Ugly Ducklings Finish First (15 page)

“I’ve never been a fan of Chandler Thorne’s, and I sure as hell don’t want him to stir up trouble by trying to make a story out of yesterday’s news.”

“Has Sheriff Berry come up with any leads on who’s been harassing you?”

“The last time I saw the good sheriff, he was busy tracking down the last piece of strawberry pie over at Mabel’s. He did tell me that he’s ordered hourly patrols by the house, but since he’s obviously not worrying himself to death over it, I’m going to follow his lead and hope for the best.”

A surge of pride washed over her. “Excellent idea. If someone tries to wield terror as a weapon, the single greatest thing you can do is make a stand and live your life as normal.”

“I wouldn’t call keying my car
wielding terror
, but I get the picture.” His happy smile told her that her words pleased him, and without warning he executed a dizzying spin. “You’re not really going to save a dance for Chandler, are you?”

“I might.” She laughed when he spun again, the twinkling white lights around them whirling like lights on a carousel. “Maybe. If I’m not doing anything else.”

“Then I’ll have to keep you occupied.” With a wicked grin he twirled her around once more.

As the night wore on, Payton relaxed with people she had hardly known ten years ago but now felt like old friends. She met up with Wiley’s best friend Donovan and got so dizzy with his enthusiastic style of dancing she almost fell down. She glimpsed Jilly, who waved as she danced with Wiley. Her old crush Alex Xavier dropped by with his wife Trina and three sons in tow. As they wandered off, Wiley was kind enough to whisper in their ear that she’d better not still be crushing on Alex, as he really was as happily married as he seemed. Payton refused to rise to the bait and ordered him to dance with Leslie Ann, while she joined her mother under the gnarled limbs of a live oak heavily veiled in Spanish moss.

“I think this party’s reaching full capacity,” she announced to her mother, plopping down on the blanket Deborah had spread on the grass. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole town was packed onto this street. I expect to see Sheriff Berry rolling up at any minute.”

“If he does, it’ll be to see if there are any smoked turkey legs or double-fudge brownies left.” With a smile, Deborah accepted the sweating glass of ice-cold pink lemonade her daughter had brought to her. “This is just a little get-together by Texas standards.”

“Some get-together.” Payton sipped from her own glass and sighed appreciatively. “I forgot what thirsty work dancing can be.”

“You and Wiley looked good together. In sync.”

“He’s a good dancer.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Deborah paused for a moment, only to smile when her daughter remained silent. “I know you’re staying at his place, Payton.”

“It’s not what you think,” Payton burst out, then caught herself. Good grief. Talk about reflex actions. “Damn it. Actually, it’s exactly what you think. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you know.”

“I think everyone knows.” At Payton’s groan, Deborah patted her shoulder. “Honey, it’s a small town. I’m surprised you thought you could keep it a secret.”

“I didn’t think about that. I didn’t think about anything,” she muttered into her glass. “That’s probably where the problem began—when I stopped thinking and started feeling.”

“What problem do you mean?”

“Wiley.” The corners of her mouth drooped as she looked to her mother. “I never knew emotions could make a person feel so...tangled.”

“That tangle is the greatest thing this life has to offer. Stop trying to undo it. It’ll make life so much easier.”

Payton still hadn’t come up with an adequate reply when a loud clearing of a throat brought their gazes around. With elaborate casualness, Prentice Field glanced their way only to jolt back as though surprised to see them.

“Well, my goodness, if it isn’t Deborah Pruitt and her lovely daughter, Payton.” Ten-gallon cowboy hat in place, a turquoise bolo tie at his pudgy neck, and red silk fringe on the pockets of his loud chambray shirt, Prentice looked like Hollywood’s idea of a bad joke.

“Good evening, Mr. Fields. Nice night for a party, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Indeed I would. Such fun, these little block parties. It’s so nice to see everyone coming out to celebrate the newest resident of Bitterthorn. You were quite the heroine there, Dr. Pruitt,” he added, tipping Payton a wink.

“Not at all, Mr. Fields. I just did what everyone does in a small town like this—I pitched in when help was needed.”

“Yes, there doesn’t seem to be a lack of helping hands in this town, does there?” Lips pursed, he looked out at the crowds again. “Despite living in Houston for several years, you seem to be settling back into Bitterthorn’s embrace quite well. I’m sure it’s been wonderful, reconnecting with family and friends.”

Payton glanced at her mother. “It’s been better than I imagined.”

“Renewing ties can be a rewarding experience for all concerned, and you never know when those renewed ties will pay off for you.” He nodded sagely before touching his absurd hat in a salute Gene Autry would have proud of. “I’ll leave you to enjoy the party, ladies.”

“Now I can breathe.” Deborah plastered a hand to her chest as Fields disappeared. “I was scared to death that man was going to ask me to dance.”

