Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4)

by Sarah O'Rourke

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” Honor grumbled.

  Bree offered her an understanding look. “From your sisters or from the sheriff?”

  “Zeke,” Honor shared.

  Nodding, Bree scribbled something on her pad. “My receptionist, Cheyenne, said that he accompanied you in this morning for your appointment.”

  Honor nodded.

  “Do you mind if I ask how your relationship has been since the Intervention. When you left the café that day, you’d virtually banished him from your life, hadn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Honor agreed with a wince. “I said some very unkind and untrue things to him first, though. It’s no excuse, but that day, I just wanted everyone in the café to hurt as much as I was hurting, standing there listening to everyone give me ultimatums. I’m beyond ashamed of some of the things that came out of my mouth. My family and Zeke suffered for it, too. I can’t undo it, but I’ve done my best to make amends.”

  “Is that part of why you’ve agreed to therapy?”

  “Part of it,” Honor conceded. “The biggest part of my decision though is that I’m so tired of carrying around all this shame and ugliness inside me. Eight years ago, a big part of what made me who I was got torn away. Those men stole my innocence, my safety, and a part of my sanity away from me. I’ve tried to put myself back together, but none of the pieces seem to fit right anymore. I’m all jagged edges and chipped pieces, Bree. I guess I’m hoping you’ll be able to find a way to make me feel whole again.”

  “What was taken from you can never be replaced, Honor, but I believe you can move past it. First, however, you’ve got to deal with what you lost. You’ve got to confront all those ugly memories and make some sense out of them. I understand that you’re still facing a threat from at least one of your rapists, correct?”

  Wrapping her arms around herself, Honor nodded. “Two of them are still out there somewhere,” she shared painfully. “Zeke believes at least one of them is still in Paradise.”

  “The one sending you the notes, yes?” Bree clarified.

  Honor bobbed her head jerkily. “The notes have kept coming. Sometimes with pictures, sometimes not,” she confessed worriedly. “I don’t look at them anymore. Zeke handles them. Lately, whoever this is has stepped up his game. I’ve been getting phone calls.”

  “That must be awfully scary.”

  “It is. The calls come from an untraceable number. Zeke says it’s a burner phone. At any rate, every few days, my cell will ring and he’ll just sit there, breathing. If Zeke is around, he’ll answer the call, but usually he gets me at work. I’m scared, but not quite as badly as I would have been if I’d been staying with Diego instead of Zeke. Luckily, Zeke is back to staying with me at the house again.”

  “So, you did invite him back into your home?” Bree prompted.

  “Yes.” Honor smiled sadly. “He agreed to return almost as soon as I asked. Zeke is a good man. He wants to protect me, and truthfully, in order to not lose my mind, I need to let him do that for me.”

  “That’s a really great breakthrough to have. Being able to freely accept the help of others is critical to getting emotionally healthy again,” Bree praised with a pleased smile. “It sounds like you’ve made your peace with needing Zeke in your life. Do you think his presence in your day to day life is a temporary thing or something more permanent?”

  “Zeke’s always been a part of my life for as long as I can remember,” Honor revealed quietly. “Honestly, he’s been the best part of my day for what seems like forever. It’s just…” Honor trailed off, not quite comfortable sharing so much of herself so quickly with the doctor.

  “Honor, safe place, remember? What were you going to say?”

  Tamping down on her unease, Honor plowed ahead. “I just think Zeke can do a whole lot better than an emotionally damaged girl with as many physical scars as mental ones. He deserves more than that.”

  “Ah,” Aubrey sighed. “And have you shared these feelings with Zeke?”

  “Some of them. He just always says that I’m what he’s found who makes him happy, and he swears all he wants is me,” Honor informed her simply.

  “Do you think he’s lying?”

  “Not intentionally. I think he’s convinced himself that he loves me out of some misplaced guilt he has over not being able to stop what happened to me all those years ago.”

  “During the intervention, it sounded like you held him somewhat responsible, too,” Bree pointed out gently. “Can you talk to me a little about that?”

