Her Texas Rescue Doctor

by Caro Carson

  Grace had resisted, of course. There’d been no question that Sophia would help herself to the guest room. She’d taken off her cast boot and hit the mattress, completely unconcerned about her sister, leaving Grace and Alex to work out the rest.

  I’ll share the guest room bed with her. It’ll be like the old days.

  The old days, like when we had the Plague? She’s contagious. Take my bed.

  He’d pulled out a change of sheets from his hall closet, and they’d made up his bed together, a strangely intimate chore he’d never done with any other woman. If he and Grace had come here for sex, they could have fallen into bed together. But since they weren’t intimate and she was his houseguest, he’d pulled out a fresh set of sheets like a good host. And yet, plumping pillows, stretching sheets taut—it had felt like foreplay to him.

  She probably thought he was a germaphobe. If she was generous, she might think he was a geeky doctor who cracked lame jokes about plagues and worried about upper respiratory tract infections in bed. Hell, he’d even reminded Sophia to wash her hands more often than usual until the antibiotics kicked in.

  He shifted on the couch and scrubbed his hand over his face, feeling the heavy stubble again. He didn’t look like a neat-freak germaphobe. He probably looked like a hippie who’d been lost in the wilderness for a week, scrounging in the woods for food.

  In other words, Grace had no reason to lie awake on fresh sheets, obsessing about him.

  He could not stop thinking about her.

  In the light of day, he’d spent his time wondering why she was under sister’s thumb. He understood a little better now that he’d seen some flashes of loyalty from Sophia. She’d backed up Grace when it came to the domestic violence case, a point that had softened his attitude toward Sophia just a bit.

  But he knew the patterns and habits of domestic violence. He couldn’t help but recognize the parallels in the way Sophia treated her own sister. Her own bad behavior was excusable—I had pneumonia—but Grace’s failures were not—You need to fix it, you need to move over, you need to find us a place to stay—an unreasonable demand during South by Southwest. He’d dealt with enough domestic violence to see the one-sided relationship. Could Grace see it? Could he help Grace see it in the short time she’d be in his life?

  Those were the thoughts that had consumed him while he and Grace were fully dressed and on their feet. Now, in the still of the night, his thoughts were considerably less philosophical. He was horizontal and half naked, wearing only plaid pajama pants. Grace was horizontal. Was she half-naked? Did she wear pajamas, comfortable and worn? Did she wear a nightgown, silky and new? Did she wear anything at all?

  The possibility that Grace was sleeping nude between his sheets was the reason he was still awake. Use your imagination, he’d told Grace earlier, when they’d taken a break on the bench. He’d never expected to use his imagination tonight in quite this way, but it was easy to picture her. Grace was beautiful. Nothing like her sister, thank God. Sophia’s sort of professional beauty was an achievement, a victory over nature. Grace’s beauty was touchable, soft, genuine.

  He’d had a great chance to check out her curves when she was pressed up against him in the truck. For once, he’d found Sophia’s bossy routine amusing. Every time she’d barked move over, he’d wanted to say thank you.

  He was paying for that pleasure now. The curve of Grace’s shoulder, the way her hair felt as it swept over his own skin—he could imagine the angel in his bed all too vividly. His muscles were taut, demanding that he go to her. Muscle couldn’t distinguish between the fantasy of what he’d like to do and the reality of what was acceptable. Sexually, he felt thick and full and aching for more.

  He sat up, determined to get control so he could get some sleep. He headed for the kitchen and a midnight glass of milk.

  The reality was, sharing a bed with Grace was off the table this week. She’d be heading back to California and a life that kept her tied to someone else, twenty-four hours a day. He yanked open the fridge door and blinked into the sudden light, deliberately obliterating the images he’d drawn in the dark. Cold air cooled the bare skin of his chest. Women who disappeared held no appeal for him.

  Liar. She’s got more appeal than you know what to do with.

