Free Hard as Stone (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnnon Sisters) by Sarah O'Rourke

proportions.  “Has
it escaped the notice of either of you that this isn’t my first time climbing
up on the proverbial horse?  It’s been a while, but I have been to the rodeo
before.”
    “Yeah, and that
wild stallion threw you to the ground and stepped all over you,” Patience
growled bitterly.  “It’s why you haven’t gotten your ass back in the saddle
again.”
    Well, Harmony
couldn’t argue that.  Until recently, she was pretty sure that Tanner Suarez
had robbed her of the ability to even enjoy the company and attention of
another man after the hell he’d put her and her family through.  After him, she
hadn’t been anxious at all to test the relationship waters.
    Until a tall,
muscular, tattooed hunk of masculine virility had saved her sister’s bacon and
subsequently wandered into a booth in the restaurant the next day.
    Now, she wondered
if a walk on the wilder side of the street wasn’t exactly what she needed –
especially if she was gonna be accompanied by a man that even a prizefighter
would think twice about challenging.
    Uncertainty about
the man that was taking her out tonight swamped her as she watched her sisters
continue to raid her small closet.  On one hand, when she was with Jake, he
made her feel alive and important.  He asked intelligent questions and actually
listened to her answers.  His deep voice was a rumble that she found comforting. 
He might not say much, but he said what he meant and his words – few as they
were - meant something.  He’d asked her about her hopes and dreams and seemed
genuinely interested in what she wanted for herself and her daughter.  He even
seemed fascinated by her stories about Heaven.  While most men only tolerated
hearing about her daughter in order to get on her good side, Jake seemed to
hang on every word, and Heaven was often a favorite topic of conversation. 
Where most men she’d encountered were selfish and wanted the world to revolve
around them and their needs, the fact that she was a busy single parent to a
young child hadn’t seemed to concern him at all.
    If there was a
downside to knowing Jake, it was that she really didn’t know much about
him at all.  No matter what they were talking about, he turned the focus on
her, revealing little about himself in the process.  Oh, he’d shared the basic
information.  She knew he was 42 years old, hailed from Georgia, and his mom
was still alive.  She knew he was the younger of two children, though he hadn’t
confided anything at all about his sibling.  She didn’t even know if he had a
brother or a sister.  As for his job, he was tightlipped about it, only
revealing that he worked in the security sector and was headed toward an early
retirement.  He planned to open his own consulting business and was considering
settling in the area.  He’d shared that his favorite movie was Die Hard, his
favorite actor was Bruce Willis, and he was a country music fan.  He owned a
Harley and a Dodge truck.  He preferred the motorcycle, but kept the truck for
nasty weather.  And lastly, he had a weakness for the cherry pies that Honor
made on Wednesdays.
    And that was it.
    No matter how delicately
she’d probed, his life before coming to Paradise had remained in the sealed
vault that was Jacob Stone.
    It was equal parts
mysterious and scary – and the scary was edging out the mysterious the longer
she knew him.  This was mostly due to the fact that she could feel herself
falling for a man she knew next to nothing about. 
    Although, she
shouldn’t judge him too harshly, she supposed.  She might have shared small
things with him, but it wasn’t like she’d opened up her emotional closet and
shown him the skeletons rattling around in there.
    Pulled from her
thoughts by a sound knock on her closed bedroom door, Harmony quickly pulled
her blanket in front of her.  Faith moved to open the door and grinned as her
Aunt Orla appeared on the other side.
    “Well, now!  What
are you still