Keeping her eyes on her target, she hummed a hello to where her sisters, Faith and Harmony sat with Faith’s husband, Cain and their friends, Ice and Maggie. She also made sure to wave at the table where her Uncle Jethro and Abel’s father, Seth sat seeing who could tell the biggest fishing whopper. She offered Zeke a half-hearted smile as she passed where he stood leaned against the front counter talking to her cousin Slade and Hunter Quaid, one of Paradise’s few tattoo artists and also, incidentally, a one-time date of hers. It hadn’t worked out for them (ironically, he’d wanted kids and she hadn’t), but he was a nice guy and would make some gal pretty lucky.
By the looks of the full main dining room, the café was doing a hopping business.
Which was why she intended to hide in the kitchen.
Maybe for the rest of her life.
Shoving through the swinging door that sectioned off the kitchen from the dining room, Patience hurried over the threshold, dumping her bag on the floor and diving onto the empty metal baking table in the center of the room without making eye contact with either her Aunt Orla or her baby sister, Honor. Flopping onto her back, she proceeded to study the various hairline cracks in the ceiling.
“Patience? Y’alright?” Aunt Orla asked as she turned to look at her niece. When her question was met with only silence, she moved her gaze to rest on Honor.
Patience could hear some muffled sounds, but her mind was already miles away. She was taking a vacation into a magical land where bad things didn’t happen to good people. She was in a place where everything was perfectly planned and nothing remarkable ever happened without the consent of the person it was happening, too. It was a place where bombshells managed to stay in war zones where they belonged. They weren’t dropped on innocent women that only wanted to live their life happily alone. No, this place she was visiting was perfect. There were no babies or men named Abel. There was only peace and contentment here. She liked this imaginary spot, and she decided that she might just take up residence there instead of merely visiting.
“Patience!” Honor shouted when her sister still hadn’t responded to either her or Aunt Orla ten minutes later.
“I’m tellin’ ya, I think she’s gone round the bend, Honor. Look, she’s droolin’,” the elderly woman fussed aloud, pointing at the corner of Patience’s mouth.
“Well, it’s obvious that whatever she heard at the doctor has her plumb overwrought,” Honor worried out loud. “Maybe we should call Dr. Daniels?” she asked her aunt as they both heard a roar from the dining room.
“Where the hell is she? You girls can’t hide her forever!” They both heard Abel Turner yell from the front lobby.
“Oh, dear,” Honor murmured, glancing toward the swinging door.
“Sounds like somebody’s worked themselves up into a good mad, doesn’t it?” Aunt Orla tittered, rubbing her hands together.
Smacking their aunt’s arm lightly, Honor frowned. “Hush Auntie,” she ordered Orla. “Patience, you gotta talk to me, hon. I can’t slow Abel down if I don’t know what’s goin’ on,” she warned, shaking her sister’s arm as the other woman continued to gaze up at the ceiling.
“What’s she seein’?” Aunt Orla asked, looking up at the ceiling herself to try and find what Patience obviously found so fascinating… “Did she find the secret of life or something up there? Or, did the doc give ‘er some of those good drugs?”
“You know a woman whose expectin’ can’t have anything like that,” Honor huffed impatiently, glaring at their geriatric well-meaning Auntie. “We went over that last night when Patience was beggin’ for one of my little nerve pills. Harmony and Faith got out the book to prove to her that she couldn’t have anything while she was carryin’ a baby, remember?”
“Listen, child, y’all were goin’ over a lot of information last night. I’m old. I only keep track of the highlights. And the only highlight I bothered to hang onto was the fact that Abel out there,” she said, gesturing toward the door, “planted his seed in this girl’s garden,” she declared with a hard look down at a prone Patience.
“Yes, well, that was the jist of things,” Honor agreed heavily, pinching Patience’s arm in an effort to rouse her. Preferably before her baby daddy tore apart their restaurant.
“Ouch,” Patience yelped, glaring at Honor as she was viciously pulled from her new favorite place. “What’d you do that for?”
“Thank God! I thought you were comatose there for a few minutes,” Honor breathed in relief.
“Well, I wasn’t!” Patience growled, still rubbing her smarting skin. “I was meditating.”
