Angela’s reputation was well-known far and wide. While Patience was years younger than the other woman, she had still recognized the she-devil for the whore that she was. Angie hadn’t even tried to hide it, going through men in their community like they were a bottomless commodity. For the life of her, Patience had never been sure what Abel had seen in the bitch. Sure, she was pretty in a pampered-Barbie-doll kind of way, but that beauty was only skin deep. At her core, Angela was a vicious, cold-blooded bitch that would screw over her own family if it meant she’d come out on top.
The bitch had proven that lesson to Abel in spades. She’d used him as long as it was convenient and then, when a better offer had come along, she’d jumped all over it, sleeping with Abel’s then-law partner to get a foot in the door at some law firm in Atlanta. Her deceit had nearly broken the man, and Patience had endured the fallout. After all, she’d been the one to catch Angie, throat deep on Kenneth Deaver’s dick. Patience had been the one to tell Abel that his girlfriend wasn’t just examining legal briefs while she was alone at the office with Ken. Patience was the one that Abel had called a liar, then blamed for wrecking his happy little home life. Patience had also been the woman who’d gone to comfort him one night not long after Angie left town when Abel had been three sheets to the wind and hurting. He took her virginity and her heart that night, but had been so drunk that it had been Angie’s name he’d groaned in the throes of passion.
And while Patience herself might have had her “do-over” with Abel...it was still safe to say that she hated Angela Hastings with an unparalleled passion.
And now, that she-demon was back in town, and Abel was working closely with her to take down the Fuentes cartel. Seeing them together turned her stomach. She’d been watching them over the last two weeks – covertly, of course – and she could tell that they were becoming chummier as they worked on the details of the case. Abel had barely glanced her way since the slut had strutted back into town.
It only reinforced her opinion that Abel Turner was the smartest idiot she’d ever had the misfortune to know. If the father of her unborn child wasn’t careful, he was going to fall right back into the Angie trap. Sighing, she leaned her head against Zeke’s shoulder. “Honestly, Zeke, why now? Of all the times for Queen Angela to make her return to Paradise County, why did it have to be now?”
Zeke shrugged as he steered Patience onto the sidewalk outside the small park. “There’s not much choice. She’s one of the fancy pants lawyers that Diego thought could take his father down while keeping his ass out of the fire. We’ve all agreed that we wanted the drug trade to be wiped out. With Diego finally ready to testify against his father’s empire, the feds have their ducks in a damn row for the first time in history, and Diego needs a top-of-the-line attorney to keep him from roasting alongside his father. And as much as I hate to admit it, Angie is hell on wheels in the courtroom. Between her, Abel, and this Vivian Miller woman’s skills, Esteban’s whole empire should crumble and Diego should get a clean start. Hell, at this point, I think we all might need a fresh start, kiddo,” he murmured quietly. “God knows, we all deserve some fucking happiness after the past couple of months.
Patience watched as Zeke paused for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. She knew he was remembering the horrors that their small rag-tag family had faced just a few months prior. Harmony’s ex-husband had been determined to bring the drug trade right into the middle of Paradise, and wasn’t shy about trying to hurt the McKinnon girls in the process. Undercover with the DEA, Jake Stone had been trying to stay one step ahead of the infiltrators, all while falling in love with the eldest McKinnon sister, Harmony, and trying to keep her in the dark about the whole thing. On top of that, Jake believed that the head of the drug trade had been responsible for his sister’s death twenty years earlier. But when Tanner shot up the I Don’t Care Restaurant and wounded Patience in the process, and then Honor and Harmony were kidnapped by kingpin Diego Sanchez, all hell had completely broken loose in their quiet, country town.
When Zeke remained uncharacteristically quiet for a few beats too long, Patience gently nudged him out of his thoughts with a helpful elbow in his side. “You okay there, Zeke? I think I lost you for a minute.”
“Just thinking about how we’ve all been sent through hell and back in the last little bit,” Zeke admitted, letting out a long breath. “I’d prefer that we not have to relive these last few months, but I’m willing to at least revisit them for the discovery and trial if it means we finally gain some peace around here. Your sisters need that. Especially Honor. And now, you, too,” he noted with a targeted look at her belly. Leveling a glance at the woman beside him, Zeke added, knowingly, “And what that means is we are gonna have to put up with Angie while she works with Abel to put these criminals behind bars where they belong, sugar. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Abel’s stupid enough to fall back into Angela’s tangled web. He’s just working with her, Patience. He’s not screwin’ her.”
