Ugly Ducklings Finish First

by Gail, Stacy

  Ouch. “Wiley, all I’m saying is—”

  “You’ve already said it. Enjoy the rest of your stay in San Antonio.”

  Numb, Payton watched him retrieve the briefcase that had fallen, unnoticed, at his feet before he stalked out of the alley. It was better this way, she told herself fiercely. Better to protect her peace of mind against Wiley’s notorious charms. Better to avoid the raging flame they could spark before someone got burned. Better not to feel that dangerous lick of passion that unraveled the sanity stitching her world together.

  She took in a breath and tried to ignore its audible tremor. She’d thought she understood passion; college had given her more than a medical education, after all. But the passion she’d experienced with the lovers she’d taken had never made her forget how to breathe. Nor had she burned up from the inside out until her skin felt scorched and the cleft between her thighs throbbed with a need bordering on agonizing. And no lover, ever, had emptied her brain of what she’d thought was important, with everything that was him.

  His taste.

  His scent.

  His touch.

  His throbbing, rock-hard...

  With a sound of distress, Payton headed out of the alley.

  Chapter Six

  Spring had a firm grip on South Texas. In every field and all along the roadside, wildflowers bloomed in the sultry heat. Wiley was blind to the profusion of nature’s color as he zipped along the two-lane highway leading into Bitterthorn. Since he had left Payton a handful of hours ago, he hadn’t been aware of anything except the smoldering anger setting up residence in his gut.

  An anger, he realized, that was aimed partly at himself.

  How the hell was he supposed to have known his past would affect a far-distant future? When he’d been a horny kid looking for a warm body to scratch his itch, he hadn’t thought of consequences beyond the usual ones of safe sex. It never once occurred to him the reputation that had made him so appealing to so many of the girls he’d dated would actually become a handicap. How could he have known? And seriously, how the hell was that fair?

  Payton was being unreasonable, he decided, slowing for a hairpin curve, the ‘Vette’s engine growling in protest as he downshifted. He was a different man now, but apparently she couldn’t see that. All she could see was what he once was—the horny, shallow idiot he’d once been so proud of being. The relentless skirt chaser no self-respecting good girl would come near. The Coyote.

  Crap.

  The thriving square at the heart of Bitterthorn came into view, and as he braked at a stop sign he reached for his cell phone and hit a number on his automatic dial list. When the familiar, sunny voice of his best friend’s wife came through, he couldn’t help but smile.

  “Hey, Leslie Ann,” he said, taking a left as he decided on impulse to head home instead of back to the office. There was no point in working when he couldn’t pull a coherent thought together without Payton traipsing through his brain. “Is Donovan around?”

  “That meanie?” Leslie Ann Cross’s tone was bright and bubbly. “Why would you want to talk to him?”

  “Let me guess. He’s barricaded himself in his man cave to work?”

  “And left me to deal with the horrible offspring all by my lonesome,” came the cheerful response. “Maybe if I let them tear the house apart with their bare hands, he wouldn’t be so quick to hole up. Do you want me to go and bug him for you?”

  “No.” Wiley sighed, and even to his ears it sounded maudlin. “Not really.”

  There was a beat of silence. “What’s up, Wiley?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It sounds like something to me.”

  Wiley sighed again. This could get embarrassing in a hurry. “It’s no big deal, Les. I just wanted to see if Donovan was available, but if he’s working—”

  “He’ll be available in just a minute,” she promised, and he winced when he heard a quick knock on a hard surface—Donovan’s office door, no doubt. “My hubby told me you had your ten-year reunion last night. How’d that go?”

  “It was fine. Leslie Ann, don’t bug him—”

  “Just fine?”

  “More than fine. It was...” He groped around for the right words, only to find there wasn’t one big enough to describe its impact. “It was more than I expected.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  Once again Payton popped into his head before he could slam the door on her. He probably wouldn’t be able to get that pain-in-the-ass woman out of his mind even if he were in a coma. “Leslie Ann, has your husband ever mentioned I used to have a certain...reputation?”

  He heard a faint murmur in the background, and he had a sinking feeling he’d been put on speaker. “Reputation?”

  “Um...with the ladies.”

  “The Coyote, you mean.”

  “So you have heard about it.”

  “Heard about it? I heard you were doing your best to break the world’s record when it came to getting into the pants of every female you came across.”

  Wiley swore. “Donovan’s a dead man.”

  “Dude, it’s not exactly a secret.” Wiley’s fear was confirmed when his best friend’s voice came through loud and clear, and he could just picture Donovan in his office, seated at his drafting table with his wife by his side. “You’re a local legend.”

  “Jeez.” He scowled as he slowed for a trio of kids on their bicycles. “Well, since that cat’s out of the bag, I guess I might as well go all in. Les, I have a question for you.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “If you were a woman—”

  “Gee, thanks, pal.”

  “An available woman,” he corrected while Donovan laughed in the background. Damn. Considering the roll he was on lately, it was amazing he had ever been able to make it to first base with anyone. “If you were single and you knew my reputation, would you still be interested in getting to know me?”

