Her Texas Rescue Doctor (4 page)

“There are none available.” Dr. Gregory didn't sound upset or intimidated by Sophia's behavior at all, not like Grace was.

Sophia must have heard that almost bored note in his voice, too, because she hesitated, just for a second, in the middle of ramping herself up for a good old-fashioned hissy fit. She gave it a go, anyway. “Even if I didn't need extra privacy, which you know I do, I should have been next. I've been waiting longer.”

“That's not the way it works in a hospital. She needs the room more than you do, and there are patients who require my presence right now more than you do.” He stepped back and grabbed the curtain, ready to leave. “Was there anything else?”

“More than I do?” Sophia's voice was getting high-pitched in her outrage. “I suppose you decide that?”

“I do.”

Grace felt a little chill go down her spine at the quiet confidence in those words. She looked at Dr. Gregory again, at his calm profile, his unwavering gaze.

He can handle anything. He can handle Mr. Burns. He can handle my sister.

Then she realized he'd turned to her, locking gazes with her for the briefest of moments, just long enough for her to imagine he was silently asking her to keep Sophia under control.

I wish I could.

“You're just leaving?” Sophia sounded incredulous.

Grace wished she had as much control over her sister as Dr. Gregory seemed to think she had. She put a hand on her sister's good ankle and patted her reassuringly. “Thank you, Dr. Gregory. We'll stay right here, then, until a room opens up.”

He nodded at her. “I'll be back.”

Grace hoped he'd be quick. His hair was shaggy and he needed to shave—yesterday—and his glasses weren't chic geek, just geek. His white coat was two sizes too big, and yet he looked like a hero to her. Somehow, when Grace stood next to Dr. Gregory, Sophia seemed less intimidating, but he was gone with a slide of metal curtain rings, and Grace was left to manage her own personal movie star.

“Where the hell is that macchiato?”

Hurry back, Doctor. I need you.

Chapter Five

G
race wanted Dr. Gregory.

What she got was a frighteningly competent nurse named Loretta. The nurse seemed to be just as unimpressed with having a movie star for a patient as Dr. Gregory was, but still...

It would have been nicer to have Dr. Gregory by her side.

Sophia's ankle was not broken, the nurse reported, but she would need to wear a hard plastic medical boot for a week. The nurse removed the ice. She'd brought a few sizes of the plastic boot to try. By the time the correct boot was strapped around Sophia's lower leg, poor Sophia was clutching Grace's hand in real pain.

Nurse Loretta gave Sophia a pill for the pain, something Dr. Gregory had apparently foreseen the need to prescribe, then Grace and Sophia were alone again. This time, Grace perched on the edge of the bed, and they did yoga breaths together while they waited for the pain medicine to kick in.

“We could do ‘breath of lion,'” Grace suggested.

“The dumb one where we stick out our tongues?” But Sophia made a funny face at Grace as she said it, one that always made Grace laugh. “Hope no one with a camera sees us.”

The sarcasm, the cursing, the defiance had all disappeared in the last half hour. Grace stuck her tongue out and panted. Sophia did, too, but they couldn't keep panting with straight faces.

“Ohmigod, we look dorky,” Sophia said, and the sound of her laughter was music to Grace's ears.

My sister is back.

Grace could have cried in relief. It was so good to be needed again—no, not needed. She was always needed. It was good to be wanted again. Sophia wanted her by her side.

Sophia's laugh turned into another round of coughing. Grace winced in sympathy; her sister's ribs had to hurt from the force of her cough. Sophia sank back into her pillow. She'd never looked more pitiful, not even on screen when she'd died as a pioneer woman to great critical acclaim.

Grace smoothed Sophie's hair over her shoulder. “Can I get you anything?”

She attempted another smile, a wobbly bit of bravery. “Just don't leave me again. I need you here.”

“Of course.”

