Free Lessons From a Younger Lover by Zuri Day Page B

What are you doing in my house?” In a rare move, Gwen walked toward Ransom instead of away from him, pointing her finger at his chest.
    Crossing his arms over his chest in a gesture as defiant as his wide-legged stance, Ransom glared. He looked like a gloriously adorned stallion warrior, even wearing jeans and a simple T-shirt, but Gwen fought hard against this unwanted observation. Thankfully, her anger pushed past the usual paralysis that gripped her whenever she came within feet of this man.
    â€œYou are the most conceited, bullheaded man I’ve ever met, and that you’d have the nerve, the balls, the unmitigated gall to come to my house, let alone in my house, uninvited, bothering my mother…wait. Where is my mother?”
    â€œSo, you’ve finally gotten around to thinking about someone besides yourself. She’s at the hospital. Let’s go.
    â€œShe passed out,” Ransom continued as he led a bewildered Gwen to the car, opened the door, and helped her in. “I was repairing Miss Mary’s back porch steps when she came running. She’d dialed nine-one-one, but was beside herself and couldn’t remember what she’d done with your cell number.”
    Gwen said nothing, reached for her cell phone. She couldn’t think, even to dial information for the hospital number. Then she realized she didn’t even know which hospital her mom was in.
    â€œWhere’d they take her?”
    â€œBradley Memorial. We’ll be there in five minutes.” Her wide-eyed question asked so desperately squeezed Ransom’s heart. He reached over and took her trembling hand in his. “It’s going to be okay.”
    His voice was the soothing one he used to tell Isis her ouchies would heal. If this were Isis, he’d take his daughter in his arms, squeeze her tight, and rock her until she fell asleep. He wanted to do the same thing to the woman beside him.
    â€œWhere’s Miss Mary?” Gwen’s voice was timid, strained. “I should have been here,” she whispered, as tears threatened.
    Guilt racked her as she thought of the fun, carefree afternoon she’d spent with Chantay. After their beauty shop appointment, they’d gone to a spa for massages and then out to eat. She’d called her mother from the restaurant and everything was fine: Miss Mary was over and they were playing gin rummy. That’s why taking in a movie once they’d left the restaurant hadn’t seemed like a big deal. Until now.
    â€œShe rode in the ambulance with your mother.”
    Gwen’s brows furrowed in confusion and worry. “Where’s Adam?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œAdam. Where is he? And why are you driving his car?”
    â€œThis is my car. I’ve let Adam use it the past couple weeks.”
    â€œWhy in the world would you do that?”
    Ransom looked over quickly. She didn’t know he and Adam were brothers? He scowled, thinking of something else. It was just three or so weeks ago that Adam had asked to borrow the Porsche. Was Gwen the woman he was trying to…? “Is there something going on between you and him?”
    â€œI don’t know that that is any of your business.”
    â€œActually it is.”
    â€œAnd how is that?”
    â€œBecause I know Adam and I like you, and if he thinks he’s going to…treat you the way he does most women, there’s getting ready to be a problem because I won’t let that happen.”
    The hospital was just ahead. Gwen’s focus went immediately back to her mother. But as they turned into the parking lot, she found herself asking, “How do you know about Adam?”
    â€œHe’s my brother.”
    Gwen didn’t have time to absorb this shocking news. The Porsche had barely stopped rolling before she was out of the car and running through the short hallway to the hospital’s front desk.
    â€œI’m here to see about my mother, Lorraine