Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4) (3 page)

“Even the strongest
metals will melt if the temperatures burn bright enough, Maggie.  Watching her
this last month has been like watching a rose lose its bloom.  She barely
sleeps.  She rarely speaks.  She hardly eats at all.  She’s not herself.  Maybe
Ice is right and it’s time for us to face facts,” Zeke whispered thickly as he
recalled all the nights that Honor had awakened screaming over the past month. 
He had stared into those beautiful blue eyes of hers and seen the deep pain
that resided there.  He’d seen the lines of strain on her face even when she
tried to convince the world that she was happy and well.  Fuck, maybe he’d help
drive her to this.  He didn’t know.  All he was sure of was that he wasn’t
giving up on her.

Not now.

Not ever.

Shaking his head,
Diego sighed heavily.  “I’ve seen many strong women crippled by pain and fear,
but I still must agree with Patience and Señorita Winstead.   Something isn’t
right here.  If the Little One truly wished to take her life, why would she
leave so many pills in the bottle?  Why would she do it in a place she would be
easily discovered?  These things… they make no sense at all.  Especially since
Honor is not chica estupida.”

“What?  What’d you say?
” Zeke asked, lifting his head to look at the newest man that Honor had decreed
was ‘family’. 

“That pill bottle
that Honor held… it was still half-filled.  If she was trying to end her life,
she would have taken them all, no?” Diego asked, looking around at the others
in the room.

“Ha!  Diego, you’re
makin’ my case for me.  Listen to him, y’all.  Unlike the redneck thug holding
up the wall over there,” Maggie declared with a scornful look at Ice, “The drug
lord makes sense.”

“Former and reformed
drug lord, Corazon,” Diego corrected with a flirtatious wink at Maggie that had
Ice growling low in his throat.  “And, gracias,” he added, ignoring the
venomous look Zeke’s brother gave him.

“The girl is what?  A
buck fifteen, tops?  Maybe she thought she didn’t need to down the entire
bottle before her body began to tell her that she’d taken enough to get the job
done,” Ice spat irritably, glaring at Diego.

“Real nice, Ice,”
Jake hissed, rubbing Harmony’s back gently as she buried her face in her
hands.  “This is my sister-in-law that you’re talking about!”

“A-fuckin’-men,” Abel
agreed, shooting his own dirty look at Zeke’s brother.

“Listen, I don’t
wanna believe what Ice is saying, either.  God knows, I don’t.  The idea that
Honor would be desperate enough to try and end things and I didn’t see it…,”
Zeke managed shakily while he ran a trembling hand down his face.  “Believe me,
I don’t want him to be right.  But…”

“But, nothing,
Zeke’,” Patience snapped as she paced the waiting room furiously.  “If she’d
been tryin’ to do herself in, she’d have done the job right.  My sister has
never done anything halfway in her life, and she wouldn’t start now.  And like
our buddy from south of the border said, it’s also a safe bet to say that she
certainly wouldn’t have done it in our place of business where one of her
family would have to be the one to find her.  She wouldn’t do that to me, to
you, or to any of us.  Ice might be willing to believe the worst about Honor,
but you should damn well know better, Zeke,” she accused irately.  “Do you have
that little faith in my sister that you’re willing to believe anything you’re
told without actually waiting and talking to the one person that could convince
you otherwise?”

“And just to add, my
niece has strong moral and religious beliefs, Sheriff.  Honor wouldn’t go to
meet her Maker with sin on her soul,” Orla proclaimed staunchly.

Running a hand down
his face, Zeke shook his head.  “You’re right,” he mumbled into his hand before
turning his eyes toward Ice.  “They’re right.”

Ice shook his head. 
“Don’t think so, baby brother.”

Jaw clenching, Maggie
whirled toward the man causing the commotion and narrowed her eyes.  “I don’t
know why you suddenly think you’re an expert on Honor McKinnon, Zachariah
Monroe, but I can assure you that you are way off base here.  As someone that’s
had to dig myself out of the deepest pits of despair myself, I don’t mind
telling you that when a person is suicidal, they don’t go around making plans
for the future.  If you’re soooo convinced that Honor was trying to cut and run
on her life, why would she have called me this morning and asked if I’d be
willing to co-chair the yearly fundraiser we have for underprivileged kids in
Paradise County?  We were supposed to meet this afternoon.  You think she was just
makin’ plans for shits and giggles?”

