“Can you hear me, ma’am?”
She opened her eyes and saw that the firefighter’s eyebrows were furrowed with concern.
“Can you tell me if you’re pregnant?”
Dianna blinked at him, belatedly realizing that she’d instinctively moved her hands to her abdomen.
Reality returned as she realized that the hero who had come to her rescue wasn’t Sam. Her failed pregnancy was nothing but a distant memory she usually kept locked away, deep in the recesses of her heart.
Feeling the wet sting of tears in her eyes, she whispered, “No, I’m not pregnant,” and then everything faded to black.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor said softly. “Your brother didn’t make it.”
Dark eyes blinked in disbelief. This wasn’t happening. His twin couldn’t be dead. Not when they were together just that afternoon. Sharing a couple of beers in companionable silence until Jacob brought the meth lab up again, saying that they had enough money already, that they should shut the business down before they got caught and ended up in jail. Only hours ago, he’d told Jacob to go to hell, said he was the brains of the business and knew what was best for the both of them.
According to the paramedics, Jacob had been driving down Highway 70 when his tires slipped on some black ice. He’d crashed head-on into another vehicle and the paramedics had rushed Jacob to Vail General Hospital.
For two hours, Jacob had been fighting for his life.
He wasn’t fighting anymore.
The man’s body rejected the news, head to toe, inside and out. Bile rose in his throat and he made it across the blue and green linoleum tiles in time to hurl into a garbage can.
More than just fraternal twins, he and Jacob had been extensions of each other. Losing his brother was like being cleaved in two straight down the middle, through his bones and guts and organs.
He needed air, needed to get out of the ICU waiting room, away from all of the other people who still had hope that their loved ones would recover from heart attacks and blood clots. He pushed open the door to the patio, just in time to see a loud group of reporters harassing anyone wearing scrubs.
“Do you have an update on Dianna Kelley?” one of the reporters asked a passing nurse in a breathless voice.
Another rushed up to a doctor, lights flashing, camera ready. “We’ve been told that Dianna Kelley was in a head-on collision on Highway 70. Could you confirm that for us, Doctor?”
Dianna Kelley?
Was she the other driver? Was she the person whose worthless driving had ended Jacob’s life?
He’d only seen her cable TV show a handful of times over the years, but her face was on the cover of enough newspapers and magazines for him to know what she looked like.
Blond. Pampered. Rich. Without a care in the world.
“Please,” another reporter begged the doctor, “if you could just tell us how she is, if she’s been badly hurt, or if she’s going to be all right?”
None of the reporters had even acknowledged that there was another person involved in the crash. All they cared about was Dianna, Dianna, Dianna.
Knowing that no one gave a shit about Jacob was a big enough blow to send him completely over the edge.
“Would you like to come back and say good-bye?”
The doctor who had delivered the bad news was still waiting for him just inside the door. Her voice was kind and yet he knew his brother was just one more stranger who’d died on her shift.
Before he could respond, a tall blond girl ran past him and into the waiting room. For a minute he couldn’t believe his eyes.
If Dianna Kelley had been in the crash with his brother, how was she running by him now?
It took him a few moments to realize that this girl in her dirt-streaked jeans and oversized raincoat was barely out of her teens. Although she bore a striking resemblance to the famous face he’d seen dozens of times, there was no way she could be the “important” woman the reporters were climbing over themselves to get a scoop on.
“I’m Dianna Kelley’s sister,” the girl said to the doctor in a breathless voice, her cheeks streaked with tears. “I saw on TV that Dianna was in a crash.” She grabbed the doctor’s arm. “I need to see her!”
The doctor looked between the two of them, and even in his fog of pain, he could see that she was torn between the guy with the dead brother and the girl with the hurt sister. But they both knew the famous sister would win.