The Naughty List Bundle - Kylie Adams [255]
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