  He took the milk out of the fridge. In order to shut the door, he took a half step back, and backed right into Grace herself. He hadn’t heard her come in to the narrow galley kitchen. She looked warm and rumpled and delicious in the appliance light.

  Pajamas. The answer to his earlier question was pajamas. They weren’t worn and comfortable, but satin. The material flowed over her body, white satin conforming to the shape of her breasts like liquid. His reaction to the sight of her couldn’t be denied. He slammed the fridge door shut, plunging them both into blinding darkness. Retinal chemistry bought him time to fight another type of chemistry.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said, her voice as appealing at midnight in his kitchen as it was at noon in the ER. Her feet were bare, which was probably why he hadn’t heard her.

  “Want a glass of milk?” His voice sounded stilted, stiff.

  “Does milk really make you sleepy? Scientifically speaking?”

  A medical question. How could she ask it in such a bedroom voice?

  It was hard to not touch her, even if she thought of him as more of a doctor than a man. In one hand, he clutched the milk carton. He set his free hand on his hip rather than hers.

  “It’s a myth, but if it makes you feel better, have a glass. You could use the calories after forgetting to eat all day.”

  “I made up for it with the pizza tonight. Thank you for ordering that.”

  “You already thanked me.”

  She lapsed into silence. Had he been rude? His eyes were rapidly adjusting to the dark. There was a sheen to her pajama top in the small light from the microwave’s clock. The aroused peak of her breast was not a trick of the light.

  He tore his attention away from her body. If her vision was adjusting as fast as his, he didn’t want to be caught staring at what he was craving.

  “Sorry,” she breathed quietly. “I’m in your way, aren’t I?”

  But she didn’t move.

  He realized she wasn’t looking at his face at all. Her gaze was on his biceps, flexed as he held the milk carton. Her chest rose and fell with a quickening breath as her gaze moved across his body to his chest.

  I can see you staring at me.

  She moistened her lips, her eyes traveling lower, following a center line down his body, lingering in the area of his abs—his navel?—then lower.

  You want me.

  The knowledge changed the game. He knew what a woman wanted when her eyes went all heavy-lidded and her attention was all on his body. Grace’s awareness redoubled his.

  He wanted her, too. He’d wanted her all day.

  She was going to leave, permanently. He even knew when she’d leave, but at this moment on this night, it didn’t matter. Desire was obliterating his ability to think in the long term.

  He watched her tentative fingertips reach for his body. The pad of her thumb brushed the bare skin of his waist as her fingertips trailed over the loose elastic of his flannel pants. He tossed the carton of milk onto the counter, startling her, so he used his now-empty hand to soothe her with a stroke down the soft length of her hair. He scooped a handful into his palm, all its golden highlights hiding in the dark. They were safe and alone at midnight, he and she.

  “Grace.” Her name sounded so much like a prayer, a husky benediction, a gift.

  “I can’t.”

  She stepped back, her hair sliding over his palm until it was gone. He let his hand drop to his side.

  He wouldn’t ask why not. He’d only met her today. Her sister had been brought in to the ER sometime after lunch; it was only mi
dnight now. Less than twelve hours he’d known her, and in those twelve hours she’d been through stress of every kind.

  All the more reason to hold her, his mind whispered. Touch her, soothe her, make her worries disappear for a while.

  “I just can’t,” she whispered. She turned on her heel and disappeared.

  That old feeling of abandonment was fleeting, because she hadn’t truly disappeared. He knew where she was: in his bedroom, under his covers. Lying there, wanting him.

  He almost gulped the ice-cold milk straight from the carton, but he had guests. He poured the milk into a glass and downed it in strong swallows, feeling the drink cool his mouth and throat. It didn’t wash away the image of Grace on his pillow, in his room, wanting him.

  He shook his head at his own intensity. They felt the same way about one another. If it was too soon tonight, there was still tomorrow. She wasn’t leaving for a week. There were more midnights to be had. Time stretched before him, his ally.

  He headed back to his couch to try again to sleep. The anticipation of spending tomorrow with Grace was a pleasure so sharp, it was nearly a pain in itself.