“Maybe not yet, anyway,” she muttered unhappily.
“We’ve just got to deal with her long enough to put this drug case to bed, darlin’. Then, she’ll go back to Atlanta and we’ll all move on with our lives,” Zeke continued, praying like hell he was telling the truth. God only knew what wrath the McKinnon crew would inflict if Angie chose to stay around Paradise.
Wrinkling her nose as she shook her head, Patience growled, “You might have to put up with her, Sheriff, but that bitch best keep twenty paces between me and her. I’ve got a gun and I know how to use it. I don’t know if you remember but I’ve fired and I’ve been fired upon recently and I’ve found that there ain’t much to pullin’ the trigger if you know where to aim it.”
Zeke was about to deliver his patented McKinnon-sister-lecture-number-forty-nine about the need to keep their guns in their holsters when he suddenly slapped a hand to his forehead. “Hell, Patience, you got shot.”
“Well, yeah. It was in all the papers, dumbass,” she deadpanned back, cocking her head. Had he fallen and hit his head earlier or something?
“You were on antibiotics, weren’t you? I saw the doctor give them to you.”
“Again, the answer is yes. I took four freaking weeks of those horrid horse pills, thank you very much. Those suckers had a nasty aftertaste,” she grumbled.
Rolling his eyes at her obvious lack of understanding of his train of thought, Zeke frowned as he glanced down at her flat belly. “Honey, did no one ever tell you that antibiotics can make the Pill ineffective?”
Well, now, if that wasn’t a kick in the pants. Her eyes narrowing as she drew in a sharp breath, Patience hissed, “So you’re telling me that it’s all fucking Tanner Suarez’s fault that I got pregnant? If that son of a bitch hadn’t shot me, I wouldn’t be in the shitty situation!”
“Well, I’m still blaming Abel for not keeping his dick in his pants, personally, but...yeah. Probably not,” Zeke replied heavily.
Barely resisting the urge to pitch a hissy fit, Patience squeezed her eyes shut. God, Tanner Suarez was just a gift that kept on giving – even in death. Blowing out a long breath as she opened her eyes, she stared up at Zeke. “Our lives are all one big ol’ fucked up, convoluted mess right now, aren’t they?”
“’Fraid so,” Zeke murmured, rubbing his hand up and down Patience’s fragile spine. “But no matter what happens next, you gotta know that you’re only as alone as you wanna be. I’ve got your back, honey, whatever you decide.”
Patience felt her throat tighten again at those gentle words and she stiffened her shoulders in response. Damn it, she didn’t do this emotional, touchy feely bullshit. Yet, right now, she just wanted to crawl in Zeke’s lap and cry it out.
“Did you hear me, little girl?” Zeke asked gruffly, tugging a pink strand of Patience’s hair.
“You can’t choose sides, Zeke. Abel is your friend, too,” Patience managed to say as her eyes burned with tears she refused to shed.
“He might be my friend – and
you can bet your ass that I’m seriously debating my taste in buddies’ right now-- but you’re my family. And nothing trumps that. You need me; I’m there – in whatever way you need me to be. It’s that simple,” he stated firmly.
Patience lifted her chin as she linked her arm through his. “In that case, you won’t mind being by my side for moral support while I tell Honor that her big sister is gonna get a whole lot bigger in the next six months. Maybe between the two of us, we can keep her from going all Annie Oakley on Abel’s ass,” she said hopefully.
Zeke gaped for a moment as he met Patience’s dancing eyes before slowly exhaling a defeated breath. “You couldn’t ask me for something simple like putting a bullet in Abel’s head?”
“Hey, you said you’d do anything,” Patience reminded him with a ghost of a smile.
Wrapping his arm around her slender body, Zeke groaned. “I guess I did, but honest to God, killin’ Abel would be a lot easier than facin’ off with an irate Honor McKinnon,” he muttered, guiding her back toward his parked SUV. “Let’s just go find that sister of yours and pray I’m still spry enough to get to her gun before she can. Hopefully that agility training pays off for me today.”
Chapter Four
A half hour later, Patience trudged up the stairs to her apartment above the café, pulling Honor along behind her by the wrist while Zeke brought up the rear. Her lips twitched as she heard her sister begin to whine again about being torn from her baking.
