by Caro Carson
She was surprised enough that she obeyed him.
“Eat this, Grace. I promise, we’ll have you feeling better in a few minutes if you do as I say. I don’t suppose there’s a minibar in here?”
Sophia jerked her chin toward a corner of the living room. “To hell with mini, they gave us a whole liquor store. I’m presidential, baby.”
Alex pushed aside the bottles of top-shelf liquor in the brass and lacquered bar area. He didn’t want the alcohol; he needed the mixers. He found a small bartender’s can of orange juice, shook it, then poured it into a crystal highball glass. The maid chewed him out in a foreign language—not Russian—and stopped vacuuming in order to pluck the empty can off the shelving and wipe away an imaginary ring.
Fine. She had her job to do, he had his.
His new patient was as uncooperative as the maid thought he was being. Grace stood and managed two stumbling steps toward the bedroom before Alex got in front of her and physically blocked her way.
“It sounds like they’re breaking all of our stuff,” she said.
“You’re not going anywhere until you take care of yourself first.”
She tripped on her next step, but he steadied her with one hand and managed not to slosh the orange juice out of the glass at the same time. “Drink this.”
She placed two palms on his chest for balance. Her fingers curled into his scrub shirt. Tears were welling in those brown eyes again. Knowing they were nothing more than a physical result of exhaustion and low blood sugar did nothing to lessen the tug he felt in response.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” His voice sounded gruff, and he knew it. He wasn’t angry at her. He just resented that tug of sympathy. He hated having no control over his reactions to her. She made him feel... God, she made him feel.
She kept one hand on his chest for balance as she took the glass and downed the orange juice. It wasn’t her fault he found her so damned appealing. He shouldn’t have such a hard time treating an angel with some basic friendliness.
“All right, let’s go pack your stuff together.” He forced himself to smile at a perfectly lovely woman whose blood sugar had crashed. This was simple attraction, nothing more, nothing less. He could deal with it. “I’m going to keep an eye on you until you feel better.”
Her answering slow smile reminded him less of a noble angel and more of a woman who’d had one drink too many. “Promise?”
“Sure.”
“Good, because you’re a man of your word.”
He had a feeling the light-headedness from hypoglycemia mimicked the light-headedness she’d get from being intoxicated. The impression was helped by the highball glass in her hand.
She poked him in the chest with it now. “You’re a really nice guy, even though you are hard to read. You have such a good poker face.”
“And you have none,” he murmured.
“I don’t? Can you tell what I’m thinking?” She leaned in one inch closer to whisper to him. “I’m thinking that I’m glad I met you today.”
“Thank you.” He looked over her head to Sophia. “Does she always get like this when her blood sugar is low?”
“Nope. Usually, she gets all weepy.”
He hadn’t meant it as a trick question, but Sophia’s answer made him angry. “Usually? So you knew that she was prone to low blood sugar, and you didn’t remind her to eat something today?”
“I’ve been just a little bit sick myself, you know. Emergency room. Pneumonia. Any of that ring a bell?” But her uncaring, tough-girl defense didn’t quite ring true. The way she looked at her sister confirmed it. Sophia the Diva felt some guilt. “She’ll be fine in, like, ten minutes. You should give her another glass of juice.”
He was a doctor. He knew how hypoglycemia worked, but instead of aiming a sarcastic comment at Sophia, he pushed Grace onto the couch to sit right next to her. He got another can of orange juice and tossed it at Sophia. “Pour it for her. Don’t let her get up again. I’ll go pack your suitcases.”
She caught the can. “You’d better arrange that rental car first. I really can’t sit in the lobby, hoping someone will find us a place to stay. It’ll turn into a big mess. Grace wasn’t exaggerating.”
He kept walking toward the bedroom. “I’m not sticking her behind the wheel of a rental car ten minutes after a hypoglycemic episode.”
