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

by Sarah O'Rourke

  “Bullshit!” He countered flatly. “You expect me to believe that a woman that’s made it a second career to give couples a perfect wedding day doesn’t want to find a piece of that kind of happiness for herself? That she doesn’t want a partner to share the good times and the bad?”

  “I tried that happily-ever-after thing once, Jake. It sucked for me. I went into my marriage with my head in the clouds and my heart on my sleeve, believing that we’d both live out the fairytale. Then, reality hit me between my eyes. And yeah, even with my past, I still believe in the sanctity and beauty of marriage – for OTHER people. Yes, I think people can find their ‘one and only’, and I get a huge kick out of seeing them do it. I get an even bigger high when I’m part of that perfect moment when they join their lives together, but I had my shot at marriage. I failed. No offense intended, but I’ve got zero desire to try a relationship again with anybody after what happened to me the first time.”

  Her words hung hard between them before Jacob objected stonily, “You weren’t the one that failed, Harmony; he was.”

  Harmony rolled her eyes as she pushed against the edge of the couch, her lips pressed tightly. “You know what? This is all none of your business, Jake. Thank you for a nice dinner, but I’d really like to leave now.”

  Jake shook his head as he narrowed his eyes. “I told you once already, Harmony, I’ve made you my business. You can bite, claw, kick and scream at me, but you’re not leaving until I hear everything there is to hear about this asshole. I refuse to try and battle the unknown with you. I wanna know my enemy, and believe me, just from the little bit you’ve told me, your ex-husband definitely qualifies as my public enemy number one. Tell me, when did this shit start between the two of you? Was he abusing you from the beginning?”

  Her earlier steadfastness faded in that second, and Harmony closed her eyes as tears filled her eyes, blinding her for a moment. “You’re just not going to let this go, are you?” she whispered.

  “I can’t, baby. I need to know this as much as you need to share it with somebody. Maybe once you see that nothing you can say is gonna chase me off, you’ll get the idea through your head that I’m about to be a real permanent kind of fixture in your life,” he murmured, lifting a hand to stroke the back of his fingers against her cool cheek.

  “It’s an ugly story, Jake, with a really shitty ending,” she tried to warn him, unconsciously leaning into the calloused palm caressing her face, her tears caught in his strong fingers.

  “I can handle it,” he assured her calmly. “Just take a deep breath, baby, and start letting all the poison out. You’re strong, Harmony. This bastard injured your spirit; he didn’t break it. It’s time you told this story to somebody, and I’m sitting right here beside you.”

  Maybe he was right, she thought silently as she studied the harsh angles of his face. Maybe she had carried around this agony for way too long. He seemed strong enough to bear the burden she suddenly wanted to unload. And hell, he was asking her for it – begging even. Licking her lips, she inhaled deeply, gathering her courage. Turning to look him in the eye, she huskily admitted, “I was stupid. Naïve and young and so incredibly stupid.”

  Watching as his lips parted to speak, she quickly pressed her index finger against his mouth. “If you wanna hear this, you have to listen and let me say it,” she warned. She noted the unhappy flash in his dark eyes, but nevertheless, he nodded against her finger. “Just remember, you wanted to hear this.”

  Lifting his hand, he captured her fingers and laced them together with his. “Fair enough,” was all he said as he settled back against the couch and pulled her by their joined hands against his chest.

  Swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat, she steeled herself to continue and fixed her gaze on the darkened television across the room.

  Chapter Ten

  Harmony began slowly as she attempted to mentally prepare for this road trip down Memory Lane. “Everybody always says that the truth will set you free, but those people are idiots, or maybe, they just haven’t had to face a really ugly truth. The truth has done a lot of things for me, Jake. The truth has tied me up in knots. It’s made me wish that I had listened to all the people that tried to warn me about Tanner. It’s given me nightmares. It’s done lots of things to me. The one thing tellin’ this truth hasn’t done is make me feel free.”

  “Maybe this time will be different,” Jake murmured from beside her, his free hand settling over the back of her neck and squeezing gently.

