Her Texas Rescue Doctor

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Sophia’s radiance dimmed. “I have to get back to LA right away.”

“Even in a pressurized cabin on a commercial airliner, the demand on the lungs increases. This fluid is making things difficult enough for you here on the ground. How did you feel on the flight here?”

“Ohmigod, I felt terrible, actually. I was so tired and I had such a headache. I thought it was just a crappy flight.”

You thought it was all my fault, like I’d booked a flight just to torture you.

“You probably weren’t getting enough oxygen.” Dr. Gregory closed the laptop. “Low oxygen saturation can cause those symptoms and more. Irritability, confusion and eventually loss of consciousness.”

“Irritability?” Grace repeated without thinking.

To Grace’s surprise, Sophia held her hand out to her. “Oh, Grace, I really took it out on you during the flight, didn’t I? I said some mean things. I’m sorry.”

Grace took her hand. Squeezed. This was the second time she’d gotten to see the nice side of her sister again—and Dr. Gregory was here to see it, too. Maybe now he wouldn’t give her that puzzled look. This was proof that she didn’t work for an uncontrollable diva. The longer they stayed in Texas, the more like her old self her sister became.

“We didn’t know I had pneumonia, though, did we? I’ll make it up to you. I promise to be extra nice to you on the plane tonight. It won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t,” Dr. Gregory said firmly. “You can’t fly tonight. Your ankle injury is taxing your body more than you might think. Between that stress and the pneumonia, you’d almost certainly be oxygen deprived again.”

Sophia blinked at him. “But you can give me something for that, can’t you?”

“For oxygen deprivation?” One corner of Dr. Gregory’s mouth quirked upward. “Sure. It’s called oxygen. You carry a tank of it with you and stick tubes up your nostrils so you don’t pass out at thirty thousand feet and force an emergency landing.”

Sophia’s hand slid out of Grace’s to land on the blankets with a little plop. Grace looked closely at Dr. Gregory. His poker face was good, but Grace could have sworn he was getting some satisfaction out of setting Sophia straight.

He stood and tucked the laptop under his arm. “Carrying an oxygen tank aboard would require some planning with the airline in advance. It’s only allowed when the patient absolutely must travel. I’m not going to authorize it. Your ankle needs to stay immobilized and elevated, as well. I’ll write a medical excuse for you, so the airline won’t charge you to reschedule today’s flight.”

Double yes. Grace wanted to pump a fist in the air in victory. He couldn’t have been more crystal clear. They were grounded, stuck in Texas. Who needed Superman when Clark Kent was doing the job so perfectly? Oh, God—was she smiling?

Grace bit her lip. Karma was surely going to get her. She’d wanted to get away from LA and stay away, and now Sophia was both injured and ill—but neither too seriously. Perfect.

Yikes. She was such a bad sister. To assuage her guilt, she pulled out a notebook from her trusty tote bag and started a new list. Flights would have to be changed. The hotel would have to be extended. She’d ask the concierge at their Hollywood condominium to hold the mail, or possibly deliver it here, depending on the length of their stay.

She looked up from her notebook. “How long are we staying here, then?”

“You should give the antibiotics a week. When she’s breathing easier and her cough is better, you can fly.”

“A week?” Sophia closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her forehead, overplaying her role a bit, in Grace’s opinion.

“It could take you a month or more to feel a hundred percent back to normal, so don’t be surprised if the fatigue continues on well past a week.”

“A month?” Grace couldn’t keep the happy anticipation out of her voice as she flipped to a fresh page in her notebook. “Oh, Sophie. I’ll find us a real house, a vacation rental for a month. I’ll get our clothes sent here, and line up some grocery service, and—”

“No.” Sophia opened her eyes and glared at her from under her fingers. “I already told you I didn’t want to stay an extra day. I won’t be able to stand a week. Don’t make one of your damned lists for anything except getting me back to LA.”

Grace pretended she couldn’t feel the disapproval Dr. Gregory was sending her sister’s way. “We don’t have a choice, Sophie. It will be good for you. You’ve been burning the candle at both ends.”

Sophia snapped her fingers. “Book Deezee a flight. He can come out here and keep me company.”

No, no, no!

“There’s plenty of room in our suite.”

It would be a nightmare. There’d be bottles of tequila everywhere, a man who referred to women as his bitches ordering Grace to fetch food and find limos for the strangers he’d invite up to their suite. There’d be noise complaints and hotel security and charges assessed for property damage. Grace would be scrambling around the clock. She couldn’t take it, she just couldn’t do it.