Payton was still laughing when Wiley and Leslie Ann, breathless from exertion, found their place under the tree.

“That’s it for me,” Leslie Ann declared, clutching at a stitch in her side. “I’m rounding up my brood and heading home. Has anyone seen my husband?”

“He was lecturing some kids on the dangers of firecrackers.” Deborah waved a general hand toward the Rodriguez house. “Should we keep an eye out for the twins?”

“I’d appreciate it.” Leslie Ann zipped off with a cheerful wave.

“We should be going as well.” Clearly uncomfortable while in the company of Payton’s mother, Wiley cleared his throat. “Can we give you a lift, Deborah?”

“Thanks, Wiley, but I drove here.” Smiling, Deborah kissed Payton one more time. “You two drive carefully. Honey, what time should I expect you?”

“Noon.” Payton accepted Wiley’s assistance to her feet. “See you tomorrow, Mom.”

“Things seem to be going well between you and Deborah,” Wiley commented after saying their goodbyes to the Rodriguez family. “Have you two put the past to rest?”

“I think so. We’ve both changed over the years, for the better.” Payton wound her arm around his waist and lifted her mouth even as his descended, and she ached to tell him that he brought color into her world. That it was a joy to be with him. That she loved him with everything she had. But she couldn’t. All she could do was show him through her touch, and pray that some part of him would understand.

His breathing was satisfyingly rough when they broke apart. “I want you, Payton.”

“You have me.”

“All night.” He kissed her again, stoking the fire. “I want to touch every part of you with every part of me. I want to taste every inch of you until you beg me to stop, knowing you’ll die if I do. I want to put my hands on your breasts, then my lips, then my tongue, and I won’t stop until I feel your body clenching with a need only I can fill. Then I will fill you, and it’ll be a sweet torture you’ll want to last forever until the pleasure explodes inside you. What do you want?”

“You.” She could barely get the word out, the hunger was so great. “Only you.”

Chapter Fifteen

Rain threatened for the first time since Payton had been back in South Texas. She entered The Dirty Duck and sighed in voluptuous relief as cool air closed around her before she headed for her mother in a nearby booth, plucking at the white cotton blouse glued to her back as she went.

“It is beyond awful out there,” she announced by way of greeting, sinking into the seat opposite Deborah. “I haven’t felt this sticky since I left Houston.”

“That’s what you get for living so close to the Gulf.” Deborah smiled as she handed her daughter a menu. “Are you looking forward to going back?”

Payton paused in the act of reaching for her water. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“How would you put it?”

“I’m not overly anxious to go back.” In point of fact, she hadn’t thought about the life she’d left behind in Houston at all. Not surprising, considering how busy she’d been the moment she’d come back home.

Home. Odd, how that word fit Bitterthorn far more than it did Houston.

“Payton?”

She glanced at her mother and picked up the thread. “It’s not that I don’t want to go back. It’s just that I don’t have deep roots in Houston like I do here. And while I do have a job waiting for me, I just signed my job contract so it’s not like I’m emotionally attached to it. And this trip home has been...pleasant.”

“Pleasant.” Deborah lowered her menu with a sigh. “I think it’s my fault.”

“What?”

“The fact that you have so much trouble expressing your emotions.”

Payton retreated behind the menu. “I express. I practically effuse.”

“Okay, feel free to effuse now. Tell me you’re happy about going back to Houston.”

“It’s where I work. It’s a big city. I’m successful there. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“No, that’s all
I’ve
ever wanted for you. The only thing I want now is for you to be happy. Living in a big city doesn’t equal success or happiness, despite everything I said while you were growing up.”

“I know that. Or at least, I know that now,” Payton added with a rueful smile. “To be honest I have given this some thought, and I was wondering...what would you think if I moved back to Bitterthorn to practice medicine?”

Deborah’s pale brows inched upward. “I think if that’s what you want to do, you should do it.”

“You’re not disappointed?”

“I could never be disappointed if you’re going after what you want.” She paused long enough to give their orders. When they were alone once more, she searched her daughter’s face intently. “Wiley has a lot to do with this, doesn’t he?”

Payton seesawed her hand. “Yes and no. I’ll admit I probably wouldn’t have considered moving back here if it weren’t for him, but there are other things to consider.”

“Such as?”

“Bitterthorn doesn’t have a doctor, and it needs one. I have family here, I know many of the townspeople, it’s a close-knit community.” When she saw she wasn’t fooling anyone, she rolled her eyes. “And yeah. Wiley’s here.”

“Then it sounds like your decision is made.” Deborah beamed, stirring a packet of artificial sweetener into her tea. “I couldn’t be more pleased. This is the happiest I’ve seen you, and I want that happiness to last.”

“There’s no guarantee it will.”