  “I met Tanner Suarez when I was a fresh-faced, completely clueless sixteen-year-old girl. It happened at a party that one of my friends had thrown to celebrate the end of the school year. I felt so grown up that night; my Daddy had let me drive to the barn where the party was by myself and told me that I didn’t have a curfew. He and Momma made the mistake of trusting my judgment; I’d made straight A’s that semester and had done it while working almost full-time, so they were impressed with me. If they’d had any inkling what would happen that night, they’d have locked me behind my bedroom door until I was eighty. If I knew what I know now, I’d have begged Momma and Daddy to put chains across the door. But they didn’t know what would happen that night and neither did I. So, off I went.”

  Harmony paused to shake her head sadly. “That party changed the entire trajectory of my life. Funny, I couldn’t see it then – I was so wrapped up in my teenage dramas - but looking back, that’s the night my life went off the rails,” she said softly as her eyes grew distant.

  “I saw him before he noticed me that night. After all, everybody knew Tanner Suarez. He was our resident bad boy. You know the kind – he was the one that every mother warned her daughter to steer clear of and every father prayed he’d never have to confront. He drank. He cursed. Most importantly, he never met a rule he wasn’t willing to break if it meant he got what he wanted. He never let anyone stand between him and what he wanted. He was two years older than me and had just graduated from high school. He caught me staring at him and when his eyes locked on mine, it felt like the whole world just came to a screeching halt. He was that charismatic. When he started walking toward me and I realized that somehow I’d captured his attention, it felt like I was caught in some kind of weird tractor beam that pulled me toward him and wouldn’t let go. I swear, it felt like the earth had shifted beneath my feet. At eighteen, he seemed positively worldly to a girl that had never even been on her first date. He was the hottest guy in Paradise, and the fact that he deigned to single me out for attention at that party skyrocketed my popularity overnight.”

  Harmony grew quiet for a moment as she got lost in the memory of that night. She’d been so excited that the little Miss Nobody she had been had managed to turn the eye of the most notorious boy in town. Shaking her head at the actions of the girl she’d been then, she forced herself to go on with the story, and she didn’t fail to notice that Jake was honoring his promise to remain quiet.

  “He asked me out on my first date that night,” she went on with a sigh, reaching for the glass of wine she’d had the foresight to grab when they’d left the dinner table. Taking a sip, she savored the sweet, tangy flavor as she thought about how excited she’d been that the boy every girl had wanted had set his sights on her. “I was thrilled. Not only did I finally get to go on a date, but I was going out with the guy that had ruled the school. My Daddy hated him from the get-go. Looking back, I can see why. Tanner pulled up to the house in his Camaro and honked the horn. He didn’t come to the door… didn’t meet my parents… he just sat out in the car and laid on the horn. And what did I do?” Harmony asked, disgust heavily lacing her voice. “Like a fool, I ran out to him as fast as my feet could carry me. I just ignored my parent’s hollering at me to get back in the house and jumped in beside him.”

  “You were a kid, Harmony,” Jacob interrupted gently. “All kids go through a rebellious stage where they test their parent’s authority.”

  “Yeah, but not all kids run off the moment they
get handed a diploma and marry their parents’ worst nightmare. That’s what I did, Jacob,” she countered sadly, stray tears forming in her eyes at the thought. “My Momma and Daddy fought with me for two years about Tanner. They saw the way he treated me… the way he demeaned me. But I thought I knew everything. He loved me. He didn’t tell me that I looked fat in my shorts to hurt me; he was helping me. If he made me wash the makeup off my face, it was because he’d been around enough to know what whores looked like. If he wanted me to meet him at eight o’clock on a school night, he was a busy guy so I should make myself available. He was his own man. He was older. He was smarter. He was self-confident enough to say whatever he felt like to whoever he felt like saying it and screw the rest of the world. I swear, if I could go back in time and bitch slap myself, I would.”