“I don’t know,” Ice
conceded softly.  “I only know what I saw… what I’ve seen for a long time. 
It’s the same thing damn show all of you’ve been watching.  Honor has been
slipping away for months, trapped in the past with no interest in living in her
present.”

“You’re an idiot,”
Maggie sneered.  “Honor has been tryin’ to escape her past, you know nothing
nitwit!  Her past is exactly what is making her present such a living hell! 
Sadly, outside forces… forces that you and your redneck brethren haven’t had
any
luck in catching… are makin’ living that life of hers mighty hard for her
endure.  Or does nearly bein’ murdered with her own automobile not count as
terrorizing her?  How about those threatening notes that you asshat men keep
tryin’ to hide from her?  Do you honestly think that not a
single
one
has slipped through the cracks and landed in Honor’s hands to terrify her? 
Face it, you hillbilly buffoon!  Honor has had all the reason in the world to
feel scared.  But I can guarantee you that if she can endure the past she’s
lived through, she isn’t gonna quit now.”

“And what makes YOU
such an expert on suicidal women?” Ice growled back, his face reddening with
anger and maybe just a touch of embarrassment.

Maggie lifted her
chin and met his gaze without an ounce of shame.  “Because I
was
a
suicidal woman.  And believe me… I was in that black hole of depression long
enough to be able to recognize if somebody else is in the same shape!”

Zeke watched as his
brother’s jaw dropped in shock.  And since he knew a fair bit about Maggie
Winstead’s painful past, he felt obligated to step in front of her and face his
brother.  “You need to back the fuck off, Ice.  Now.”

Blinking his
confusion, Ice shook his head.  “But…”

“But, nothing,” Zeke
snapped.  “First, you don’t have the right to start pestering Maggie with
questions you’re not entitled to have answered.  And second, right now,
anything you say is gonna make you sound like a bigger dick than you already
have shown you are.  Sit down and shut up.”  Zeke’s lips twitched as Maggie
applauded behind him.

“Well done, Sheriff,”
she congratulated him with a faint smile.  “Now, if you could just find a way
to lock him in a cell and keep him from terrorizing the villagers, that’d be
lovely,” Maggie added dryly, her eyes still glittering with anger when she
glared at Ice.

Zeke almost felt
sorry for his elder brother.  Older by a barely a year, he knew that his
sibling was trying to look out for him, but he had all the tact of a half-naked
whore in church.  His sibling did look chastened, though, and for once he
wasn’t eyeing Maggie with the disdain he usually did.  Instead, his brother
looked both perplexed and intrigued, and Zeke knew it wouldn’t be long before
the man realized that he’d finally met his match in Margaret Winstead. 

“Maggie, my brother
isn’t always the smoothest talker, but he
does
care about Honor, too. 
Deeply,” Zeke added with a look around the room at Honor’s family.

“We know that, Zeke,”
Patience declared with a sigh before she reached out to squeeze Ice’s
shoulder.  “Emotions are running high for everybody, and both Ice and Diego had
their britches nearly scared off of them.”

“She was so still,”
Ice murmured, his eyes dropping to stare at the tiled floor.  Finally looking
up at his brother, Ice swallowed.  “She’s yours, Zeke.  Everybody knows that. 
But by being yours, that makes her part of
mine,
too.  Today, for a few
minutes, I wasn’t sure if she was gonna make it.  Whether she did this to
herself or not, she does need help,” he insisted, slowly looking around at each
face in the room.  “I don’t say that to be an asshole.  I say it because I
don’t want to lose her,” he explained as his eyes came to rest on Maggie’s
face.

“Then perhaps you
should try saying
that
, Ice, and maybe the rest of us will stop
fantasizing about stringing you up on the tallest tree we can find and watching
your body swing.”

Opening his mouth to
intercede before Ice’s attitude could cause even more trouble, Zeke froze as
the double metal doors opened and Cain Turner and Mack Daniels hurried toward
the gathered family, followed closely by a third vaguely familiar man wearing a
white coat.  Not giving either man time to speak, Zeke immediately turned
toward them and demanded, “Tell me she’s going to be okay.”