“Guarantees are for refrigerators and wimps,” came the offhand response. “That’s what makes life so exciting—you never know what the future will bring.”

“My future right now is tied to a partnership I no longer want,” Payton said, and the smile she shot her mother was more of a grimace. “It’s so weird how ambitions can change. When I was accepted as a partner, I felt like I had finally achieved the one thing I’d worked for all those years. But now it’s the least important thing in my life.”

“What is important?”

“Wiley.” It came through so perfectly Payton couldn’t stop herself from admitting it out loud. “I’m crazy in love with him.”

“Now, that’s being effusive.” With a laugh, Deborah reached for her daughter’s hand. “This is wonderful, honey. How does Wiley feel?”

Her smile went into eclipse. “Um, we’ve never actually talked about it.”

“Good grief, why not?”

“Because we don’t make sense, and I know it. I’m as serious as a heart attack when it comes to relationships, and Wiley is...Wiley.” And that, sadly, explained it all. “I watched you and Dad rip each other apart because, when it came to love, the two of you were basically incompatible. No matter how incompatible we are, I won’t have that same kind of relationship with Wiley. I
won’t
.”

“Payton, I know you were scarred by your childhood—”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“
Yes
, you were,” Deborah stressed, squeezing Payton’s fingers until she quieted. “That’s part of the problem now. But I promise, you and Wiley aren’t as incompatible as you think. And what differences you do have just add spice to life. If you were exactly alike, think how bored you would be with him.”

She couldn’t stop a scoff if her life depended on it. “Being bored with Wiley is the one thing I’ll never have to worry about.”

“You won’t have to worry about anything else, I’m sure of it. Tell him how you feel, honey. You might be surprised how it clears the air.”

“I like the air the way it is.”

“Murky?”

“I could get used to murky,” Payton muttered, then glanced at the screen of her cell phone on the table when it let out its summoning buzz. “Leslie Ann? How did she get my number?”

“At this point I think everyone in Bitterthorn has it in case of emergency.” Deborah snorted, then sucked in a quick breath. “What if it’s one of the children at the day care?”

Payton was already snatching up the phone. “Leslie Ann?”

“Payton, I’m sorry to bother you, but there’s been an accident.”

She was out of the booth without conscious thought. “I have my bag in the car—”

“No, it happened on the outskirts of San Antonio. Payton...sweetie, it’s Wiley.”

* * *

Donovan and Leslie Ann were pacing the white-tiled fluorescent-lit halls outside the emergency room when Payton surged through the automatic doors.

“He’s regained consciousness,” Donovan said without preamble. “When I asked to see him, they told me he was talking with the doctors and someone from the sheriff’s department. That’s a good sign, Payton.”

There was a ringing in her ears. The taste of copper was thick in her mouth and she thought she might fall down, she was shaking so fiercely. “Who’s the attending physician?”

“I have no idea. Payton, they won’t let you see him,” Donovan called after her as she turned and stalked down the hall. She ignored him, ignored everything but the clamoring desperation to see Wiley.

“Miss?” A petite African-American woman in scrubs looked through the receptionist-style window next to the double-wide emergency room doors, a sheaf of papers in her hand. “Miss, may I help—hey!”

Payton heard nothing as she punched the hand-sized button by the pneumatic doors. When they swept open with a whispered hiss she surged through them only to be blocked by the scrub-garbed woman, who had hastily shrugged into a long white lab coat.

“You can’t come in here,” she announced, looking for the world like she was ready to throw Payton out herself. “If you don’t leave now, I’ll have to call security.”

“I’m a doctor,” Payton said without faltering in her progress, a frown between her brows as she looked to the rows of curtained cubicles and empty gurneys. Two brown-uniformed deputies hung out near the end of the cubicles, talking in lowered tones. “I have to see an MVA patient who came through here. Wiley Sharpe.”

The woman grabbed for a clipboard. “Name?”

“Dr. Payton Pruitt.”

“Are you his regular physician?”

Payton considered lying before deciding that could only lead to trouble. “No, he’s a close friend.”

With a lifted brow, the woman set the clipboard aside. “I’m sorry, Doctor, but I can’t let you see him. He’s in quite a bit of pain.” She turned a little and said in a voice loud enough for the entire ER to hear, “He shouldn’t be talking to
anyone
right now.”

“Pain?” Payton pounced on the word as her heart vaulted into her throat. “What are his injuries?”

“His left leg and foot are our biggest concern right now. There are three breaks, two in the tibia and one, the worst, in the medial malleolus, where leg and foot connect.”

Payton told herself not to panic. “Do you have any film on him?”

“It just came down.” The woman led her to the wall-mounted X-ray viewing box near the nurse’s station and flipped the switch. “As you can see, there was some damage to the posterior tibial artery as well.”

“What’s his BP?”

“It barely dipped more than a point or two. We got control of that first thing.”

