“Sorry it took so long, Miss Millie. That flu bug has been filling up our floor pretty quickly with elderly patients, but we’ve got a private room cleaned and ready for your admission,” the young man returned apologetically, looking down at the orders he held in his hand. “Is this Miss Honor McKinnon?”
“Sure is,” Millie said with a nod toward the sleeping woman. “She probably won’t even stir during the shift.”
“Great. I’ll just get her ready and transported upstairs.” Turning toward Zeke, the younger man continued, “Sir, if you’ll give us fifteen minutes or so, she’ll be all set up in Room 405 and you can come sit with her.”
The next minute was filled with Zeke flashing his badge, the orderly rapidly agreeing to the police transport, and Millie agreeing to keep the waiting family updated on the change. A mere twenty minutes later, Zeke was relieved to sink into one of the hospital issue recliners that sat beside Honor’s hospital bed. It wasn’t a LazyBoy, but it was a hell of a lot better than that torture device he’d been calling a chair down in Emergency. Honor still hadn’t woke up, but she had stirred briefly when he and the orderly had shifted her body into the bigger stationery bed in the center of the room.
Now, all he could do was wait for his gorgeous unconscious woman to open her pretty eyes and pray that when she did, she’d be willing to be reasonable and listen to logic. He was fully aware that when dealing with a McKinnon female, words like reason and logic weren’t necessarily in their daily vocabulary, but he had to hope that God would smile on him this one freaking time. Deciding to close his eyes for a few minutes and catch his breath, it was a soft knock on the open door that pulled him from his cat nap less than half an hour later.
Turning his head toward the sound, he found his brother’s rangy body leaning against the doorframe as Honor’s favorite waitress, Sunshine, stood nervously behind him, her small hand tightly clutching the handle of a duffel bag. “Ice? Sunny?” he remarked, getting to his feet as he crossed the room to where they stood in the doorway. “What are you two…”
“Bro, we hate to bother you, but Sunshine, here, needs to have a few words with you,” Ice informed his sibling grimly, jerking his head toward the cowering young woman behind him. “Seems there’s some things that’ve been going on around the café that Honor didn’t want any of us to know about,’ he continued softly, keeping his voice low and for his brother’s ears alone. “Sunshine’s here to fill you in.”
Zeke’s confused gaze went to the soft spoken, petite woman that Honor had developed an almost instant attachment to after she’d been hired to work at the restaurant. Bellamy Graves, or Sunshine as everyone at the cafe called her, had lived a difficult life over the past couple of years. With a dead mother, an abusive, often drunken stepfather, and a half-sister that was less than a year old, the poor girl had her hands full. For all intents and purposes, Sunshine was the only parent her young baby sister had, and since she was barely out of her teens herself, the girl struggled. Barely twenty years old, Sunshine worked hard at two jobs, one at the McKinnon café as a waitress in the mornings, and in the evenings she was employed as a cashier at the new store in town, Hooks and Books. The determined woman was also taking a few classes at the community college in the afternoons - an undertaking that the McKinnon sisters had insisted upon and demanded to fund. To say that he, Honor, and the rest of the McKinnon clan were close to the shy woman was an understatement. Other than little Zara, they were probably the closest thing to a genuine family that Sunshine had ever had. So, the fact that Sunshine had been keeping secrets for Honor shouldn’t have shocked him.
Except, it did.
Because he knew that Sunshine would rather chew off her own arm than risk losing either Honor OR him as her friends.
“Sunny?” he questioned, staring at the girl with hard eyes. “What’s Ice talking about?”
Reaching up to fist her long black hair in a ponytail, Sunshine looked up at him with wide, watery eyes. “I swear, Sheriff Zeke, I only just put all the pieces together when Mr. Fuentes carried me back over to the diner, and I talked to Verlena and Bale.”
Frowning when the woman mentioned two more of Honor’s employees, Zeke exchanged a look with his obviously aggravated brother. “Maybe you and I should talk privately, sweetheart,” he suggested to Sunshine softly, not wanting to expose her to his brother’s bad attitude. Her grateful nod was all the indication he needed that she’d be more forthcoming without Ice glowering at her. Looking over his shoulder and seeing Honor still asleep, he momentarily debated leaving her, but he reasoned that he’d only be a few minutes and the conversation would go faster without Sunshine worrying about why his brother couldn’t stop glaring at her. Facing Ice, Zeke murmured, “Honor will sleep for a while yet, Ice. There’s a waiting room just down the hallway. Can you sit with her while I take Sunshine down there and she explains what’s going on?”
