Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4)

by Sarah O'Rourke

  “Honor, stay in bed. Do you want them both out or just the instigator?” Aubrey asked over her shoulder.

  Knowing Zeke would fight tooth and nail, Honor decided to go for the easier eviction notice. “Just Ice for right now,” Honor said softly.

  “Okay, you heard her. I don’t know what kind of weird family dynamic is in play between you right now, gentleman, and I don’t care. Whoever you are,” she ordered Ice Monroe, “You need to leave right now. My patient has been clear and I won’t have her upset any more tonight. She does NOT want you in here so you go.”

  Honor thought Ice would argue. The man had an almost pathological need to raise a ruckus with people, especially ones that told him what to do. But she was surprised when he simply jerked his head in a nod before turning astonishingly contrite eyes to her.

  “You won’t believe me, kid, but I’m sorry for what I said. I was way out of line,” he apologized softly before turning to look at his younger brother, the sheriff. “Your pound of flesh will be waiting when you’re ready, Zeke,” he said softly.

  “Oh, I’m gonna take a lot more than a fuckin’ pound when I come for you,” Zeke promised with a quiet grimness that chilled Honor to her bones.

  “Zeke, stop,” Honor ordered, afraid he’d lunge for his brother. “He said he was sorry.” She wasn’t quite ready to forgive Ice yet, if ever, but she definitely didn’t want to come between two brothers.

  “You’re lucky I need to be with her a lot more than I want to kick your ass, Ice. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure I’d kill you right now.”

  “Enough, gentlemen. Sheriff Monroe, would you like me to have you removed, too?” Aubrey Daniels asked pointedly.

  “No.” Zeke said, his eyes still locked on his brother. “Honor’s the most important thing in the room for me. Go, Ice. We’ll see each other soon.”

  Honor heard the scary promise in Zeke’s voice as she watched Ice leave, closing the door behind him. As soon as he was gone, Honor turned to look at Zeke. “Don’t you dare do anything to him, Ezekiel. Ice is just tryin’ to be a good brother to you. His methods might be questionable, but his heart was in the right place,” she sternly defended Ice. She might not like the things the man had said to her, but she understood in her heart that everything he’d uttered had been in an effort to protect Zeke. And since she wanted to do the same thing for him, she and Ice had that much in common.

  “It won’t be when I rip it out of his chest and hand it to him,” Zeke muttered, striding toward the bed. Reaching her side, he reached out to gently push the hair off the side of her face and bent to press his lips to her temple. “How do you feel, Kitten?”

  Ignoring his question and doing her best not to lean into his too comforting touch, Honor stared at the woman in the white coat. “Aubrey, right? Aubrey Daniels? Mack’s sister?”

  “That’s right, Honor. Call me Bree, though,” Bree invited with a smile. “I’m a doctor here on staff at Paradise General now.”

  “Yes, I know. You’re a crazy person’s doctor. I’m not crazy, and I didn’t try to kill myself!” Honor insisted, her body going tense as the other woman nodded slowly.

  “Nobody said you did, Honor,” Bree assured her calmly.

  “Ice did! He thinks I did it for some kind of attention, but I didn’t do anything of the blasted sort! ALL I did was take my headache pills which were definitely prescribed to me by a professional physician. I don’t need any kind of psychiatric help for that! If I do, then half the blame town of Paradise needs help, damn it,” Honor cursed, making a face when she realized how impolite she was being to the other woman. Her mother would cut out her tongue if she heard the way she was speaking to a person who was trying to help her, and Honor felt a wave of shame descend over her. “I’m sorry. That was terribly rude of me. You’re a psychiatrist and that’s a noble profession. A healer’s profession. I just don’t happen to need your services, Bree. I don’t need them because I am a perfectly sane, rational human being. I must have just had a bad reaction to the medicine, but I did not and would never try to end my own life,” she vehemently maintained, her voice almost frantic as the need for somebody to believe her clawed its way up her throat. “Where’s the rest of my family, Zeke? Is that why nobody is here? They think I tried to off myself?” she asked, somewhat hysterically.