“Are you two blind as bats? Did either one of y’all happen to notice that we had a restaurant full of folks when you hauled me out of my kitchen? If you’d given me another blame minute, I coulda gotten those biscuits in the oven for Aunt Orla, Patience,” Honor griped as she followed her sister up the stairs. “Honestly, if Zeke is here to arrest you for something just tell me now and save us some time,” she ordered. “I’ll send Aunt Orla or Harmony down to bail you right on out as soon as the morning rush lets up, Patience. I swear, I will. I’ve never just let you sit around in lock-up before, have I? No, I have not! Just let us get through the breakfast crowd. It’ll take Zeke that long to book you anyway,” she continued hurriedly, barely pausing long enough to blow her hair out of her face.
“I’m not arresting Patience, Kitten,” Patience heard Zeke rumble behind them. “But I think you just need to follow along real peaceable like and hear her out, honey.”
“Well, if you think my sister can sweet talk your favored breakfast out of me, you’re wrong. The days of bacon and butter biscuits are long gone,” Patience heard Honor warn pertly. “I already told you that wheat toast and grapefruit are perfectly acceptable fare and neither of those will hurt your cholesterol. The citizens of this town elected a Sheriff to serve them, not a walking, talking heart attack on legs.”
“Maybe they didn’t, but that crap you call food is still hell on my taste buds, woman,” Zeke grumbled, offering her sister a tiny push as Patience unlocked the door and dragged her sibling over the threshold.
“He’s not here to talk about the breakfast menu, Honor,” Patience informed her sister as she tugged her along behind her, crossing her messy living room until she reached the area that passed for a kitchen in her loft. Reaching into one of the painted cabinets above the sink, her hand searched for a bottle that she recognized by touch alone.
Watching as her older sister tugged a familiar bottle down to the counter, Honor automatically began shaking her head, pulling her wrist from Patience’s grip and backing up until she met the solid wall of Zeke’s chest. “Oh, no!” she automatically began babbling as Patience grabbed a glass tumbler and poured a measure of tequila into it. “Whatever or whoever that’s for, I want no part in it. It’s barely even past daylight, for heaven’s sake.”
Calmly turning to her sister, she held the liquor in front of her. “Honor, I know you hate hard liquor, but I need to talk to you, and I’m gonna seriously need you to self-medicate first.” Seeing the other woman begin to shake her head in denial, she continued relentlessly. “Listen, we both know you won’t take those happy little yellow pills the doctor prescribed unless Zeke sits on you and I shove ‘em down your throat, so this is the next best alternative,” Patience declared, holding up the tequila bottle and waving it in front of her. “Now, we can do this the easy way, and you take the medicine like a good little sister or we do it the hard way, and Zeke pinches your nose while I pour it down your throat. So, you tell me. Which way are we doing this?”
Blinking rapidly, Honor pursed her lips and glanced at Zeke. “The last time one of my sisters made me take a shot before eight in the morning, it was so you could tell me that Patience and old lady Winslow had gone rogue and ‘borrowed’ Abel’s Camaro to go to a male strip club down in Knoxville. Is this story gonna end like that one did?” she asked her elder sister warily, her blue eyes narrowing and pinning Patience to the counter. “Because honestly, I don’t care to repeat the experience. As I recall, that morning involved me having to ride to Knoxville in the back of a squad car to retrieve you.”
“I left Abel a voice mail that night,” she retorted petulantly, privately thinking that most of her problems originated with Abel in some form or fashion. “It’s not my fault he didn’t check it before he reported the car as stolen. But,” Patience hedged, “At the end of this story, you won’t have to come pick me up out of Knoxville’s lock-up. Although, if you ask me,” she muttered, “Abel’s to blame for this situation, too.”
“Oh, Lord. There’s a situation? Because in this family, one of those so-called situations tends to involve scandal of some sort. And those usually involve me havin’ to make at least one trip before the county judge and a migraine on my part, you troublemaker!” Honor grimaced and closed her eyes for a moment, centering herself. Everybody in Paradise knew that a situation between Patience and Abel Turner could mean anything from A to Z. Those two were anything but predictable. There were times that Honor would swear those two were soul mates meant to be together for eternity with those longing looks and knowing smiles they offered when one didn’t think the other was looking. Of course, there were also times – times that Honor could recall vividly - times where she would swear on a towering stack of Bibles that those two were each other’s worst enemies. Ones that should – in the interest of public safety - live in entirely different countries on entirely different continents. The only thing Honor was positively certain of was that any situation involving her sister and the attorney was bound to be a volatile circumstance where everyone should proceed with the utmost caution.
