Ugly Ducklings Finish First

by Gail, Stacy

“No, that’s a Caddy. Someone working late, I guess...”

  “I’m talking about that dark car that just pulled in. Damn it, that is her,” Wiley muttered, his pulse kicking up until every injury in his battered body throbbed in a chorus of pain. “I just knew that woman wouldn’t be able to leave well enough alone.”

  “Isn’t that Prentice Fields’s car? He doesn’t have offices at the mansion, does he?”

  “Who gives a crap whose car that is?” Wiley began before Donovan’s words sank in. As dawning horror sank its poisoned, needle-like teeth into his every cell, his gaze jerked back to the mansion. As if he were stuck in a slow-motion nightmare, two things registered at once—a portly, familiar silhouette scurrying toward the Caddy from the direction of the back of Thorne Mansion, and an ominously flickering orange glow shining through the windows on the first and second floors of the building.

  “Payton.” He wasn’t aware of whispering her name as the world ground to an agonizing halt. “Donovan, hurry.”

  His friend didn’t have to be told twice. The SUV popped the curb with a resounding thump to avoid a wild-eyed Fields zooming out of the lot at top speed, but the bank manager was irrelevant now. Nothing mattered but getting to Payton.

  When he spied her heading like a woman on a mission toward the Mansion, his heart started to beat once more in painful, adrenaline-fueled thuds. Without a thought he unbuckled his seat belt and opened his door, his focus never wavering from her.

  “Wiley, you dumbass, are you crazy?” Donovan nearly crashed into the front of the building before he screeched to a halt. “Your crutches—”

  The words were meaningless to Wiley as he hopped out and nearly fell on his face. Sick, sweaty agony stabbed hot needles into his heel all the way up to his knee as he put weight on bones held together by rods, pins and fiberglass. Again, none of that mattered. He had to get to her, he thought as he gasped in fumes of gasoline and panic. He had to stop her now, now, now...

  “Payton!”

  She curled a hand around the brass door handle and tugged it open a scant moment before she flinched back. He half ran, half hopped straight into her, his arms wrapping like a straightjacket around her just as the door cracked open.

  “Wi—”

  The small crack in the doorway fed oxygen to a fire that suddenly exploded through the doors, knocking them both back into the night.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “The ambulance is on its way. ETA is half an hour.”

  Payton glanced into the age-spotted mirror in old Doc Benson’s private bathroom at the reflection of Nurse Grimes. She was a rail-thin, beak-nosed, bespectacled elderly woman who was a firm believer that the old-fashioned nurse’s uniform complete with hat and support hose would one day be back in vogue. Payton could only imagine what the ancient but handy nurse would say if she ever got a load of her favorite penguin-covered scrubs.

  “Thank you, Nurse Grimes.”

  The other woman moved into the tiny bathroom. “Do you need help, Doctor?”

  “I think I’ve got it.” Happy for a second opinion, Payton turned the side of her face up for inspection. “How’s it look? Not bad for a one-handed dressing, if I do say so myself.”

  “You’re not bleeding anymore, that’s something.” Snapping on a sterile glove, Nurse Grimes inspected the butterfly bandages sealing up the wound over the edge of an eyebrow, then gently probed the ocular bone already mottled with an angry reddish-black bruise. “I’m still not convinced the force of the door swinging back didn’t break your cheekbone. That’s one devil of a bruise you’ve got.”

  “I’m good, really. It’s my hand that smarts.”

  “Burns always hurt the worst, don’t they?” Clucking in sympathy, Nurse Grimes brought Payton’s bandaged left hand up. “Keep it elevated. You know better than to just leave it dangling like that.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Her gaze flicked to the open doorway at the sound of raised voices. “Who do we have out there? It sounds like the whole town.”

  “No, the whole town is over at Thorne Mansion, watching our history go up in smoke.” The grief in the elderly woman’s tone was genuine, and it touched off an answering sadness in Payton. “We still have Sheriff Berry with us, as well your mother and Mrs. Cross, whom I allowed to be in with her husband, if that’s all right.”

