Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4) Read online

  Dropping a heavy hand on her shoulder when Honor would have jerked upright in the bed no matter how much the movement hurt her, Zeke bent until his lips hovered above hers and stared into her wide, terrified eyes. “Breathe, Honor. Patience is here. She’s okay.”

  Blinking rapidly as her dilated eyes shined under the fluorescent lighting, Honor struggled against the pressure of Zeke’s hand. “Where? Where is she? What about the babies?” she questioned quickly, her voice high and anxious as her eyes went from Zeke to the nurse and back again.

  Exchanging a look over Honor’s head with the nurse, Zeke saw the woman nod slightly. “She’s lookin’ good, Sheriff. I’ll let the docs know our girl is awake and we’ll get her a dose of morphine. Miss Honor, your man… or your non-man is gonna fill you in on everything. You just settle down while I go get your meds and put a call into the doctor,” the nurse ordered calmly before quickly hotfooting it out of the cubicle.

  “Zeke?” Honor called, tugging at his sleeve with what little strength she had. “Patience and the little ones? Please, tell me they’re all alright!” she begged.

  “Your big sister is just a few cubicles down from you, Sweetheart. She’s banged up and a little tired from givin’ birth, but Abel stuck his head in here an hour ago and assured me that they were all fine.”

  “They’re too early,” Honor worried brokenly, her eyes tearing up as she stared at Zeke with concern. “Almost a whole month.”

  “Babies are resilient, Kitten. Each was a bit small, but all were healthy. Although, there was one major surprise,” he noted with a wide grin.

  “You’re smilin’,” Honor muttered. “Smilin’ is good, right?”

  “Well, in typical Patience McKinnon style, she chose to go big before going home,” Zeke chuckled, rubbing his fingers through the silky blonde hair resting on the baby blue pillowcase.

  “Huh?” Honor grunted.

  “Patience didn’t have twins, Honor. She had triplets.”

  Honor’s eyes closed for a long second before opening again to stare blankly at him. “Triplets?” she breathed. “For real?”

  Zeke nodded. “You’re an auntie again times three, baby,” he informed her, his hand reaching for hers when a tear drop escaped her eye to roll down her cheek.

  “And all of them are okay?” Honor clarified, watching Zeke’s face closely for any sign of deception.

  “I swear on my love for you, baby, all three kids and your sister are all going to recover just fine,” Zeke vowed solemnly, leaning forward to press a lingering kiss against Honor’s forehead.

  A raw sob escaped Honor’s lips at that promise as she lifted her hand to curl it around Zeke’s neck while he held his lips pressed to her forehead. “Thank God.”

  “You took the brunt of the injuries, Kitten,” Zeke shared against her skin.

  “Good,” Honor declared with a watery laugh. “If somebody had to get the brunt of it, I’m glad it was just me.”

  “What?” Zeke growled, lifting his lips to glare at her.

  “My overachieving sister is now a mother to three tiny little humans. She needs all her strength. If somebody needs to suffer here, it should be me. Nobody depends on me for anything.”

  “That’s bullshit. I depend on you for everything, Honor. My happiness. My sanity. Pretty much every single thing in my life. I hate that either of you were hurt,” he grumbled. “But you need to get it through your head that you are every bit as important as any of your sisters. And you’re more than important to me. You’re vital. Crucial in a way that might just cripple me if you try and leave me again.”

  Honor looked away from him. “I don’t have the energy to fight with you over this right now,” she muttered. “But for the record, I wasn’t leavin’ anybody. I was run off the blasted road.”

  Zeke laughed. “Yeah, we’re gonna talk about that later. For now, how about you stop fighting the idea of there being an ‘us’ and just accept the way things are? That being, I need you as much as I need food, water, and air,” Zeke explained as he saw Honor’s face tighten in agony again, the pain beginning to overwhelm her. “Just hang on for me, Kitten,” he urged, lifting her hand and holding it between both of hers as he watched her try to take a few deep breaths. “Your body has been through it today. You were in surgery for hours.”

  “Surgery? That would explain why it feels like my insides have been rent in two,” Honor surmised faintly. Slowly rolling her head toward him, she whispered, “How bad this time?”