Payton scanned the milky images, saw the obvious breaks and like an idiot thought of his love of basketball. “You’re going to have to call an orthopedic specialist in on this.”

“That’s what we’re waiting on now.”

“Damn.” Feeling ill, Payton pointed to the worst break near the heel. “I’ll bet you even odds he’s going to need surgery to put that back on track. And knowing Wiley, he’s not going to be a good sport about it.”

“Thanks for the warning.” The woman touched Payton’s arm, and there was an understanding smile in her eyes when Payton turned to her. “I’m Dr. Avery, by the way. Diane, to my friends.”

“Payton. It’s nice to meet you.” Her distracted gaze fell on the skull X-rays. “I was told he was unconscious when he came in.”

“Concussion. CT and X-rays both came out negative. We’ll keep an eye on him for the next couple of days just to be sure.” Dr. Avery shot a narrow-eyed look past Payton’s shoulder. “Are you done interrogating my patient yet, Deputy?”

A barrel-chested man in the uniform of a Bexar County sheriff’s deputy joined them. “We’ve just finished. And for the record, Mr. Sharpe wanted to speak with us, not the other way around, Doctor.”

Payton stepped forward. “Did he seem coherent?”

“And you are?”

“Dr. Payton Pruitt.”

He looked to Diane, who nodded. “He seemed very clear for a man who just had his car barrel-rolled into a ditch.”

Payton took a moment to make she sure could speak without being spectacularly sick. “Were there any other cars involved? I don’t see any other vics,” she added, taking a belated look around the room. A feverish child and a worried mother were the only other people occupying a cubicle.

“The victim’s vehicle was reportedly hit by another, but it fled the scene. We’ve just put a description out on it.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Obviously not impressed, Dr. Avery glanced at her watch and sighed. “I’m going to check on ortho’s progress. That should give you a few minutes with your friend, Payton, but let’s not tire him out.”

“Of course. And thank you.” Payton headed toward the end of the room, struggling for a semblance of professional detachment. But for all her efforts, she almost cried out when she edged around the sterile blue curtain and saw Wiley. His eyes were closed, his face ashen under dirt and blood. There were cuts along his left cheek and jaw where flying glass had caught him, and the lines of stress and pain that furrowed his damp brow spoke volumes of the agony he was enduring.

Never had she seen him so still. It was as if the intense vitality she’d always thought of as being uniquely Wiley had been sucked out, leaving nothing but an empty shell. She could have lost him. That, more than anything, brought home a simple, solid fact.

She could not live without this man.

* * *

As silent as a whisper, a nurse breezed into Wiley’s cubicle to check his vitals and change out his IV bag. He stirred but didn’t open his eyes. “I was wondering if I had been forgotten back here. I was beginning to get lonely.”

“Silly man. Who could ever forget about you?”

For a full second he was convinced he’d gotten his bell so outstandingly rung he was now hallucinating. Then he pried his eyes open, willing them to focus when they felt as wobbly as unset gelatin. There Payton stood, her hands folded in front of her, oblivious that her face was as white as chalk and her eyes somehow managed to scream in the silence. She looked—
bruised
was the only word that came to mind. Like she’d been battered and abandoned and didn’t know where to turn. If he wasn’t strapped to an insane number of tubes and had two working legs, he would have wasted no time in wrapping his arms around her and promising that he would be her safe harbor.

But he couldn’t move, and it was driving him crazy.

When the nurse was gone, she inched forward. “You can’t be that hurt, if you’re still able to flirt with the nurses.”

Ignoring the tubes going in and out of him, he raised his hand. “Come here, sweetheart.”

Obligingly she skirted around the narrow gurney to his uninjured side, but instead of taking his hand she busied herself with checking his shunts. “I’ve taken a look at your X-rays, and considering what you’ve been through, you got off lucky. I should warn you there’s a good chance your foot is going to need surgery, but ortho can—”

“Payton.” He reached up to capture her wrist, and his depth perception was so screwy he almost missed it. “I already have a doctor. What I need now is you.”

Payton froze, not breathing, not blinking. Then the tears spilled over in the thick silence. With a rough sound Wiley pulled her down to him, molding her face into the curve of his neck. The wetness of her tears scalded him, and she was shuddering as if she had major quakes going off inside her. His chest clenched at her anguish, and he held her with what strength he had when he realized he’d come damned close to never seeing her again.

“It’s all right.” A little dizzily he kissed her temple, frantic to reassure himself that he hadn’t somehow been taken away from her. “Sweetheart, don’t cry, please. I promise you, I’m all right.”

“All I knew was that you were in an accident. You could have been killed.” She hiccupped a little before she raised her head, scrubbing at the wet undersides of her eyes. “Don’t mind me, okay? I’m just relieved. That’s all. I’m relieved you’re going to be all right.”