by Lori Foster
“Oh, God.” Georgia practically climbed over Jordan, who did his best to get the door open for her and to get out of her way. He didn’t even complain when her elbow clipped him in the nose and she stepped on his foot.
“Georgia, wait!”
She heard his alarmed tone as he followed her from the car, heard Morgan talking low, his words concerned. And then her daughter Lisa, only six years old, threw the front door open and dashed across the yard in her long nightgown. Georgia forgot all about the men.
* * *
“MOMMY!”
Jordan nearly slipped on the wet grass. Knowing she was a mother and seeing a little girl address her as such were two entirely different things. His heart punched hard against his ribs when Georgia dropped to her knees, unconcerned with the soggy ground, and caught her daughter up to her.
“Lisa, what is it, honey? What’s wrong?”
The little girl was crying too hard to make sense. A queer feeling of resentment—she’d left the child to dance in a bar, for God’s sake—and tenderness, seeing her now, holding the child so closely, made Jordan almost breathless. He stepped closer and with a hiccup, the little girl looked up at him. She had huge brown eyes with spiked wet lashes and was about the cutest thing he’d ever seen.
Keeping a wary gaze on him, the little girl mumbled, “Grandma is sick. She won’t wake up.”
“Oh, my God!”
Just that quick, Georgia was back on her feet. She’d picked up the little girl and was running hell-bent across the lawn. Her high heels sank into the ground, hindering her a bit, but in no way holding her back.
Jordan rushed after her, aware of Morgan right behind him. He followed her down a short hall as she called out, “Mom!” in a heart-wrenching panicked voice.
Lisa clung to Georgia’s shoulders and said in a wavering voice, “She’s in her room.”
They passed a family room with a television playing and every light on, toys all over the floor, then a dining room that held only one rickety table-still covered with dishes.
At the end of the hall, to the right, was a kitchen, and to the left, Georgia threw open a door then halted. Jordan could see her heaving, see the rigidity of her shoulders. Slowly, she set the girl on her feet and moved forward. “Mom?”
Jordan watched the little girl move to a corner, trying to make herself invisible. Beyond Georgia, lying in a rumpled bed, a slender woman of about sixty rested on her back, her eyes closed, her chest barely moving—until she started coughing.
Lisa cried. Jordan didn’t know what the hell to do. Then Morgan was there and he went down on one knee in front of Lisa. “Hi, there. I’m the sheriff and a friend of your mom’s. Are you okay?”
Lisa covered her face with her hands, hiding, and then she nodded. Seeing that Morgan had things under control there, at least as much as was possible, Jordan stepped close to Georgia and knelt by the bed. She was busy checking her mother over, her movements efficient and quick.
She glanced at Jordan. “We have to get her to the hospital. She has weak lungs and it looks like she’s gotten a bad cold or something.”
Jordan frowned in concern. “A cold can do this to her?”
“Yes.” Georgia’s voice was clipped as she moved to a portable oxygen tank and dragged it to her mother’s bedside. As she sat beside her mother and pulled her into a sitting position, the older woman’s eyes opened. Again, she started coughing.
“It’s all right now, Mom. I’m going to take you to the hospital.
“I’m sorry, honey—”
“Hey, none of that! I love you, remember?” She glanced at Jordan. “You’re going to have to take us since you left my car behind.” Then, as if just realizing it, her eyes widened in alarm and she said, “Lisa, where’s Adam?”
A small towheaded child peeked around the doorframe.
“They’re not used to men in the house,” Georgia explained, then gave her son a small smile. “Come here, sweetie. It’s okay. Grandma’s going to be fine.”
With the oxygen over her face, the older woman did seem to be breathing easier. She kept dozing off, which alarmed Jordan, but Georgia was holding it all together. The little boy inched his way in the door. He looked to be around four and clung to his mother’s knee, hiding his face in her lap.
Jordan felt thunderstruck, and at that moment, he almost hated himself.
With renewed purpose, he stood. “I can carry her out to the Bronco. Morgan—”
“I’ll call it in,” Morgan said before Jordan could finish. He smiled at the little girl and smoothed a large hand over her head. “Can you find some shoes and a jacket for you and your brother?”
