Ugly Ducklings Finish First

by Gail, Stacy

  “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.”

  His smile was on the loopy side as he rubbed a hand over her back. “Just relieved, huh?”

  “Uh-huh. Seriously, vastly relieved.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “Well, there is one other thing.” Fire bloomed in the eyes that glared down at him, burning away the last of the wetness. “You scare me like this again and I’ll kill you myself.”

  “That sounds fair.” With a humming little sigh, he continued to rub her back while trying to figure out how he could get her to lie down with him. “I think they’ve given me something,” he confided. “I feel like I’m floating.”

  “You’ll be floating for a while, poor baby. You’d be screaming right about now if they hadn’t given you something for the pain.”

  “I still feel it...sort of. But it’s like it belongs to someone else.” A corner of his mouth curled when she made a sound of sympathy. She was so sweet. “I’m glad you’re here. You’re the best medicine.”

  A quavering breath escaped her. “Glad to be of service, love.”

  “Love.” Again he smiled and savored her nearness. “How did you know what happened?”

  “Donovan and Leslie Ann. Apparently you had them as an emergency contact, and they let me know. I should tell them you’re going to live,” she added, looking halfheartedly over her shoulder. “They’re as worried as I was.”

  “I’m sorry about that.” He touched her hand lying on his chest and toyed with her fingers. “Sweetheart?”

  She turned back to him with melting brown eyes. “Yes?”

  “When can I go home?”

  The melting solidified in an instant. “Oh no, you don’t, mister. You’re going to go home whenever your doctor says you can go home.”

  “Now, Payton—”

  “Don’t even try it. Do you think we tell our patients to stay in these places for fun? Your doctor will let you know when you’re well enough to leave.”

  Wiley sighed and nodded. That was the one problem with having a doctor in his life. There was no getting around her when it came to this sort of thing. “You know what’s sad? I think my car’s totaled.”

  “I’m sorry.” She swallowed hard and bent to kiss him as though he were something precious. “I should have been with you.”

  The mere thought stabbed a knife of stark fear through the glaze of drugs, and all at once the fog shrouding his mind cleared. “No.”

  “I should have gone with you. If I’d been there, maybe I would have seen it coming and there wouldn’t have been an accident.”

  “Accident,” he echoed faintly. Then he closed his eyes and pulled her close. He loved the feel of her lying against his chest, loved how perfectly she fit into the circle of his arms. But that wasn’t why he held her so closely.

  The plain truth was that he didn’t want her to see what was coming.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Over the next four days, Payton had time to realize something dramatic had changed in Wiley. At first, when he’d all but stopped talking to her, she’d attributed it to the injuries he’d suffered. That theory blew up in her face when she observed him with the Crosses, and he was as charming as ever. He bantered with his doctor, teased the nurses, passed the time of day with the med techs.

  Only with her he was distant.

  Her mind picked at it like a loose thread. It was almost as if he blamed her for something, and as the days wore on she began to chafe at the unfairness of it. Getting pissed off at a man who’d suffered severe trauma wasn’t helpful, she knew that. But after enduring a heaping helping of cold shoulder, she’d reached her limit.

  “Oh.” With a cafeteria to-go bag in hand, Payton halted in the doorway of Wiley’s semiprivate room when she spied Donovan propped against the edge of the unoccupied bed. Her gaze flicked to Wiley, who ignored her by looking toward the window filled with the purpling light of dusk.

  The resonance of Wiley’s rejection practically rang around the deafeningly silent room.

  “Hi, Donovan.” Despite her best efforts to stay on an even keel, her temper zoomed into the red zone as she stepped into the room. “Trying to sneak under the visiting hours’ wire, eh?”

  Donovan’s smile seemed grim as he came to his feet. “Actually I’m here as the bearer of bad news.”

  “Oh?” With the sting of Wiley’s snub still smarting, it took a moment for Donovan’s words to sink in. “What’s going on?”

  “Wiley’s house was broken into last night and ransacked.”


  “What?” Her jaw unhinged and she glanced at Wiley, who was now studying his fiberglass cast that stopped just below his left knee. “A break-in...in Bitterthorn? Was anything stolen?”