  It was true; she’d done a lot of stupid things in her life. From walking down a dark road at night and refusing Zeke’s offer of a ride eight years ago all the way up to thinking that purple would make a pretty nail polish color, she thought with a disgusted look down at her painted lavender nails. Nope, she wasn’t a stranger to making judgment errors. But she was also a long way from being careless with her life. Even when she’d wanted to die all those years ago, something inside her had kept fighting, kept striving to keep breathing when she’d been dumped, naked and cold, in a hole in the ground. She’d learned an agonizing lesson that night: Life was precious and scarily easy to snuff out when someone took a notion to try.

  “Of course not! It’s late. I sent most of them home hours ago when it was clear you were going to be alright, but were also gonna sleep awhile longer. Harmony, Patience, Maggie and Jake are all camped out in the waiting room downstairs, napping. I told them I wasn’t going to leave you and the hospital would only allow one person to be with you in your room at a time while you were asleep.”

  “Oh,” Honor exhaled weakly. “Okay then.” she said, accepting his explanation gratefully. Her family hadn’t abandoned her after all. Hopefully, none of them believed that tripe Ice had been spouting off either.

  “Baby, we need to talk about that medication you swallowed though,” Honor heard Zeke say in that grave, serious voice she’d learned the hard way was usually a prime indication that exceptionally crappy news was coming her way.

  “What about it?” she questioned hesitantly as she saw the tension etched on Zeke’s face. “Don’t tell me that you believe I tried to hurt myself, too! You? The guy that swears he knows me better than anyone?”

  “Honey, you’ve been depressed and distant. I wasn’t sure what to think at first…”

  Honor’s eyes flashed as her temper rose. “I’m not depressed!” she denied. “And if I’ve been distant, it’s because you’ve been squatting in my house, invading my space. Distance was a defense mechanism. Plus, I’ve been tired and maybe a tad overworked, but I am NOT depressed. I think you should leave now, too,” she informed the man that claimed to love her. “Especially if you believe I’m that weak, Ezekiel.”

  Watching as Zeke exchanged a frustrated look with Bree, Honor saw the older woman incline her head slightly. “Okay,” she said, looking between the two of them, “Why do I feel like I’m missing some key information here? What do you all know that I obviously don’t?”

  “Why don’t I take it from here, Zeke, and fill in the patient on what’s been happening while she’s been resting,” Honor heard Dr. Daniels suggest as she stared at Honor with an understanding gaze. Tracking Bree’s movements when the doctor grabbed the padded stool from the corner of the room and rolled it beside the bed where Zeke stood, Honor held her breath.

  “So, Honor, you remember taking some medication, correct? For you migraine?” Bree asked.

  Honor nodded. “I get bad headaches,” she mumbled.

  “How long’s that been going on?” Bree questioned, unhooking Honor’s chart from the end of her bed and flipping it open as she extracted an ink pen from her breast pocket with her free hand.

  “A few months,” Honor answered vaguely.

  “Years,” Zeke declared at the same time.

  Honor glared at the man standing by her bed. “She’s talking to me.”

  “Then tell the truth,” Zeke growled, his eyes darkening as he frowned at her. “Won’t help anything if this woman doesn’t know the full story.”

  “While he is right, he should really choose to invoke his right to silence before I throw him out of here,” Bree drawled with a telling look at the lawman. “Re
member, I have no fear, Sheriff,” she added pointedly.

  Honor got the feeling that the other woman was warning Zeke about something, but she was clueless as to what that something was. Heck, she felt clueless about most everything. Was she destined to remain in the dark where her own life was concerned for whatever time remained of it? “You know, I’m gettin’ real tired of feeling like the odd man out here.”

  Bree smiled. “I just warned our friendly, local sheriff earlier that I was going to be your advocate, not his. I thought it might be a good idea to remind him of that.”

  “Oh.” Honor stared at the grinning doctor. “Uhm, not many people warn Zeke about anything. They sorta….”

  “Get intimidated by him?” Bree supplied helpfully.

  “Well, yes,” Honor assented, shooting Zeke a quick look of uncertainty.

