“My guess? This is where Harmony is involved, right?” Zeke muttered, his frown deepening as he waited for Jacob’s response. “How the fuck have you somehow managed to involve a good woman like her in this shitstorm, Stone?” he bit out angrily.
“I didn’t. Her connection to this oncoming train wreck predates me in a big way,” Jacob informed Zeke with a grim look.
“What fucking connection? Harmony has lived in Paradise her entire life. There isn’t a part of her life that I haven’t either witnessed firsthand or known about. She’s got zero fucking ties to the Fuentes cartel,” Zeke virtually barked.
“Does the name Tanner Suarez ring any bells for you?”
“Motherfucker!” Zeke cursed, his concerned face contorting furiously. “Harmony’s bastard of an ex-husband,” he spat. “How is that little prick involved in any of this?”
“That little prick has become one of Diego Fuentes and his papa, Esteban’s, most trusted lieutenants in the last few years. Senor Suarez has been one busy hombre climbing through the ranks of the Fuentes cartel, and he’s finally reached the top.”
“Fucking Christ,” Zeke snarled under his breath. “I can’t believe he found somebody that could stand being around him.”
“Assholes gravitate toward even bigger assholes.” Jacob shrugged. “In our line of work, I’d have figured you’d have learned that lesson by now. The bottom feeders will always stick together.”
“What’s Tanner’s plan for Harmony?” Zeke asked gruffly, ignoring Stone’s sarcasm.
“You won’t like it,” Jacob murmured. He knew Zeke wouldn’t like it because Jacob fucking hated it. Silently, he wondered how much he should tell the other man.
“No shit,” Zeke retorted on a grunt. Casting Jacob a sidelong glance, he narrowed his eyes. “Now is not the fucking time for you to hold out on me. Suarez was bad news in a big way for Harmony. If he’s coming back here to hurt her, I need to know.”
“According to what my sources have told me, Tanner intends to use his daughter as a way back into Harmony’s life.”
“Tanner never gave two shits about his kid. He didn’t even know Harmony was expecting until…” Zeke broke off, pressing his lips together and inhaling deeply. “This is bullshit. Out of the blue, he wants to be a daddy? My ass, he does. The only person Tanner Suarez ever gave a shit about was Tanner fucking Suarez. You can be damn sure that Harmony will never buy into his line of crap either. And she won’t let him anywhere near Heaven. Not ever.”
“After watching Harmony with Heaven, I can definitely agree with that. Momma Bear definitely will do anything to protect her cub.” If he had his way, she’d never have to deal with Tanner at all. He intended to be standing right in front of her when the bastard came callin’.
“What the fuck is Tanner’s golden plan here?” Zeke asked harshly, pulling Jacob back from his private thoughts.
“The way I heard it, Diego has filled his head with a bunch of shit in the last few years. He’s got Tanner convinced that the bastard has inalienable rights where Heaven’s concerned and it’s time to exert them. Convenient, huh? Tanner’s also gonna want that 20-acre piece of land that he and Harmony owned out on Westgate Road. Compliments of the Fuentes family’s influence, Tanner is convinced that he’s entitled to any-fucking-thing he wants to take. The land, the daughter, the ex-wife.”
“All this for a shitty piece of unworkable land that Harmony’s maternal grandmother left her?” Zeke shook his head.
“You aren’t thinkin’ it through, man. You know where I’m talkin’ about, right? That acreage with the little shack out in the middle of nowhere? It’s surrounded by woods, hidden in the heart of the boonies. Nobody around for fuckin’ miles…”
“Fuck,” Zeke muttered. “Diego’s distribution point. That’s his plan, isn’t it?”
“Exactly.” Jacob nodded. “Unless you help me and the DEA find a way to stop it.”
“Thought you were merely vacationing, Stone,” the Sheriff noted quietly.
“Now who’s wasting time fucking around? If you don’t wanna know this shit, there’s a beer inside just waiting for me to twist off the cap.” Jacob almost sneered, irked by Zeke’s attitude as he jerked his head toward the door of the café. Christ, he was already breaking the rules by trying to bring the other man into the loop as much as he could. For his trouble, he was getting attitude? Fuck that. He had better things to do.