She peeked between her fingers, then nodded.
“Good girl.”
Georgia smiled an absent thanks at Morgan. “Hang on, Mom. We’ll have you there in no time.”
Jordan knelt beside her and added his own arm to support her mother. “Why don’t you get her coat and shoes for her? I’ll do this.”
Georgia hesitated, her eyes on her mother’s face. “Her lungs are weak from emphysema. Sometimes, if she over-does it, she needs the oxygen so we always keep it handy. She knows—” Her voice broke and frustrated tears filled her eyes. Angrily, she swiped them away. “She knows that any kind of illness for her is serious. But…she never complains.”
Jordan watched her struggle to pull herself together. He covered her hand on the oxygen mask and asked, “Are you all right?”
Lips tightly pressed together, she nodded, then pushed to her feet. She found her mother’s slippers beneath the bed. When she started looking around the room, Jordan changed his mind on the coat.
“Let’s just wrap her in a blanket. It’ll be easier for her, and the hospital will put her in a gown when she gets there anyway.” Jordan didn’t say it out loud, but judging by the difficulty her mother had breathing, he thought she might have pneumonia. With his own brother being a doctor, he’d seen enough cases of it. Plus her skin was pale and dry and too warm, indicating a high fever.
Georgia took a deep breath and wrapped her mother in a pretty quilt. Jordan saw the tears glisten in her eyes again and knew he’d made a horrible mistake.
* * *
IT HADN’T taken long for them to be on their way. With the combined efforts of Morgan and Jordan, things had just fallen into place. They were obviously men accustomed to taking charge. Georgia didn’t know how she felt about that, but she did know she was glad not to be alone.
Lisa and Adam were buckled into the front seat with Morgan, thoroughly distracted from any worries as Morgan let them play with his radio and turn on his lights. It amazed her that a man so large, so commanding, could summon up such a gentle tone for children. Right now, as he smiled at Adam, he looked like a big pushover, when her first impression of him would never have allowed for such a possibility.
He’d already spoken with the hospital and they were ready and waiting for them to arrive. The flashing lights, which amused her kids, were necessary; Morgan drove well past the speed limit. But at this time of night, the streets were almost clear of traffic.
“It’s usually about an hour’s drive to the hospital.” Jordan watched her closely as he spoke, but then, he’d hardly taken his gaze off her since she’d first noticed him at the bar. “At least from our house. But I’d say you’re fifteen minutes closer, and with Morgan driving and no cars on the road, it shouldn’t take much longer.”
Georgia realized he was trying to put her at ease. She appreciated his efforts. Morgan’s, too. The kids, after their initial bout of shyness and upset, had taken to him with hardly any reserve. He had an easy way about him that would naturally draw kids.
She had a feeling Jordan would be the same when he wasn’t busy tending to her mother’s care. She’d seen how he’d looked at her children, the softness in his eyes. He was a man of contradictions—harsh one minute, soft the next. Always strong and confident.
At the moment, with her knees shaking and her heart beating too
fast, she resented his strength even as she relied on it. She had to be strong. And she never wanted to depend on another man for anything.
They sat in the back, her mother propped between them on the carpeted floor of the storage area. Georgia supported her mother with an arm around her waist, offering her shoulder to lean on.
Streetlamps glowed, their lights flashing into the moving car with a strobe effect. They cast dark, shifting shadows over Jordan’s profile, but in no way detracted from his look of genuine concern. He was an incredibly handsome man, Georgia decided, and obviously very caring.
“Almost there,” he said with a reassuring smile. “Just hang on.” His mesmerizing voice soothed her as nothing else could. Even her mother, dozing and waking every few minutes, wasn’t immune to it. Georgia held her close, but it was Jordan’s hand she gripped like a lifeline, his voice that occasionally coerced her eyes open.
Georgia leaned close and kissed her mother’s cheek. Everything would be all right. She had to believe that.