Ice sighed irritably, but nodded.
“If she wakes up…”
“Jesus, she’ll be fine with me, Zeke. Just go,” Ice stated abruptly. “I think you’re little hothouse flower can survive my dark skies for the few minutes you’ll be away from her.”
“Won’t be long, Ice. But, you and me,” he growled, gesturing between them, “We’re gonna have us a long overdue conversation real soon about your treatment of my woman,” Zeke snapped off sharply, glaring at Ice as he gestured for Sunshine to begin walking down the corridor.
“Looking forward to it, Sheriff,” he heard Ice lazily drawl behind him. Rolling his eyes, he placed two impersonal fingers on Sunshine’s back and gently guided her a few doors down until they reached a small waiting room. Waiting until she preceded him inside, he nodded at one of the wooden chairs. “Sit down, Sunny, and tell me what’s going on that’s got you lookin’ pale as a ghost.”
Sunshine nodded slowly as she bent at the waist to take one of the scattered chairs in the room, dropping the duffel bag at her feet before looking up to meet his gaze with sorrowful eyes. “Is Miss Honor gonna be okay? Please tell me she is, Sheriff Zeke. If something happens to her because I didn’t say anything,” she rambled anxiously, “I’ll just never forgive myself. But I swear to you, I thought it was just the one time. I never knew that it kept happening and she was keeping it to herself. Maybe I should have what with the way she’d been actin’ lately, but I didn’t! I promise you, I didn’t!” she said, her big dark eyes begging him to believe her.
Zeke felt more confused than ever, shaking his head as he dragged the chair across from her closer to where she sat. Taking the chair quickly, he leaned forward to pull the nearly frantic girl’s chilled hands into his. It was obvious she was overwrought and blaming herself for something, but he hadn’t the first clue as to what that something was. And until he got her to settle down, he doubted he’d make much headway with her. “Sunny, darlin’, I want you to take a deep breath, calm yourself and listen to me.” Waiting until she audibly inhaled, Zeke tightened his fingers around her hand. “Sugar, there is no doubt in my mind that no matter what you tell me, you didn’t mean Honor any ill will. I know that. So does Honor.”
A single tear slipped down Sunshine’s cheek. “Honor McKinnon gave me a chance when nobody else in town would, Sheriff. Everybody knows my stepfather is trash, and they all assumed I was, too, until Miss Honor and her sisters hired me. I owe them everything. Everything, Sheriff Zeke, but especially Honor. I have a job because Honor convinced Miss Patience to take a risk and hire me. I have an apartment because when my father wouldn’t stop using me as a punching bag, Honor found me one I could afford. I even have my baby sister living with me because Honor talked to all those social services people and vouched for me.”
“Sunny, you aren’t telling me anything I don’t know.” Hell, he’d stood by Honor’s side while she’d sung Sunshine’s praises to the Department of Children’s Services. He’d also helped purchase and move the slightly used furniture that was inside Sunshine’s apartment. Nothing the young girl said was news
to him, and he wondered how much longer this was going to take. Already, he was anxious to get back to his woman’s side before she awakened.
“I know you do, Sheriff, but it’s important for me to make you understand it all,” Sunshine conceded shakily. “See, Miss Honor… I reckon there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her if she asked, but I swear, I didn’t know that by keeping my mouth shut like she asked me to that I was doing her harm.”
“What exactly didn’t you say, Sunny?” Zeke asked carefully, keeping his tone calm and easy. Scaring the young woman with a barrage of questions wouldn’t get him the answers he sought. She needed to be handled with caution.
“Back when I started working at the I Don’t Care Café, I waited on a table. It was a man, but for the life of me, I can’t remember his face. Anyway, after he left, I went to clear his table off. There was a folded paper in the middle of the table with Miss Honor’s name written on it. I picked it up to give it to her, but when I did, a picture fell out of it. It was Miss Honor. She was standing behind the counter, smiling. It wasn’t a picture from that day ‘cause her clothes were different. When I looked down at the paper, all it said was, ‘You look pretty as a picture today.’ I didn’t think much of it. I just figured that my customer was sweet on Honor. You know as well as I do that she’s gotten a fair share of admirers lookin’ her way.”