“How long do we have?” Zeke asked, sounding tired.
“Could be a few days. I’d say no more than a few more weeks… a month at most and we’ll be seeing Suarez’s ugly face around these parts,” Jacob informed him gravely as he decided to cut Zeke a break. After all, from what he’d seen and heard, the sheriff did have a vested interest in this nightmare that was unfolding around them. “Look, I want to help, man. I admit, I came to this town to make sure that Harmony wasn’t somehow a willing participant in Tanner’s plans, but it’s clear as glass that neither she nor her sisters would ever condone what Diego Fuentes and Tanner Suarez plan to bring to this town. Like you said, those ladies define the concept of family values. Church on Sundays, supporting every charity under the sun…you know what I mean. None of ‘em are drug runners. I get that. I’m there, Zeke. You don’t need to make a believer of me.”
“Well thank God for small favors,” Zeke muttered under his breath.
“Damn it, I said that I wanna fucking help here. If I didn’t, I’d already have left after I insured that Harmony and the rest wouldn’t fuck this operation. I’m still sittin’ here, Zeke. I’m invested… and not just in seeing justice served. In Harmony. In Heaven. In this fucking town that I wanna call home! But you also gotta know that for me to be of any use at all to the McKinnon family now, I need to know what the hell went down between Harmony and Tanner five years ago and if there’s any chance in hell that she’ll let him back into her or Heaven’s life. I’m sensing that whatever it was has shaped Harmony into the woman she is today and not in the fucking good ways.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?” Zeke asked carefully, not meeting Jacob’s eyes.
“Let’s just say that none of the ladies, save Faith, seems real keen on developing relationships with men. I’ve seen those flashes of fear in Harmony’s eyes when I step a little too close or look at her a little too long.” Jacob shifted on the picnic bench as he sighed. “She’s been scarred, Zeke. They all have. I’ve barely known any of them a month, and I can see that plain as day. I’m just askin’ to know how they, but especially how Harmony, got burned. Did all of this… this distrust and skittishness stem from what happened to Honor six years ago or is there something more to it?”
“What do you know about Honor?” Ezekiel growled with eyes that glinted dangerously and promised a brutal demise to Jacob if he didn’t answer quickly. The Sheriff looked more than capable of ripping the heart out of the other man’s chest and shoving it down his throat. “I swear to God, if you’ve upset the fragile balance that she’s fought to find the past few years, you won’t have to worry about Tanner and Diego and their would-be infiltration of Paradise. You’ll be meeting them in Hell when I kill you myself.”
Jacob had never taken the Sheriff for a particularly violent man in the short time he’d been studying him, but he knew better. He’d done his research, too, and Jacob realized there was a seething violence lurking just below the usually unflappable man’s skin. It was obvious that Zeke would kill without hesitation to prevent one ounce of pain to come Honor’s way. Based on what he’d unearthed, the man had done it before and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again if the situation called for it. Jacob wasn’t judging… if he learned that Harmony had been through something similar, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to maintain his balance either. And he’d only known her a few weeks. But he needed to know what the fuck he was up against.
“I’m an asshole, not an idiot,” Jacob snapped back with a look of disgust. “I haven’t said a word to Honor, nor would I. All I know is what I rea
d in the newspaper clippings I looked at while I was researching all the McKinnon women and the files my agency put together on the family. Everything I read said she endured some kind of assault when she was a teenager. She went missing for a couple of days, didn’t she?” He almost regretted his question when he saw the torment reflected in Zeke’s eyes.
“They had her fifty-eight hours and thirty seven minutes,” Zeke replied tightly.
The pain laced through Zeke’s comment struck a chord in Jacob. It sounded like the sheriff was in agony, and it spoke to the pain Jacob carried inside himself over his sister’s senseless death. “They?” Jacob probed carefully. He hated to make the other man rehash something that was blatantly painful, but he had to know exactly what he was up against in order to break through the walls Harmony had built around her. He’d never be able to protect her if she refused to let him into her life.
