Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4) (66 page)

Saturday, October
22, 2016

The McKinnon
Family Home – 3:15 pm

Honor

“I swear, Ice Monroe,
if you don’t quit following me around like a lost puppy, I’m gonna give you a
proctology exam with my cane!” Honor McKinnon heard the ginger-headed woman
threaten outside the closed door to her bathroom.

“Look, Red, the doc
said you’re supposed to be keeping off that leg as much as possible,” Honor
heard Zeke’s older brother chastise.  “Tromping up and down the stairs of this
house doesn’t exactly scream taking it easy.  Dammit, you could have fallen!”

“Honor, get out here
and throw your future brother-in-law out before I shove
him
down the
stairs and ruin the Paradise wedding of the year,” she heard Maggie yell.

“Oh, no!  Nobody is
ruining this day!  We’ve all worked way too hard to get Zeke and Honor to this
point.  Now, you just scat on out of here, Ice.  This is the bride’s staging
area.  No boys allowed!”

Honor rolled her eyes
at Harmony’s statement.  Only her sister would call the upstairs bedrooms
something as pretentious as the ‘bridal staging area’.  Oh, she knew her
thoughts were less than charitable, but it had been a long few weeks leading up
to this moment.

After the events of
that afternoon on Skyview Bluff, she’d needed a few days to get her head back
on straight.  It wasn’t that she wasn’t thrilled that she had her life back. 
She was!  But when the sun suddenly shines on a cloudy day and blinds you with
its beauty, it can be a bit of a shock.  And that’s exactly how she’d felt.

Zeke had been there
with her every step of the way as her emotions had run the gamut.  She’d been
enraged when she realized how close her friend had come to dying from blood
loss.  It seemed that when the bullet entered Maggie’s thigh, it had, in fact,
clipped an artery.  Thankfully, Cain had been on hand, and he’d performed
emergency surgery as soon as they’d gotten Mags to the hospital.  After she
burned the rage out of her system, the disbelief had begun to sink into her
that it was finally over.  After living in a state of constant fear for the
past eight years, the idea that she could go outside, alone, and not need to
worry about monsters lurking around every corner was a new, startling reality. 
It had taken her weeks before her jumpy nerves settled into something
approaching normal.  She certainly hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to
finish planning her wedding so she’d left it in her sisters’ capable hands. 
Well, she’d left it to Harmony and Faith, anyway.  Patience was… well,
Patience… the woman who said ‘I do’ in her pajamas.

It was all just
details anyway.  As long as Zeke waited for her at the end of the aisle, she
was all set.  Besides, it was the actual marriage she was looking forward to
experiencing.  The wedding was just a means to an end.  One that her eldest
sibling had declared had to be absolutely perfect since three quarters of
Paradise County had RSVP’d they’d be attending.  Honestly, between Faith’s
perpetually happy outlook on all things bridal and Harmony’s wedding day
propaganda, Honor had felt positively ready to elope!

Of course, that would
have meant she’d never have gotten to wear her fancy, expensive dress down the
aisle in front of everyone she loved, she thought with a giddy look in the
mirror.  Pressing a hand to the gathered waist of her strapless antique white
wedding dress, she couldn’t help admiring the intricate water crystal stone
beading edging the sweetheart neckline.  It was beyond gorgeous, and she
couldn’t wait to see the look on Zeke’s face when he saw her walking toward him
in it.

Jumping as she heard
someone knocking on the bathroom door, she grinned when she heard Patience call
out, “What’s the word, mockingbird?  You almost ready?  Our oldest sister’s
head is gonna explode if we don’t start posing for some wedding pictures soon,”
she warned.

“Uhmmmm…. I just need
a few more minutes,” she hollered back, biting her lower lip as she shot a look
at the white test stick on the back of the commode. 

“Okay, I’ll tell her,
but if doves start flying out of her ass, I’m blamin’ you, wedding day or not,”
her outspoken sister replied.

Honor giggled despite
her nerves and stared at her reflection in the mirror.  Touching the elegant
chignon that Faith had styled her hair into, she reached for the tube of pale
rose lip color and began to touch up her makeup.  She still had another minute
or so left on the test, and she desperately needed to keep her fidgety hands
busy.

