Taking Jana (Paradise South #2) Read Online Free Page A

at his plates as she backed away from the limo. “Jersey drivers,” she said, adjusting her purse and little roller bag. Then she shook her head, glanced both ways, and ran across the street.
    “Can I drive you anywhere?” he yelled after her, but she didn’t look back.
    “Can we get the hell out of here already!” His backseat fare shouted, bringing him back to reality.
    *
    After nearly being run over by a stretch limo, then practically groped on the subway, the lone lumpy bus seat was heaven. She inhaled deeply, counted to ten, then let it out, long and slow.
    Okay. It would all be okay.
    At least she got the front seat. Thank God for small favors. To avoid her inevitable motion sickness, looking straight out at the road ahead or sleeping were the only ways she could keep her queasiness in check. Meds didn’t even work. But music helped. She rummaged through her purse for her earbuds and music player, but, damn it, she’d forgotten them at her place in her mad rush to get out of the City.
    So she pulled out her phone for distraction instead. Reading her text messages was a bad idea, especially as her queasiness waxed with the bus driver’s jerking response to the stop-and -go traffic, but she did it anyway. The ever-so -rare text from her brother. She took off her sunglasses to see her screen better. Ah yes, there were the words from Almighty Dane. And they made her stomach well with nausea. She shut the screen off the next second, then dug her thumbnail into her index finger as a quick anchoring remedy, a trick she’d taught her patients. For adults and kids alike, a small bit of self-inflicted pain to counteract a blood-drawing needle always did the trick. And beyond distraction, the self-infliction gave a slight sense of control, and right now, she’d take what she could get.
    For the moment, she could put off calling her brother, but calling her mother, that chronic pain couldn’t wait. She stopped pinching her finger and hit her mother’s speed dial, trading one needle-like sensation for another.
    *
    Her mother’s report was vague. Her father was now in the ICU post-op , and no one would say anything more. And Jin Park wouldn’t ask anything more because Jin Park didn’t like being out of her own comfort zone. Ever. Instead, she’d wait for Jana. Of course.
    Jana got off with her mother quickly, having had enough before she’d even dialed her and then thought of Luly, a real mom and friend. She’d told Luly she’d call her, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Lu would force her into tears; her friend’s sheer tenderness would turn on the spigot.
    Instead, Jana did her best to zone out, even without her trusty music player. She entered into a virtual fog of emotional detachment, until the bus got to the dark and claustrophobic Lincoln Tunnel, crossing into Jersey.
    She looked down again at her cell phone for a bit of light, a frame of reference. And again, the taunting urgent text from her long lost piece of shit brother— Dad in hospital, can’t be there. Go. 911.
    The longer she looked at the message, the more enraged, embittered, and sick to her stomach she got. A growl formed in her throat, but she held it back. She was surrounded by real life, other passengers with other problems, and the real outside world ahead of her too, reminding her how little and insignificant she was.
    She glanced to her left. The woman across from her was nursing a tiny baby; it soothed her, the angelic infant’s suckling, no wrongs in the world. She didn’t want to poison the atmosphere for that little piece of bliss with her radiating hate toward far-off Dane.
    But damn him. Her big brother, her protective older brother, who had taken her parents to the cleaners by gambling away their hard-earned money when he was supposed to be earning a college degree. Not only had he not graduated and not fulfilled the Asian-American male’s dream their parents had held for their one son, but less important to her dad,