hurt her throat.
Sophia went still and looked at her, really looked at her for the first time in ages. “Aw, Gracie.” And then, also for the first time in ages, it was her sister who reached out to fix her hair, smoothing Grace’s plain brown hair over her shoulder. It had once been blond like Sophia’s but had darkened in adulthood.
A paramedic jumped into the bay with them, a man who could get work as a body double for Thor. Grace said hello; Sophia ignored him. Doors slammed shut, and the ambulance began moving.
The cell phone in her tote bag rang. Her sister practically jackknifed into a sitting position on the gurney, which immediately made her yelp in pain and freeze in place. Still, she could give an order through clenched teeth. “Answer it. Hurry.”
“It’s mine.” Grace dug in her bag and silenced the ring.
“Hand me mine. Maybe Deezee called.”
Deezee never called. Sophia was to do the work. Sophia was to come and see him, at his convenience, without any notice. If Deezee saw a photo on Twitter or Instagram of Sophia being loaded into the back of an ambulance, he’d expect Sophia to call him and tell him the latest. Didn’t she realize that?
Sophia held out her hand and made a little grabby motion. “He’ll get pissed if I don’t tell him what’s going on. He’ll want to know what hospital I’m at.”
Or maybe Sophia did realize how little effort Deezee made, and she just didn’t know that wasn’t normal. Maybe she’d forgotten how Dad had treated Mom, once upon a time.
At any rate, Grace didn’t have Sophia’s phone. She’d tossed it aside in her haste to make sure Sophia wasn’t dying. She couldn’t say that, though. The phone should have been in her tote bag, not in her hand.
“It must have fallen out of my bag in the van.”
“You lost my phone?”
The paramedic chose that moment to interrupt by wrapping the black Velcro of a blood pressure cuff around Sophia’s upper arm. “Let’s get your blood pressure.”
Grace tried to reassure her sister. “I’m pretty sure I remember seeing it lying on the seat with your lipstick, actually.”
Sophia laid back with a huff, her life so inconvenienced by a handsome paramedic who was taking care of her. She glared at Grace, looking pretty fearsome for someone who was hurt badly enough to be in the back of an ambulance at the moment.
“It’ll be okay. We know it’s in the van, and I’m sure the Texas Rescue people will find it and bring it back to the hospital.”
“They’ll look at my personal stuff. You’re the one who is always so worried about what will get out on social media. You think those Texas Rescue people aren’t going to pass around Sophia Jackson’s personal phone for kicks and giggles?”
The paramedic didn’t like that, Grace could tell from the way he clenched his jaw. Neither did she. She wouldn’t lose her temper, though. Confronting Sophia never worked.
“They can’t see what’s in your phone.” She spoke as sweetly as possible, but she knew it sounded fake. It was her sister who was the actress, after all. “You have your phone locked. Our special secret sister code is still protecting it, right?”
Sophia opened her mouth, then shut it again, and looked at her through narrowed eyes. “Of course.”
The wall between them seemed just a little higher. Just a little harder to breach. It was a wall in the shape of a man. A stupid, worthless type of man, who was systematically pushing Grace out of her sister’s life.
Grace couldn’t imagine being so blind in love. If she were to fall in love, one thing was for certain: she would never, ever love a man who didn’t also love her sister.
* * *
Alex Gregory hated Sophia Jackson.
It was a shame, because she’d been a good actress in some excellent films. He’d be blind not to think she was attractive, but it had taken less than two sentences to determine that the person behind the famous face was rude and shallow.
“Good afternoon. I’m Dr. Gregory.”
“What took you so long?”
Rude.
But no more rude than young Justin’s father. Alex had pushed his glasses farther up his nose. “That seems to be a popular question this afternoon. We’re a little busier than usual during South by Southwest. What’s brought you in today?”
“Where the hell is my phone?”
And shallow.
Nothing during the exam was changing his first impression of her. While he examined her ankle, she complained about the facility. She’d been placed in the overflow area, an older part of the emergency department where the beds were separated by curtains rather than walls. This was, according to the not-so-noble woman who’d provided the noble face of Princess Eva Picasso, utterly unacceptable.
“It’s also unavoidable,” Alex said. “By definition, overflow area implies that all the other rooms are full.”
“When my personal assistant gets back with my phone, she’ll have me moved.”
Alex raised an eyebrow on that one. Not many patients brought along a personal assistant, at least not this far from Hollywood. Still, a movie star’s personal assistant had exactly zero influence on how the emergency department of West Central Texas Hospital ran. Alex took the stethoscope from around his neck and inserted the ear pieces.
“Oh, no, you don’t. You don’t get to slip your hand inside this dress. It’s my ankle that hurts. Do you think I don’t know that you’re dying to tell everyone that you felt me up?” Her indignation dissolved into yet another coughing fit.
Sarcastic comments flashed through his mind. You’re right. The stethoscope works just fine if I stand three feet away and aim it at you. We doctors have been lying about that for centuries, but you’re the one who figured it out.
But he was here to provide medical care for a twenty-nine-year-old female patient, not to teach a lesson in sarcasm to a movie star. “I’ll be able to hear your lungs through the material. Would you like for me to call in a nurse anyway?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, but leaned forward a few inches, granting him limited access. “You can listen to my back. Then go see if my assistant has found my phone yet. Your Texas Rescue people are probably hiding it from her.”
Just provide medical care. Alex put the chest piece on her back, which felt like the back of any other human, whether male or female, attractive or ugly, famous or obscure. Provide care, then get her out of here.
He heard the crackles he’d expected to hear. He flipped the stethoscope to hang around the back of his neck again, then slid the curtains back on their metal rings. “We need to get some X-rays, but you won’t have to move to a wheelchair. An orderly will roll your gurney down to radiology. There’s a bit of a wait right now, but the nurse will be in to check on you periodically.”
“You’re planning
