Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4) (43 page)

Saturday, July 2,
2016 – The I Don’t Care Café

10:00 am

Honor

“Then what?” Patience
questioned sharply, her keen blue eyes directed at her baby sister’s face.

“Then Zeke brought me
back here just like I asked him to and I made chocolate and coconut cream pies
all afternoon,” Honor answered with a bored shrug as she drummed her fingers
against the scarred wooden table in the corner of the restaurant.

“I don’t think that’s
what Patience meant by ‘then what’, Peanut,” her eldest sister Harmony
admonished sternly.

“It certainly was
not,” Patience griped huffily.  “I’m talking about the investigation.  What’s
the next damn step?  What’s Zeke gonna do about the damn prick leaving poems on
your car!?  Do we need to hire you a full-time bodyguard.  Because if Deputy
Dipshit can’t keep you safe….”

“Patience, I don’t
think Jeb Hightower intentionally ignored a threat to our baby sister.  We’ve
known him for years.  He went to school with Slade, for heaven’s sake,” Faith
chided, rocking her daughter gently in her arms as she shifted in the booth
beside Honor.  “Besides, you heard Honor.  He couldn’t see her for the stalled
truck in the road.”

“Then why the hell
wasn’t he parked
beside
her in the parking lot?  You know, where he
could actually have done her some good!” Patience scowled, her pretty face
conveying that – like her little sister – she was beyond fed up with the entire
situation.

“Now, untwist those
panties, Little Momma,” Aunt Orla ordered as she burped Patience’s daughter
Harri against her shoulder.  “All that bad temper is gonna turn these babies’
milk sour and then you
will
have problems,” she warned with a playful
wink at the young mother.

“Then would I be able
to call my boobs my own again?  That is the question I want answered,” Patience
countered hopefully. 

“You’d take away the
breast from your babies?” Faith gasped, shooting her sister a dirty look.

“Oh, boy,” Honor
mumbled, looking between her two warring siblings.  The debate over breast or
bottle was an ongoing battle between Faith and Patience.  Faith had readily
embraced the whole earth mother mentality when she’d given birth to little
Anna, but Patience had been a bit more reluctant.  In short, her husband, Abel,
and Faith had bullied her into breastfeeding.  Personally, she agreed with
Patience, albeit, for different reasons.  In the interest of modesty and
convenience, if she had a child she wanted to bottle feed.  After all their
mother had relied on formula to feed her children and each of them had been
healthy as a horse. 

“Babies can survive
just fine on formula,” Patience retorted, aiming a glare across the table at
her sibling.  “I swear, Faith, I may never forgive you for convincing my
husband to join your breastmilk brigade.  I love my kids, but seriously, I miss
my tequila,” she shared grumpily.  Leaning forward to peck her daughter’s plump
cheek, she smiled.  “You understand, don’t you, Harri?  Mommy just needs a
teeny tiny touch of tequila.”

Orla snorted.  “Don’t
lie to this child, Patience Orla McKinnon Turner.  Her mommy wants a whole
bottle of Jose Cuervo and a straw.”

“Aunt Orla, she
shouldn’t get an opinion anyway,” Patience asserted, frowning at Faith.  “She’s
only got one kid depending on her for sustenance.  I have THREE. Do you people
have any idea the toll three hungry infants have on the female breast?”

“NO, nor do I want to
know,” Honor assured her sister quickly.  “Let’s just all agree to disagree
about this topic and agree that we all have the right to control our own
bodies.”

“And boobs,” Aunt
Orla added cheekily.

Clearing her throat,
Harmony wrapped her knuckles against the table to get everyone’s attention. 
“All this talk about our ta-tas is empowering and all that jazz, but I still
want to hear what’s going on with this poem.  Jake showed me a copy of it last
night, Honor.  It was terrifying.  Are you really okay?”

“Okay?” Honor
scoffed.  “No, I’m not okay.  But there’s not a lot I can do about it.  Zeke
has decreed that I’m never to be out of sight from whoever is guarding me from
now on.  Which means, even at the café, I’ve got to have someone standing over
me.”

“It’s for your own
good, child,” Aunt Orla pointed out firmly.  “Nobody wants to take any chances
with you.  Especially not your man.”

