Hard as Stone (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnnon Sisters) (16 page)

He’d known enough;
he hadn’t really needed to know it all, had he? 

Turning to look at
her fully when he heard her breath hitch roughly from across the room, he
grimaced.  At this rate, she was going to make herself sick.  How was that for
a memorable first date?  Flowers, check.  Wine, check.  Drive your date to the
edge of her sanity, fucking check!

When it had
started, he’d mistakenly thought that this would be a cathartic experience for
her; that, in the end, he’d be helping her move past the specter of Suarez in
her life.  Somehow though, they’d skated right past cathartic and landed in the
land of the nervous breakdown.  He should have had a fucking map.

Spotting the red can
of Folgers coffee, he yanked it off the shelf just as his cell phone rang on
the kitchen counter.  Glaring at the device as it rang a second time, he
glanced toward the den area of the cabin.  Harmony was still crying, but the
sobs were coming less frequently.  She should be okay for the second it would
take to get rid of the caller.  Snatching the intrusion off the counter, he
stabbed a finger against the screen before lifting it to snarl at the caller. 
“Stone.”

“Well, hello to
you, too, Sunshine,” a familiar voice drawled sarcastically, “I’d called to ask
how your date went, but I can tell from your tone that there might be trouble
in Paradise.”

“Funny, Zeke.  Real
fuckin’ funny,” Jacob retorted in a low hiss as he cast a cautious look toward
the sofa.  Harmony hadn’t moved, but wherever her mind had detoured in the last
thirty seconds must have sucked because the sobs were starting again.  “I don’t
have time for this conversation right now,” he mumbled into the phone quickly.

“Why?” the Sheriff
questioned suspiciously before cursing.  “Is that crying I hear?  Is Harmony
still with you?”

“Yeah, she’s here
and I don’t have
time
to talk to you about it,” Jacob growled.  “I’m a
little busy right now.”

“What the fuck did
you do, Stone?” Jacob heard Zeke bark at him.  It sounded as if there was some
interference on the line for a moment before he heard the other man tell
someone, “The son of a bitch has Harmony in tears!  We’re gonna have to kill
him.”

“Wait a second?”
Jacob retorted, turning his attention back to the phone.  “Who’s there with
you?  Aren’t you with Honor?”

“I left Honor’s
house after I helped get Heaven tucked into bed.  I’m at the bar now, asshole,
and you’ve got about fifteen minutes before I show up and get Harmony out of
there.  I swear to God if you’ve done any damage to that woman, I’ll gut you
with my bare hands, Stone, and I’ll have help to do it!  I’m pretty sure by the
look on Abel Turner’s face that he’d help me bury your body where even the
buzzards won’t find it!” Zeke yelled at him.  “Better yet, I’ll deliver you up
to Honor on a silver platter.  Any torture I had in mind will be child’s play
compared to what she’ll do to you for mistreatin’ her sister.”

“Christ, will you
calm down?  I can only handle one hysterical woman at a time,” Jacob whispered
violently into the phone.  “I didn’t
do
anything to her, Zeke.  She took
a walk down Memory Lane tonight and it shook her up.  That’s all.  I’ve got it
under control.”  He was lying through his teeth, but he’d be damned if he
allowed Ezekiel Monroe to take Harmony away from him.  He’d handle this one way
or another, and fuck the other man if he thought differently.

“If it was under
control, we wouldn’t hear her cryin’,” Jacob heard Abel say.  “And for the
record, I say we bypass Honor and hand him straight to Patience.  That woman
could remove a man’s jewels with a butter knife and a can-do attitude.”

Jake rubbed his
hand against his aching head.  “Fuckin’ hell, did you put me on speaker, Zeke?”

“Hell, yeah, he
did,” Abel’s voice retorted. 

“Look, I’m making
coffee.  Either one of you show up here, I swear to God, you’ll leave on a
stretcher.  Harmony is mine to comfort, so I’d appreciate it if you took your
threats and shoved ‘em up your ass.   I’ll pour a cup down her throat and get
her settled…”

“Are you crazy?”
Zeke asked incredulously over the crackling connection.  “You don’t give a
distraught McKinnon woman caffeine, man.  It’s like feeding crack to a spider
monkey!  She won’t come down off the ceiling for days if you do that.”