Aunt Orla cackled. “Meditatin’, huh? Looked more like brain death. Either way, your man’s out there hollerin’ louder than a wet hen.”
All three women went silent as they heard Abel yelling again. “Zeke, get the hell out of my way! I’m gonna turn her across my knee and not even God is gonna stop me! In fact, I think I want you to arrest her for endangering the lives of my unborn children,” he bellowed.
“Children?” Honor and Orla mouthed to each other at the same time.
“Oh, it’s him,” Patience grumbled unhappily, glaring at the door. “I’ve decided that I no longer wish to know him. Make him go ‘way, Honor,” Patience beseeched her sister, using puppy dog eyes and a pitiful face to try and convince her sister to do her bidding.
Before Honor could open her mouth, the swinging door was flung open and Faith and Harmony flew into the room. “Children?” they yelled in unison.
It was then that Patience sat up straight and looked around the room at her family. “Children,” she repeated in a whisper. “Abel double stuffed my Oreo,” she informed them, her breath hitching on the last word. “It’s twins!” she cried plaintively. “He knocked me up with not one, but two of his Satanic seeds.”
All three sisters rushed forward to console their hysterical sibling as Aunt Orla calmly walked to the cabinet above the stove and got down a dusty bottle. Twisting off the cap and taking a pull from the contents, she winced as the fluid burned her throat.
“Aunt Orla! What have you got in your hand?” Honor shouted, looking up from her effort to calm Patience to find her Aunt swigging from a bottle.
“Moonshine,” Orla answered decisively. “At a time like this, all a body can do is drink. And this calls for the strong stuff! ‘Specially when it finds out that her niece and namesake isn’t just baking one loaf in her oven. She’s makin’ cupcakes,” the old woman cackled.
Wiping her nose, Patience narrowed her eyes on her Aunt. “Somebody remind me why we haven’t put her in a home yet!”
“Now, Patience,” Faith soothed, rubbing her own slightly swollen baby belly, “This won’t be so bad. We’ll be belly buddies!”
Patience had lunged before anyone realized she was moving. Luckily, Harmony had quick reflexes and tackled her before she reached Faith. “Easy, Tiger,” Harmony laughed.
“I told her last night that my belly had no desire to be friends with hers!” Patience yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at Faith. “Keep your peachy pregnancy propaganda to yourself, Faith!”
“Honey,” Cain called from the doorway as he entered behind his brother. “I think maybe you should come stand by me,” he instructed gently, holding his arm out to his wife as Abel stomped toward Patience, his hand extended.
“I’d feel better if you got out of the line of fire, too, Harmony,” Jake told his wife as he, too, joined the party and held out his hand. “This is a powder keg just waitin’ to blow, darlin’,” he warned when he linked fingers with his wife and tugged her against his side.
“Give them to me, Patience Orla,” Abel demanded ignoring everybody else as he focused on Patience.
Patience watched as Ice and Maggie joined them, and Zeke walked in and stood just behind Honor. Uncle Jethro and Seth had somehow gotten into the kitchen without her noticing, too.
Goody. An audience.
More witnesses to testify at Abel’s murder trial. With the exception of Seth
and Cain, she was fairly sure everyone would appear on her behalf.
“Patience! I mean it,” Abel growled, pulling Patience’s attention back to him again. “Hand. Them. Over,” he seethed, shoving his open palm under her nose again.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stated sweetly, not-so-gently- shoving his hand from her face.
“The keys, Patience. I want them. Now,” Abel clarified as his face got redder and the vein in his forehead bulged.
“Abel, believe me when I say that they will be serving ice cold slushies’ in Hell before I give up my car keys,” she informed him with eyes that gleamed. “Last I checked, my daddy had passed away, and he was the only man I ever answered to. Now, this caveman act you’ve got goin’ on might have impressed some of the brainless bimbos you’ve been with in the past, but actin’ like a horse’s ass isn’t gonna get you anywhere with me! So, I suggest you go out and come back and try this again.”
“The only place I’m going is upstairs with you. We need to talk without any spectators. Now,” Abel clipped, taking her by the arm and tugging her off the table where she sat.