  “Of course. I told Donovan he could go home, since his burns are only first-degree. All he needs to do is treat that half of his face like a bad sunburn.”

  “I believe he’s waiting to see how things go with Mr. Sharpe.”

  The name alone was enough to remind Payton her heart was now a dead and hollow thing. “Donovan and Leslie Ann can ride in with our patient when the ambulance shows up, if they like.” The sound level increased beyond the closed door of the private office, and Payton shot it an irritated scowl. “I believe it’s time to start kicking people out of here. This is a medical clinic, not a social gathering place.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  Loaded for bear and hurting more than she wanted to admit, Payton stalked out of the office to find the waiting room looking more like a three-ring circus. Donovan and his wife had migrated to the front room in order to talk with Sheriff Berry, a rotund, handlebar-mustachioed man who had held that station ever since Payton was in elementary school. To her surprise Chandler Thorne was also present, sweaty and soot-covered and looking like he’d lost his best friend, while her mother hovered worriedly near the double-wide arch that led to the triage area. Standing with her, gray-faced and leaning heavily on crutches rather than lying on a gurney where she had left him, was Wiley.

  The sight of him was enough to turn the screws on her already shaky emotional state. But to see him up and about—and flagrantly disobeying her direct order to stay still—snapped what little control she had left.

  “Enough!”

  The noise level dropped so immediately it was as though the scene had been muted by a celestial remote control. All eyes turned her way, which was fine and dandy with her. Better they should see their imminent deaths coming if they so much as twitched.

  “I will not allow this chaos to disturb my patient, and I don’t care if you’re the sheriff, or if you own half the town, or if you’re the god of all you survey. While you are in this clinic, my word is the only one that matters. Chandler,” she barked out, making the man in question jump, “do you need medical assistance?”

  Even disheveled and smeared with soot, Chandler looked like he’d just come from a photo shoot. “No, I’m fine.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, since I can see you’ve been fighting the fire over at your ancestral home. If you’re looking for a quiet spot to rest, you should be at your place, not here.”

  “I need to find out what happened. I know Prentice Fields was captured outside of Poteet and arrested for arson, but that’s all I know. I need answers.”

  “If you’re looking for a scoop—”

  “Get serious.” His voice was jagged with the smoke he’d inhaled and the emotion he couldn’t hide. “Thorne Mansion is—was—my family’s truest, most innate identity. I want to know why Fields suddenly decided to turn into a firebug and destroy it.”

  “Fine. That leads me to Sheriff Berry.” Sympathetic to Chandler’s pain churning beneath the surface, she turned hard eyes to the man who seemed massive enough to have his own orbit. “Sheriff, your time here has run out. Donovan Cross is free to go, so if you need to question him, please do so. But do it somewhere else. As of now, this place is off-limits to you.”

  Sheriff Berry swelled like the blueberry girl at Wonka’s factory. “Doctor, you don’t seem to understand—”

  “Sheriff, you don’t seem to understand that I am this close to pressing endangerment charges against you.” She gestured at Wiley without looking at him. “Your presence here has brought that patient
to his feet despite my instructions to lie still. I suspect he’s reopened his arterial wound because he was stupid enough to run on it, which is why I’ve called an ambulance to transport him to San Antonio. So take your questions, Donovan, and Chandler out of here, before you find yourself called up on accusations of abuse of power by the State Review Board.”

  The sheriff was still blustering as Nurse Grimes swept him out the door. Chandler was hot on his heels while Donovan and Leslie Ann brought up the rear, with Leslie Ann giving her a quick hug and Donovan shooting Wiley a helpless what-can-I-do shrug. Satisfied when the door shut behind them, Payton glanced at Nurse Grimes.

  “Would you mind getting the patient back on the gurney and sitting with him until the ambulance gets here? I need to say goodbye to my mother.”

  Nurse Grimes nodded and made a beeline for Wiley. “My pleasure, Doctor.”