  He hated that she’d tacked on the words ‘this time’, but he couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t the first time she’d woken up in a hospital both in pain and disoriented with him by her bedside. “Kitten, you’re going to be okay,” he felt the need to reiterate.

  She merely stared back at him, waiting.

  Fuck, he knew that look. She’d stare at him all night until he gave her the answer to her question. “It wasn’t good, Honor,” he affirmed quietly. “But it could have been so much fuckin’ worse, baby.”

  “Details, Ezekiel. I want details,” she prodded. “It is my body after all. I deserve to know what’s wrong with it.”

  “You remember the wreck, yeah?” he asked gently.

  Breathing slowly, Honor inclined her head slightly. “We went off the road into the creek. Abel got Patience out, but I was…Oh, god,” she said, gasping as she shuddered. “I was pinned to the seat by that tree branch. It was stabbing me,” she said between barely-moving lips. Suddenly jerking her gaze to Zeke, she narrowed her eyes. “The engine was on fire and you wouldn’t leave me, you stubborn fool.”

  “Leaving you never has been and never will be an option I’m willing to consider, Kitten,” Zeke reminded her with a gentle tolerance he’d built over time. “You know that, baby.”

  “Idiot. You could have been killed,” she railed at him despite the pain running through her small body. “What kind of moron takes that kind of risk?”

  “One that loves you. Sooner or later, you’ll understand that,” Zeke replied with a careless shrug.

  “I don’t want that!” Honor yelled, her voice frail.

  “There won’t be many times in life that I’ll say this to you, Kitten, but right now, I could care less what you want. I wasn’t going to leave you there. I’d rather have died with you than lived without you.”

  Sinking her top teeth into her lower lip, Honor squeezed her eyes shut. “You can’t make those kind of irrational decisions, Ezekiel. People depend on you to be the smart one.”

  Zeke laughed softly. “I am smart. Smart enough to know that a life without you isn’t something I want to contemplate.”

  “God! You’ve got to stop doing that,” she insisted furiously, thumping a closed fist against the bed even though it made her wince in pain.

  “What?” Zeke asked calmly.

  “Stop being so… so… sweet! I can’t handle it.”

  Huffing out an irritable breath, Zeke rolled his eyes. “You’ll learn,” he said simply before leveling the woman in the bed with an intense look. “I’m done waitin’ for you to be ready for me, Kitten. Done wastin’ time tiptoeing around what I feel for you because I’m afraid it’ll scare you. You’re gonna be scared, regardless. I might as well be blunt about things. I want you. I need you. I love you. Three simple truths that you’re just gonna have to get used to hearing and knowing.”

  Furious, Honor ground her teeth together so tightly that her jaw clenched. “What’s wrong with my body, Ezekiel? Why did I need surgery?” she asked, obviously done discussing their relationship with him.

  Zeke sighed. Fuck, but he hated to tell her this shit. He knew she’d just eventually use it as one more goddamned reason that they couldn’t be together. He knew as soon as he told her, she’d assume her perceived diminished ability to provide him with a family would be one more nail in their relationship coffin. It wouldn’t matter that both Dr. Sanderson and Mack said she’d probably be able to have kids without a single problem even with having only one set of
reproductive organs. It wouldn’t matter to her that even if she COULDN’T eventually give him a biological child, he could care less. They could hire a surrogate. They could adopt. Or, he could just spend his life being gratefully happy that he had Honor in his bed. None of that would matter at all. Because Zeke KNEW without a shadow of a doubt that Honor wouldn’t see it that way.

  “Zeke, I’m waiting.”

  He also knew she would dig at him until he answered her damn questions. Lifting his eyes from where they’d clung to their joined hands to Honor’s impassive face, he decided to rip of the bandage and just hit her with the truth. “You lost your left ovary and fallopian tube. Doctor Sanderson and Cain tried to save them, but you started to bleed out and saving your life became the priority.”

  Honor’s breath caught as she absorbed that blow. Finally, she slowly nodded. “Okay,” she assented softly. “Now I know.”

