Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4) (7 page)

“Sheriff…”

“She’s my life,
Mack.  My fuckin’ sun and the only goddamn moon in my sky.  My beginning and my
end.  The center of the whole damned universe.  Do you understand, man?  Are
you getting the picture yet?” Zeke barked.  “Now, please, tell me how she is or
I swear to God, I’m gonna tear that motherfucking door off the hinges and find
out for myself.”

“If you’ll shut up
for a minute, maybe I can finish a thought here,” Mack snapped, glaring at
where Zeke stood rigidly in front of him almost shaking with rage.  “What I was
going to say was that while you aren’t technically family, nobody that knows
any of you crazy folk would deny that you are very definitely next-of-kin.  So,
I’m gonna tell you straight, Honor’s had a hard time in there.  Cain and Dr.
Sanderson…”

“Dr. Sanderson?”
Zeke echoed in a hard voice, not recognizing the name.

“He’s a colleague,
Sheriff.  A good one, too,” Mack assured him steadily.

“As good as you?”
Zeke questioned tersely, more than ready to shove Mack into Honor’s operating
room if necessary.”

“Definitely.  He’s
a very well respected OB-GYN in his own right, man.  At any rate, Cain and Dr.
Sanderson had to remove her left ovary and fallopian tube. The tree limb just
did too much damage to repair it.  Add that to the fact that she began to
hemorrhage, and it was an easy decision to make.  Her life or her ovary?  Cain
didn’t waste any time choosing Honor’s life.”

The color leeched
from Zeke’s face at that information and he couldn’t help his flinch.  “Jesus,”
he choked, feeling as if he’d been sucker punched in the gut.  There was no
doubt in his mind that once Honor got over her fear of intimacy, she’d want
children… a family.  Hell, he dreamed of it himself. 

“She’ll be okay,
though.  Honor can live just fine without those things, can’t she?” Zeke heard
Abel ask as he forced himself to focus on the fact that his girl was going to
live.  Yeah, he wanted a family with Honor, but he damn sure needed the woman
more.

“Listen to me,
both of you,” Mack continued, drawing Zeke’s gaze back to his face.  “If this
had to happen to Honor, it was better that it happened on her left side than
her right because her left ovary was the one that was the more severely damaged
of the two after her rape.  The scar tissue on the left fallopian tube alone
probably would have prevented a conception from that ovary.  The good news is
that Cain said her right ovary and tube look good.  She should be able to
conceive easily when she’s ready to have a baby.”

“So, why are they
still in there?” Zeke inquired worriedly, jerking his chin toward the operating
room.  “Is Honor still on the table?”

“She was when I
stepped out.  As I shared with you, she’s had some bleeding issues.  They’ve
had to give her more than a couple pints of blood.  In fact, when you guys go
back through the waiting room, you might wanna ask the family if they’d be
willing to donate… replenish the blood bank.”

“We’ll do that. 
Later.  For now, I wanna know how much longer we’re looking at out here, Mack.  And
what kind of recovery is Honor facing?” Zeke continued to ask, firing his
questions off quickly.  He knew he was probably making a nuisance of himself. 
After all, Mack wasn’t Honor’s surgeon, but he was her doctor.  He would have
been with Honor if Patience hadn’t needed him worse.  And truthfully, Zeke was
a desperate man, greedy for any information where his woman was concerned. 
Luckily, Mackenzie Daniels seemed to empathize with him and readily answered
his questions.   

Offering both men
a sympathetic smile, Mack clasped his hands together and sighed.  “It’s hard to
say what recovery will look like for either of your women,” he remarked,
looking between Zeke and Abel.  “Like Patience, in addition to the obvious
injuries, Honor is pretty banged and bruised up, Zeke.  I’d say she’s probably
looking at a week or so in the hospital, and that’s barring any further
complications.  Truthfully, we won’t know more until she’s out of surgery which
should happen soon.  They were beginning to close when I came out here.”

“I wanna be there
with her, Mack.  As soon as she’s out, I wanna see her,” Zeke warned, unwilling
to take no for an answer.

