“I’m not so sure about that,” he scoffed, shaking his head slowly while he silently cursed the purity and innocence shining in her eyes. It was going to be a damn shame when he watched that light get extinguished by the disaster heading in her direction. “I’m sure that pretty head of hers had to have at least a couple of stitches. A real knight would have made sure the damsels came out of the fray unscathed, wouldn’t he?”
“Trust me, Faith’s got a hard head and Patience went to sleep in her bed last night instead of a jail cell. Better still, they both came out of that fray breathin’ and whole,” Harmony replied firmly. “I’m gonna count it as a win all the way around and so will the rest of our clan. We have you to thank for that, Mister…,” she trailed off, realizing that she didn’t know his last name.
“Name’s Jacob Stone, ma’am,” he supplied, offering her his much larger hand over the worn wooden table.
“Nice name.” She grinned as she slowly took his hand in hers. “I think I’ll just call you Jake,” she declared with a wink as he felt a current of electricity skitter through their connected palms.
Never in his life had he allowed anybody to call him Jake. He’d always thought it sounded juvenile, but the way it rolled off her pretty lips sent a surge straight through his groin. “You could call me Mud and I’d answer, darlin’,” he replied truthfully.
She rewarded him with a giggle…an honest to God, straight-from-the-heart giggle. And it had made his night. “I think I’ll stick with Jake.”
“And what should I call you, Pretty Lady?” Jacob asked, doing a bang-up job at playing completely clueless as he charmed her. Watching a rosy blush fill her cheeks, he waited for her to answer.
“H-harmony,” she replied softly, stuttering a bit as she tripped over her name and looked at him through her lowered lashes. “Harmony McKinnon.”
“A pretty name for a pretty woman. It fits you, darlin’,” he returned quietly as her blush deepened. Surprisingly, he meant his words. He’d been alive a long time and could honestly say that he’d never seen a woman half as beautiful as she was. It wasn’t that she was movie star gorgeous. No, her beauty was more understated than that. It was like she had some bright inner light burning at her core, drawing him toward her and making him wish for things he had no business wanting.
Like a home. A family. A future.
He’d wondered what the fuck was happening to him.
It was like she was a witch that had cast a spell over him… one that he had no desire to try and break.
Jesus, he was turning into a dickless sap.
It was clear that his compliment had stunned her and he wondered just what kind of men she’d been hanging around if she could be so easily tongue tied by a little light flirting. He couldn’t possibly be telling her anything a hundred men before him hadn’t shared.
Maybe she was a prude, he had reasoned to himself. The problem was that she didn’t seem like one. He’d met prudes. Usually, they were uptight, holier-than-thou types that seemed like they had a stick firmly implanted up their asses. He could already tell that wasn’t Harmony’s gig. She’d been open and friendly when she’d greeted him. Nope, this seemed like more of an ingrained and deeply seated shyness.
Shyness, he could work with…
“Thank you. I’ve always thought it was corny the way my parents named me and my sisters. There are four of us. You know Patience and Faith by now. Then, there are me and Honor. I always wondered what Momma was thinking when she christened us. Unfortunately, I never got around to askin’ her before she passed away.” She shook her head sadly, looking almost forlorn, before blinking quickly several times and lifting her gaze back to his. “Listen to me babblin’ on like a fool,” she sputtered as more color flooded her cheeks, embarrassed.
“Darlin’, I could listen to you babble all day long,” Jacob replied, shocked to recognize that he was telling her the truth. Before he consciously realized he’d moved, he had settled one of his large hands over hers where it rested on the scarred table and squeezed gently, trying to convey his silent support. He tried not to let it sting when she withdrew her hand quickly and took a step back. She wasn’t the first woman that he’d made uncomfortable with his size and demeanor. The fact that he looked like a thug with his tattooed arm and overgrown hair hadn’t escaped his notice; he’d just hoped she’d see past it. Strangely, he found himself wanting to comfort her though. She looked lost. And sad. And he didn’t like seeing the unhappiness shining in her eyes. Not one bit.