“She’ll be fine.” He heard the pop of the can being opened, the pouring of the liquid into the crystal glass. “She’ll perk right up in a second.”
“I already feel better,” Grace said, sounding anxious.
He stopped then and turned to assess her appearance.
“I’m so sorry, Sophie, I’ll fix everything. I should’ve eaten something, but I just got busy. My bad.”
“No.” His voice sounded harsh.
Both women looked at him.
No, you will not keep trying to make Sophia happy. You won’t apologize for things that aren’t your fault. You won’t shoulder every single responsibility alone.
“Drink that juice. Forget the rental car and the roadside motel hunt. You can stay with me.”
Damn it, he sounded angry again. He shouldn’t be. He was doing the right thing, and he knew it. It was just that sometimes doing the right thing was risky.
He left the two women on the couch and walked into the bedroom, where two maids had beaten him to the packing. An unzipped suitcase lay on the foot of the bed. One maid tossed a stack of folded clothes into the suitcase.
He leaned against the doorjamb and brooded about his unexpected houseguests.
What, exactly, was the risk here? What was he so damned afraid of?
That he’d catch pneumonia from a movie star? Not likely. He had the constitution of an ox after years as a doctor.
That he’d have his routine disturbed, that he’d have to share his living room and relinquish control of the TV? He spent most of his nights reading, anyway.
That he’d have to listen to Sophia complain and Grace apologize for a couple of days?
Ah, that was getting closer.
Grace Jackson. That was the risk. He could feel himself getting involved, actually starting to care about a woman who would disappear within the week.
The maid he could see through the bathroom door let loose with a string of foreign words that were surely curses. The maid was apparently repulsed by the amount of cosmetic bottles and jars she was tossing into a plastic bag that bore the hotel’s logo. Her cursing fit his mood, too.
Grace Jackson had been stirring up his emotions all day. He ought to be glad that she was destined to return into the world of California celebrities within a week. After all, everyone disappeared sooner or later, whether he cared about them or not. His ER patients tended to disappear the same day. His family had taken longer, but he’d literally watched his father disappear on a seashore, growing smaller and smaller as the boat he and his mother had crowded onto sailed farther and farther out to sea, until finally the shore itself had disappeared.
His mother had disappeared, shoved into a car with black-tinted windows, gotten out of the Russian jail, disappeared again. Even now, as a successful professor, she still left Texas for long stretches of time, always on the go to a developing nation to set up another school. He wouldn’t be surprised if he got a call that she’d disappeared in a third-world nation, taken hostage or caught in a rebel war. Even his coworkers disappeared without warning, called up by Texas Rescue to work at the sites of natural disasters.
Aleksander Gregorivich hadn’t been able to control his life, but Alexander Gregory could. He’d chosen one city he liked and settled there. He worked at one hospital. His role with Texas Rescue was to be the physician who stayed to man the home front, pulling extra shifts, covering for those who disap
peared when the mobile hospital was needed. He was anchored firmly to one place. He knew better than to get involved with anyone who might leave.
He was involved with Grace Jackson, though.
She would leave.
Still, helping her out was the right thing to do. For a week, he’d help a woman who was being overwhelmed, and he wouldn’t be shocked when she left. There’d be no tearing of his soul, no broken heart like there’d been when his father had refused to board the boat or when his mother had been handcuffed by the secret police of a crumbling government.
The bathroom maid spotted him before she could sling the bag of cosmetics into the suitcase. He waited until she’d placed the plastic bag in the suitcase with exaggerated carefulness, then zipped up the suitcase. He hefted it off the bed, amazed at what was considered an overnight bag for a movie star and her assistant, and turned to leave.
Grace was standing there, soft sweater on her body, golden highlights in her hair. She’d recovered. He could tell by her alert expression and the faint blush of pink on her cheeks as she thanked him for the juice.
“And thank you for letting us stay at your place. I’m sorry to keep bothering you.”
“You’re no bother at all.”
