Her Texas Rescue Doctor. Caro Carson

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       Chapter Two

      Grace was a coward. She darted a glance around the van, petrified of getting caught.

      Don’t be such a scaredy-cat. All eyes are on Sophia, anyway.

      Grace pulled her sister’s phone out of her bag. What she was about to do was for Sophia’s own good. When the lock screen lit up, she tapped in the four-digit access code.

      It was rejected.

      The code was supposed to be the year Grace had been born. Although it surprised the few people who learned of it, Grace was actually the baby sister, only twenty-five to Sophia’s twenty-nine. Her big sister loved her. Her big sister used baby Grace’s birth year as her code. Only it didn’t work now.

      How old was Deezee? Grace typed in his birth year. It worked.

      The stab to her heart was starting to feel too familiar. With jaw clenched, Grace began deleting photos, horrible shots of her sister’s bare breasts covered by Deezee’s hands, shots that would never, ever end up on Instagram, not when she could prevent it.

      Delete, delete, delete.

      The van doors opened with a sudden rush of air. Grace dropped her sister’s phone like a hot potato.

      A woman about her own age poked her head in. “Hi. You’re with Sophia Jackson, right?”

      “Yes.” She blinked in what she hoped was an innocent way.

      “There’s been an accident.”

      For one horrible moment, the world stopped.

      An accident. Careers and reputations and idiot boyfriends evaporated before the image of a hurt Sophia.

      “Oh, my God.” The words were a whisper, but inside her head she was screaming. My sister, my sister! Their parents had been killed in a car accident. A stranger, a woman like this one, had come just this kindly to tell them there had been an accident. Grace had been fifteen. Sophia had been nineteen.

      “It’s nothing life threatening, I promise. We have so many Texas Rescue doctors and paramedics and firefighters here, she’s being well taken care of, but they do think she should go to the hospital to have things checked out.”

      The only reason Grace had survived the loss of her parents was because Sophia had been by her side, taking on the role of parent, loving her with all she had. But now Sophia had been in an accident, hurt badly enough that she needed to go to the emergency room. My sister, my sister!

      “Would you like to ride in the ambulance with her?”

      Grace clutched her tote bag as she scrambled out of the van. The fans behind the barricade were silent, wide-eyed. The yellow ribbon had been cut. Its ends flapped in the light breeze as the ceremonial scissors leaned against the building, standing on their points, forgotten. All the men and women in suits and uniforms were now by the open doors to an ambulance. The kind woman escorted Grace right through the little cluster. A paramedic offered her a hand up, and there Sophia lay, looking miserable on a gurney. Miserable, but very much alive.

      Grace threw herself onto her big sister for a hug. “Are you okay?”

      Sophia put her hand on her shoulder—and gave her a shove. “Don’t bump my leg. I’m going to sue somebody if this makes me miss Deezee’s party. Give me my phone. I need to call him. He’s going to freak when he sees this on Instagram.”

      Deezee was going to be worried? What about me?

      While Sophia lapsed into another coughing fit, Grace sat on the metal bench that ran the length of the ambulance’s interior. She slid her tote bag closer, slowly, buying herself time to get her emotions under control. For all of her life, she’d been the one whom Sophia had worried about. After their parents had died, they’d been afraid to be apart, afraid of the future—afraid they’d lose each other in a split second, the way they’d lost their parents. Sophia had let Grace crawl into her СКАЧАТЬ