Mack ran a hand
down his scruffy jaw as he eyed the sheriff.  “You’re determined not to make my
job an easy one, aren’t you?”

“If she was yours,
would you want to be separated from her?  Especially now?”

Dr. Daniels’
shoulders sagged.  “Well, hell.  Man, the charge nurse on duty tonight is gonna
love my ass,” he continued dryly.  “I’m sending her two fuckin’ chest-beating alpha
males to contend with in her Recovery Ward.  What could possibly go wrong with
this plan?”

“I guarantee you
it will have a better ending than if you decide to try and keep us from Honor
and Patience,” Zeke guaranteed firmly.

~***~

Ninety minutes later
Zeke had finally battled his way through Mack Daniels, the Charge Nurse, and
two of Honor’s very worried sisters to make it to her side.  What he found
waiting for him caused every muscle in his body to lock. Otherwise, he would
have fallen to his knees beside her bed.

Pasty white and way
too still for Zeke’s piece of mind, Honor laid on her back atop the narrow
hospital bed, her chest barely rising and falling as a wide assortment of
machines beeped around her.  Her body was covered to the waist with a thin
sheet, but her face held an assortment of scrapes and bruises, and each of her
arms held an IV. 

His rational mind
reminded him that it wasn’t the first time he’d seen her in this condition, but
watching someone you loved fight to live was never something that got easier. 
Especially when that person sat at the center of your world. 

Moving closer, he
grimaced as he saw the dark blue bruise on her chest where her seatbelt had
caught her.   Christ, she looked as if she’d been beaten again, he thought furiously,
carefully brushing the back of his hand against her forehead.  His eyes
catalogued every scrape and bruise he could see, and on such a tiny body, every
mark was glaringly obvious, he thought bitterly. 

His Honor had endured
too many of those painful injuries in her short twenty-four years.  It had to
stop, he told himself.  And by God, it
would
, he vowed silently.  He
didn’t care what he had to do.

The battle axe of a
Charge Nurse had warned him that his girl would remain unconscious for a while longer,
but he couldn’t help wishing that she’d hurry up and open her eyes.  Until he
saw those expressive cornflower blue orbs staring back at him with something
other than pain, he didn’t think he’d be able to relax.

Despite his tension,
the last hour and a half had been informative, though.  His deputies had
confirmed by the skid marks on the main road where Honor’s car had left the
pavement, that it appeared there had been two vehicles involved.  It also
appeared as though Honor’s brakes had been useless during the accident, which
didn’t make a lick of sense since he knew that Wrath McKay had serviced her
vehicle barely a week ago.

As much as he’d hated
to do it, he’d put a call out to the sole reputable mechanic in Paradise.  And
hellfire, how he’d hated to do it.  He had a variety of reasons for his
hesitance.  Chiefly among them was that while the man might run a thriving auto
repair business, his other career as President of the local MC Club, The Hounds
of Hell, was a bone of contention between the sheriff and Wrath McKay.  Part
outlaw/part vigilante, Wrath and his boys didn’t always follow the letter of
the law.  No, they skated as close to the edge of it as they possibly could. 
And that made a lawman like himself a bit anxious.  They weren’t exactly
adversaries – after all, Zeke occasionally needed to make use of their
connections – but, they weren’t buds either.  They had, however, graduated,
high school together, so they did share some common history.  And some common
one night stands, if Zeke was honest about it.  In a different life, he
probably could have been buddies with Wrath.  Unfortunately, Wrath’s interest
in Honor prevented that.  The truth was Zeke was more than a little aware of
the very real fact that the normally hard-to-read Wrath McKay had always had an
obvious soft spot for Honor.  He’d had it for years.  It’d developed right
around the time Zeke himself had fallen in love with Honor. 

It was an
understatement to say that Ezekiel didn’t like that at all, and he’d had to let
the other man know on more than one occasion that Honor was off-limits for
whatever the MC President had in mind.  Honor belonged to Zeke.  She might not
accept it yet.  And God knew, his sweet angel didn’t really altogether
understand what being his meant, but regardless, Zeke was keeping her. 
Forever.  And that began with keeping her as far away from Wrath McKay and his
gang of goons as he possibly could. 