  Pinching the bridge of her nose as her words came back to haunt her, Honor took a second to think about how she wanted to tackle this subject. She could dismiss it and simply say that she’d spoken hastily in anger or she could actually share her feelings with someone else… hopefully someone that wouldn’t judge her for the way she still felt after all this time. “Logically, I know that if Zeke could give anything to take away what happened to me all those years ago, he would. If he could travel back in time and take a different course of action, he would. For that matter, so would I. I’d jump in that car when Zeke offered me that ride. I wouldn’t tell him I’d be fine and to go ahead without me. Unfortunately, neither of us has magical powers that I know of. We can’t go back and change anything. We have to deal with what did happen.”

  “That’s true,” Bree agreed. “That old saying, ‘hindsight is often twenty/twenty’ has it on the money, doesn’t it?”

  Honor hummed her agreement. “For a long time, I swore that I didn’t hold Zeke responsible. I swore it to him. To my family. To myself, even. And that’s still largely true. I guess in the last few years I’ve just began to wonder why he did listen to me. I was a kid. A teenager that thought she knew what was best for her. But he was a grown man. An adult and a police officer that was supposed to know more than me. I know why I didn’t get in the car. I never imagined anything like what happened happening to me. Not even in my ugliest nightmares. And when I saw that he had that woman in the car with… when I saw the way she was looking at me... like an inconvenience that she didn’t want to ruin her night… I decided that I could wait for my ride. But Zeke… he put that woman and his own desire for her before my potential safety. When he left me there, alone, on the side of the road, he was letting his manly desires for her dictate who his duty was to. I don’t think either of us saw it that way then, but now…”

  “Time has changed your perception of the events that occurred. Very probably, for both of you,” Bree pointed out perceptively, watching Honor’s face cloud.

  “I suppose it has. I hate it. I know if he could, Zeke would do anything to change things for me.”

  “I think so, too.”

  “You do?” Honor asked, mildly surprised.

  “Absolutely. It’s clear that you are the most important thing in Ezekiel’s life, Honor. Now.”

  “What do you mean by now?” Honor questioned, tilting her head to the side as she stared at the doctor, confused by her statement.

  “Just that, Honor. Right now, at this moment in time, you are the most important person in Zeke’s life. But you weren’t important to him then – at least not in the way you are now. And I think a part of you is hurt by that. Perhaps even a little jealous. What you have to understand is that Zeke was –as you said - an already grown man eight years ago. Going on a date with a woman wouldn’t have been something he should have to apologize for doing. You were – as you’ve said – a teenager. There couldn’t have been any kind of deeper relationship between you and the sheriff back then. I’d bet you didn’t even see him in those terms during that time.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Honor acquiesced huskily as she listened intently to everything the other woman said to her.

  “So, really, the fact that he was on a date didn’t bother you then. It troubles you now. Because now, you see Zeke as much more than just an officer of the law that was supposed to protect you from the bad men. Now, he’s the man you count on above everyone else to shie
ld you from anything that might cause you pain. And the thought of him sitting in the car with that woman…being on a date with her while you were being hurt…it pains you, doesn’t it?”

  Jaw dropping, Honor stared at the doctor with a kind of horrified fascination. “Oh, my,” she breathed weakly as the truth behind her words seeped into Honor’s consciousness. “I never thought about it like that.”

  “That’s part of what therapy is for, Honor. Seeing things that you hadn’t noticed before and looking at a situation from different angles are part of the process,” Bree explained.

  “I never thought I was jealous of her. I mean, I never liked her and when I learned exactly what the intimate side of her relationship with Zeke entailed, I liked her even less, but I never would have labeled my feelings for Sherry as jealousy. Not until now anyway,” she added in a mutter.

  “Sherry? That’s the woman who was with Zeke the night you were taken?” Bree inquired blandly.