  He could tell the news was killing her by degrees and Zeke automatically moved closer to her. “No, you don’t know. It’s not as bad as I can tell your mind is working this up to be. You can still have babies, Kitten. Your right ovary and tube are fully functional.”

  “There aren’t going to be any babies for me, Ezekiel, because there’s not going to be any man to give them to me. I don’t WANT a man to give them to me,” Honor denied softly, shaking her head quickly. “So, this isn’t a big deal at all,” she tried to say lightly even though her voice sounded unnaturally thick.

  Catching sight of the nurse in the orange scrubs heading back down the hallway toward their cubicle, Zeke intentionally made himself relax. “We’re about to have company, baby, but I gotta say, if you think that one day you and I won’t be working on a little Monroe, you’re not nearly as smart as I gave you credit for being.”

  Honor gasped as the sliding door opened again and the nurse stepped inside with a syringe in her hand.

  Zeke merely shrugged and grinned at his girl. “Told ya, Kitten. Done with the tiptoeing around,” he reminded her with a teasing wink while the nurse injected the dose of morphine into Honor’s IV.

  Hampered by the other woman’s presence and the quick-acting medication, Honor wasn’t able to respond to him before her eyes drooped shut.

  But it wouldn’t have mattered to Zeke.

  Come hell or high water, he was going to school Honor McKinnon on her brand new reality.

  A reality that would include Ezekiel Monroe in a starring role.

  Chapter Three

  December, 2015

  November bled easily into December as both Honor and Patience continued to heal inside the safe confines of Paradise General Hospital under both Abel and Zeke’s watchful eyes. And while both their mama and auntie healed, triplets, Bronson, Harriet, and Granger flourished under the attention of their family.

  Zeke had gone back to work while Honor was healing, more determined than ever to find a lead into who had attempted to run Honor and her sister off the road, but so far he’d come up with a grand total of nothing. In a town where everybody always seemed to know a little something about everything, strangely, nobody claimed to have seen anything. Nobody copped to having heard anything. And despite his very best efforts, nobody was saying any-fucking-thing. It was enough to nearly drive the lawman insane. He’d even broken his own moral code and asked Wrath and his biker brethren to begin quietly asking around about that night, but as of yet, none of them had been able to find a solid piece of verifiable intelligence either.

  It was a safe bet to say that Zeke was quickly losing both patience and faith in his normally closely-knit small town.

  And while Zeke had spent the last several long days searching for viable leads on who the hell was trying to hurt his woman now, he’d left the McKinnon clan and extended family in charge of Honor (much to her chagrin). Despite her very loud and increasingly shrill protests, he’d insisted that someone remain by her side at all times until he returned to her room in the evenings to sleep in the chair beside her hospital bed.

  So, just a mere ten days after she’d been admitted to the hospital, he shouldn’t have been surprised by what he’d found as he’d walked into her room. He really shouldn’t have been shocked in the slightest.

  And yet...Honor never failed to amaze him.

  ~***~

  “Move aside right this second, you pair of overgrown bullies, and let me out of here or I swear to God, I’m gonna give both of you an enema you’ll never forget with my IV pole and a determined attitude!! Believe me, I will make it my personal mission to make your last prostate exam feel like a kiss on the neck before I’m done with y’all.”

  Sheriff Zeke Monroe winced as he heard Honor’s voice threaten loudly as he stepped off the elevator in front of the second floor nurses’ station of Paradise General Hospital. Nodding to the familiar wide eyed nurse behind the desk, Zeke felt his shoulders slump. It looked like his long day was about to become an even longer night.

  “Miss Farrah,” he greeted the dark-haired woman looking at him with something he greatly suspected was pity. “I guess I don’t need to ask what kind of afternoon it’s been for Honor, huh?”

  Sounds of a scuffle came from the general direction of Honor’s room as the nurse shook her head and tried to clear the amusement from her face. “Our patient might be gettin’ a little anxious to go home, Sheriff. I guess I should warn you that Dr. Sanderson accidently spilled the beans that Honor was technically ready to leave two days ago when Patience and the babies got released but took your concerns about her condition under serious advisement and kept her with us a bit longer. This… as you can imagine, hasn’t made little Honor exactly cooperative,” Farrah explained as the sound of something that sounded suspiciously like a body collided with the closed door of Honor’s room.