“Fuckin’ amateur,”
Jake heard Abel mutter disgustedly.  “Cookies,” the attorney rapped out.

“What?” Jacob spat
as his head began to throb with a drum-solo beat.

“You need cookies
for Harmony, Stone.  Lots of cookies,” Zeke elaborated, his tone brooking no
argument.  “Chocolate is best, but peanut butter will do in a pinch.”

“Are you assholes
fuckin’ with me right now or are you both drunk?  I don’t think a cookie is
gonna be the answer to any problem I’m havin’ right now with my woman.”  Jacob
promised himself that the next time he saw either of these men who were
currently agitating the shit out of him, he was gonna plant a fist right
between their eyes - especially if this was their version of assistance.

“Are you not
listening?  The man said cookies.  Plural.  Jesus, Zeke, if this guy is gonna
try to hitch his cart to Harmony’s little red wagon, shouldn’t he at least know
his McKinnon trivia?  He’s never gonna be able to roll with us if this is any
indication of how well he does under pressure,” he heard Abel ask Zeke
impatiently.

“Fuck you, Abel. 
Zeke, what the hell is that jackass talking about now?” Jacob questioned as he
nearly pulled the door off another of his cabinets and eyed the contents for
freaking cookies.

“What he’s tryin’
to say is that each of the sisters has a coping mechanism.  With Honor, it’s
ice cream.  Specifically, it’s Rocky Road ice cream.  With Faith, it’s
cupcakes, preferably with buttercream icing. 

Abel’s chuckle rang
through the phone.  “Oh, yeah…I’d forgotten the buttercream part.  How could I
forget that?  She almost took Cain’s head off just last week for giving her one
with that whipped shit on top of it.”

“That was a bad
night,” Zeke returned slowly.

“Can we stay the
fuck on topic?” Jacob asked, looking at Harmony over his shoulder.  Jesus, had
she shrank in the time she’d been here with him?  She looked too damned tiny
laying on his sofa like that. 

“Patience’s saving-grace
is tequila.  Cuervo Gold,” Abel supplied with surprising alacrity for a man
that Patience had vowed just last week was her personal mortal enemy after he’d
snickered at her for losing some bet over the Titans game.

“And Harmony’s is…”
Zeke went on.

“Fuckin’ cookies,”
Jacob muttered as he started rifling through boxes.  Finally locating a box of
open vanilla wafers, he pulled it down.  “I’ve got Keebler Vanilla Wafers. 
That’s it.”

“Those suck,” Abel
scoffed in derision.  “You don’t even have any NutterButters?  What kind of man
doesn’t have NutterButters?

Jacob grabbed the
back of his neck to keep from throwing the phone against the wall.  Everyone
was suddenly a critic when he was facing down personal crisis.  He might owe
Abel a debt for having Harmony’s back years ago, but that didn’t mean he also
wasn’t gonna owe him a black eye for his inopportune wisecracks.

“Look, if that’s
all you have, I suggest you get them in her hand and step back quickly,” Zeke
advised.  “Let the sugar do its work.  And for God’s sake, don’t take her back
to Honor until you manage to stop the waterworks.  Jokes aside, if Honor tells
me tomorrow to put a bullet in you, I’m not gonna argue.  This is your one
shot, Stone.”

“Life is filled
with shots, Zeke.  Some I’ve missed.  Some I’ve thrown away.  Some I’ve
avoided.  But Harmony McKinnon
is
my shot… my shot at good and clean and
pure… my shot in ways you can’t even understand.  She’s my last shot at happy. 
And believe me, I’m takin’ it,” he informed the other man before he hung up
on.    He could stew on that for a while and leave him the hell alone, Jacob
thought as he closed the cabinet, grabbed the cookies and headed for the woman
that needed him.

Snagging a box of
Kleenex from the old coffee table beside the recliner, Jacob wove his way
through the scattered furniture of the great room back to Harmony’s side. 
Squatting beside her, he lifted a hand to push a tangled, damp strand of blonde
hair stuck to her cheek behind her ear.  “Hey,” he murmured, staring into her
wet blue eyes.  In the dim lamplight, they looked almost sapphire and he was
momentarily struck silent by the raw beauty staring back at him.  Clearing his
throat, his lips tilted upward as he whispered, “So, a little bird told me that
these might help you right now.”  Holding the battered box of vanilla wafers in
front of her unfocused gaze, he asked, “Whadaya think, babe?  You want these or
was Zeke full of shit?”