Zeke flinched. “Yeah, they. There were a total of five assailants. And it wasn’t just a simple assault. The editor of our local paper is a good friend of mine. She did me a favor and reported a softer version of the truth in the story to preserve as much of Honor’s dignity as she could. The truth was that five of those animals gang-raped her, beat her nearly to death, stabbed her and dumped her naked and alone in a sink hole and left her there to die. Two of them have been dealt with. The other three, Honor couldn’t give us anything on, but their semen wasn’t found in the rape kit, so we’re not sure if…” Zeke took a deep breath and got control of his rising temper. “At any rate, yeah, Stone, Honor’s so-called assault had a lasting effect on both her and her sisters,” he managed to bite out.
“I’m sorry,” Jacob said softly. He was. Nobody deserved what had happened to Honor; especially not the sixteen-year-old girl she’d been when she’d been brutalized. Christ, Honor was petite now, but she must have been tiny then – certainly no match for five grown men.
“Me, too. But you need to hear the rest. There was more to it than even that – for both Honor and Harmony.” Running a hand over his face, Zeke swallowed hard. “Jesus, I haven’t talked about this shit in years,” he muttered.
Jacob gave the other man a sidelong look. He felt for the guy. It looked like his memories were ripping him apart. “Wanna take me up on that beer now? You look like you could use it, Sheriff.”
“Screw the beer. I’m gonna need a whiskey,” Zeke declared, rising from the bench and turning to face Jacob. “And if you’re truly interested in Harmony in the way you claim to be, you’re gonna need one, too. This isn’t a pretty story, Stone. It’s ugly…sad… and totally fucking infuriating.”
Straightening from his perch, Jacob squared his shoulders as he wondered how the hell much worse it could get. “Then we better order the bottle because interested is a mild term for the attraction I feel toward Harmony. I want to know everything, Zeke. I want to know it all.”
Chapter Three
Jacob followed Zeke inside the restaurant, frowning as the bell above the door drew the curious stares of several patrons inside the bar. He’d never liked being the object of attention, but in the small town of Paradise, new people tended to garner interest. Ambling in with the Sheriff in tow only seemed to add to his mystique, and he felt the stare of several pairs of curious eyes on him as he moved toward his normal table. He nodded to the pretty waitress headed their way as he shifted his bulk into the high-backed booth opposite Zeke.
“Well, two fine ass men are sittin’ in my station this evening. I need to check the calendar and see if it’s my birthday,” the woman, whose nametag declared her to be Sherri, greeted them with a flirty wink in Jacob’s direction. “What can I get you tonight, sugar? Beer? Bourbon? A little taste of me?” she asked lightly, dropping her slim hand to the back of Jacob’s neck and rubbing her palm slowly as she canted one rounded hip to the side and rested it against his shoulder. Glancing at the sheriff, she giggled. “I know better than to offer the good Sheriff Monroe here anything extra again,” she remarked to Jacob with a wink. “I do believe he still has both his heart and all his other important manly parts on hold for another lucky lady, aren’t they, Zeke?”
Jacob took uncharacteristic mercy on the man across from him and cut the flirty waitress off abruptly. Clearly Zeke was in no mood for the woman’s antics and truthfully, neither was he. “Neither one of us is interested in what you’re tryin’ to offer, babe. Just do us both a favor and cut the idle chitchat and get us both have a couple of fingers Jack Daniels. Neat,” he ordered in a surly tone that made the woman’s eyes widen slightly.
“Anything else?” she asked sharply, her face hardening as she narrowed her eyes on him and withdrew her hand from his neck.
“No,” Jacob returned flatly, watching as the woman nodded before scurrying back toward the bar. Meeting Zeke’s amused eyes, Jacob shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t think either of us is in the frame of mind to be hit on, do you?”
“Can’t deny that, but not many men are brave enough to put a stop to Sherri when she’s on a roll. For payback, she’ll have it all over town by mornin’ that you’re as gay as Liberace.”
Jacob snorted. He’d seen Sherri around the bar during the past month, and had already labeled her as a harmless flirt. “There’s only one woman that I give a shit what she thinks, Zeke, and it ain’t Sherri. Besides, that woman knows damn well that I’m seeing Harmony tonight. She was standing there when little Heaven arranged our ‘date’ for me. And any fool with a working set of eyes knows how you feel about Honor. Well, everybody with the exception of Honor, that is. She’s free to try and do her worst to me. I won’t be leaving Harmony with any doubts about my masculinity.”