“So, you’ve brought me a reward for my good deed, huh?” he asked, trying to put her at ease again by distracting her from her thoughts.
“What?” Harmony questioned blankly, wincing when Jacob merely nodded down at the saucer she’d placed in front of him a few minutes ago. “Oh! Yes!” She agreed with a quick smile. “It’s the least we could do. Honor made that fresh this morning especially for you. It’s one of her signature desserts. Lucky Lemon Lush. She only makes it on special occasions and for special people. You really endeared yourself to us last night and that there,” she said with a nod at the airy looking dessert, “is Honor’s way of saying how much she appreciates what you did. We all do. You, sir, just got the McKinnon family seal of approval whether you wanted it or not.”
Oh, he had wanted it. Desperately. Their approval, or more specifically Harmony’s approval, was vital to his endgame.
“I’d say that seal is a valuable thing to have in this town. You ladies are pretty well known around these parts,” he noted easily.
“Well, our place is the only joint you can get a decent meal that doesn’t come out of a paper bag or down a cold one after a long hard day at work. I think our popularity has more to do with the food and drink than with us personally.”
“I think you’re underestimating yourself, but be that as it may, a man can never have too many friends… especially the pretty kind.”
There went the blush again. He grinned as he watched the color spread. “So, will you join me for a bite, Miss McKinnon?” he asked, gesturing to the bench across from him. “I’d love your company.”
“I wish I could,” Harmony denied with true regret shining in her expressive eyes, “but, I need to pick up my daughter from daycare.”
“You have a little girl?” he asked innocently, tilting his head, that information already part of his dossier.
Harmony laughed again as she nodded. “Yes, she just turned four, but some days I feel like it’s four going on forty with some of the things that come out of her mouth.”
“Maybe tomorrow then,” he suggested, keeping his deep voice friendly and inviting. “I’d love to pick the mind of a native about the town. I’m thinking of opening a business in the area and wouldn’t mind knowing who the good realtors and so on are in the area,” he offered, telling a half-truth. He did fully intend on starting his own business once he retired from the DEA, although he hadn’t given much thought to where it would be. Paradise was as good a place to start looking as anywhere else at the moment, though. It wasn’t like he was going anywhere until the job was done. And he did enjoy the scenery, he admitted silently as he watched Harmony tuck a strand of her shoulder length ash blonde hair behind her small ear.
“Oh. What business are you in?” she inquired curiously.
“Security,” he fibbed, the untruth rolling smoothly off his tongue. Not a complete lie, but not the truth either. Besides, being an excellent liar was practically a job requirement for an undercover agent, and he was an excellent agent.
“That’s… interesting,” she murmured, a tiny frown line appearing between her eyebrows. She got distracted at that point as raised voices at the front of the bar had drawn their attention.
“I’m telling you, it’s unconstitutional!” Patience McKinnon yelled from behind the bar as she waved what looked like a yellow ticket underneath some poor guy’s nose. “I pay my taxes, and as such, MY money helped pay for those city streets. Nobody should be double-charged like that, Abel T
urner!”
“And I’m telling YOU,” the man in a well-fit business suit shouted back at her, “You have no CASE!” He illustrated his bellowed remark by holding his expensive looking leather briefcase above his head and shaking it.
“Oh, crap,” Harmony murmured, her eyes widening on the pair of combatants as Patience loudly threatened to come over the bar. “I promised Honor no bloodshed today. Swore on a Bible and everything,” she almost whimpered, biting her lower lip as Patience’s hands both slammed down on the bar and rattled two unsuspecting diner’s glasses.
“This happen a lot?” Jacob asked with an amused nod toward a furious Patience and the sneering man standing opposite her.
“Oh, once a week or so. Tensions have been escalatin’ between the two for a few months now,” Harmony explained, watching the two enemies as they seemed to pause and size each other up. “Last week, a bar stool, a serving tray and a perfectly innocent blackberry cobbler were casualties of their ongoing war. I better go break them up before somebody loses more than their dessert today.”