Sniffling, Harmony
lifted a hand to wipe her nose.  “C-cookies?” she asked in a watery voice as
she looked at him with hopeful eyes.  Reaching for the box, she whispered, “I
love cookies.”

“Well, the box says
that’s what these are, but personally I’ve never been a fan,” he replied,
relinquishing the wafers and reaching for a tissue to blot her pale cheeks. 

Tearing open the
flap with almost desperate fingers, Harmony reached inside, snatched one of the
round discs out and crammed it between her lips.  Pulling a face, she stared at
Jacob with something akin to disgust.  “They’re stale,” she whimpered between
chomps.

“Told you I wasn’t
a fan of ‘em, darlin’.  I ate a couple of cookies when I first moved in here
and then shoved the box in the cabinet, babe.  You want me to throw ‘em out?”
he asked, already reaching to take the box from her.

Snatching it
against her chest, Harmony glared at him.  “Mine.  Get your own,” she growled,
quickly shoving another stale cookie into her mouth and chomping down on it.

Jacob’s eyebrows
lifted as he slowly lifted his hands in surrender and shifted backward.  “No
problem,” he quickly agreed with a nod.  “They’re all yours.”  Watching as she
shoved one cookie after another between her lips, he tried not to laugh. 
Evidently, his two new amigos had been on to something with the cookie thing. 
He could see Harmony slowly calming as she ate her way through the box.  He
made a mental note to pump both men for any other helpful tidbits regarding all
things Harmony as soon as humanly possible.

“Milk,” he heard
her mutter between mouthfuls as she kept her eyes glued to the contents inside
the box. 

“Milk?” he
repeated, wondering if he’d heard her correctly.  He suspected one wrong move
might result in a meltdown of epic proportions. Given the fact that she was
finally forming coherent words instead of sobbing, he didn’t want to press his
luck.

“Need milk,” she
mumbled, continuing to eat her cookies as if they held the key to eternal life.

“Milk, I can do,”
he agreed quickly, relieved she had at least one desire he could immediately
supply.  Pushing back to his feet, he made the short trip back to the kitchen
and poured her a tall glass of milk.  Spying the chocolate syrup in his fridge,
he looked over his shoulder at where she now sat on her knees in the middle of
his couch, steadily shoving wafers into her mouth.  “You want chocolate milk,
babe?”

Her eager nod had
him reaching for the syrup.  As he put the glass in her hand a moment later, he
couldn’t help grinning when she looked up at him like she’d just won the
lottery.  Dropping beside her on the sofa, he slipped his arm around her
shoulders and watched with amusement as she guzzled her milk and polished off
the last of the cookies.  He shifted uncomfortably in his seat when her pink
tongue darted out to lick the last of the crumbs off her fingers.  His dick
hardened instantly as he watched her tongue stroke the pads of her fingers, and
he nearly groaned at the unconscious eroticism of the moment.

He chuckled when
she tossed the now-empty box toward the coffee table and collapsed against his
arm.  Pulling her body against his chest, he rested his chin against the top of
her head when her body relaxed against his.  “That hit the spot?” he murmured
against her temple.

She nodded slowly
against his warm lips. “Yeah.”

Her voice was
husky, but thankfully, it had lost the edge of pain that had formally filled
it.  “Good, baby.  I promise, the next time you’re here, that kitchen will be
filled with every form of cookie known to creation,” he vowed softly.  He hated
the fucking grocery store, but he’d brave it for her.

“You don’t need to
do that, Jake.  Don’t you get it?  Hasn’t the past hour convinced you that
I’m….”

“Meant to be mine?”
he supplied smoothly.  “Yeah.  It’s definitely solidified that for me,
Harmony,” he informed her seriously.  Seeing the flash of panic cross her face,
he tightened his arm around her, holding her against him.  “I told you that
nothing you could tell me would change anything for me, and it hasn’t.  I still
want you every bit as much as when I showed up at your house tonight to pick
you up for our date.  Actually, if I’m completely honest with you, I want you
more.”

“I can’t make up my
mind whether you’re crazy or just plain dumb,” Harmony replied, staring up at
him like he’d grown a horn from his forehead.  “Did you even
listen
to
me tonight?”