“You have impressed her; I’ll give you that much,” Zeke conceded, slouching into the corner of the booth with the ease of a man who had been there many times before. “The fact that you got Harmony to agree to go out with you tonight might go down in Paradise history as a genuine miracle.”
“That was more Heaven’s doing than mine,” Jacob replied evenly as Sherri returned with their drinks, sliding them in front of each man without a word or a backward glance as she walked away.
Glancing at the waitress, Zeke smirked. “Yeah, you’ve made a real friend there,” he chuckled as Sherri shot a glare in their direction.
“Don’t give a shit. Sherri doesn’t matter to me and Harmony does,” Jacob dismissed him unapologetically. “I’m surprised that Patience didn’t fire the woman last week when she insulted that customer by sitting in the woman’s husband’s lap. Now, can we move past the horny waitress and focus on what’s important? Tell me about what happened, Zeke,” Jacob demanded, reaching for his glass and lifting it to his lips.
Zeke slowly took a long sip from his own glass before fixing his pale gray eyes on Jacob. “Harmony and Tanner dated all through her high school years. Nobody liked him, but everybody loved Harmony, and Tanner was smart enough to see it. Even if people couldn’t stand him, they’d tolerate being around him for her. I’ve never been quite sure what she saw in the guy, but not even her parents’ dislike of him was even to sway her from being with him. God, her daddy hated that boy. I couldn’t blame him. Everybody, except Harmony, could see he was using her. He sure as hell wasn’t in love with her – not with the way he fucked around behind her back. Of course, at the time, Harmony didn’t have a clue. She thought the boy was as wrapped up in her as she was in him.”
“Sounds like a good actor,” Jacob mused aloud as a muscle flexed in his jaw.
“Only for Harmony.”
“I don’t get it.” Jacob tapped his fingers against the table. “A woman that looks and acts like Harmony…why the fuck would anybody step out on that?”
“Harmony was a means to an end for Tanner, Jacob. Personally, I think Tanner stayed with her because he had dollar signs in his eyes. See, Harmony’s parents were well-off. Their farm was profitable, and their restaurant and bar were successful even back then. I think the man always figured that he’d inherit a share of that when her p
arents passed away. Nobody ever expected that to happen as soon as it did, though.”
“Wait? She didn’t inherit? I thought she owned a share in this place.” Jacob lifted a curious eyebrow as he waited for Zeke to respond.
“She does now. Back when her parents first died, no.” Seeing Jacob’s mouth open again, Zeke held up a hand. “Just listen,” he ordered. “When Harmony married Tanner right out of high school, it infuriated her daddy. They ran off to Gatlinburg after graduation before anybody even realized where they were going. When they came back three days later, married, Harmony’s father marched right into his attorney’s office and had his will changed. There was no way he was gonna leave it where Tanner could get his hands on what he and his wife had worked so hard to get.”
“Why didn’t Tanner divorce her then?” Jacob asked, confused. “If he knew he wasn’t gonna get what he wanted out of the marriage, why not cut her loose and move onto greener pastures?”
“Because he didn’t know. Hell, nobody knew – even Harmony’s sisters – what their father had done until after her parents were killed in a drunk-driving accident. When the will got read, Tanner was furious. He blustered all over town that he was gonna contest it, but Harmony was heartbroken. There she was… she’d been on the outs with her folks over this man, and suddenly, they’re gone. The money was the farthest thing from her mind. She didn’t care about any of it, and without her initiative, Tanner couldn’t do anything about contesting it anyway. Oh, they fought about it, but Harmony stood her ground. She already felt guilty for disappointing her parents; there was no way she was gonna make a stink about the will. Tanner was determined, however, and it wasn’t until Abel Turner explained in no uncertain terms that there wasn’t jackshit he could do unless Harmony backed him up that the bastard tried going another route.”
“What did the jackass do?” Jacob seethed, hating this man that had been with Harmony more with every passing second.
Hard as Stone (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnnon Sisters) Page 4