She wasn’t sure why
she was so anxious.  It wasn’t like she wouldn’t be thrilled to have Zeke’s
baby.  Truthfully, she knew that Zeke would view the announcement of a baby as
the bow on top of this wonderful day, but she couldn’t help wondering if adding
a child this quickly to their lives might be too much too soon.  Heck, she
didn’t even know how to be a wife yet; could she really learn to be a mother at
the same time? 

She knew she probably
should have waited until after the wedding to take the test she’d picked up a
week ago.  For that matter, she could have taken it at any time in the last
seven days, but she’d always thought that she was overreacting.  Over the last
six weeks, she’d been more than a little stressed.  She’d just believed that
was the reason her monthly visitor was late.  And when you added that to the
fact that she only had half of her reproductive equipment, she’d been almost
certain that she was overreacting.

Now, seven days after
the date that she
should
have expected her cycle to arrive, she could no
longer ignore the evidence in front of her.  The missed period… the endless
fatigue… the nauseated feeling she’d had for the last four mornings that
mysteriously disappeared just before lunch.  She had three sisters that
all
had
children of their own; she knew the warning signs all too well.  And even
though this wasn’t the ideal time to pursue verification of her suspicions,
something inside her had insisted on knowing the truth. 

So, she took the
test, and in just a few more seconds, she’d have the answer she waited for.

Snatching her compact
off the vanity, she flipped it open with nervous fingers and pulled out the
sponge.  Blotting the shiny spot on her forehead with the ivory-colored pressed
powder, she reminded herself that no matter how that test turned out that Zeke
loved her and was marrying her today.  Finished with her face, she dropped the
makeup back into her makeup bag and rinsed off her hands.  Drying them on a
towel, she knew she’d stalled long enough.  It was time to look at the result
window on the test.

Turning her head she
looked at the thin white test on the back of her toilet.  It was amazing how
one tiny object had the power to change the entire trajectory of a woman’s
life, but then, she’d always known that often the tiniest things held the
greatest power.  How else could a newborn baby rule an entire household?

Gathering handfuls of
the yards of tulle that made up the bottom of her dress, she moved two careful
steps to the right and peered down at the stick.

“Oh, holy night,”
Honor breathed as her legs went numb.  Twisting so that her butt landed on the
closed toilet lid, she stared at the back of the bathroom door.

“Positive.  It’s
positive,” she mumbled.  “I’m gonna be somebody’s momma.”

“Honor Grace, it’s
time to come out of the bathroom, girl.  The photographer’s finally got his
camera all set up in the back yard to take pictures of the bride under the
arbor.  And we a missin’ a key ingredient for that.  Namely, the
bride
. 
You know we can’t make an award winning photojounalist like Ben wait!  It’s
just
tacky! 
C’mon, Peanut!  Aunt Orla is entertaining him and we all
know that could go nine kinds of wrong if we leave her alone too long.”

Cameras.  Pictures. 
Photographer.  Honor heard the words, but she couldn’t make sense of them.

“Honor, will you
please get out here and go full-on Bridezilla on our crazy older sister’s ass,”
Honor heard Patience plead.  “Or just imbue me with your wedding day powers and
I’ll do it.”

“Y’all, she’s been in
there a long time.  You don’t reckon something’s wrong do you?” she heard Faith
worry aloud.

Closing her eyes,
Honor breathed deeply.  She could do this… get married and have a baby. 
Hopefully, people wouldn’t do too much counting on their fingers when the
little nugget she was packing around inside her was born.  Zeke had a gun and a
badge… he could just shoot them if they questioned their baby’s legitimacy, she
reasoned silently.  Zeke would always protect her and any children they brought
into the world.

“Zeke,” she mumbled
out loud.  She needed to tell Zeke.   Rising from the toilet, she frowned as
somebody banged on the bathroom door again.

“Honor, you’ve got
thirty seconds to open this door or I get Jake to take it off the hinges! 
He’ll do it, too, since I threatened to make him sleep on the couch if he
didn’t.”