  “I think that you and I aren’t most people, Honor. Neither one of us seems particularly concerned about ticking off the local law enforcer, do we? I like having things in common with my patients.”

  “But I’m not your patient,” Honor denied quickly.

  “Actually, hon, for the time-being, you are,” Bree returned calmly. “You see, there’s a bit of confusion about those medications you took. For your headache, you said. Which you’ve suffered from for…”

  “I hate to agree with him about anything, but Zeke’s partly right about my headaches. I’ve been having those headaches on and off for years, but they’ve gotten quite a bit worse these last few months. Today’s was the worst,” Honor admitted reluctantly as Zeke chuckled beside her. “Don’t be a horse’s butt,” she growled, offering him a glare as he settled a warm hand over hers.

  “You gotta let me enjoy this just a little, Kitten. You admit I’m right an average of three times a year. It’s like Christmas and Easter… I gotta celebrate when those times come around.”

  Honor just pursed her lips at that. The truth was that Zeke was right about her a lot more than he was wrong, and his ability to see into her soul tended to scare the ever-lovin’ daylights out of her. He knew her entirely too well for her piece of mind.

  “Are they coming more frequently or just strengthening in intensity? Or both?”

  “Both,” Honor acknowledged truthfully as Bree continued jotting down notes on the chart in her lap.

  “I see in your chart that your doctor has already done a cat scan and MRI for any kind of neurological problems and everything came back okay on that score. Any changes in your life lately that might make these horrible headaches make a bit more sense?” Bree queried, staring at Honor with clear eyes.

  Now it gets tricky, Honor thought a little desperately. She didn’t want to lie outright to a woman who was trying to help her, but at the same time, she just wasn’t ready to confide everything she’d been hiding either. Not to the doctor and certainly not to a worrisome sheriff intent on keeping her safe. Zeke already shadowed almost every move she made. The fact that she’d been able to hide the notes she gotten so far was a blooming miracle. When he found out, he was likely to blow a fuse in his brain with the yelling and growling he’d do. Feeling his observant eyes on her, she shivered. Something didn’t feel right here. Turning her head, she caught his perceptive gaze with hers, and her jaw dropped. “You know, don’t you?” she whispered faintly, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip as his stance went rigid and his face tautened.

  “What would I know, Kitten?” he asked her, his voice low and soft.

  Honor heard her heartbeat thundering in her ears, and the longer she stared at him, the more horrified her expression became. How in the world had he even gotten that stupid box? She’d kept it in the locked drawer of her desk. In the long run, she knew it didn’t matter though. Her secret was clearly out. “I….I….can explain, Ezekiel.”

  “Please try, darlin’,” he invited silkily. “Try to make me understand why you would willingly put yourself at risk when I was right there in your life… in your house… ready, willing, and more than fuckin’ able to protect you from the son of a bitch sending you threatening notes and pictures you should never have to see again!” he finished on a echoing roar that bounced off the concrete walls of the small hospital room.

  Honor watched as the door flew open and a set of concerned nurses appeared. She relaxed as she witnessed Bree shoo them out of the room before the other woman turned back to Zeke. “Sheriff, lower your voice,” she demanded tersely. “You are on a floor full of ill patients; act accordingly or I swear, I’ll shove you out that door myself.”

  Zeke’s intense gaze never wavered from Honor’s pale face. “Tell her to answer the question, Doc.”

  “She doesn’t need to order me to do anything,” Honor snapped, finally finding her backbone. “I didn’t tell you that I was getting threats because you’re already killin’ yourself trying to find the people responsible for my car accident. You’re still looking for two of my rapists,” she continued, spitting out that vile word as if it tasted as disgusting as it sounded. “You’re already doing enough. I didn’t want to add a heaping helping of deranged stalker to the list of whack jobs trying to drive me nuts! I was praying the jerk would just get bored and go away,” she rationalized tiredly.

  “Kitten,” Zeke said much more quietly, “You’ve seen those pictures and read those notes. You know this guy is very probably not just your stalker. He’s very likely one of your rapists as well.”

  Honor’s stomach dropped as he stated what she’d known deep down all along. “I know,” she accepted bleakly.