  Wiley awkwardly thumped forward on his crutches. “Wait, Payton, I need to—”

  “Mom, let’s talk outside.” Leaving Wiley to the tender mercies of the nurse, Payton guided her mother out onto the sidewalk, ignoring him when he called out to her again. The acrid scent of smoke hung in the air, strangely calling up cozy memories in Payton’s mind of Christmas bonfires and campfire weenie roasts.

  “I’m sorry.” With a tired sigh she gave her mother a bone-cracking squeeze. “This really hasn’t been a restful reunion, has it?”

  “On the upside, it hasn’t been boring.” Planting a careful kiss on Payton’s cheek, Deborah eased back to touch her bruises as if the mommy in her wanted to wipe the injury away. “Oh, baby. Look at your poor face.”

  “It’ll be even more spectacular tomorrow, but don’t worry. You won’t have to look at it. After I get everyone here officially taken care of, I’m heading home. Houston is a sleepy little one-horse town compared to the action in Bitterthorn.”

  “At the risk of repeating myself, at least it’s not boring.” Deborah’s mouth moved into a crooked slant, but it was much too sad to be called a smile. “I guess Houston must look pretty good to you right now, at that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s safe, isn’t it? You can’t be hurt there because you’re not attached to it. No one could blame you for choosing that way of life, certainly, considering how things have turned out here,” she added when Payton made a distressed sound. “I just need to know you’re leaving because that’s what is going to make you happy. Will you be happy there?”

  Happy.

  If anyone had said something like that to her a few weeks ago she would have laughed. Of course she’d thought she was happy. Everything she had ever worked for was within her grasp in that life she had back in Houston. Why wouldn’t she be happy?

  Except she now knew there was a small but all-important difference between being successful and being fulfilled. Just before she’d left for the reunion she’d had a dinner party for her new colleagues, but other than remembering how much she had stressed over the menu she had no memories about that night. Because it was as her mother said—she had no emotional attachments there. The greatest, most cherished memories of her life didn’t have to do with anything material, or accolades she may have received from her peers. Her happiest memories were about the people she loved.

  The problem, of course, was that one of the people she loved in Bitterthorn didn’t love her back.

  “Dr. Pruitt!”

  Payton wheeled around at Nurse Grimes’s alarmed call, and Deborah reached out to pat her shoulder. “Go on. Call me when you’re done here, no matter what time that is.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” Another, more urgent call from Nurse Grimes had Payton hustling double-quick back into the clinic. She skidded to a halt when she saw Wiley, still upright by the abandoned gurney, his crutches scattered on the floor, and apparently involved in some sort of weak wrestling match with the elderly nurse.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Like a thunderstorm sweeping in, Payton surged into the room while the tethers holding her patience in check began to fray. “I feel like I should yell let’s get ready to rumble.”

  Nurse Grimes looked mortally embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Doctor, the patient refused to get up on the gurney—”

  “Not true,” Wiley was quick to defend, looking to her with such puppy eyes he managed to somehow appear like he was the wronged party. “I’m happy to lie down, as long as you stay with me, Payton.”

  She froze, more out of bafflement than anything, and for one clarion moment she wondered if she had heard him wrong. “Your color is ashen and you’re sweating profusely,” she said in her most clinical tone. It was the only defense she had left. “These are signs of hemorrhagic shock. You need to lie down and elevate your—”

  “I’m sweating because I’m in a crazy amount of pain, and as for my pallor...” He seemed to run out of excuses. “It’ll get better if you get over here.”

  Not exactly the sort of argument to win her over. “Get. On. The gurney.”

  The puppy eyes were back. “Help me up?”

  “No.” When Nurse Grimes shot her an appalled glance at the less than compassionate tone, she held up her bandaged hand. “Too injured. I’m sure you can make it on your own.”

  Something that mimicked genuine concern crossed his face as he hiked himself up on the gurney with a grunt. “Does it hurt much?”