  Wasn’t that how life always worked? Pleasure followed by pain. Since childhood, he’d known that happy moments were followed by grief. A trip to the beach with Mama and Papa was followed by a raid on his home. Receiving a loaf of bread at a refugee camp was followed by a fistfight to defend it. He’d spent many years avoiding pain, which meant he’d spent many years avoiding pleasure.

  But tomorrow...

  He’d forgotten how intense the pleasure could be. The brush of a woman’s fingertips and the softness of her long hair, the knowledge that she found him as desirable as he found her—those were things that could make joy explode in a man’s chest.

  He wanted to savor the joy.

  He could deal with the carnage from the explosion later.

  Chapter Ten

  Alex woke to sun shining through his patio door. The plants on his back porch were soaking it up, just as he’d calculated they would when he’d designed his landscape. Sun in the morning, shade in the afternoon, cactus flowers that bloomed at night.

  Last night...

  He was only slightly stiff from sleeping on the couch. It wasn’t the first time he’d fallen asleep here, but it was the best reason he’d had for spending the night in his living room. He hadn’t succumbed to exhaustion after hours in the ER. Instead, he’d slept on the couch in order to give Grace Jackson his bed—but at midnight, she’d been in his kitchen, letting her fingertips graze over his skin.

  Today was going to be a good day. Dappled sun reflected off the racing bikes he kept mounted on the wall when he wasn’t riding them. The polished concrete floor of his living room shone like clean glass. All was right with the world. He had the day off work. He had a beautiful woman to get to know better. And then tonight...

  He shouldn’t get ahead of himself. It was only morning. Pancakes seemed like a good way to start a good day. Fortunately, he hadn’t drunk all the milk last night—

  A woman’s sudden cry had him rolling to his feet on full alert.

  “He can’t! He couldn’t!”

  Princess Eva Picasso stumbled into his living room, blond and bare-footed, hopping and hissing in pain every other step, eyes glued to the phone in her hand.

  Not a princess. This was no movie scene. Sophia was a real person, Grace’s sister, and she had a look of absolute horror on her face. Alex instinctively took a step toward her, ready to help.

  She looked up from her phone and seemed shocked to see him. “Where’s Grace?”

  “She slept in my room.”

  Abruptly, Sophia turned and headed down the hallway. Her first step made her yelp in pain, but she kept going around the corner. “Grace—oh, Grace. He’s such a cheating bastard.”

  Alex heard his bedroom door open and slam shut.

  He walked into the hallway and listened for a moment. He heard women’s voices, one hysterical, one soothing. His idyllic day with Grace, he realized, had depended on Sophia staying in bed and sleeping through her pneumonia. Damn it. He’d been awake maybe sixty seconds, and his plans were already shot.

  Sophia’s presence jolted him back to reality. What had seemed possible in the dark looked unlikely now. Whatever the problem was, it hadn’t been medical, but Sophia’s dramatic reaction made it medical now. She’d undoubtedly bought herself another day or two in the cast boot by running through the house without wearing it.

  Instead of whipping up pancake batter, he went into the kitchen and started putting ice in a plastic bag. Medical care was the only kind of help he had to offer. This emotional crisis was beyond his expertise.

  He’d studied emotions from a medical standpoint, of course. Research had proven that unrelenting stress had health consequences. His childhood had been full of crises, which made it all the more important for him to keep his adulthood under control. The only stressor allowed in his life was his job.

  That was enough. An emergency doctor’s routine was never routine, although the chronic frustrations that were punctuated by high-adrenaline moments of trauma were predictable, in their way.

  To balance his on-duty stress, he kept his off-duty life calm. His home was clean and uncluttered, his cycling events were planned and trained for months in advance, his diet was healthy. With a lifestyle built on that solid base, he didn’t fear being derailed by an occasional indulgence: a beer with coworkers, a late night of billiards, pancakes with white flour and sugar.

  A week with Grace Jackson.