Dr. Gregory, she realized, was watching her intently. Her hand was shaking. She pressed the pencil into the notebook to steady it, so it wouldn’t give her away. If she got angry, if she said no, Sophia would be dead set on yes. She needed a new tactic. Quick.

The tip of the pencil broke, a little black scribble on her paper.

“Grace,” the doctor said, “could I speak—”

“Isn’t pneumonia contagious?” She tried not to sound desperate.

His easy bedside manner was gone, but his stilted answer was still courteous. “Pneumonia isn’t contagious, but the bacterium that causes it is. Someone who comes in contact with her might develop any type of infection from it. Sinusitis, bronchitis. Those could lead to pneumonia.”

“Are you kidding me?” But whatever else Sophia had been about to say was lost in a coughing jag.

Grace brushed the broken pencil lead off her notebook page. She could leverage this. She could tell Deezee that Sophia was contagious, although he was as bad as Sophia, doing the opposite of anything Grace suggested. She could tell their publicist. Sophia and Deezee both listened to Martina...

“Grace, could I speak to you for a minute?” Dr. Gregory asked.

She looked up at him. He was much taller than she was, so she’d been looking up at him all afternoon, but he seemed like a giant now as she sat in the chair. “Of course.”

“What for?” Sophia croaked, not quite done with her cough.

“Alone?” he added.

Sophia grabbed Grace’s arm, making the pencil drag across the page. “You said you wouldn’t leave me again.”

Sophia looked so genuinely distressed, Grace didn’t have the heart to point out that she’d left her to fetch the cell phone and left to fetch the caramel non-van half-caff macchiato because Sophia had ordered her to. Right now, she looked like a little puppy that needed protecting.

Grace looked from her sister’s blue eyes up to Dr. Gregory’s. He seemed so solid, so calm. He had the authority to deny air travel, to order medical tests, even to protect a woman from an abusive spouse.

He could help her.

She stood. “Don’t worry, Sophie. I’ll be back in a minute.”

With a slide of metal curtain rings, she left with Dr. Gregory.

Chapter Six (#ulink_84e77f55-9d67-539b-98c3-9635c357239f)

Alex was dazzled by the sight of Grace in the bright Texas sun.

Being dazzled was, of course, the temporary effect of walking from the windowless emergency room into the bright sunlight of the ambulance bay. Light adaptation was the medical term. He watched Grace blink, a reflexive move to relieve the visual discomfort as the retinas chemically altered to favor cones over rods.

Or maybe she was just a pretty girl, shading her eyes on a sunny spring afternoon, and he was just a guy who wanted to get to know her better.

Life was only that simple in Hollywood movies.

Alex’s life had never been charmed. He was starting to suspect this woman’s life wasn’t quite the American dream it appeared to be on the surface, either.

He couldn’t grill her about her apparent anxiety when it came to Sophia Jackson. As he had with his young soccer-playing patient, he started with something that he knew wouldn’t cause pain. “I wanted to let you know that Mrs. Burns has decided to use the services we offered her. She’s got an advocate with her now who will escort her to a women’s shelter when she’s ready to leave.”

“That’s wonderful.” Grace’s smile dazzled him in a way that had nothing to do with the chemistry of the retinas. The fine tension she carried in her shoulders eased a fraction. With a firm touch, he could eliminate the rest, smoothing his thumbs from insertion to origin point on each tight muscle.

Alex put his hands in the pockets of his white coat.

“And the children?” Grace asked. “What happens to them?”

“They’ll be picked up and brought to the safe house with their mother.”

“That is really, really good news. Thank you so much for telling me.”

“Of course.”

He realized he was staring into her eyes—warm and brown and gold, like her hair—when she looked away. Just how long had that silent bit of gazing between them lasted?

She made a gesture, a small wave at nothing in particular. An equally delicate worry line appeared between her brows. “Are you going to get in trouble for breaking a privacy rule or something? Is that why you brought me outside?”

“No. You volunteered to be a witness if necessary. It’s reasonable for me to let you know that the patient is speaking up for herself, so you don’t have to.”

Her compassion extended to him, then. She was kind to worry that he’d be in trouble. Maybe she was too compassionate, though. If she didn’t guard her heart, she would always be worrying about others.

She smiled again, another bit of tension leaving her shoulders. “I’m so glad to hear that. Can you keep me updated? I want to know if everything turns out okay.”