“Aunt Orla, Zeke is
not
mine
,” Honor insisted, her face reddening.  Mostly because she was
beginning to feel like she was telling a bald-faced lie.  Because the longer
Zeke stayed with her, the closer they grew.  And the closer they grew, the more
it felt like they really were a couple.

Which was going to
make this last therapy appointment’s homework hard to complete.

And that was the
reason she was actually sitting at a table with her sisters.  “You know, I
didn’t actually call you all here to talk about the poem I got yesterday. 
There’s not much we can do about that.  Ice didn’t find any trace of the guy in
the woods. And Zeke sent the paper off to the crime lab to see if there are any
prints on it, and so far, we haven’t heard anything one way or another.  As you
can see, I have protection this morning,” she said, nodding at where Harmony’s
husband, Jake, sat with his business partner, Diego, by the door to the
restaurant.  “So my security is covered.   I needed to talk to you all for an
entirely different reason,” she admitted as she lowered her voice.

“Sounds juicy.  I’m
intrigued,” Patience murmured, settling back in the booth.

Looking from one
sister to another, Honor wriggled uncomfortably under the weight of three
stares.  “The truth is, I sort of need help, and Bree suggested I talk to you
all.”

Harmony’s brow
furrowed.  “What’s goin’ on, Peanut?” she asked worriedly.

“I need to start
going out on dates.  ASAP.”

“Pardon?” Harmony
yelped in surprise.

“What?” Faith
blurted, her eyes bulging.

“Oh, this’ll end
well.”  Patience smirked.

“It’s not that
earthshattering, is it?” Honor frowned around the table at her sisters.

Aunt Orla cackled as
she rocked little Harri in her arms.  “Lordy be!  That may be the funniest
thing I’ve heard in a coon’s age.  Tell us, does our fine Sheriff know ‘bout
this, Honor Grace?  I can’t imagine he does since he’s not gone on a tear
through the town square yet.”

Honor’s chin dipped
as she lowered her head guiltily.  “Not yet,” she admitted on a low moan.  “How
in the world do you tell the man that already thinks you’re his that you intend
to spend time with other men?”

Harmony chuckled. 
“Not sure ‘bout that.”

“I’d start with
having about three states between Zeke and you before you open your mouth about
this one,” Patience advised.

“You know, I know
that Patience and I haven’t agreed about a lot of things lately, but I gotta
say, I think she’s on to something there,” Faith added with a ready nod.

Honor groaned.  “This
is all Bree’s fault!” she hissed.  “I’m not gonna need to worry about this jerk
stalking me.  Her and her stupid homework assignments are gonna be the death of
me!”

“Exactly why has she
assigned you a dating assignment?  What was her logic on this?  She’s an
educated woman; she
does
know Zeke carries a gun.”

“I don’t know.  Her
working theory appears to be that a few dates will help me figure out how I
feel about Zeke.  Plus, she’s got it in her fool head that a woman my age
should have some dating experience before she decides to set her cap on one
man…or more accurately, let that man set his cap for her.”  Rubbing her
forehead, Honor shook her head.

“Well,” Patience
drawled, propping her elbow on the table and her cheek in her hand, “She’s not
exactly wrong.”

Honor swung alarmed
eyes toward Patience’s face.  “You’re kidding, right?”

“No.  I mean, you’ve
never seen what the meat market is like in Paradise, sis.  Maybe you’ll find a
leaner, meaner cut of masculinity to tempt you,” she offered, smiling faintly
when Honor’s jaw dropped.

“I have a very lean,
mean man living in my home right now, Patience, and that one’s about to run me
crazy as it is,” Honor grumbled.  “After the last couple of nights, my mind and
my body are at constant odds over what’s best for me, and now my ding-donged
therapist wants to throw
more
men in the mix!”

“Wait a second,”
Faith interrupted as she pulled the receiving blanket more tightly around her
slumbering daughter.  “What’s gone on the last couple of nights?”

Honor’s breath caught
in her throat as she felt every woman at the table stare at her.

“Oh, I know that
look,” Aunt Orla chortled.  “That’s the same look your baby sister used to get
when I caught her sneakin’ her hand into the cookie jar when she was a kid.”