  “It’s felt better. Thank you, Nurse,” she added when the elderly woman gathered up the scattered crutches before Payton could. “Why don’t you head out to the front and wait for the ambulance? I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  “A few minutes, huh?” Wiley’s brow lifted to a rakish angle the moment the nurse closed the door behind her. “That’s all the time you’re giving me?”

  “It doesn’t take that long to take a blood pressure.” Unhooking the old-fashioned cuff from its resting place on the wall, she tried not to touch him while awkwardly wrapping it around his arm with her uninjured hand. “I’m not kidding about your color. It’s awful.”

  “I feel better now that you’re here.”

  Tugging the stethoscope from its resting place around her neck, she popped them into her ears and ignored him. He tried talking but she shushed him, pretending she didn’t notice how close he was, or that she could feel the delicious warmth of his body heat on skin that yearned to feel his. Instead she concentrated on her training, counting his heartbeats as though her life depended on it.

  One. Two. Three.

  “I’m so sorry you got hurt, Payton. That was the one thing I was trying to avoid.”

  Five. Six.

  “I’ve been under attack ever since I took up the Xavier foreclosure case, though I didn’t make the connection at the time. And I wasn’t certain about who was behind the attacks until I saw Prentice Fields fleeing the scene tonight. You’ll probably find this ironic, but until that point, I thought it might be an old girlfriend stalking me.”

  Eleven. Twelve.

  “When I contacted the police, I was confident everything would blow over once they launched their investigation. I relaxed even more when extra patrols were assigned to me. Then I got targeted out on the freeway, and I realized that whoever was after me was playing for keeps. At that moment, I felt like everything important in my life had a bull’s-eye painted on it.”

  Eleven...

  “Damn it.” Releasing the cuff’s pressure, she started pumping all over again. “Will you please be quiet? I can’t count your heartbeats with you yammering on.”

  “I’m not yammering, I’m explaining why I was trying to get you out of harm’s way.”

  “I’d give a kidney right now for some knockout drugs in this place,” she muttered to herself, wishing with an almost fanatical fervor that the ambulance could teleport to their location. “This would be so much easier if you were out cold.”

&n
bsp; “Finally I’m getting a lucky break. About time.”

  “Just stop talking, okay? I need to count.”

  “Not until you hear what I have to say.”

  No force on earth could have stopped her growl. “There is nothing you have to say that I would ever want to hear.”

  “I love you, Payton.”

  Every muscle, even her heart, froze for a full second as the acid splash of mockery hit her full in the face. Then, as the invisible wounds threatened to bleed her to death, she gave up on the cuff and hung it back up, looped the stethoscope back around her neck and headed for the door.

  “Payton!”

  “I’m done with you.” The words ripped out of her as she continued toward the door, and they sounded as ragged and bloody as the truck-sized hole in her heart. “Obviously you’re not done toying with me, but I am so done with you. You want to make a joke of the feelings I had for you? Fine. Knock yourself out. But I’m not stupid enough to just stand here and take it.”

  “Payton, wait! Don’t go, please let me—”

  As she reached for the door handle he interrupted himself with a pained grunt, coinciding with a thunk-like sound of something heavy hitting the floor. She whipped around to see he was once again trying to walk on his casted, mutilated foot, and the pain on his face was so vicious it spurred her into action.

  “Stop that, you idiot!” She sprang forward just as he fell to his knees with an agonized groan. She crashed down with him, supporting his weight as he collapsed against her. “What are you thinking? You could wind up permanently crippled or even dead if you keep trying to walk on that foot. Don’t you understand what bad shape you’re in?”

  “I don’t care.” His breathing was uneven, and his ashen face twisted with sheer anguish as he wrapped his arms tightly around her as if she were the only thing left in the world. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand. If I lose you now, I won’t have any kind of life worth living.”

  “Wiley.” Raw pain twisted her heart until she couldn’t breathe, while his words chipped away at the icy barrier she’d tried to surround herself with. “You really are going into shock. You don’t know what you’re saying. Now, if you can get up without putting any weight on your leg—”