  “Yes,” Honor replied, her voice faint as her mind tried to process everything she was learning about herself. “She and Zeke saw each other for a little while after my… incident, but then they ended things. I don’t know any details beyond that,” she explained, watching as Bree scribbled a few more notations on her pad. Seeing the other woman adjust in her seat, crossing one slim leg over the other, Honor envied how together the other woman seemed to have things. From her stylish outfit of a black pencil skirt paired with a shiny emerald green silk tunic to the tidy French twist her red hair was swept into, the psychiatrist exuded a class that couldn’t be faked. Honor felt plumb dowdy by comparison in her black slacks and fitted white dress shirt, her hair pulled in a simple high ponytail.

  “Hey, Honor…what were you thinking about just now?” Bree asked, pulling Honor’s attention back to her flawlessly made-up face.

  “When?” Honor blinked.

  “Just now. You looked a little sad?”

  “Oh, no! I was just admiring your outfit,” Honor admitted, telling the woman a harmless half-truth.

  Glancing down at herself, Bree cocked her head to the side as she looked at Honor. “Thank you. I found this outfit on sale over at one of the malls in Knoxville. I like the vibrancy of the green color and this material feels positively decadent against my skin.”

  Honor smiled tightly. “I wish I could dress like that,” she divulged shyly.

  “Why can’t you?” Bree questioned easily. “You’re a younger woman than me and a successful business owner to boot. Why can’t you choose some younger clothing? You’re only 24, right.”

  “Yes. I just… your outfit is pretty. It draws the eye. I don’t like people to look at me,” she mumbled, dropping her gaze to the floor.

  “Why not? You’re a very pretty, attractive young lady with a sweet demeanor. People already look at you.”

  “Yes, but they know not to really look at me. Not as anything other than a friendly ear. At least, most of the men do. They’re aware that I’m not interested in anything… romantic. If I wore prettier clothes, they might think I’m trying to draw their eye. The last thing I want is to ever experience another…incident. I’m afraid another might kill me. So, I avoid putting myself in any kind of position where my actions might be misread. That kinda includes changing my personal wardrobe. Besides, I thank you for your kind words, but I don’t think I’m very pretty at all,” she all but mumbled as her level of discomfort with this topic grew.

  “Okay, there’s a lot to tackle in that statement you just made, Honor. First, as a young woman you have the right to wear anything on your body that you choose without wondering if you’re risking your safety,” Bree proclaimed calmly.

  “I might possess that right, Doctor, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s smart for me to use it,” Honor maintained, hugging her arms tightly as her body grew chilled.

  “You know that what you were wearing the night you were kidnapped did not cause them to assault you, don’t you, Honor?”

  Honor grimaced. “I was wearing a short little cheerleading uniform, Bree. It barely fell to mid-thigh. I was wearing bloomers underneath, but…”

  “Honor, you could have been standing on the street corner, naked as a newborn babe, while crooking your finger at every man that walked by and you still wouldn’t have been to blame for the events that happened to you that night. You did NOT ask for it. Not with your outfit and not with your actions. The responsibility for those actions is borne by the criminals that committed the crime. A little birdy told me that you absolutely abhor being called a victim, but that is exactly what you were. An innocent victim.”

  “Still doesn’t mean it would be wise to walk around showing my skin. I know, firsthand, what can happen to a girl,” Honor retorted sharply, biting her tongue as she fought a wave of anger. She knew Bree was trying to help, but she’d never been held against her will while a bunch of men violated her body. That short little skirt she’d been wearing that night had made it entirely too easy for them. She knew it wasn’t the uniform’s fault, per se, but it hadn’t helped her either. She could still remember one of those awful animals whispering to her about how nice her tight little ass felt underneath her cute bloomers. If she’d been wearing jeans… maybe… just maybe there would have been a different outcome.

  She wasn’t an idiot; she knew it was unlikely.

  But she’d always wonder.

  “You’re right, and your personal style and wardrobe should be entirely up to you. I just want you to think about maybe not allowing a fear of what might happen to dictate your choices. You deserve to wear things that you like, things that you find beautiful. As long as you are comfortable wearing a certain dress or skirt, that’s the primary objective. Before our next session, I’d like you to go pick out a new outfit and wear it for our next appointment. I want you to choose something you find pretty and appealing, but something you might not normally buy because of your worries.”