Zeke nodded because it was true. He wasn’t an idiot; he saw Honor as the beautiful, young woman that she was. She’d been gorgeous as a child, but as she’d aged, time had only added to her allure. Now, she was breathtaking, and everyone that looked at her saw what he did.
However, what Honor had lived through was no secret because secrets didn’t stay secret in small towns. If a guy was from the Paradise area, then odds were he knew at least a little about Honor’s past and what she’d endured. Most guys respected the metaphorically flashing ‘Do Not Touch’ sign that Honor held above her head, but a few had discounted the warning and pursued her over the years. Often, Honor was able to gently shut them down herself without any interference from anyone else, but there were a select few that she’d had to seek help to dissuade. He’d been forced to persuade more than one fellow to walk away from temptation. And by persuade, he meant that he’d kicked more than one redneck ass out of his town.
“Anyway, I didn’t think much at all about that note or picture. I gave them to Miss Honor and she just shrugged them off and rolled her eyes. She said something about men being men and left it at that. A couple weeks later, I was cleaning off another table and there was another note….”
“Same guy?” Zeke interrupted, forcing himself to remain calm.
“No. That’s just it. Someone must have dropped the note there after my customers left because I was waiting on an elderly couple that day. Anyway, this note and picture… it wasn’t… right,” she whispered, biting her lips.
“Why?” Zeke asked sharply.
“First of all, the picture that dropped out of the note was of Miss Honor when she was young. She was wearing a cheerleading uniform.”
Zeke’s blood went cold. “What?” he breathed softly.
“It was strange. Miss Honor was in a cheerleading uniform, and it looked like she was cheering at an actual game. The note… I’ll never forget it. It said, ‘Remember when you were young and free? Do you feel free now, Honor?’ It gave me the creeps, and when I took it to Honor, she lost every bit of color in her face, Sheriff Zeke. I thought she was gonna pass out. When I asked her if she was okay, she snatched the note and picture out of my hand and told me to forget I ever saw it. She was so rattled, that I never even thought to question her about it. We were busy in the restaurant and she got called back into the kitchen. I went back to work. Until today, I forgot all about it. I knew what happened to Honor when she was a kid, but I didn’t know until Diego told me this afternoon that she was taken from a football game after she’d been cheerleading. That photograph, Zeke… I think it might have been…”
“I understand, Sunshine,” he clipped tersely. “Tell me why did all of this come back to you today?” he asked, his stomach sinking as he watched her bend over to pull out a shoe box from the navy duffel bag.
Pulling the box out and putting it in her lap, Sunshine took a deep breath. “Earlier, when I was waiting with everyone else outside the emergency room, it dawned on me that Miss Honor might want a change of clothes if they admitted her to the hospital. I knew she kept an emergency bag at the café in case of bad weather and such. So, I asked Mr. Fuentes if he’d run me back over there to get it. I knew Honor kept it in the locked bottom drawer of her desk in her office so I thought I’d just run in and get it for her. I knew she kept the key under the pen cup so it was a simple chore I could do for her. This box, here,” she shared with a shaking voice, “It was on top of the bag when I unlocked the drawer. When I pulled it out to get to the bag, I accidentally dropped it and spilled what was inside. I’m sorry, but Mr. Fuentes saw it, too,” she explained, her voice cracking as tears began to slip down her cheeks. “I didn’t know she’d kept on getting the letters and pictures, Sheriff Zeke. She never said anything to me, I swear!”
Zeke stared at the box in much the same way he’d eye a rabid dog. Hesitantly. Anxiously. Slowly, he extended his slightly shaking hand toward it. “Give it to me, Sunny.”
Sunshine quickly passed him the shoebox, clearly relieved to have it out of her custody. “There are dozens of notes and photos in there,” she confided huskily. “And the pictures… Sheriff, you should know that someone took pictures of her… that night.”
“That night?” Zeke echoed, unable to pull his gaze from the lid of the box.
“The night they took her, Sheriff. The night that Honor was kidnapped.”