Jacob couldn’t help his chuckle as he heard Patience goad the man in front of her with, “Yeah, well, if you weren’t such a lousy lawyer, Abel, you’d find a way to MAKE a case for me!”
“Yeah, I think you better go intercede,” he agreed with Harmony quickly when he saw Patience reach for an empty glass pitcher with a malicious gleam in her eye.
Nodding, Harmony flashed him a quick smile. “I have appointments until 10 tomorrow and work from 11 until 3. If you want, I can get Honor to pick up my little girl, Heaven, from daycare tomorrow and help you tomorrow afternoon.”
“It’s a date.” His grin quickly fell away as her face paled at his statement.
“No, it’s not,” she returned quickly with a stiff shake of her head. “I don’t date.”
“You don’t? Ever?”
“I don’t. Ever.” Her statement was both insistent and emphatic.
Damn, she was serious, he thought to himself as he listened to that grave little voice of hers. It was becoming real clear that the ex-husband he’d read about in her file had done a serious number on her.
“Okay, then,” he said carefully. “Not a date. How about a friendly afternoon snack between two new friends?” he amended calmly, watching as she swallowed hard.
“Okay, that would work,” she relented, almost reluctantly. Then, she tried to smile at him, but it was half-hearted at best. “Sorry. I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea. It’s not you, Jake. You seem like a nice guy. It’s most definitely me.”
“I sense there’s a story here that you’re not quite ready to share with me,” he surmised astutely, keeping his gaze steady as he met her eyes.
“Something like that,” she acknowledged softly.
“Maybe someday you’ll feel like you can tell me.”
“Maybe,” Harmony murmured uncomfortably just before Patience shrieked a demand for Abel Turner to vacate the premises as she held the empty glass pitcher above her head. Looking over her shoulder, Harmony groaned. “Sorry, Jake, but I gotta go,” she apologized before hurrying toward her sister.
He laughed as he watched Harmony quickly disarm her sister and mediate a truce at the bar. He barely made out what her soft voice was saying, but he watched as her body had slowly relaxed as she diffused the tension between her sister and the lousy attorney. After she made sure that the last angry embers of their altercation were extinguished, he saw her quickly gather her jacket and purse from beneath the long counter and press a kiss to Patience’s cheek.
With a cheery wave at him and smile, she left.
He sat in that booth a long time, replaying their conversation in his head and slowly drawing more than one conclusion about Harmony McKinnon.
First, that woman was no criminal. Over the years, he’d gotten damn good at reading a person’s eyes and seeing what kind of individual he was dealing with. When he’d stared into her gaze, he’d seen nothing but a woman that had both known pain and survived it without allowing it to taint all that was good in her. There was no deceit… no subterfuge. Just the crystal clear blue eyes of a woman that a man like him did NOT deserve to share air with, let alone her company.
Second, Harmony McKinnon had been hurt. He didn’t know how or how deeply the pain ran, but he was sure that whatever had happened had left a scar. Her self-confidence was almost non-existent, and compliments that other women would have eaten with a spoon made her uncomfortable. Not only that, but she didn’t believe him. That knowledge pissed him off and made him want to find the fuckwad that had made her feel less than perfect and put him in the ground. No woman as kind and beautiful as her should ever be made to feel as small and insignificant as he figured she felt.
The third and last conclusion he’d drawn was that lying to Harmony was going to suck. He was going to hurt her. Maybe not physically, but he suspected what he was going to do would most likely cause her a lot more pain. Because he was going to earn her trust. And ultimately, he was going to destroy it.
There was no choice.
In his world, the end always justified the means.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Epilogue
Playlist for Sizzle
Acknowledgments & Dedication
Sneak Peek – Cain’s Salvation
Sneak Peek - Hard as Stone
Sizzle Page 43