  “I’m getting homework?” Honor complained. “Seriously.”

  “Oh, yeah. You’ll be getting lots of little assignments from me during the course of your therapy. Sometimes you might find my methods unconventional, but my success rate with patients says that homework helps.”

  “Okay, I suppose I can do it,” she consented uncertainly. She wasn’t much of a shopper, but if all the work Bree wanted her to do was this simple, she’d happily do it.

  “I know it sounds unorthodox, but I think you’re going to find that once you’re wearing the outfit you choose, you’ll feel an added confidence.”

  “Okay,” Honor agreed, privately thinking that homework assignment wouldn’t kill her. Harmony, Faith or Patience would love a trip out to the mall and it would give them a chance to bond again.

  “Now, onto the next thing I want to discuss with you. A few minutes ago, you referred to the brutal gang rape that you lived through as the incident. You’ve done it twice now. Is there any particular reason why you call it that?”

  Honor suppressed a shiver. This was the part of ‘therapy’ that she’d dreaded. Dredging up the past and discussing it. It sickened her. It was also one of the primary things holding her back from moving forward with her life. “The other word is just so ugly,” she whispered, her voice thin and fragile as she closed her eyes. “I heard people say it a lot when I was recovering in the hospital. It was on every piece of paper in every chart, and I just learned to hate the very sound of that word.”

  “Rape is an ugly word. It’s an even uglier action,” Bree concurred sadly. “I can’t argue with that. But refusing to say it… it doesn’t make what happened go away, Honor. Tell me, have you ever said the words?”

  “What words?” Honor asked, her stomach churning. Because Lord help her, she knew which words the doctor was talking about.

  “Have you ever verbally acknowledged that you were raped? Have you ever said the words, out loud, ‘I was raped’?”

  Honor physically recoiled as if struck. “Would you please stop?” Her face twisted in disg
ust and pain as she fought a wave of nausea. “Those might be only words to you, but to me they’re something else entirely.”

  “I’m going to take your reaction as a no.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” Honor sneered. “That’s definitely a no! God! How is saying those awful words going to help me now? Whether I can force myself to utter that vile statement changes nothing. Nothing at all!”

  “Saying it out loud validates that it happened, Honor. It happened to you.”

  “I already know that. I was there. I have the scars all over my body to remind me that I was there. Saying it out loud is just…well, I don’t know what it is, but I hardly think it’d be beneficial.”

  “The word scares you.” Bree stared at Honor with compassion. “I can understand that. What happened to you -- what you were forced to endure – what you live with on a daily basis is beyond scary. Knowing that two of the assailants are still walking free as far as you know has got to be excruciatingly painful.”

  “I don’t want to be rude, but you are stating the obvious, Dr. Daniels.” Honor’s jaw clenched. God, she wanted this to be over, to just get up and walk out the door and never look back. But she’d promised her loved ones that she’d give this therapy thing a fair shake. So far, however, she was finding it to be one big ole bust.

  “You know that there’s a chance that if we talk through your memories on what happened that night…”

  “It was more than a night.” Honor bit out the words through barely moving lips. People that insisted on talking about that awful incident always referred to it as ‘a night’, but the truth was her kidnappers and rapists had held her for 58 hours.

  “I’m sorry?” Bree frowned in confusion.

  “I was technically missing for almost two and a half days. The doctors and police always theorized that I’d been in that sinkhole those animals used to dump my body for twelve hours based on my level of exposure. If you do the math, I was actually held hostage for two days. Not a night, Dr. Daniels. I spent 48 hours in the deepest, darkest part of Hell on Earth imaginable. God, in His infinite wisdom, watched over me,” Honor continued bitterly. “I can only remember snatches of that time. At first, the doctors thought I couldn’t remember because they assumed I’d been drugged, but my toxicology report came back clean in the hospital.”