Reaching for the door
knob, Honor jerked the door open a few inches and stared at her oldest sister. 
“I need Zeke.  Get Zeke!” she ordered before slamming the door closed again and
twisting the lock.

“Did she just say she
needed to see Zeke?” Faith asked, her sweet voice confused.  “Honor, you can’t
see Zeke until you walk down the aisle.  It’s bad luck, sweetie.”

Honor jutted her chin
out stubbornly and narrowed her eyes.  “I am not leaving this bathroom until
somebody brings my future husband up here,” she argued.  “I need him.”

“Why don’t you just
tell
me
what you need and one of us can get it for you,” Harmony
bargained, slipping into her role as wedding negotiator and using the tone she
reserved specifically for brides on the verge of breakdown.

Slapping the bathroom
door, Honor stomped her white pump on the tiled floor.  “Harmony Pearl McKinnon
Stone, you send somebody marching down the stairs for my future husband or this
Bridezilla is gonna go on a tear that will make what Godzilla did to Tokyo look
like a day at Disneyland!”

“That does not sound
like something we want to witness,” Honor heard Maggie note dryly.  “I vote we
locate the lawman.”

“Seconded,” Faith
chirped.

“Motion passed,”
Patience announced as Honor heard her sister’s footsteps cross the room. 
Grinning when she heard the old window sliding open, Honor laughed as she heard
her sister yell, “Hey, Big Daddy!  Yeah, you, the one holding two of my babies,
Abel!  Go find Zeke.  We may have a reluctant bridal situation developing up
here that he needs to handle.”

“Thank you, Pitty
Pat,” Honor called, relieved that somebody was finally listening to her. 
“You’re an awesome matron of honor!”

“Honor, you are the
one that insisted on a traditional wedding,” Harmony huffed through the closed
door.  “Having the groom prancing around the bridal staging area is NOT
traditional!”

“Can somebody put a
gag on Harmony?” Honor asked loudly, rolling her eyes.  “She’s givin’ me a
headache.”

“We’re on it,” Maggie
shouted back.  “Patience, you tackle her and I’ll stuff a garter in her mouth.”

“Very funny,” Honor
heard Harmony mutter as footsteps began to thunder up the staircase.  Seconds
later, she heard heavy pounding on the bedroom door outside the bathroom.

“Honor!” she heard
Zeke yell.  “Somebody let me in!”

Opening the bathroom
door, Honor hurried out into the bedroom.  Littered with clothes and makeup,
the room looked like a bomb had gone off.  “Let him in, Harmony!” Honor ordered
her eldest sister.

“He can’t see you in
that dress, Honor.  It’s bad luck!  And don’t you think we’ve had enough of
that in this family to last a lifetime?”

Tightening her
fingers around the stick in her hand, Honor shook her head.  “Doesn’t matter. 
I need to talk to him.  Alone,” she insisted.  “We’ll just have to risk it.”

“Harmony, open this
door before I go through it,” Zeke growled outside the bedroom.  “If Honor
needs me, you won’t keep her from me.  Jake, do something with your wife,
dammit!”

“Wildcat, he ain’t
kiddin,” Honor and the rest of the women heard Jake warn his wife.  “Open up.”

“Face it, sis, you’re
outnumbered,” Patience pointed out, dropping her hands to her own sapphire
gown.  “Besides, isn’t the bride supposed to get whatever she wants on her Big
Day?”

“Oh, for heaven’s
sake.  I don’t know what you people would do without me.  Tell the sheriff to
settle down.  We’ll have things ready in just a second,” Maggie rolled her
green eyes as she stood and hobbled to the dresser.  Leaning heavily on her
cane, she opened two drawers before she found what she was looking for. 
Turning, she tossed a scarf at Harmony.  “Blindfold his ass,” she directed as
Harmony caught the dark swatch of fabric with one hand.

Nodding once, she
muttered, “That’ll work,” she declared with a nod as she turned to open the
door.  “Alright, Zeke, back up a step.  I’m comin’ out.”

Five minutes later,
Honor watched as most of the females of her family filed out of the room and
Zeke stumbled into it.  “Kitten?” he called, holding his arms out in front of
him as he took another step toward her.