Caro Carson - Her Texas Rescue Doctor

“The spousal consent forms? If you’ll just follow me, Mr. Burns.”

After another swish of curtain rings, the violent Mr. Burns was gone with the nurse.

“We’ll take care of you,” Dr. Gregory said to the woman. “It might have sounded like I was rushing you out of here, but you can stay as long as you need to.”

Grace held her breath, willing the woman to tell the doctor the truth while her attacker was gone. She heard only silence.

“I’ll be back shortly.” The doctor was leaving.

Grace needed to be brave. She should do something. Say something.

But she didn’t. She was no superhero. Maybe she could write a note and pass it to a nurse or something...

Behind her, Sophia called out. “Dr. Gregory.”

There was an audible sigh in the aisle. Then it was their curtain that was being pushed aside, and a man far younger than Grace had expected stepped into their little space. He was around thirty, bespectacled and bearded. Not the trendy kind of full beard that men in Hollywood were wearing this year, but the dark shadow of a man who’d perhaps worked a twenty-four-hour shift.

“Yes, Miss Jackson?” He sounded as tired as he looked.

Sophia began complaining. The doctor listened to her sister’s demands without a flicker of emotion on his face, without so much as a blink of his eyes behind his brown plastic eyeglass frames. His white overcoat looked too big on him. He didn’t look like a man, frankly, who could handle the vicious Mr. Burns, but—

But, actually, he did.

There was something very Clark Kent about him. Tall, dark and handsome could have described him if he were in Superman mode, but as Clark Kent, he was too unassuming to be eye-catching, not the way he stood with his hands stuffed in the square pockets of his lab coat. Still, although he might not have bothered to shave, his jawline was defined, and the blue of his eyes was only dimmed a little bit by the glare of the fluorescent lighting on his eyeglasses.

It was the look in those blue eyes that gave Grace hope. He saw right through her sister. He wasn’t flustered by her beauty and he didn’t look awed to have a movie star in his presence. In fact, he was looking at her with quiet disapproval. If he could see through the celebrity aura that surrounded Sophia Jackson, maybe he could see through Mr. Burns. Grace just needed to be brave enough to tell him what she’d heard.

“So, um, you’re her doctor?” she began, forcing herself to smile when it was the last thing on earth she wanted to do at the moment.

He turned that blue gaze directly on her. A small eternity of silence followed.

“Of course he is,” Sophia said, exasperated. “I told him you’d fix everything when you got here. I need a private room. These curtains are so ghetto.”

He didn’t take his eyes off Grace, but he raised one dark brow behind the brown frames. “You’re the personal assistant?”

Clearly, he wasn’t impressed with her. She felt badly about that, another little dagger of hurt to push through. “Dr. Gregory, could I speak to you somewhere else? Somewhere private?”

“No.”

Grace blinked. “I really need to speak to you alone.”

“There are no other rooms available, and there is nothing you can say that will make radiology move more quickly. As soon as her X-rays are complete, you’ll be discharged with treatment instructions, and you can seek out all the privacy you desire somewhere else.”

He left.

Sophia’s outrage drowned out Grace’s disappointment. She yelled “Doctor” once more, but the doctor wasn’t coming back.

Grace sank back into her chair, a failure.

“What do you think you’re doing, Grace? Go after him.” Sophia was loud for someone who prized her privacy. She gestured toward the ice packs on her leg. “I can’t get up and walk out of here. You have to.”

“He already said no.”

“This whole trip was your idea. Go fix it. What’s a personal assistant for, right?”

Chapter Four

Alex headed straight for the staff’s kitchenette. There were patients to be seen, lab results to read, decisions to be made, but he was only one man. He needed a break—and coffee. Just three minutes, that was all he’d give himself. Three minutes for a little caffeine and a chance to regain his emotional equilibrium after dealing with Mr. Burns, the scum who’d beaten his wife.

Gut churning, Alex walked past the coffee to the cramped locker room that was attached to the kitchen. The room barely had enough space for a few metal lockers and a single cot, but the door had a small sign which euphemistically declared it to be the physician’s lounge. He pushed a gym bag out of the way with his foot on his way to the sink. The water ran hot almost instantly.

The patient had not fallen down a flight of stairs, that much was obvious from her bruising. Alex had needed to pretend he believed her story, though. Abusers wouldn’t stick around after an accusation, and they often convinced their victims to leave before they could be treated. Alex had started the hospital’s official process, and he hoped the victim was ready to take advantage of the assistance the hospital could provide.

The system worked. He’d seen it work. But to use an American phrase, that first step was a doozy. The first step required Alex to smile and be cordial and shake hands with a man he was certain had beaten his own wife.

Alex scrubbed his hands in the sink. He was no actor, but he deserved an Academy Award for keeping up that facade of friendliness. To test his patience further, a real actor, Sophia Jackson, had decided to waste his time by chewing him out for problems that weren’t even problems.

Alex scrubbed harder. Hot water, soap and vigorous friction could kill almost anything.

The woman on one side of the curtain had been a victim of a crime. Sophia Jackson, on the other side of the curtain, had been a victim of nothing more than her own stupidity and stubbornness. According to the Texas Rescue volunteers who’d brought her in, she’d decided to cut short a tour of the rebuilt clinic by storming off the path, stomping over the orange netting that marked off the rubble left behind by last year’s floods. They’d called after her and warned her to stop, but the paramedic said she’d ignored everyone.

Alex could believe it. It seemed the movie star was nothing more than a miserable person who made everyone around her miserable, too. Her personal assistant looked to be the most unhappy person of them all.

He stopped scrubbing and let the tap water flow over his hands. The personal assistant hadn’t been what he’d expected. Instead of a hard and edgy shark, she looked like an angel. The expression on her heart-shaped face was open and hopeful. Everything about her had seemed inviting. Her hair looked soft and touchable, a shade of gold so dark, it was nearly bronze. The overhead lighting had reflected off that gold, and Alex had been momentarily dazzled by her halo before he’d realized who she was. Only then had he noticed the subtle, anxious way she was twisting her fingers together.

Apparently, even an angel could be stressed out. It would take the patience of a saint to work for Sophia Jackson.

He used a paper towel to shut off the faucet. If the angelic woman was stressed out by the demands of Sophia Jackson, he couldn’t help her. Since she was with the movie star, he could only assume that she enjoyed her job. Fame was alluring to most people, perhaps even more so to personal assistants. After all, they made a living by helping someone famous keep their famous life running smoothly. Princess Picasso’s assistant was no exception.

He grabbed a coffee mug, feeling annoyed with himself for being annoyed at all. It shouldn’t matter to him one bit that an angelic-looking woman who happened to pass through his ER was letting a movie star run her ragged. It was no business of his whether or not she thrived by facilitating someone’s fame. Coffee was all he wanted.