“Spectators or witnesses, Abel?” Ice drawled from his position against the wall.
Snapping his head toward Ice, Abel growled, “Stay out of it, Ice. I warned you last night what would happen if you interfered.”
Looking between Ice and Abel, Patience frowned. “Wait? What do you mean, ‘you warned him’? About what? What happened last night?”
“Oh, you haven’t heard?” Maggie asked. “While you, me, and the girls were havin’ a hen night, these two Neanderthals were fightin’ over who deserved to be your knight in shining armor?”
“What?!” Patience shouted.
“All I said was that while Abel might have been your first, he didn’t necessarily have to be your only,” Ice related with a calculated smile at Abel.
Maggie and Zeke dove between the two men as Abel charged toward Ice with blood in his eye. He got in one good punch before Zeke and Maggie managed to push Ice back. “I told you last night, you bastard. Patience is off the menu!” he reminded the other man in a voice seething with malice. “She’s mine.”
Ducking under Abel’s arm, Patience shoved at his hard chest, managing to push him back only an inch or so, but she considered it an accomplishment. “I am not a piece of meat on a menu, you ass! And Ice has no more interest in eating me than the man on the moon, you goofball! He’s goading you! He’s tryin’ in his own warped severely warped way to make sure you’re worthy of me. And it’s an archaic, stupid thing to do! I’m the one who’ll decide if Abel’s worth it or not. Not y’all,” she yelled, flashing Ice a dark look over her shoulder.
Ice’s eyes sparkled with amusement as Abel’s face went from deadly dangerous to supremely confused.
“For real?” he asked, finding Ice’s bored looking face across the room. “Is she telling me the truth?”
Ice shrugged. “All the rest of the men there last night were more brother to her than anything else. So, I self-nominated myself to find out where you stood and how far you were willing to go for her. Glad to not be disappointed, man.”
“Idiots,” Maggie declared with a disgusted look at Ice. “The whole lot of you are idiots.”
“We had to know, Maggie,” Jake was brave enough to say. “If Abel wasn’t serious about her, we were duty bound to kick his ass.” Pausing to wink at Patience, he grinned. “You should know he’s serious as a heart attack ‘bout you, Spitfire. He’ll make a good daddy and a better husband, if you ask me. Congratulations on the twins.”
Glaring at her oldest sister’s husband, Patience bit out, “Nobody asked you shit, Jake! It’s bad enough I’m gonna have a coupla kids by him, I’m not compoundin’ this nightmare by marryin’ him, too!”
“That’s yet to be determined,” Abel informed her blandly though his eyes gleamed brightly as he looked at her. “I have several months before our kiddoes December 6th due date.”
“Ohhhhh, they’ll almost be Christmas babies!” Honor said happily.
“All the better to spoil them,” Harmony added.
“Patience, maybe y’all could have a Thanksgiving wedding, too, like Cain and I did!” Faith interjected happily, rubbing her hands together excitedly.
“That’s it!” Patience yelled, “Her first strike was the belly buddy business. The second strike was the mention of a wedding and my name in the same sentence. Honor, if she gets one more strike by saying something that makes me want to get hit in the face by a baseball bat, I’m disowning Faith,” Patience threatened ominously.
“Well, I, for one, would love to see a wedding come out of this. And I know my Rose is lookin’ down from Heaven right now, wringing her hands and worryin’ that her son won’t make an honest woman out of her grandbabies’ momma before those little’uns get here,” Seth Turner remarked, leaning heavily on his cane.
“Oh, I know whatcha mean, Seth. Patience’s momma and daddy are both probably standing on their heads in the Hereafter, appalled that their little girl isn’t chompin’ at the bit to get gold on her finger before these young’uns come,” Patience’s Uncle Jethro proclaimed as Aunt Orla nodded her agreement and passed him the bottle of moonshine.
As far as guilt trips went, that was a doozy, and Patience felt her cheeks flame as she was met with three sets of knowing, elderly eyes. Clapping her hands over her ears and humming a tuneless song, she wondered if she could will her body to disappear. Opening her eyes a second later and seeing her family staring back at her, she knew it was a lost cause. Shifting her gaze to her aunt and uncle then on to Abel’s daddy, she swallowed past the lump of emotion clogging her throat. All three of the geriatric posse knew that invoking the names of the departed would instantly get her attention. They were playing dirty. No, strike that. They were playing to WIN and they were old enough to be experts at playin’ the game.