“Is that so?”
Patience murmured knowingly as her little sister darted her eyes from the table
to the ceiling to the floor.  “Why, Peanut… did you put your hand into Zeke’s
cookie jar when he wasn’t looking?”

“Oh, Lord,” Honor
mumbled, covering her face with a hand as she prayed the floor would open up and
swallow her whole.  She knew her family.  Her sisters were as determined as
bulldogs when they caught scent of a scandalous tidbit.  And letting Zeke’s
talented hands into her panties definitely would qualify as salacious gossip to
these crazy kinfolk.

Aunt Orla hooted with
laughter.  “Oh, no, Patience.  I don’t think that’s it at
all
.  If
anything, I’d say our friendly lawman strayed into your sister’s cookies and
took a big ole bite if that blush is any indication.”

“Oh, my Lord!” Faith
gasped, her azure colored eyes widening.  “Our little sister is growing up,”
she squealed, earning herself an agitated look from Honor.

“Way to go, sis,”
Harmony praised with a delighted smile as she pushed her chin length hair over
her shoulder.

“’Bout time somebody snacked
on your cookie supply, Peanut,” Patience declared with a wink, tapping the
table with her lavender tipped nails.

“Would you all keep
your voices down,” Honor demanded tightly, her anxious eyes scanning the
patrons of the café to see if they’d been overheard.  “I swear, sometimes I
don’t even like you people.”

Looking over at
Patience, Aunt Orla shook her head.  “You’d think she’d be less huffy what with
her gettin’ some lawman lovin’.  Tell me, child.  What’s the sheriff packin’ in
his pants?  Are we talkin’ a pocket pistol or a hand cannon?”

Honor stared back at
her aunt with uncomprehending eyes.   “Have you had some kind of stroke?  What
in the world are you talking about?”  Looking at her sisters, who appeared to
be hanging on every word that got said, Honor made an irritated sound.  “Will
one of you nosy nuts please translate?

“She wants to know
what kind of gun Zeke’s got between his legs,” Faith whispered with a wicked
giggle.

“Or you can think of
it like ridin’ a motorcycle.  Did you climb aboard a crotch rocket or was it
more like the easy glide on a smooth-ridin’ Fatboy?” Patience questioned,
wiggling her eyebrows for effect.

Embarrassed, Honor
licked her dry lips as she tried to think clearly.  They all seemed to think
she’d seen way more of Zeke than she had, and while she’d felt his more than
substantial dangly bits pressed against her body when they’d been fooling
around, she’d not actually
seen
anything.  What she’d felt,
however….well, she wasn’t an expert, but she was pretty sure he’d put most
snakes in the jungle to shame with what he carried around inside his jeans.  “I
am
NOT
talking to any of you about Ezekiel’s private bits and pieces,”
she whispered violently.  “But just for the record, we haven’t gotten
that
far
yet anyway.”

“Oh, honey!”
Harmony’s face fell.  “Don’t tell me that man wasn’t able to ring your bell for
you.”

Honor knew her face
had to be beet red, but she also knew her sisters were a persistent lot.  None
of them were gonna let this topic just die a natural death.  “Good Lord,
Harmony!  If you must have all the details, then YES, my bell did indeed ring. 
Loud and long!  Zeke just had his clothes on while he went about making it
chime!”

“Thatta girl!” Faith
laughed.  “And I’m assumin’ that you liked the way he rang said bell?”

Honor stared at the
print hanging above Faith’s head.  “I want a new family,” she remarked to the
picture hangin on the wall.  “One that doesn’t feel the need to know all the
details of my life.”

“You’re the baby of
the family.  Of
course
, we’re gonna want the dirt,” Harmony scoffed like
she thought her sibling was crazy for even being surprised.  “Now, back to this
whole dating debacle.  I seriously doubt after sharing any kind of intimacy
with you, Zeke’s going to be of a mind to share you with another man.  In fact,
if it were Jake, any guy that got too close would find himself missing vital
pieces of his anatomy.  I can’t imagine Zeke’s gonna be much different, and I
know
you’ll never be able to sneak off and do this with the watch he’s got on you.”