I wish Dr. Gregory could see us now.
He hadn't been very impressed with Sophia so far, that much was clear. When she'd complained about Mrs. Burns moving to a room, Dr. Gregory had thrown Grace that last look, the one that said
Can't you keep her in line?

It nagged at Grace. Maybe the look had been more like
How do you put up with her?
Maybe the look had been simply disappointment with Grace. Or puzzlement.
Why do you help someone who is so rude?

Because I love her. She's my sister. She's my whole family.

But, of course, Dr. Gregory didn't know that, just as Sophia didn't know anything about Mrs. Burns's dangerous situation. If she did, then of course she'd be content to wait a little longer. With a crinkle of the plastic-covered mattress under her, Grace scooted closer to her sister's side, ready to confide in her.

“Ouch! Don't bump me. Sit on that stool.”

“Sorry.” Grace slipped from the mattress onto the doctor's rolling stool, trying not to feel sad at how short-lived their shared laughter had been.

It wasn't Sophia's fault. She was still in pain, and the pain was making her irritable. Really, she was acting as normally as anyone would in her condition.

Grace leaned closer, too aware of the curtains, although no other patients were around now. “Listen, something kind of scary happened while you were on the phone with Deezee. The lady that was in the next bed—”

“The one who got treated better than I did?”

“I don't know about better. Maybe faster, but there was a good reason. Let me tell you what happened.”

Mrs. Burns's sad tale had exactly the effect that Grace had known it would. Sophia was subdued, silent. Probably, like Grace, she was thinking how fortunate she was to have been born into a loving home, where the concept of Daddy hitting Mommy was unimaginable. This afternoon was a vivid reminder that other children were not so lucky.

“Then I'm glad they moved her,” Sophia said.

“I know. Me, too.”

“That would have been a mess, if the two of them had started fighting again. People would have come running, and these curtains wouldn't have kept us hidden. Hell, the guy could have thrown her right into our cubicle or something. I can't be involved in that kind of thing. Can you imagine the shock on everyone's faces if the curtain had come down and they'd seen Sophia Jackson lying here?”

Grace was silent. That wasn't exactly the empathy she'd expected.

“Martina is threatening to leave me if I'm involved in any fights,” Sophia said. “She told Deezee the same thing.”

Martina was a publicist, and one of the few people whom Sophia still seemed to listen to. Then again, Martina had been Deezee's publicist first. She'd introduced the two of them, actually. It was yet another reason that Grace doubted Deezee had any real affection for Sophia. She'd been awfully good for improving his damaged reputation. He'd had the opposite effect on hers—so now Martina was helping Sophia, too, for a hefty retainer fee.

Sophia let go of her hand and pushed herself into more of a sitting position. Her pain was clearly lessening. The medicine must be kicking in. “What time is our flight? I'm ready to get out of here.”

I'm not.

Grace wanted to stay here, where Deezee and publicists had no importance. Here, someone else was in charge.

The curtain rings slid open, and Dr. Gregory walked in, laptop under his arm. Intelligent, empathetic, authoritative—Grace wanted to run to him and cling to his hand.

She stood up to let him have his rolling stool, but he waved her back down and took the straight chair on the opposite side of the bed. When he asked Sophia how her ankle was feeling in the boot, he seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say. His bedside manner, when he was literally bedside, was sympathetic and focused on the patient.

Then again, what man didn't focus on Sophia Jackson? The two of them looked quite striking together. Maybe not at a glance—Sophia had on that killer coat dress and her hair still looked fabulous after a couple of hours in a hospital bed, while Dr. Gregory was kind of lost under his baggy coat and shaggy hair—but they both had vividly blue eyes and really great bone structure. They'd make beautiful babies together. Beautiful, intelligent, talented babies.

Another stab to her chest caught her by surprise. Jealousy? She couldn't be jealous of the attention Sophia was paying to Dr. Gregory. The idea of Dr. Gregory and Sophia together ought to make her happy.

“The ankle will heal, as long as you don't push it too soon. That's the good news.”