  He should be fine with a short-term fling, but as he sealed the plastic bag of ice, it didn’t feel so simple. Which was he was afraid of—that the week wouldn’t happen, or that it would?

  Or that she could be the one indulgence that derails my life?

  Impossible.

  It’ll happen when a goat eats a wolf, his mother’s favorite phrase. He nodded to himself. A week with a woman, no matter how appealing she was, couldn’t change his calm and orderly world.

  Or could it? Yesterday, he’d spent his only break talking with her on a bench. After work, he’d gone to her hotel to sit in on a police interview. He’d brought her into his home. He was tolerating the presence of a diva with pneumonia for her sake.

  It’s been less than twenty-four hours since you laid eyes on her. What do you think a week will do to you?

  He threw the bag of ice onto the concrete floor, shattering the cubes.

  He was in control. The crushed ice would conform to the ankle, reducing inflammation more efficiently. He bent down to scoop up the plastic bag, shook it out, and placed it flat in the freezer, ready for his patient when she emerged from the bedroom.

  With her sister, of course. Grace would emerge after soothing Sophia and fetching her cast boot, at a minimum. She’d lose any trace of the early-morning sleepy look before he had a chance to savor it.

  Poor Grace.

  She didn’t need a fling with him. She needed a new career, if not a new sister. Any kind of decent man would focus not on sleeping with her, but on helping her. That was the important matter. That was why he’d offered to take her in. To help her.

  Alex pulled out an iron skillet and set it on the stove. He might as well make the pancakes. It was still his day off work. It was painfully obvious that Grace never had a day off work, but she could eat the pancakes, anyway. They’d be something comforting to balance the chaos of her life.

  It was a shame she’d never know they’d been meant for seduction.

  * * *

  Grace ate her pancakes on the back porch, alone.

  She had her reasons. For one, the backyard was a landscaping work of art, incorporating rocks and cactus and shade trees that she was certain would exceed any Californian’s eco-friendly, water-conserving, xeriscaping
standard. She needed the soothing surroundings because of reason number two: Sophia was being nice to Alex.

  This morning, Alex had been concerned about Sophia, icing her ankle and bringing her pancakes after pouring exactly as much syrup as she’d requested. Thank goodness Grace hadn’t done anything too stupid last night. He must not have been thinking sensual thoughts about her in the dark after all. It was obvious this morning that he cared for Sophia.

  Incredibly, the odds of Sophia falling for Alex were much higher today because of reason number three: Deezee had cheated on Sophia. Photos of Deezee with some girl he’d met at a bar were all over the internet this morning.

  The Deezee phase was abruptly over. Her sister was furious, and rightfully so, but Grace felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders. She was afraid she’d burst into a round of the “Hallelujah Chorus,” or at least smile, so she’d taken her plate of pancakes and headed outside. What kind of sister would she be if she was caught smiling at those incriminating photos?

  In several of them, Deezee had been talking to an unidentified woman in a club, which wouldn’t have been so damning if his hips hadn’t been pressing her up against a wall as they talked. One showed them holding hands as they waited at a valet stand. Somehow, the hand-holding one looked more intimate to Grace than the wall one. In a final blow, someone had snapped him disappearing into a hotel room with his arm around the same girl, who barely looked old enough to be legal despite her very adult dress.

  The dress was revealing and cheap, a knit with crooked seams being worn a size too small, something which Sophia had actually noticed. She’s got no class, no style, no money. She’s not even a celebrity. What was he thinking? She can’t be any help to him at all.

  Grace had refrained from hazarding a few guesses about what Deezee had been thinking. It seemed pretty obvious what kind of help Deezee expected the girl to be.

  Grace ran the pad of her thumb along the rim of her plate. As tempting as it was to throw stones at Deezee, she felt terribly exposed in her own glass house. Last night, she’d been thinking about the same thing. Deezee had been dating one woman, but touched another. Not so different from Grace, who’d chosen one man for Sophia, but wanted to touch him for herself.