Hard as Stone(5)

“Something like that,” she acknowledged softly.

“Maybe someday you’ll feel like you can tell me.”

“Maybe,” Harmony murmured uncomfortably just before Patience shrieked a demand for Abel Turner to vacate the premises as she held the empty glass pitcher above her head. Looking over her shoulder, Harmony groaned. “Sorry, Jake, but I gotta go,” she apologized before hurrying toward her sister.

He laughed as he watched Harmony quickly disarm her sister and mediate a truce at the bar. He barely made out what her soft voice was saying, but he watched as her body had slowly relaxed as she diffused the tension between her sister and the lousy attorney. After she made sure that the last angry embers of their altercation were extinguished, he saw her quickly gather her jacket and purse from beneath the long counter and press a kiss to Patience’s cheek.

With a cheery wave at him and smile, she left.

He sat in that booth a long time, replaying their conversation in his head and slowly drawing more than one conclusion about Harmony McKinnon.

First, that woman was no criminal. Over the years, he’d gotten damn good at reading a person’s eyes and seeing what kind of individual he was dealing with. When he’d stared into her gaze, he’d seen nothing but a woman that had both known pain and survived it without allowing it to taint all that was good in her. There was no deceit… no subterfuge. Just the crystal clear blue eyes of a woman that a man like him did NOT deserve to share air with, let alone her company.

Second, Harmony McKinnon had been hurt. He didn’t know how or how deeply the pain ran, but he was sure that whatever had happened had left a scar. Her self-confidence was almost non-existent, and compliments that other women would have eaten with a spoon made her uncomfortable. Not only that, but she didn’t believe him. That knowledge pissed him off and made him want to find the fuckwad that had made her feel less than perfect and put him in the ground. No woman as kind and beautiful as her should ever be made to feel as small and insignificant as he figured she felt.

The third and last conclusion he’d drawn was that lying to Harmony was going to suck. He was going to hurt her. Maybe not physically, but he suspected what he was going to do would most likely cause her a lot more pain. Because he was going to earn her trust. And ultimately, he was going to destroy it.

There was no choice.

In his world, the end always justified the means.

~~***~~

Sliding off the back of his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, Jacob sighed heavily as he swung one heavy leg over his hog. This job – which he was overseeing on his own time – was always intended to be a means to an end. The key was that he had to remember that.

All the pieces were finally in motion, damn it.

Another of his fellow agents was overseeing the day-to-day operations regarding the systematic destruction of the drug pipeline that Diego Fuentes’ cartel was currently trying to build between Miami and Tennessee. His former partner, Luis Vega, or ‘Dante de la Cruz’ as he was known to Diego, had even spent the last two years infiltrating Fuentes’ operation, becoming an invaluable asset to the head Mexican honcho while keeping his DEA colleagues well-informed of every move the wannabe drug czar made. All the parties were in place to finally destroy the man that had ultimately been responsible for the death of Jacob’s sister twenty-two years ago.

Jacob, however, had been given his own set of orders -- keep his hands off this case. His Unit Chief had been real clear about that. He had a tendency to obey the old man that had mentored him during his first years at the agency after he’d been plucked out of the Army and recruited as an undercover agent with the DEA. But his boss had also casually suggested that the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee seemed like a real nice area to check out for Jacob’s upcoming retirement – what with all the hunting and fishing he could do. He’d also added that those six months of vacation days that Jacob had banked over the length of his career could be highly useful now.

It had taken Jacob all of thirty seconds to make his decision.

This was personal, but he’d play by the agency’s rules as much as he could. Hell, as long as Diego’s operation was taken down and the man was brought to justice, Jacob didn’t care who got the credit for doing it. Technically and as far as the DEA was concerned, he was just a guy on vacation - a man staring retirement in the eye and scouting for the location where he’d eventually retire in a few months and start his own business. So what if he’d decided he liked the atmosphere the little laidback town of Paradise offered? It was mere coincidence that this tiny country hamlet was the location that Luis had reported would be the hub for distribution into Eastern Tennessee. It seemed one of Fuentes’ other lackeys, Tanner Suarez, had connections to this town and had indicated it would be the perfect low-key location to dole out the coke and ice they smuggled in from Florida. The nearby interstates were an obvious goldmine to the always forward-thinking drug scum.