  “Um.” Sounding like she was on the verge of laughing herself, Leslie Ann cleared her throat. “Well, I guess that all depends. What kind of woman am I?”

  “Grounded. Smart.” He reconsidered. “Really, really smart.”

  “Did I know you when you were at the height of your, ah, Coyote-ness?”

  “Yes.” Unfortunately.

  “Oh. Yikes.”

  His heart sank. Talk about damning.

  “Well, to be honest it’d make me hesitate, Wiley. But there is an upside to this.”

  It was pathetic, the hope that flared in his chest. “Yeah?”

  “If she’s as smart as you say she is, she’ll be smart enough to weigh the man you are now against the boy she used to know.”

  “You think that would be enough?”

  “Wiley, the man you are now is more than enough for anybody, trust me.”

  “I can’t take it anymore,” Donovan said while Wiley digested this. “Are you going to tell me who this mystery woman is, or do I have to guess?”

  Wiley rolled his eyes. “Payton Pruitt.”

  “Who?”

  “For crying out loud.” It was crazy, how angry and offended Wiley was on Payton’s behalf. She had been born and raised not three miles from the Cross house, yet she had been so shunned by the community she may as well have been invisible. “Deborah Pruitt’s daughter, my tutor during my junior and senior years. Does this ring any bells?”

  “I was a few years ahead of you, so I never had a chance to meet her.” Donovan’s tone was baffled. “I do remember you used to call her Baby Brain.”

  “She’s a doctor now,” Wiley said, cringing at the name that plagued her all the way into adulthood. No wonder she hated his guts. “And the last thing I’d call her is a baby.”

  “A doctor?” Leslie Ann’s voice filled with excite
ment. “A medical doctor?”

  “Yup.”

  “Is she coming back to Bitterthorn to practice?”

  “I think she’d rather eat a scorpion.”

  “Ouch.” Donovan whistled while his wife made a sound of disappointment. “I don’t suppose you could turn on the old Coyote charm and talk her into staying a while longer?”

  “My charm never worked on Payton.” And that fact spoken aloud depressed him to an alarming degree. “Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe I should just leave things as they are.”

  “I’ve never known you to give up on a woman, dude.”

  “We’re not talking about just any woman, Donovan, we’re talking about Payton.” A familiar white picket fence surrounding a lush garden came into view, and he pulled into the driveway with a decided lack of enthusiasm. “I learned a long time ago that when it comes to Payton, none of the normal rules apply.”

  “I can’t wait to meet her,” came Leslie Ann’s response. “Anyone who can put you in a tailspin has got to be worth knowing.”

  “I’m not in a tailspin.” Wiley slammed the car door with more force than necessary, then rounded to the flagstone path leading to the front veranda steps. “I’ve just decided that reunions are the one final bad joke high school plays on—” His words cut off, as cleanly as if he’d been punched. And in a way, he had.

  “Wiley? You still there?”

  “Sorry, guys, but I have to call Sheriff Berry again.” His jaw clenched so tightly he could barely snarl the words out, and his hand bunched into a furious fist around his car keys. Never in his life had he wanted to beat the crap out of something—or someone—more. How the hell else was he supposed to react, when he was under attack?

  Donovan’s curse was immediate and fierce. “What’s happened now?”

  “Every window in my house has been busted out.”

  * * *

  “It’s a real scorcher today, with highs in the upper nineties. It’s a quarter to nine in the a.m. and already we’re at eighty-eight degrees—”

  Payton turned off the perky female voice and gunned her car off the two-lane highway and onto a quiet farm road. It was too early for perky, and it was too early to listen to what she already knew. It was hot. Everyone knew it was hot. Even with the air-conditioning blowing full blast, she could still feel the prickly slide of perspiration down her spine.

  Except that had nothing to do with the temperature.

  Sick little knots tightened in her stomach, knots she couldn’t blame on the weather. She was waging an internal war with her nerves, and right now the nerves were winning. That was only natural. After all, seven years was a long time to go without visiting one’s mother.

  Small wonder she doubted she’d be welcome.

  A familiar stand of crape myrtles at the end of the dirt driveway came into view, and her palms grew slick against the steering wheel. Home. Only it had never really been home, at least in The Brady Bunch sense. Her idea of home had always been more like Apocalypse Now without the napalm. Every day had been a constant no-win battle in the house she grew up in, and it could all be traced back to a single root. Dallas-born Deborah Pruitt had never been content in Bitterthorn, and she’d been lavish in reminding her husband of it. Every time Deborah took a jeering stab at the town her father loved so much, it was like she was taking a slice at him.

  And everyone knew it.

  Over the years Payton’s silent disapproval of her mother’s attitude swelled. Deborah had known going into her marriage that she was accepting small-town life, yet all she’d done as far as Payton could recall was complain. For the sake of peace, though, Payton had kept her thoughts to herself in a way her mother never did, bottling up the bitterness and struggling on a daily basis to keep it from showing.

  The anguish over her father’s death had popped her internal cork in a big way, and all the anger and resentment that had had a lifetime to fester gushed out. Now, remembering how she’d accused her mother of pushing her father into an early grave made her cringe. Even if she’d believed it, that hadn’t been the time to confront Deborah. All she’d done was made the grief worse.

