that I’ve got some problems.  Anyone that
knows me knows that.  It’s just…talking about them…
in public
,” she
continued with a grimace.  “It’s just so humiliating.”

Diego shook his
head.  “Why do you allow what was done to you to bring you shame, little one? 
You
survived
, Honor.  Having a father like mine was, I saw atrocities
committed against women all too often.  While it guts me, it isn’t uncommon in
the world I came from.  Esteban is a cold, cruel man and he wasn’t shy about
showing that side of himself to a woman.  In fact, he prided himself on being
ruthless.  It sickens me, and it was one of the many reasons I made the choice
to topple his empire.   But those women he hurt and used, so many of them never
got back up.  They thought it was easier to die than to get back up and live. 
It saddens me every day to remember the things I’ve seen.  But you, Honor…you
are not like them.  You fought to survive.  No matter where those remaining
monsters are, you defied and defeated them simply by getting back up.  It takes
incredible strength and courage.  And if you can do that, I believe you can
handle most anything.  Including the therapy your family wants you to have.”

Staring into space,
Honor blinked back tears.  “I’m afraid of what I’ll remember, Diego.  I’m
terrified it will finally finish breaking me…and breaking Zeke.  He deserves to
move on with his life.  To find someone and be happy with her.”

Diego nodded.  “I
agree; Ezekiel Monroe is a good and honorable man that has earned the right to
possess a woman of his own to love and cherish.  But what you haven’t grasped,
Honor, is that he’s found her.  You and the sheriff need each other, preciosa. 
Hang onto each other and get through this,” he urged vehemently.  “A blind man
could see that you both bring each other peace, my dear.  We’ve all witnessed
this.  Without each other, you are both no more than two empty husks of a
person.  But united, you make a whole being, perfectly in sync with each
other.  I can tell you without hesitation that if
I
ever got the
opportunity to have back the other half of my soul, there’s nothing I wouldn’t
do to make my way back to her.  Don’t let senseless pride keep you from the one
that makes your heart beat.  Don’t waste a second of the time you have with
those you love in this life, Honor.  I learned that the hard way with my
Vanessa,” he murmured, mentioning Jake’s sister and his former lover.  “Just go
talk to him, Honor.  For your sake, try to find a way to forgive him and put
things right.  Put your stubborn pride away and think with your heart.”