Read Online Taking Jana (Paradise South #2) by Rissa Brahm - Free Book Online Page A

before.
    “Of course. I’ll text you my status after I go down there tomorrow night. Listen, Amber, it was so good hearing your voice. God…you sound like an amazing mama,” she said as a tiny pang of something Jana realized was envy rose up again in her chest. But thank God she had no innocent soul dependent on her now. Because she had her parents to deal with right now, and she could hardly handle them and their debts.
    So, all she could do was to pray that in this lifetime her parents would learn to stand on their own two feet and finally release her so she could live her own life. Her own dreams.
    “Good hearing your voice too, love. We’re out in Morristown now. Come and visit us if you can. I’d die to see you, and you can meet Charlie—”
    “You named her—”
    “—Yeah. Charlene, Charlie for short.”
    “I love it, Amber.” Jana choked on her breath, holding back the sudden grief she had worked too hard to hide for the entire phone call. There had been no funeral, no closure, and as the years passed, Jana thought it best to keep it buried. What was the point of hashing out that shit? “Oh, hey Amber, gotta go, just pulled up to the hospital.”
    “Yeah, sure, okay. Just, stay in touch, love. Please, stay in touch.”
    Jana pressed ‘end’ on her screen and looked out at the road in front of her, the cab still several minutes from the hospital.
    She gathered her hair back into a ponytail, pulling it tight enough to reset her state of mind with a bit of brain-clearing pain. Her trick again—hurt for hurt—this time not for motion sickness but to balance out everything else, topped by thoughts of Char. She divided her hair in two, gave each side one more good yank, the hair band now snug against her skull. She brought her arms down to her lap, and only then noticed a new tiny bruise on her forearm that hadn’t been there hours before, at least not when she was holding her father’s hand at the hospital. She must’ve done it subconsciously. God, she really needed to find some earbuds.

CHAPTER 6
    W atching Manhattan’s lit up skyline across the river from the window while the cab weaved through the barren streets of Fort Lee, Jana went over her plan in her head.
    She’d relieve her mother, send her home to sleep, then after a three-hour power nap in that horrible hospital room armchair, she’d deal with her father. Her mother would come back and she’d get down to Newark and hope that Eddie was still running The Wet Spot.
    Because Eddie was her ticket. Beyond Amber and Charlene, Eddie had been key to her ability to make the money she had because he made the schedule. And Eddie had definitely favored Jana. He’d never been shy about crushing on her from day one, but besides and despite that, he kept her on as many rotations as she wanted, even though she didn’t reciprocate Eddie’s advances. While most men in the industry would have cut her off immediately for denying them, he put her, and kept her, on the rotation more consistently than any other dancer. She didn’t delude herself; Eddie wasn’t selfless by any means. The bumps in pay he got from Jana being on the schedule were motivation enough. The men she drew into the club made his cover-count skyrocket. And her regulars booked the back rooms as if their money grew like grass in the suburbs.
    She hadn’t seen or spoken to Eddie since she transferred to The Manhattan Sweet Spot. He and his pocket were pissed. And Charlene had been leaving too, heading out to Vegas for bigger things; he’d lost two top earners in a single month.
    But that was the business, and everyone knew nothing was forever in the club scene.
    At that time, she’d been dancing for two plus years, and had figured out that beyond catching her folks up financially, she could actually fund nursing school too. She had reapplied to MMU not expecting to get in. But for a second time, she had. And The Sweet Spot was only a few blocks from campus.
    But the real perk,