Thankfully, Cain took mercy on his sister-in-law. “Dad, cut Patience some slack. She just had her world turned upside down this afternoon. It’s a shock to find out you’re havin’ one baby, let alone two. She’s gonna need a minute before anybody starts harassing her about a wedding,” he said with a telling look at his brother.
“Whose side are you on?” Abel asked Cain with a hard look.
“Told ya last night, man. You’re gonna have to learn how to pick your battles and pull your punches so that you can win the war,” Cain returned evenly, his military metaphors pulling a small grin from Patience.
“Speaking of punches,” Abel began with a meaningful look at Patience. “I may need you to do us a favor regarding your friend, Dr. Daniels, Cain. Preferably before he contacts Zeke to file assault charges,” he added.
“Well, hell,” Zeke grimaced. “I was really hopin’ I wouldn’t have to arrest anybody tonight,” he complained as he closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Oh, no,” Honor murmured. “What do you mean ‘assault’? Dr. Daniels should be here any minute to pick-up his to go order. His assistant called it in right before y’all got here, Patience.”
“Abel Turner, did you hit that poor man?” Maggie asked pertly, dropping one hand to her hip as she flipped her long red hair back over one shoulder. “Because a lawyer should know better than to put his hands on somebody else. It’s a lawsuit just waitin’ to happen!”
“Abel did know better,” a deep voice asserted from the doorway. “Unfortunately, nobody shared that sentiment with the woman he chose to bear his children,” Dr. Mack Daniels pronounced bitterly as he stood in the doorway with two black eyes and a bent, but not broken nose.
“Oh, my word!” Honor breathed, staring at the doctor. “What happened to you, Doctor?” she asked, quickly moving toward him.
“Your sister mule kicked me when I told her it was twins,” he announced, wincing as Honor gingerly touched one blackened eye. “It’s like she thought I was personally responsible for her dual occupancy.”
“I said I was sorry,” Patience maintaine
d sharply. “I was surprised,” she added petulantly.
“You were possessed,” Dr. Daniels retorted. Turning his attention to Honor – or the sweet sister – as he’d deemed her, he asked, “Could I trouble you for some ice? The swelling appears to be starting again,” he shared, touching his nose carefully.
“Wimp,” Patience muttered under her breath as Abel chuckled softly beside her. “I only kicked him once.”
Aunt Orla and Uncle Jethro hooted with laughter as Jethro clapped Seth on the back. “Don’t nobody need the HBO when they got this kinda entertainment, huh?”
Patience nearly groaned when Seth nodded agreeably. Looking up at Abel, she whispered, “I’ve changed my mind. Get me out of here.”
Abel grinned, but his smile dissolved in the next second as the entire family heard an entirely too familiar voice screech, “Where is she? Where the fuck is that man-stealing slut of a bartender? Patience, get out here and face me, you whore!”
Chapter Twelve
“Patience, get out here and face me, you whore! C’mon, you man-trapping slut! My ass, you’re pregnant with Abel’s baby! He’d never have done you without protection!” Everyone heard Angela’s irate screams bouncing off the walls of the I Don’t Care Café. Not that screaming in the café was unusual. On the contrary, the McKinnon family was one of the loudest and mouthiest in Paradise County, but they reserved the screaming of obscenities and vulgarities for the special occasions like baby labor and death.
“Dear Lord, is she yellin’ like that in front of our customers?” Honor asked, coming unfrozen the fastest as she looked from Patience to Harmony.
Patience noticed that Zeke was already on the move to intercept the crazy witch calling her out. Lifting her hand to shove Abel to the side, she tried to step toward the door and found herself restrained by Abel’s arm wrapped around her middle.
“Patience, stay where you are. Let Zeke and me go handle this, baby,” Abel pleaded against her ear, tightening his arm around her waist when she would have moved to follow as their friends and family almost rushed into the other room.
Ready, Willing and Abel (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnon Sisters Book 3) Page 18