Cain nodded as Mack
lips pressed together in a tight line, and the man trailing behind them scoffed
audibly.

“I’d say Ms. McKinnon
is a far cry from
okay
, Dr. Turner,” the white-headed man denied wryly,
offering Cain a sidelong look.  “In fact, as I stated before, I strongly
question her mental competence at the moment and still maintain that she should
be detained and involuntarily committed.”

“And
we
told
you
to stick it up your ass,” Dr. Mackenzie Daniels stated sarcastically before
Zeke could explode.  “Obviously, you weren’t listening to anything
we
said
either because we already told you that you aren’t Ms. McKinnon’s doctor.”

“I’m the psychiatrist
on staff and since Ms. McKinnon has no physician of record…”

“Enough,” Zeke
roared, slicing a hand through the air as his frantic gaze settled on Cain.  “I
wanna hear from Dr. Turner and Dr. Daniels right now on Honor’s condition,” he
ordered, sparing the older doctor a scathing look.

Unmoved, the
psychiatrist shook his head.  “And who, exactly, are you to the patient?  None
of Ms. McKinnon’s files indicate a spouse, Sheriff Monroe” he said, obviously
connecting the badge on Zeke’s belt with the man that now stood in front of
him.  Zeke looked toward Mack and Cain for validation, but it was Orla that
cleared the matter up for the shrink while Zeke’s eyes flashed dangerously.

Moving to Zeke’s
side, Orla huffed out an irritated breath.  “He’s my niece’s medical proxy
right along with me, Sawbones.  I’m her aunt, and I should warn you that the McKinnon
family doesn’t like it when doctors we don’t know start throwing around words
like involuntary commitment.”  Peering closer at the doctor, Orla gasped in
outrage.  “Wait a minute!  We do know him, Zeke.  This is the man that tried to
have Honor committed when she was just a child,” she accused, pointing at the
distinguished-looking man.  “I can’t remember his name, but this is the one,”
she continued, her eyes growing stormier the longer she looked at him. 

“That’s a good memory
you have for an elderly woman, Mrs. McKinnon.”

“Being old don’t make
you stupid,” Orla retorted, her eyes narrowing at the physician’s condescending
tone.

“Yes, well, as you’ve
said, we’ve met prior to this event.  My name is Dr. Brantley, and I am
familiar with Honor’s case.”

“You were her doctor
for five seconds eight years ago before we had you thrown off her medical
team.  That doesn’t make you familiar with jack shit,” Zeke growled
protectively, glaring at the physician.  He remembered this idiot in front of
him just fine now.  Arrogant and convinced his was God’s gift to medicine,
Brantley had tried to take Honor from them once before by fighting to have her
involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital.  They’d been fortunate that
he had failed in his efforts.  Sadly, it appeared this leopard hadn’t changed
his spots and still seemed determined to have her put away like some escaped
mental patient.  Like hell, Zeke would allow that to happen.  He’d shoot the
bastard first.  Honor might need help; that was true enough, but it wouldn’t
come from this windbag.

“On the contrary,
perhaps, if you’d all listened to my concerns for the patient all those years
ago and acted accordingly, this wouldn’t have happened today,” Brantley pointed
out grimly, his fingers tightening on the file in his hand.

“For the record, Dr.
Brantley, we’re still not exactly sure what
did
happen today,” Cain
disagreed sharply, his jaw clenching as Honor’s sisters gasped in outrage.

Flipping open the
file in his hand, Dr. Brantley’s head bent as he began to flick through the
pages.  “Well, let’s see what the lab says was found in her blood, shall we? 
Ah yes, here it is… high levels of Seconal were found in her blood stream.”

“What the hell is
Seconal?” Patience questioned sharply.  “The bottle that Aunt Orla pulled out
of her hand was for Fioracet that was prescribed for her headaches!”

“That’s why we’re not
sure what happened today,” Cain clarified evenly with a hard look at the
psychiatrist.

Shaking his head, Dr.
Brantley smirked.  “I’d offer that it’s only too clear what happened since
there was no evidence of the medication Dr. Turner prescribed in Ms. McKinnon’s
blood stream.  I’d posit that Honor somehow got her hands on a fatal dose of
Seconal and tried to end her life.”