Honestly, Patience could tell her anything from ‘I’ve poisoned the attorney’s morning coffee, Baby Sister. I’m real sorry for the inconvenience,’ to ‘I shot that ass in cold blood and dumped the body in the town square for the buzzards to feast on his flesh. We might wanna think about gettin’ a good attorney!’ Truly, nothing would surprise Honor at this point.
Opening her blue eyes, she met Patience’s guilty gaze. “What’s happened?” she asked quietly, worrying as she anxiously watched tears fill Patience’s aqua colored eyes while reluctantly accepting the glass that Zeke pressed against her hand.
Watching her sister’s nose scrunch as she lifted the glass to her lips, Patience bit her lip and waited until Honor was in the process of swallowing before she spoke. “I’m pregnant,” she admitted in a rush, blurting the harsh truth out with the force of a bullet.
Coughing violently as the liquor seared her throat, Honor’s eyes watered as she tried to process Patience’s admission. Pressing one hand to her chest as she continued to try and breathe, she shook her head as Zeke patted her firmly on the back. “I’m sorry,” she wheezed, blinking quickly to clear her vision. “You’re WHAT now?” she asked huskily when she could pull in some much needed oxygen to her lungs.
“Pregnant,” Patience repeated nervously.
“What exactly do you mean pregnant? Like with a baby? A really crying, pooping child?” Honor asked with widened eyes as she leaned forward to snatch the bottle
Patience still held out of her hand and poured another measure of the clear alcohol into the glass she still held.
“Pregnant, Honor! With child. Knocked up. There’s an unwelcome bun in my tiny little oven! My rabbit went and freaking died on me! That kind of pregnant! Sniveling, whining, needy crying baby kinda pregnant!” Patience wailed as hysteria edged into her voice. Dear God, how was she going to do this? She still couldn’t even wrap her mind around it. Staring at her shocked sister, she knew Honor was having the same trouble, and she shook her head. “See, you can’t believe it either, can you? I know I can’t believe it! I am not meant to be anybody’s momma!” Lunging toward the bottle of Jose that Honor still held, she tried to grab it from her hand. “Gimmee that!” she demanded with a shriek. “I’m gonna need it!”
Tightening her fingers on the neck of the glass, Honor shook her head while she tussled with her sister. “You can’t have that, you dingbat! Have you lost what’s left of your mind?” Honor asked with a scowl, getting a good grip on the tequila and curling it into her body while Zeke watched their wresting match with twitching lips. “No drinking! Not for at least nine months or ever how many months you are! For the love of all that’s holy, you just shared that you’re pregnant,” she ordered, taking another hefty gulp of her own liquor before pushing both the glass tumbler and the bottle of tequila into Zeke’s hands. Taking a deep breath, she turned her attention back to her sister. Jabbing a finger toward Patience’s leather sofa, she demanded, “Sit yourself down right now, Patience, and explain to me how in heaven’s name this happened!”
“It’s all Abel’s fault,” Patience announced sullenly, dragging herself across the room to flop down on the center cushion of her seen-better-days couch. Looking between Zeke and Honor, she gulped. “This is bad, y’all. Like really bad. I can’t keep a pet alive. Remember the goldfish that committed suicide, Honor. Those poor little fellas dove into the toilet. Then, there was that poor hamster that Uncle Jethro got me for company when I moved out. Between me and the rat trap behind the stove, the trap looked like the better option,” she whimpered. “And don’t get me started on that Cocker Spaniel that your brother gave me,” she said with a look toward Zeke. “That poor little darlin’ couldn’t run fast enough to the animal shelter when he ran away from home. When I got there, he refused to come out of the kennel to me no matter how many treats I offered him. That puppy actually shook his head at the volunteer and said ‘No!’ That woman adopted him on the spot to save him from me! Do you know that they’ve even got my picture up now on their bulletin board with a line through my face! With that kind of record, there’s no way I should be bringin’ tiny humans into the world. I can’t do it, Honor!” Patience rambled desperately as Honor sat down beside her. “I just can’t,” she whispered, clutching her sister’s hand as she shook her head back and forth frantically.
Ready, Willing and Abel (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnon Sisters Book 3) Page 9