 So, it was safe to
say that Zeke was more than a little unhappy that he needed Wrath’s help.  But
in this instance, he didn’t trust any man more to find out what the hell had
gone wrong in Honor’s freshly-serviced car.

Hearing the sound of
a throat clearing behind him, Zeke glanced over his shoulder and was
unsurprised to find the man in question leaning against the sliding door of the
glassed-in cubicle, staring at Honor with longing in his dark eyes.

Rising, Zeke turned
to face Wrath McKay.  Evenly matched in both height and breadth, the two men
stared at each other, each eyeing the other critically. 

~**~

“Just how in the
hell did you get back here, McKay?” Zeke asked through clenched teeth as he
moved to block Wrath’s view of Honor. 

“Now, Sheriff.  You
called me.  I thought you’d be happy to see an old friend,” Wrath returned
sarcastically, his amber eyes amused as they clashed with Zeke’s steely gray
ones.

“We were never
friends and you know it,” Zeke retorted sharply, reaching a hand up to rub the
back of his aching neck.  “Seriously, this car accident of Honor’s may not be
an accident at all, Wrath.  I need to make sure she’s protected at all times,
and the fact that the staff is allowing men that aren’t family back here isn’t
exactly going to keep her protected if she’s got somebody after her.”

“May I point out
that you’re no more family to her than I am?” Wrath questioned dryly.

Zeke merely raised
an eyebrow at that and lifted his chin.  Mostly because both men knew exactly
who he was going to be to Honor eventually.

Wrath shrugged
after a long, fraught moment.  “Jesus, Zeke.  Lucy Sykes was on the front
desk.  I fucked her last weekend at a club party.  She was… Is it arrogant to
say grateful?” he questioned with a sly smile.  “Anyway, I told her I needed to
see you; she let me in.”

Zeke stared at the
other man. “Nice.  And you expect me to move aside so that you can have a go at
Honor,” he muttered, shaking his head in disgust.  “Like hell that’ll ever
happen.”

Wrath chuckled. 
“If I had Honor, believe me, Sheriff.  I wouldn’t be out there fucking the Lucy
Sykes of the world.”

Zeke nailed Wrath
with a penetrating gaze.  “If you seriously cared anything about Honor, you
wouldn’t have the desire to fuck anybody else in the world.  Period.”

“We’re not all
monks, Zeke,” Wrath replied quietly, dropping his hands in the deep pockets of
his jeans. 

“You would be if
your dick didn’t get hard for anybody else but her,” Zeke growled with a look
over his shoulder at a motionless Honor. 

Moving more deeply
into the cubicle, Wrath hissed a breath in through his teeth as he got a good
look at the woman in the bed.  “Fuck, man,” he winced, his nostrils flaring as
he stared down at Honor’s body. 

Zeke knew what the
other guy was seeing.  Mottled with bruises and scrapes, his Kitten looked like
a fragile broken doll.  “Yeah.  Now maybe you understand my current mood a
little better,” he remarked drolly.

“Is she gonna be
okay?” Wrath questioned, his voice almost inaudible.

Dropping a gentle
hand to rest on Honor’s forehead, Zeke swept his thumb tenderly against her
temple.  “She’s gonna get through this,” he confirmed before offering Wrath a
hard look.   “But I want the bastards that put her in this bed, Wrath.”

Wrath nodded
somberly.  “For Honor, me and the boys will help any way we can, Sheriff.”

“Really?” Zeke
asked mildly, his gaze silently assessing the man’s sincerity.

“We might have our
problems, man, and I know you got issues with the Hounds of Hell.  But NONE of
us have a problem with that woman there,” Wrath continued, pointing a finger at
where Honor rested.  “Shit, Zeke, when everybody else was looking down there
nose at the Hounds, your girl there…she was sweet as sugar to every last one of
my guys.  And I know how hard that was on her.  Especially since we’re not
exactly a bunch of suit-wearing Nancy boys.  I know we had to scare her… but
she refused to treat us any… less, you know?  Even after everything that
happened to her, she was fair.”