  “Only Wiley would know for sure, but from what I can tell it looks like his computer was taken. The police will probably know more, but I wanted to get here ahead of them.”

  “Do they have any suspects?”

  For just a moment Donovan’s attention flickered to his friend. “No one concrete, though I’d be willing to bet they suspect this is an escalation of all the vandalism he’s been experiencing.”

  “Of course. The vandalism.” Her gaze bounced from one to the other, and their stoic faces kicked her alarm up several notches. “This can’t be ignored anymore.”

  “It’s nothing for you to worry about. This place is driving me crazy,” Wiley burst out unexpectedly before he focused on the other man in such a way it made Payton feel like she’d come down with a terminal case of invisible. “I’m taking you up on the ride back, once the doc swings around to discharge me. It shouldn’t be much longer.”

  Payton stepped forward. “Wiley, I can drive—”

  “Donovan’s got a nice, big SUV I can stretch out in. It’s done, Payton.”

  “Give me a call when you’re ready to be picked up.” With one final wave to his friend, Donovan then turned and took Payton’s free hand in his, surprising her. When she looked up, her surprise morphed into queasy disquiet at the pity in his eyes. “You take care of yourself, Payton.”

  “You too.” Payton watched Donovan leave, nearly choking on the irrational desire to call him back. Anything to have a buffer between herself and the ominous aura emanating from the bruised, surly man propped up in the hospital bed. “So.” Nervously she plucked at the gold chain at her neck and brought it to her lips, only to drop it when Wiley tracked the telltale movement with his eyes. “I’m so sorry about the break-in, Wiley. I can’t believe someone would be soulless enough to break into your place while you’re in the hospital.”

  He looked away from her as if he’d lost interest. “Somehow I’m not surprised.”

  She frowned, not sure what that meant. “Is the theft of your computer a big data loss, or do you back your work up?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think about you lately.” The words shot out before she could stop them, but this was getting absurd. How was she supposed to reach him? She couldn’t push or demand anything from him in the condition he was in, yet she couldn’t leave him alone for the same reason. The only thing left for her to do was to sit back and be patient.

  Too bad patience wasn’t her strongest virtue.

  With that in mind, Payton sucked in a calming breath and tried again. “Dr. Avery hasn’t been by yet?”

  “No.” The word was short and clipped. “I’m ready to walk out of here without her official discharge.”

  “I know you’re frustrated, but I’m sure it won’t be much longer.” When he didn’t answer, she battled back the encroaching urge to cry. What had happened to the ease of their relationship? “How’s your foot?”

  “Fine.”

  “Great.” The curtness in his tone whipped along her jangling nerves, so much so she had to stop herself from looking for bloody wounds. “Any unnatural coolness in your foot or toes?”

  “No.”

  “Tingling?”

  “No.”

  “How about any areas of numbness—”

  “No, Doctor. I haven’t.” With an impatient sigh he sat up straighter against the pillows. “I’ve answered all of these questions already. I’m beginning to think you doctors like to squeeze as much money from my insurance as you possibly can.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Anger surged up to boil away the sick dread churning in her stomach, and it was a sensation she welcomed with open arms. “All any good doctor cares about is the patient’s health, regardless of how disagreeable that patient may be.”

  “Disagreeable?” He lifted a brow. “Nice bedside manner, Dr. Pruitt.”

  “You asked for it.” She moved to touch the part of his foot protruding from the cast with a decidedly nonclinical air, her thumb dragging along the pads of his toes. “You’ve been asking for it. I decided it was finally time to oblige you.”

  His jaw knotted, and he shifted until she no longer touched him. “How about obliging me on my desire to get the hell out of here?”

  She sighed in frustration. “Wiley...”

  “I want out, Payton.”

  I want out, Payton.

  The phrase echoed through her suddenly still mind. The words drilled a terrible, despairing void into the very core of her soul, and though she tried to convince herself she was being a panicky idiot, she couldn’t make the horrific iciness go away.

  I want out.