  Taking another sip of wine, Harmony blew out a long breath. “At any rate, I knew my parents would never accept Tanner willingly, so as soon as I graduated, off we went. I felt like such a grown up… going off to Gatlinburg, eloping in secret. I was going to live a real-life romance novel, or so I thought. When we got home a couple of days later, my parents were nearly out of their minds with worry. I hadn’t told anybody what we were doing. I knew somebody would try to stop me if I did. So, when I showed up at the house with my cheap-ass Walmart wedding ring that Tanner had complained about buying but I was soooo proud to be wearing on my finger, my Momma cried. No, she didn’t just cry. She sobbed. She begged me to tell her why on earth I’d gone off and ruined my life like that? I can still hear her, Jacob. ‘I raised you better than this, Harmony Pearl! Why? Why would you do this to yourself? Where did I go wrong that my child would go off and do something like this?’ My father told me that I had two choices. The family or Tanner. I couldn’t have both. It had to be one or the other. ”

  Swallowing the painful lump of emotion clogging her throat as she heard her Daddy’s voice whisper through her mind, Harmony blinked hard. “I chose wrong,” she whispered, her voice thin. “Really, really wrong. Every day, I wish I could go back and tell Tanner to go to hell when he told my daddy to go screw himself and for me to get my skinny ass in the car.” She barely noticed the tears running down her cheeks now, but felt Jacob’s gentle fingers blotting the wetness.

  “That’s enough for now, Harmony. You don’t need to say anything else, baby,” he murmured.

  If she’d looked up, she’d have seen his intense eyes burning with anger, but she kept her head bent as she shook her head. “No, you wanted to know what happened, and I haven’t even gotten to the really good parts,” she informed him in a cracking voice.

  “Baby, don’t do this to yourself. I know enough now,” Jacob argued, his hand gentle as he tilted her head so that she’d look in his eyes. “You don’t have to say anything else.”

  Oh, he could not be serious, Harmony thought, beginning to steam through her sorrow. He couldn’t leave well enough alone and now he wanted her to stop? Fuck him. He could just sit there and suffer. After trying so hard to avoid this conversation, there was no way in hell she was going to allow him to escape the hard, cold facts surrounding her fucked-up decision making abilities.

  “Fucking typical,” she spat, her damp eyes flashing dangerously as she glared at him. “A man always wants what he wants until you fucking give it to him. Then, when they don’t get what they expect, they want you to shut it down. Well, screw you. You wanted me to talk. I’m talking!” Harmony yelled angrily through her tears. “You pushed and pushed and pushed. This is what you get! The unvarnished truth, Jacob. You can damn well sit there and listen to what you just had to hear!” Taking deep breaths as she turned her anger at herself on him, she clutched her wineglass like a lifeline. How dare he try to stop her now? After bullying her into sharing her pain, he could damn well sit there and swallow it.

  Jacob’s jaw clenched, but he nodded. “You’re right,” he softly agreed. “Keep going. I think maybe you let the poison fester inside you too long as it is.”

  Swiping an agitated hand against her cheek, Harmony narrowed her eyes on the man sitting next to her. “Oh, do you think so? Haven’t you ever had something hurt you so badly that you knew the best thing you could do was lock it up tight in your mind and leave it the hell alone? Tanner is an open wound that never goes away for me, Jake. I’ve learned, though, that as long as I don’t pick at the sore, I can bear the pain. You just rubbed it raw.”

  “Good. Maybe before it’s done, the scab will start formin’ and you can heal.”

  Harmony wanted to scream at him in frustration, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. He had that same determined glint that she’d seen in Abel’s, Cain’s and Zeke’s eyes when thought they knew best for one of her sisters.

  “What happened after your Daddy made you choose, Harmony?” Jake questioned softly.

