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“Okay, I’ll stay,” he agreed, clearly hating the concession. “But take Sloane.”
“Sloane’s on a deadline,” Carly argued, shaking her head. “I’m perfectly capable of driving myself back to the city.”
Adrian frowned. “Carly—”
Jackson’s words were out of his mouth without thought. “I’ll take her.”
Both Adrian and Carly turned to stare at him, although with very different expressions.
“I’ll be fine.” There was no fire in her argument, though, and Jackson refused to relent.
“Come on. Why don’t you call Sloane and ask her to pack you a bag so we can just swing by and grab it on our way down the mountain? With any luck, we’ll get to the city before rush hour gets nasty.”
For a second, Carly didn’t move, and Jackson mentally prepared round two of his defense. But then she gave a slow nod.
“Okay. Yeah. I’ll just be a second.”
The restaurant manager, who had been silently waiting nearby, passed her the phone without preamble, and Carly took it with a hollow glance and moved down the bar to call Sloane. Jackson palmed his keys, figuring he could call Luke from the road to let him know he’d be gone for a couple of days. Rescheduling that kitchen job by the lake would be tight, something Jackson would likely pay for with some long days when he got back, but he didn’t care. He shifted to look at Carly, but the view was immediately blocked by the menacing glare of her sous chef.
“I don’t like this.”
Wow. Talk about throwing it all out there. But being intimidated wasn’t on Jackson’s agenda, no matter how big the guy was.
“I’m okay with that,” Jackson said. Although he kept his tone purposely neutral, his meaning seemed to get through loud and clear. “Look, we can have a pissing contest over it when I get back. For now, I’m just worried about Carly, and I’m pretty sure you are, too. So, what do you say we skip the pleasantries, huh? She’ll be safe with me.”
Adrian served up a hard stare, and as much as Jackson hated to admit it, the guy looked junkyard-dog mean. Carly slipped a hand over her braid and passed the phone back to the manager, who murmured to her in a low, reassuring tone.
“If you mess with her, I will kill you with my bare hands. Are we clear?” Everything about the delivery of Adrian’s words told Jackson he meant what he said. Jackson narrowed his eyes, but didn’t consider flinching.
“Crystal.”
He turned on his heel to walk Carly out the door.
* * *
Jackson shifted his weight,trying for the billionth time to find a good fit between his body and the driver’s seat of Carly’s Honda. His discomfort came in a distant second to his concern, though. One glance at Carly hammered his worry home.
Other than to punch the address of the hospital in Brooklyn into the GPS on her dashboard, she’d been completely still for the two hours they’d been in the car. He’d turned off the radio and encouraged her to close her eyes, maybe get some sleep, but she’d politely declined. Not wanting to up her stress level with small talk that would’ve been forced anyway, Jackson kept quiet. If Carly wanted to talk, she would. Her stony silence weighed on his mind like a pallet full of bricks.
“Looks like we’re about halfway there.” After two hours of nothing but the white noise of being on the road, Jackson’s words felt loud, but Carly didn’t flinch. She kept her eyes on the blur of trees outside her window as she nodded absently.
Finally, he asked, “Do you want to stop for a few minutes to stretch your legs?”
“No. I’m fine. But if you need to stop, that’s okay.”
He shook his head, keeping his eyes on the road. “I’m good.” Silence stretched out for a few minutes that felt like hours before he asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Oh. Well, I don’t really know much, other than what I already told you.”
“Right,” Jackson said, hoping that talking about it would maybe lessen her sadness. Or, at the very least, her stress. “Your mother was having lunch with her church group, and she got really confused.”
Carly nodded. “Yeah. She couldn’t remember why she was there or what day it was. One of the ladies with her got really concerned and called my brother, who told her to call nine-one-one. Once she got to the hospital, they started treating her for a stroke. That’s pretty much all I know.”
It was the same story she’d told him on the way to the bungalow, in almost the same words, and Jackson tried again. “What did Dominic’s last text say?”
Carly kept her gaze on the passing roadside. “They’re doing a CAT scan and a bunch of other tests…an ECG, I think? They want to monitor her heart and look at her arteries. One of my brothers will call if anything changes, but for now, we just have to wait, I guess,” she said before lapsing back into silence.
They drove the rest of the way in silence, interrupted by two updates from her brother, which yielded little information other than what they already knew. Once they got close to the Holland Tunnel, Jackson pulled over at Carly’s suggestion so she could drive. Her knowledge of the city was definitely better, and although he’d have done it, city driving made him twitchy as hell. She maneuvered the crowded streets with ease, and after twenty minutes, she pulled into a three-story parking garage and turned off the engine.