“There's bad news?” Sophia asked, half playful, half fearful. Clearly, she'd decided to try being charming and pleasant. She was succeeding.

Dr. Gregory opened his laptop. “Let's look at that chest X-ray.”

Grace's heart squeezed again at the sight of their two heads leaning over the computer screen together. The good news? He'd make a wonderful brother-in-law. The bad news? Her sister was too shallow to look past the surface to see what a quality guy the doctor was.

I can see it.

Yes, but you aren't the one who needs to see it.

Grace snapped out of her conversation with herself. Chest X-ray? Sophia hadn't mentioned that she'd gotten her chest X-rayed along with her ankle.

“I have pneumonia?” Sophia sounded very skeptical, but she was looking at Dr. Gregory in a whole new way, like maybe he did know something she didn't know, after all.

Dr. Gregory smiled kindly at her, an appealing little crinkle of the corners of his eyes behind unattractive brown frames. “Walking pneumonia is the common term, because younger adults tend to get this particular kind, and they keep gutting it out and going to work despite feeling sick.”

Oh, Sophia liked that implication that she was a trooper, Grace could tell. The show must go on, and all that jazz. Sophia relaxed back on her pillows a little bit.

“See this cloudy part of your lung? That's fluid accumulating in a place air should be. I could've diagnosed pneumonia on your lung sounds alone, to be honest, but since you were going into X-ray anyway, it was best to have your lungs checked out.”

For weeks, Grace hadn't been able to persuade Sophia to take care of that cough, but Dr. Gregory had been able to do something about it. Still, Grace was astounded at the pneumonia diagnosis. She'd thought the cough was bad, but she hadn't expected it to be that bad.

“How long have you been coughing?” Dr. Gregory asked.

Sophia looked to Grace, the keeper of all mundane information. “How long? A couple weeks?”

Dr. Gregory looked at Grace, as well, waiting for her answer.

Grace felt that little flutter again that came with having his attention on her. “At least a month. It started shortly after...after we got back from Vegas.” She'd been about to say
shortly after you and Deezee were caught in the police raid on that club
, but she didn't want to remind Sophia of something that would make her feel bad. Sophia had apologized for that already. Besides, she was finally showing her good side to Dr. Gregory, and Grace wanted him to see that her sister was a good person.

“I had pneumonia for a month and didn't know it?”

“I imagine you've felt worn-out every day,” Dr. Gregory said, his attention back on Sophia.

Sophia nodded, managing to look like a martyr without looking overly dramatic at all. She was a great actress.

“But you've kept working anyway?” he asked.

Another nod.

Grace should have felt her usual amusement at how Sophia could have anyone eating out of her hand. Instead, she felt a little irritated. Sophia had been working only if one counted clubbing as work. The pile of scripts that represented future work kept stacking up, because Sophia had been too tired to evaluate new projects after running around with her boyfriend. Today's clinic opening had been the first actual work Sophia had done in weeks, and she'd tried to cut that short.

She had a good reason for that. She must have felt awful. She's really sick. What kind of sister am I to hold it against her?

Dr. Gregory nodded at Sophia in what surely looked like approval. “You need to take a break, starting today. Pneumonia won't go away by itself. I'm going to discharge you with some antibiotics. You'll want to see your own physician once you finish the medicine to be certain your lungs are clear, but in the meantime, you need to rest. Drink more fluids than you want to, and don't skip any pills, even once you start feeling better.”

Discharge her? He was sending them away with some pills and a plastic boot? Grace felt a little panic. She didn't want to start negotiating an airport with a sick sister in a wheelchair. Her sister had laughed with her a few minutes ago. She was being positively pleasant to Dr. Gregory now. Texas was good for her. They needed to stay right here.

“You shouldn't fly again until we've had a chance to clear up some of this fluid in your lungs,” Dr. Gregory said.

Yes!
The man was a miracle. Forget clinging to his hand. Grace wanted to throw her arms around him.

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.”