Zeke’s eyes widened as they shot to the younger woman. “You mean…”
“When the box fell out and the pictures scattered, I saw that in a couple, she’s naked and bleeding. It looked like they’d nearly beat her to death…“
“Stop!” Zeke ordered harshly, squeezing his eyes closed as memories of a beaten and broken Honor assaulted him. He didn’t need to see the pictures to remember what she’d looked like after those animals had finished with her. God, the fact that someone had been torturing her with those images was enough to make him homicidal. Not even anything he’d intercepted had come close to being as awful as what Sunshine described.
“Besides Honor, only you and Fuentes know about this?”
“About the box’s existence? Yeah. Well, not quite. Your brother knows, too, obviously. Mr. Fuentes told him about it as soon as we got back to the hospital. He promised you wouldn’t mind,” she added worriedly.
“No, Ice is fine.” Running a hand down his face as his mind struggled to come to grips with what he now held, he hoarsely prompted, “You mentioned Verlena and Bale?” He wasn’t sure what the black ex-stripper who now tended bar at the café and the adolescent busboy that Honor had hired months ago had to do with this, but he needed every scrap of information he could get since it was clear that Honor never intended to be forthcoming about the danger she’d been facing.
“After I spilled the box on the floor and we got it all picked up, Mr. Fuentes suggested that I ask Verlena and Bale if they’d…”
“If they, too, had unwittingly covered for their boss?” Zeke supplied tonelessly.
Sunshine stared at her clenched hands in her lap before licking her lips. “Yeah,” she confirmed softly. “They both had similar experiences, but neither mentioned seeing any of the graphic pictures. Both Bale and Verlena said Honor just told them it was nothing to be concerned with and for them not to worry. Neither of them had any clue what was going on, Sheriff. None of us did. If we had, believe me, we’d have all changed the way we did things. Miss Honor isn’t exactly an open book about the threats she’s been facing. We all knew that you and her brothers-in-law have been keeping a close watch since the car accident, but we never dreamed that this was the kind of danger she was facing.”
&n
bsp; “Yes, it’s clear that Honor has a habit of trying to ignore things away. Her stalker. Her health. Her fucking rape eight years ago. She just pretends that everything is hunky dory and expects the rest of us to fall right the fuck in line with her,” Zeke finally exploded, surging out of his chair to restlessly pace the room as he fought for control. God, he wanted to strangle her for keeping this from him. God only knew what kind of clues she’d been holding in her little box that could have helped him solve this fuckin’ thing for her. Of course, to know that, he’d need to fortify himself to see her as she’d been then.
“Sheriff, I’m so sorry,” Sunshine’s small voice apologized as she watched him with bright eyes.
Turning his attention back to her, Zeke met her terrified gaze. Holding up his hand, he shook his head at the shaking woman. “Sunshine, I’m not angry with you, honey. I know you’re doing everything you can for Honor. My anger is at the assholes trying to hurt her.”
“I suspect she’ll be mad that I gave that to you,” she remarked with a sniffle, nodding toward the box as she wiped the tears off her damp cheeks.
“Trust me, darlin’, it won’t be you that she’s angry with. She’s not gonna have time; she’s gotta deal with me. Right now, I’m plenty pissed at Honor myself. She’ll be a bit too busy tryin’ to get herself out of trouble with me to be too put out with you.”
“I know you’re angry, Sheriff, but I don’t think she did this to make you crazy. She just wanted to…”
“I know what she wanted, Sunshine. It’s what she always wants. She wants to avoid facing her past,” Zeke declared, cutting Sunshine off abruptly. “Unfortunately, that past she’s doin’ everything she can to avoid… it has a direct impact on her present and future. The fact is that every one of us, myself included, is going to have to stop aiding her in evading her issues and help her face them head-on. Honor has spent months pretending that this bastard wasn’t torturing her on an almost weekly basis, but that didn’t change the fact that every night she’s dreamt about him. The woman wakes up screaming bloody murder almost every time she closes her eyes. Pretending this wasn’t happening… it’s not done a thing for her except land her in a hospital bed because her body finally decided that it couldn’t deal with the pressure any longer. Something has to change, and ONLY Honor can make it happen. This time, what Honor NEEDS is going to have to outweigh what she WANTS regardless of how much she protests it.”
Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4) Page 16