  “No more secrets, Honor. Is there anything else that I should know?”

  “The box tells you everything I’ve seen or gotten from that monster, Zeke. If you have the box, you have all I’ve kept from you.”

  Clearing her throat, Bree leaned forward to drop her hand over Honor’s knee. “I know that was hard for you to share, Honor. It sounds like you’ve had a lot of really good reasons to have splitting headaches, but the drugs that were found in your system this morning and caused your heart to arrest at the café weren’t prescribed for any kind of migraine.”

  “Wait! What?” Honor asked. “I arrested? Is that why my chest hurts so?”

  Zeke nodded. “Miss Orla found you in the office, baby. You weren’t breathing and your heart had stopped. Ice and Diego did CPR until the ambulance arrived and they shocked you and brought you back to us.”

  “Holy crap,” Honor gasped, shocked. Looking from Zeke to Bree, she shook her head. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. Seriously,” Dr. Daniels informed her gravely.

  “I took the pills that were in my bottle. I’ve taken them before and never had this kind of thing happen.” Honor felt like squirming as the doctor stared for a few unsettling moments.

  “So, you didn’t deliberately take something different today?” Bree questioned.

  “No. I poured out two pills from the same bottle I’ve used at least half a dozen times in the past week or so.”

  “Honor, the drug that the lab found in your system is called Seconal. It’s a very powerful medication used to sedate patients. Generally before they go into surgery. The amount you had in your bloodstream was lethal. You say you only took two capsules?”

  “At work. When I got up with a headache that morning, I’d gone ahead and taken one to try to take the edge off the pain.”

  “Did you feel particularly sluggish after that first dose?”

  “Yeah, but I shook it off mostly and went to work,” Honor explained honestly. “I just felt real tired.”

  “That’s a definite side effect of the medicine,” Bree shared. “Then, you took two more capsules for the worsening migraine when you went into your office later that morning?”

  Honor nodded.

  “You’re lucky to be here with us, Honor. The lab tested all the capsules that remained in your bottle. Each one of them was Seconal. And if you didn’t intentionally seek out the Seconal yourself….”

  “Which I most certainly did not,” Honor vowed crossl
y, her jaw clenching at the mere thought.

  “Then, I suspect someone maliciously tampered with your bottle and replaced your migraine medicine with another more lethal drug…the Seconal,” Bree theorized, clearly concerned.

  “We’re testing the bottle for any prints and inventorying the local pharmacies’ Seconal supplies. Whoever this is had to get those drugs from somewhere. If they did it locally, we’ll find out,” Zeke said

  “Oh, my God,” Honor said shakily, the repercussions of what could have happened sickening her. “They made it look like I did this to myself.” Jerking around toward Zeke, she met his eyes as she grabbed frantically at his hand. “I didn’t do this to myself, Zeke. I promise you, I didn’t. I might not have told you about those stupid threats I’ve been getting, but I’ve never outright lied to you in my life. You have to believe me. Please!” she begged, clutching his wrist.

  “Honor, baby, calm down,” he urged as the heart monitor she still wore began to beep quickly and loudly, an alarm sounding as she grew more agitated. “I believe you, Kitten. I do. But you’ve got to settle for me now,” he directed gently.

  Breathing deeply through her nose, Honor nodded. He believed her; she could see the truth in his pale gray eyes. “Okay. Okay, Zeke.” Turning her head toward the doctor, she asked, “What about you?”

  “I believe that you didn’t deliberately try to kill yourself, but I also think the actions you’ve been taking lately to avoid facing your past and your pain will eventually kill you if something doesn’t change. My professional opinion is that you need therapy, Honor. Therapy that I’m happy to provide on an outpatient basis when you’re likely released tomorrow.”

  “No,” Honor denied quickly. “I don’t want therapy. I have headaches. That’s all.”

  “Those headaches are a direct result of the repressed trauma and pain that you refuse to acknowledge. I suspect once you begin dealing with those thoughts and emotions, you’ll see a dramatic decrease in those painful migraines,” Aubrey explained, her voice kind and caring as she smiled supportively at Honor.