  Payton’s eyes swam as regret closed around her like an icy fist. Over the past seven years she and her mother had reestablished communication via emails, phone calls and the infrequent text. But the once unspoken tension that existed between them was now front and center, standing between them like a blighted eyesore she didn’t know how to tear down.

  Or, even if she could.

  She cut the engine in front of a single-story limestone ranch house with a neatly kept front yard and climbed out of the car, her pale yellow sundress a bright swirl about her legs. She still wasn’t sure what impulse had made her come here, and she stared at the walkway leading to the front door as if suspecting it of being booby-trapped. She could still get the hell out of here; it wasn’t as if her mother was expecting her, after all. It was probably idiotic to just show up as if nothing had happened, as if there weren’t an ocean of anguish separating her from her mother.

  This is a mistake. A seriously stupid mistake—

  Before she could convince herself to drive away like a bat out of hell, the front door swung open. She froze like a deer in the headlights as a smallish, just-past-middle-aged woman stepped out onto the porch, her short blond hair now liberally shot with silver.

  Silver? Payton’s eyes narrowed as she stared at the woman who was strangely unfamiliar to her. When had her mother begun to go gray? She hadn’t been gone from home that long, had she?

  “Hello, Mom.” Dismay bloomed when her mother came to a dead halt the moment she saw her, as if someone had suddenly switched her off. That one reaction from her mother killed the impulse to step toward her with open arms.

  Well. Not exactly the Hallmark moment she’d been hoping for.

  “Payton.” Her mother sounded as if she couldn’t believe Payton had the gall to show up, and it made something inside freeze over.

  “I know,” she said before her mother could say anything, backing instinctively toward her car. “I know I should have called. I would have called if I had known I was coming.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “No, really. I know how rude this is. How rude I’m being.” Payton nearly groaned. Who knew she could be so fluent in babbling gibberish? “What I mean to say is, I came here on impulse. You see, I’m in San Antonio all this week—”

  “I know.” A fluttery smile appeared on Deborah Pruitt’s finely lined face, only to vanish just as fast. “You’re attending a medical convention. I hope it’s going well.”

  “Oh. Yes. It is.” Baffled, Payton shook her head. “How did you know?”

  “I ran into Wiley yesterday at the hardware store. We talked for a while.” Deborah seemed to run out of words, and the silence ballooned from awkward to stifling. “He...he said your presentation yesterday was brilliant.”

  “He exaggerated. He’s like that.” This was a mistake, Payton thought again, so dismayed by the tension her throat tightened with tears she refused to show. “I... Oh, jeez. I really should have called.”

  “Don’t be silly. This is your home, Payton.”

  She managed to stifle a scoff, but only just. “You look like you’re going out.”

  “I was just leaving for work.”

  “Work?” Surprise had Payton moving up the neat stone pathway before she thought better of it. “You have a job? You never told me about that.”

  “You never asked.”

  Payton thought back to the last email exchange she’d had with her mother, and scoured her brain for what information they’d shared. Other than the news about her own new job, there hadn’t been anything remotely personal. “Mom, there’s no reason for you to work. Even without Dad’s life insurance, you can always rely on me for—”

&n
bsp; “It’s not the money, Payton.” Deborah smiled again, a real one this time that touched her deep brown eyes. “I enjoy it. I enjoy being with people, as well as the feeling I’ve accomplished something at the end of the day. I enjoy feeling like I’m part of the community.”

  “Really?” At a loss, Payton tried not to gape. She needed an abacus to tally up how many times Deborah had refused to even think about becoming a part of Bitterthorn’s community. “Where do you work?”

  “Busy Fingers Craft Store.” When Payton stared at her, Deborah laughed. “I know, I know. The name leaves a lot to be desired. But I like it.”

  “Well, then. That’s...amazing.” There was really no other word for it. “Would you like a lift into town?”

  “Yes, I’d like that.” Before Payton could make a move, her mother touched her cheek. “It’s good to see you, Payton.”

  “You too. We’d better go,” she mumbled and stepped back before she could stop herself. When had her mother last touched her? Something fractured deep inside when Payton discovered she couldn’t remember.

  The drive into Bitterthorn was one Payton wouldn’t soon forget, fraught with endless silences interrupted by graceless spates of polite small talk. The tension eased only when the town’s live-oak-shaded square appeared, with its whitewashed bandstand, two statues of historical Bitterthorn heroes and a fountain that had never worked. As she guided the car onto Main Street, Payton nodded at a bustling single-story daycare center.

  “That place is new, isn’t it?” she asked her mother, who looked out at the building, its yard filled with brightly colored play equipment.

  “That’s Leslie Ann Cross’s place. She opened it after she and Donovan married.”

  “Didn’t Donovan Cross used to be Wiley’s best friend?”

  “He still is. Leslie Ann!” Deborah waved a hand out the window as they rolled to a stop, and a petite blonde looked up from ushering a child indoors.

  “Deborah, I was just thinking about you.” Leaning an arm on the car’s windowsill, the woman shot Payton a smile full of dimpled, freckle-faced charm. “My boys have discovered the joys of model building.”