In this moment, Alex was glad that when she left the hotel, she’d be leaving with him.
He could regret taking the risk later.
Chapter Nine
Alex Gregory was a man who kept his word.
Squashed up against him in the cab of his pickup truck, Grace could also tell he was a man who kept in shape.
It seemed that half the vehicles on Austin’s roads were pickup trucks. Luckily, Alex’s truck had a bench seat that could hold three people. Since it had been hardest for Sophia to get in the cab with her injured ankle and clunky cast boot, she had, reasonably enough, demanded the seat closest to the passenger door. Grace had to sit in the middle, and since Sophia kept complaining about how uncomfortable she was, wiggling to sit at an angle to stretch out her leg, Grace was quite firmly pushed up against Alex.
He moved his arm to hit the turn signal and flexed his thigh to apply the brakes. Under those shapeless scrubs, she felt some totally masculine musculature in motion. Grace studiously kept her gaze on the traffic light out the windshield, trying to look like she wasn’t aware of the hard body that was making her feel so very feminine in contrast.
“Move over,” Sophia demanded.
Grace didn’t mind that demand at all.
Alex didn’t seem to mind much, either. He actually had a bit of a smile playing around his lips. Grace wasn’t certain what had happened up in the presidential suite to change his opinion, but Alex seemed less disapproving of Sophia. Slightly less, but it was a start.
Grace knew she didn’t have the power to make two people fall in love, but if she could get Sophia to see what it was like to spend a little time with a man who treated her well, maybe she’d snap out of this phase. After a week with Alex, maybe she’d be able to see Deezee in a new light.
If I don’t steal Alex first.
She twisted her fingers together in her lap. When had she started having such awful thoughts? She’d never been jealous of Sophia in her life. Men wanted Sophia. They always had; they always would.
But Alex...
Grace had assumed he’d come to the hotel tonight as an excuse to see Sophia, but he’d spent all his time sitting next to her, Grace, and talking to her. In fact, the only discussion he’d had with Sophia had been about her, about when she’d last eaten and whether or not she should drive.
Her cheek brushed against his shoulder as he turned the truck away from the city lights. Yep, there was solid muscle under those scrubs.
Was it really stealing a man if he preferred her to begin with? There was something about the way he’d offered his truck and his home that implied they were for Grace. I’ve got a spare bedroom for you. We’ll find something for your sister to sleep on, too. It was as if Sophia was the afterthought. Grace noticed it, because for her entire adult life, she’d only gone to places that tolerated her because she was part of Sophia’s entourage. Tonight, she couldn’t help but think that, despite the way Sophia was hogging more than half the bench seat, Sophia was only being included because she was tagging along with Grace.
Alex liked her. Grace. She was almost certain of it, although she hadn’t done anything differently to catch his attention. She’d just been herself, and Dr. Alex Gregory had noticed her. To please Deezee, Sophia had changed her nightlife, her friends, her clothes, even her way of talking.
See, Sophia? You don’t have to compromise to make a man love you. And you don’t have to be with a man who hates your sister, either.
Sophia made a sarcastic comment about something on the side of the road, and Alex actually laughed.
Grace had hoped Sophia would dump Deezee if she was attracted to a normal guy here in Texas. But as Alex’s body brushed hers as he pulled into his driveway, she reevaluated that. Wouldn’t it be just as effective if Sophia saw Grace fall for a normal guy? If Grace let herself be treated right by, say, a handsome doctor from Texas Rescue, wouldn’t Sophia see that Deezee didn’t treat her as well as her sister’s boyfriend treated her?
Talk about indulging in a fantasy scenario—but as Alex walked around the hood of the truck to get the door for Sophia, it actually seemed possible.
Sophia was hesitant to jump down from the high cab. Alex, being so wonderfully tall, was able to slide an arm behind Sophia’s back, scoop another under her knees and simply lift her out of the truck.