  He was talking about the hospital, she told herself feverishly even as her pulse rocketed away with a scared-rabbit, claustrophobic fear. Who wouldn’t want out of a hospital? It was a cold, dehumanizing place. He didn’t mean he wanted out of their relationship. He couldn’t.

  “Did you hear me, Payton?”

  She wasn’t lucky enough to go numb with dread. All she could do was stand there and endure the nightmarish burn of it. “I heard you.”

  “But did you understand me?” When she remained silent, he sat up further with a pained grunt. “What day is today?”

  Her heart cracked down the middle when she realized that for the first time in her life, she didn’t want to look at him. “Tuesday.”

  “Sunday was supposed to be your last day.”

  “Your accident changed things. And speaking of things changing,” she said, soldiering forth with a determination that sounded as sick with desperation as she felt, “I emailed you a copy of my contract. You can take a look at it whenever you get a chance to go online.”

  “Contract?”

  “Yes.” Concern flickered through her, along with a purely selfish splinter of irrational hope. If he’d forgotten that, maybe he’d forgotten just how important she was to him. “My partnership contract. Do you remember asking to see it the night of the Rodriguez party?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Oh. Good.” Payton shook her head. She had to be some sort of a monster to be disappointed he didn’t have a soap-opera-like dose of amnesia to explain his callous attitude toward her. “You had me worried. After a blow to the head it’s possible to have problems with short-term memory. Even mild concussions can have—”

  “Payton, I don’t need you as my doctor. And considering my present condition—” he gestured toward his leg, “—I don’t need you for anything else either.”

  Her already damaged heart came to a sickening halt. She hadn’t heard him right. She couldn’t have heard him right. “Wiley,” she said, amazed she could speak at all when her heart had stopped. “You’d better explain that.”

  “I don’t think it needs an explanation.”

  “Yes. It does.” She took a breath. Another. It didn’t help. God help her, in another minute she was going to pass out from lack of air. Lack of hope. Lack of everything. “I want to know what you meant by that.”

  “All right.” His gaze never wavered, and it was so detached she barely recognized him. “With my leg the way it is, it’ll be a long time before we’re able to have sex.”

  Payton couldn’t hide her flinch. His careless words impacted her like a kick in the gut, because there was simply nothing deeper than lust behind them. “But...that’s not the only reason you wanted me with you this past week, is it?”

  “Payton, we both know what this was.” He looked at her without emotion, as if they were nothing more than strangers and he was hell-bent on keeping it that way. “We’ve been enjoying each other. That’s all.”


  “That’s all?” Something wound its poisonous way around her heart and squeezed. She was too busy trying to pull in oxygen to recognize it as bone-deep fear. “It’s been more than that.”

  His smile was hot and somehow demeaning. “You can say that again. I don’t think I’ll ever forget this past week. I’ve got to hand it to you, Payton. Despite your demure, ladylike façade, you’re just about the hottest piece of ass I’ve ever had. It’s been great.”

  “What...” The squeezing around her heart spasmed, writhing in silent agony as it turned everything inside her into ice. “What did you just say?”

  “It’s been fun, Payton. That’s what I’m saying. It’s been fun.”

  Her hands curled into fists as fury and desperation tore her in two. “You’re making it sound like it’s over. It doesn’t have to be. I know you’ve had a traumatic shock, but—”

  “Be realistic, Payton. Since I’m out of commission, there’s nothing to keep you here.”

  “No.” God, he was killing her. Couldn’t he see he was killing her? “We...we have more than a physical relationship. We have...”

  “What?” Wiley asked gently when she faltered. And it was his very gentleness that turned what was left of her heart to dust. “What did we have, Payton?”

  “We’re good together.” She abhorred the pleading desperation in her voice, but there was no room for pride. She was trying to save a life she had just started to live in Wiley’s arms. “You know it, and so do I. That’s why you want me to stay in Bitterthorn. Not because the town needs a doctor, but because you want me. You want me to be with you.”

  “The crash put things in perspective for me. Life is short, and I want to grab as much of it while I can.”

  “And...” Breathe. Why can’t I breathe? “You can’t do that with me in your life?”

  “Payton, you’re not getting it. I don’t want anyone in my life. It’s nothing personal.”