Free Taking Jana (Paradise South #2) by Rissa Brahm

the icy room. Jin had put on so much weight over the years, her fire hydrant stature made the chair look more uncomfortable than it probably was.
    “Go home, Ma,” Jana commanded in a hush.
    Jin pushed herself out of the armchair’s clutches and put up no argument.
    “I sent the cab away because the driver wasn’t nice. Ask the registration desk to call you another one.”
    Jin nodded, red-eyed and drained, but not too exhausted to mention before leaving, “The doctor asked about you, Jana. You should meet with him for a date.”
    “A date, huh? Ma, how about I meet with him about Daddy, here in this hospital room? Go home and sleep. And don’t worry about the restaurant. I added ‘until further notice’ to the hanging ‘Closed’ sign, so you don’t have to open for a few days, at least.” Hoping in the end, she could still convince them to close permanently.
    “Oh no, Jana, Daddy will never have that. I need to open every day. Every day! He made me promise.”
    “Jesus, Mom. You can promise all you want, but you can’t function without him there, and from the looks of the place tonight, you can’t count on the staff either. They don’t give a damn. I wouldn’t eat there in its current state.” And she grew up eating the food cooked in that kitchen, never spotless-eat - off-the -floor of kitchens, but she’d never gotten sick. Now, though, Jesus . She wouldn’t send Ilana Simon to eat at the place.
    “Jana, you don’t understand…we can’t make our customers mad. They count on us.”
    “The numbers say that not too many people do count on you, Ma. And one or a dozen patrons, you don’t want anyone to get sick, do you? The place needs some serious attention,” Jana offered, wanting to shout at both her parents for how oblivious they were about their health code violations, their staff, and of course, their own finances! But she reeled herself in an instant later, seeing the hurt in her mother’s eyes. “Look, your husband had a heart attack and open-heart surgery. Your customers will more than understand. It would even make them think bad of you if you didn’t close for a few days.”
    “You can open the restaurant for me in the morning. After you get a few hours’ sleep,” Jin said too loudly; her father moaned and shifted, but didn’t wake completely.
    “Ma, the shop is closed today. You’re sleeping, then coming back here to sit with Dad. I have a meeting tonight I have to go to.”
    “A meeting?” As if to say that a meeting of Jana’s during this horrible tragedy was unimportant and maybe even inappropriate, while the woman was insisting that Jana open the damn sinkhole of a restaurant?
    “Yes, Ma, unless you would like to find a mere two hundred thousand to almost cover this.” Jana swept her arm out to show Jin the equipment-filled hospital room. “Isn’t that what you asked me to handle last night? Because I am sure you didn’t even think to ask Dane, right? Not for financial or even moral support?”
    Jin shook her head, embarrassed maybe, or ashamed? Disgusted even? Or maybe just defensive? Both her parents still touted for her brother, even after everything he did to them, to her. “Dane and Alexa are having another baby. He can’t be here. And they need the money for when the child arrives. You don’t have children, Jana, so you couldn’t understand.”
    Wow. When she thought her parents could not shock her further. Her brother was broke with another kid on the way? And that was her problem how? In the very few flings she’d had over the years, she’d used birth control. Had they heard of it?
    But that wasn’t her business. Apparently, what was her business, and her problem still and always, were her parents’ problems, and they always all rested solely on her.
    Maybe it was because she was the childless spinster who had all the time in the world to spin a few hundred grand out of thin air. The insanity; that was what hurt most. That her mother was completely