He set her gently on the ground. “You should be able to walk in that boot. Try it and see.”
At the hotel, Sophia had hopped on one bare foot to the wheelchair, and then Grace had put her spike-heeled sandal on her good foot for her, to keep her as elegant-looking as possible for the fans with cell phones who would see them leave the hotel.
Now, Sophia stood up straight on her high-heel-wearing good leg, which meant the flat boot didn’t even touch the ground. Everyone laughed. Grace scooted to the edge of the bench seat, ready to hop down herself, but Sophia didn’t move. Instead, Alex took a knee in front of Sophia. She leaned against the door jamb as she gingerly put her weight on her boot.
Alex unbuckled her sandal for her. He was smiling, his shaggy hair falling over his forehead in an appealing way as he looked up at her sister. “I don’t know how women wear these things even when they aren’t injured.”
Sophia’s hand rested on his shoulder for balance as she lifted her foot. In her coat dress, she could be a modern-day princess, bestowing knighthood on a man at her feet. Or he could be on bended knee, ready to give her a diamond ring.
Grace swallowed. They did look good together.
“Heels make our legs look great, don’t you think?” Sophia asked Alex.
“I understand why women wear them.” He slipped off her sandal. He stood again, bringing his face level with Grace’s as she sat in the truck cab, but he was laughing down at her sister. “I’m just glad I don’t have to wear anything like that.”
Sophia actually smiled, not an actress’s smile, and Grace watched the two of them talking, blue eyes matching bespectacled blue eyes.
They surveyed the walkway to the door. The porch lights shone off a sea of river rocks. Stepping stones were spaced to create a path. Grace craned her neck a bit to look past Sophia’s head. Sophia would have to treat the stepping stones like lily pads, hopping from one to another, if she couldn’t put her foot down yet. The house was a 1930s Craftsman-style home, complete with concrete stairs leading up to its square-pillared entrance. It made a pretty intimidating obstacle course for someone on only one foot.
“Oh, boy...” Sophia wrinkled her nose and looked up at Alex once more. “Could you have just provided burning coals for me to cross?”
&nb
sp; “It looks impossible, doesn’t it?” Alex picked her up again, carrying her like she was a bride. Sophia actually looked grateful. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her sandal dangling from one finger.
Grace half slid off the bench seat, falling the last few inches to the ground to land squarely on her own feet. She didn’t need a man to lift her or carry her or ease her pain.
Sophia did. Grace should let Sophia have what she needed. Sophia had raised her after their parents had died. She’d tried to cook their mother’s recipes. She’d made Grace do her homework. She’d dropped out of college for her, and she’d kept her by her side ever since.
Grace would walk over hot coals for her sister. The least she could do, now that Sophia was noticing Alex, was to stop selfishly wishing she could keep Alex for herself.
She’d fix this. She wouldn’t allow herself to fall for Alex—or, at least, not fall any farther than she already had.
The little stab to her chest was her own fault. She shouldn’t have started the truck ride by letting herself fantasize about the man her sister needed.
I’m sorry, Sophia. I’ll be good from now on.
Personal assistant. Sister. Grace couldn’t even imagine herself as a competitor, not with the charismatic Sophia Jackson, not even for a man like Alex Gregory.
* * *
There was a beautiful woman in Alex’s bed.
Too bad he was stretched out on his couch.
Technically, there were women in his beds, plural. His house had two bedrooms, and each bed held a sleeping woman, but thoughts about only one of those women kept him awake. Grace Jackson, whom he’d thought he’d never see again at five o’clock this evening, was now sleeping on his pillow. The knowledge kept his body taut and his adrenaline too elevated for sleep.
Otherwise, his couch would work fine as a bed. One reason he’d bought the modern black couch was because it was extra long, an excellent trait in a piece of furniture when one fell asleep on the first available horizontal surface after the odd twenty-four hour shift. But he didn’t think it was good enough for Grace. He’d insisted she take his bed.