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.
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