* * *
JORDAN KEPT HOLD of the woman’s limp hand while watching her closely for any signs of distress. Her breathing was still ragged, occasionally racked by harsh coughing, but the oxygen had helped. That, and the fact that she knew she was almost at the hospital.
Georgia looked like hell. Though she tried to hide it, her own distress far outweighed her mother’s. At that moment, Jordan wanted so badly to hold her close, to protect her. There seemed to be so much he hadn’t understood. Her house was a shambles, inside and out. It had potential, but it would take a lot of sweat and money to make it what it could be.
Her children, adorable little moppets who had taken a cautious liking to Morgan, had her look about them. Lisa had the same golden-brown hair, though long enough to be in a braid, and Adam’s hair was pale blond. They both had brown eyes, not Georgia’s gray-blue, but the intensity in their gazes was the same as hers.
How the hell did she keep it all together? Between being a single parent of two young children, and her mother’s health, not to mention the work needed on her house, she had her hands full.
He couldn’t keep his gaze off her and glanced at her again just as she rubbed one tear-filled eye with a fist. She’d done that several times, refusing to let the tears fall, never mind that she had good reason, that most women would have bowed under the stress of the night. Her makeup was an absolute mess, leaving dark smudges on her cheeks and all around her eyes. Jordan reached into his pocket and retrieved a hanky.
“Hey,” he said softly, and Georgia pulled her gaze away from her mother long enough to send him a questioning look.
He reached over and used the edge of the cotton hanky to wipe her eyes. “You look like a Halloween cat,” he teased, and she gave him the first sincere smile he’d seen. It about stopped his heart. In that moment, with smeared makeup, rain-frazzled hair and a red nose, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
Taking the hanky from him, she scrubbed at her face, removing the worst of the smudges. “I hate this stupid makeup, but Bill insists.” She grinned at her mother and added, “She gives me heck about it all the time. According to Mom, I look like a call girl. But then, I suppose that’s Bill’s intent.”
Jordan glanced at the front seat. Luckily, her kids were oblivious to the conversation. “What do you tell them?”
Almost immediately her expression turned carefully blank. She adjusted the quilt over her mother’s shoulder, refusing to meet his gaze. “That I have to work. That I’m a dancer. They’ve seen Muppets On Ice and think it’s something like that.”
She shrugged and Jordan suddenly realized she was still wearing only his coat over a very revealing, enticing costume. He wanted to curse his own stupidity. Why the hell hadn’t he thought to grab her some decent clothes before they’d left the house? Everyone in the hospital would be staring at her.
As if she’d read his thoughts, she said, “It doesn’t matter.” She leaned over her mother, saw that her eyes were open and alert and smiled. “Does it, Mom?”
The older woman tried for her own smile beneath the oxygen mask, and gave one slight, negative shake of her head.
Georgia sighed. “What am I going to do with you, Mom? You’re just too darn good to me.”
Her mother gave her a ferocious frown, and Georgia’s eyes filled with new tears. She laughed to cover them up. “No, don’t yell at me. Just save your breath.”
Jordan couldn’t bear to see her pain. “It’ll be all right, Georgia.”
“Yes, of course it will.” She looked up at him. “I just thought of something. You two haven’t been introduced. Mom, this is Jordan Sommerville, White Knight extraordinaire. And that hulk driving—don’t know if you got a good look at him, but he is a hulk—he’s Morgan Hudson, Jordan’s half brother and the sheriff of Buckhorn. Jordan, this is Ruth Samson.”
Jordan nodded his head formally. “Glad to make your acquaintance, Ms. Samson.” He didn’t bother to tell Georgia that she needn’t have explained his relationship to Morgan quite so precisely. They’d all been raised together, and were as close as any full-blooded brothers could be.
“Speaking of brothers,” Morgan said from the front seat as he handed a cell phone over his shoulder to Jordan, “call Gabe and tell him to go sit on Malone. I don’t want her up running around.”
Jordan took the phone, and then noticed the look of guilt on Georgia’s face. Their eyes met and she winced.
“I’m sorry you got pulled away from your wife, sheriff.”