  “Ah, hell,” Zeke groaned, closing his eyes. He could only imagine the state that their stubborn patient had worked herself up to. He’d only had the best of intentions when he’d had that conversation with the doctor, and honestly, his girl was still experiencing quite a bit of pain when she moved. Add that to the fact that it was a hell of a lot easier to protect her in a contained environment, and yes, he’d talked her physicians into keeping her longer than entirely medically necessary. It was easy to do in a small town hospital where the docs were his friends.

  “If I were you,” the black woman wearing purple scrubs seated beside Nurse Farrah drawled as she flipped through a glossy magazine, “I’d wear a cup and a helmet if you’re goin’ into Miss McKinnon’s room tonight. She’s lookin’ to draw blood. Yours, specifically, Sheriff.”

  Zeke sighed. “That bad?”

  “Worse,” both women responded in unison.

  Looking down the thankfully empty hallway as another thump landed against Honor’s door, he shook his head. “I had the best intentions.”

  The black lady snorted and exchanged a look with Farrah. “Road to hell is paved with those, ain’t it?” she asked dryly.

  Zeke couldn’t help laughing at that. If these ladies only knew how many times he’d walked up and down that road to hell with Honor, they’d both get down on their knees and pray for his rapidly blackening soul.

  “You listen to me, Ice Monroe, I refuse to be held hostage by Ezekiel and his band of redneck terrorists any longer! A woman has a God-given right to shrug off the veil of her oppressors and I am officially strippin’ down!” Zeke heard Honor proclaim as devoutly as any war cry he’d ever heard from the other side of the door.

  “I think that’s your cue. Better move fast before your poor brother sees a side of Honor that he’s not prepared to deal with,” Farrah declared, nearly choking on her giggles.

  Oh, yeah. This was gonna be a hell of a night, Zeke thought as he quickly moved toward the room to rescue both Ice and Honor’s brother-in-law, Jake. Both men had taken the afternoon shift to watch over Honor while the other sisters helped Patience with her new babies. Opening the door, Zeke ducked quickly as an empty water pitcher came sailing at his head. Slowly rising as he stare
d across the room to the other side of the bed where Honor stood, gripping her silver IV pole with whitened fingers, he held up a hand. “Alright, Kitten. How about you just take a deep breath and…”

  Zing.

  Zeke’s eyes widened as a box of tissues came flying toward his face.

  “You breathe, traitor! I’m PISSED,” Honor roared.

  Blinking as he picked up the box of Kleenex from the tiled floor and tossed them on the sink beside the door, Zeke nodded. “I can see that.”

  “Man, I have never in my LIFE been happier to see somebody! This chick is nuts! Handle your woman,” Ice growled, rubbing the goose egg that seemed to be forming on his forehead as Honor turned her glare from Zeke to Ice.

  “I. Am. Not. His. WOMAN!” Honor screeched, punctuating each word with another projectile missile. A comb. A hairbrush. A remote. The weapons just kept flying from her hands.

  “Holy mother of God,” Jake breathed from the corner of the room, afraid to move. “I thought Harmony could be a handful when she was mad. Zeke, dude, you’re seriously fucked.”

  Zeke watched Jake’s gaze dart toward the door and there was no doubt the guy was eyeballing the distance, measuring his chances of making it in one swift leap. “Honor, enough!” Zeke barked when she lifted her hand to hurl one of the paperbacks Aunt Orla had dropped off this morning. “Put it down before I decide to put you in cuffs and arrest you for assaulting a police officer. Either that, or turn you across my knee.”

  “I’d go with the spanking. I think it would make a more lasting impression on Little Miss Hard Head over there,” Ice grumbled, tenderly prodding the knot on his head. “Seriously, I’m thinking of charging her with assault myself. She threw a freaking vase at my head, Zeke!”

  “And I’m not even a little bit sorry for it, you big jerk! You tied me to the bed while I was sleeping! Who does that?”