  “Six months of cold silence happened,” she whispered woodenly. “Oh, every once in a while I’d see Momma at the grocery store or somewhere in town. She’d walk past me and nod her head like we were just acquaintances, but every once in a while I’d look down and find some money in my purse that hadn’t been there before I’d seen her. She was helping where she could. I know she wanted to mend the rift between us, but my Daddy was a stubborn man. I know he loved me, but he wasn’t a man you crossed and I crossed him in a big way. My sisters were trapped in the middle, trying to see me on the sly. It was a mess for all of us. Tanner and I were living out in a little trailer in the middle of nowhere on land my granny had left me when she died. That nasty, leaky tin box that should have been demolished when Reagan was in office. I was working at a convenience store and Tanner worked as a mechanic – when he decided to work, that is. Mostly, he just drank and ran around with his lowlife friends, coming in at all hours of the night if he decided to come home at all. I didn’t know it then, but he was also whoring with half the female population of Paradise. I was miserable, and I know both my parents would have welcomed me back with open arms. All I had to do was give up Tanner and go home.”

  “So, why didn’t you leave, Harmony?” Jacob asked gently a minute later when she lapsed into tense silence. Eyeing her little hand as it formed a tight fist against her thigh, he privately suspected they’d reached the part where her story was going to take a fucking ugly turn. Hell, he knew he wasn’t good at this part…. highly emotional moments with a woman were scenes he’d avoided at all costs. For the first time in his life, however, he wanted to be the good guy… the white fucking knight that the damsel could depend on to save the day. He wanted to be the safe harbor where Harmony could ride out the emotional storm pummeling her. Jesus, he wondered if he needed to have his testosterone levels checked. He was pretty sure he might be turning into a woman. “Babe?” he murmured, jostling her arm slightly when she still didn’t speak. “You still with me?”

  “I’m here,” she muttered. “I was just thinking about how I could answer your question in a way that didn’t make me sound like a complete idiot, but that’s hopeless.”

  “Harmony, I don’t think you’re an idiot. Not by any stretch of the imagination.”

  She knew he meant to reassure her, but his words only served to infuriate her more. “Then you’re as foolish as I was. Only a moron would have stayed with Tanner for the reason I did. Pride, Jake. I stayed with that bastard because of one thing! Stupid pride!! I was determined that I wouldn’t let anybody know how much I regretted the first fully adult decision that I’d ever made in my life because of fucking pride. Do you know how much I want to beat my own ass for that nonsense?”

  Jaw clenching, Jake demanded roughly, “Exactly what good does beating yourself up over something that is ancient history do?”

  “Because it’s a decision that served to shape the rest of my life… my daughter’s life,” Harmony bit back sharply, her fingers clawing into her knee. “My own ego kept me in a marriage that was awful almost from the moment that he slipped the ring on my finger. It was my need to prove my parents wrong that kept me in that trailer w
ith him, Jake. By the time I realized that I was only hurting myself by being stubborn, my parents were gone.”

  Tears rolled down Harmony’s face as she remembered the rainy night when her Aunt Orla had shown up at the trailer door to deliver the horrifying news that her parents were dead. As usual, she’d been there alone; Tanner had been off doing whatever Tanner did behind her back every chance he’d got, and she’d been watching a re-run of Friends. She’d known the second she opened the door and seen her elderly aunt’s face etched with misery that something awful had happened. Never could she have been prepared for the words that came out of Aunt Orla’s mouth.

  ~~***~~

  When she’d heard the tinny doorbell ring on the trailer, she dropped the potato chip that had been on her way to her mouth back into the plastic bowl in her lap. Glancing at the clock and seeing it was just after seven, she knew it wouldn’t be any of Tanner’s friends. They never rang the bell. They just barged through the door. Perplexed, she’d muted the television and opened the door without looking out the window, silently wondering if her visitor had taken a wrong turn on the highway.

  Seeing her Aunt Orla standing on the worn welcome mat outside the door had stolen her breath. None of her family ever visited her here. Not even her sisters. She always met them in town. Pushing the screen door open quickly as she noticed the wet trail of tears sliding from her aunt’s faded blue eyes, she grabbed the woman’s cold hand in hers. “Aunt Orla? What’re you doin’ out here?” she asked, glancing at her Uncle Jethro’s old rusted Chevy truck sitting behind her beat up Volkswagen Bug. Her uncle wasn’t inside the vehicle and Aunt Orla rarely drove alone. “Are you okay?”