Morgan blared his sirens for a second as he rolled through a red light, alerting any traffic and making the kids squeal. He said to Georgia, “Don’t worry about it. Gabe can handle things. And Malone will understand. She’s stubborn, but she has an enormous heart.”
“He’s madly in love,” Jordan said dryly, explaining away his brother’s description of his wife. He dialed the phone and Gabe immediately answered. Jordan skipped the niceties and asked, “Who’s with Misty?”
“Lizzy’s looking after her,” Gabe said, then: “We’ve been waiting to hear from you.”
Jordan covered the phone and said to Morgan, “Elizabeth’s with her.”
“Not good enough. Malone can bulldoze her. Tell Gabe to go.”
Jordan rolled his eyes. “Morgan wants you to go sit on Misty and make certain she stays in bed.”
“I will. But do you need anything? Misty said you were brawling at a bar or something.”
There was an undertone of laughter in his youngest brother’s voice. “No, I was not brawling.”
He’d thought Georgia was distracted, but at his words, one slim brow went up. Jordan shook his head and explained as briefly as possible what they were doing. “We’ll be at the hospital in just a few minutes.”
Gabe whistled low. “Damn. You want me to send Casey over there? He just got home from a date. His car is still warm.”
Jordan thought about it for two seconds. “Yeah, that might not be a bad idea.” He eyed Georgia’s mostly naked legs and exposed cleavage. Turning slightly away from her, he muttered, “Have Casey bring a change of clothes, okay? From one of the women.” Then he rethought that and added, “Make it a big shirt, maybe one of yours or Sawyer’s.”
“Chesty, is she?”
“Yeah.”
Through an undertone of laughter, Gabe said, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks. I imagine we’ll be at the hospital for a spell, and I know Morgan would like to head home.”
Morgan heard him and said, “Hey, I’m in no rush.” But Jordan knew that he was, that he wanted to be with Misty and Amber. A more doting father and husband had never been created.
“Will do,” Gabe said. “Tell Morgan not to worry—and if you need me just give a buzz.”
“Thanks, Gabe.” He closed the phone and turned to Georgia as Morgan pulled into the hospital lot.
She tilted her head. “Another brother?”
“The youngest, and most recently married. Wit
h only one anniversary to his credit, Gabe still considers himself a newlywed. He’s sending my nephew, Casey, here. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought he could bring you—”
“Clothes. I heard.”
She hadn’t quite looked at him and it frustrated him. “Look, Georgia, I don’t mean to criticize exactly—”
She interrupted his awkward explanation. “Believe me, I’ll be grateful to get into something different.” She glanced down at her own breasts and made a sound of disgust. “I don’t wear this stuff by choice.”
Jordan nodded, uncertain what he could say to that. She looked hot enough to tempt a saint, and he supposed that was the main reason for wearing the outfit on stage.
To his surprise, she said, “Thanks for thinking of it.”
“No problem.” With her sitting so close to him, and having so much skin exposed, it was a wonder he’d been able to think of anything else. “Unfortunately, it’ll take Case a little while to get here.”
Morgan pulled right up to the emergency entrance, and what with his flashing lights and the earlier call, it only took about fifteen seconds before a stretcher was rolled out to the Bronco and Ruth was being taken inside.
Georgia looked overwhelmed by the speed at which things were happening. She rushed to get her kids out of the car, trying to reassure them and keep sight of her mother as she was being whisked away.
Jordan touched her arm as she started to lift Adam from the front seat. “Go on, Georgia.” She glanced up at him, clearly distracted. “Get your mother settled and appease the hospital officials with all the paperwork they’ll need. The kids and I will meet you in the waiting room when you’re done.”
She looked at him as though he was insane, cuddling her children closer in a protective gesture and attempting to walk around him. Jordan moved to her side and kept pace with her hurried stride. Both kids stumbled along while staring up at him.
Just as the automatic entry doors opened with a swoosh, he heard Morgan call out that he’d park and be right in. Jordan waved him off.
“Georgia…”
Her high heels clicked on the tiled floor. “Come on, kids. We have to hurry.”