Ugly Ducklings Finish First by Stacy Gail Read Free Book Online

you’re tall enough for it.” Delighted out of all proportion, Wiley leaned his forearms on the table. “Do you play?”
    “I’ve got a fabulous baby hook.”
    “I’d love to see it.”
    “I won’t be here that long.”
    “That’s not fair.” Again he grasped her hand, this time curling his fingers warmly around hers. “After all, you’ve seen me play.”
    She stared at their clasped hands as if she couldn’t figure out how to untangle them. “If this is a new spin on ‘if you show me yours, I’ll show you mine,’ I don’t have time for it.” She pulled her hand away on the excuse of digging into her purse for a couple of bills. “And speaking of time, I really have to be going. I want to be fresh tomorrow morning.”
    “Of course.” Shooing her money away, he put a ten-spot on the table and searched for ways to stall her. “What’s your presentation subject again?”
    “The need for readily available pediatric emergency equipment. When a medical emergency occurs where an ambulance or ER is called for, some facilities are equipped with only adult-sized apparatus, even in this day and age. When those large-sized devices are used on tiny bodies, more harm than good can come of it, and that’s...” She stopped and laughed, missing how his eyes narrowed at the husky, intimate sound. “I’d better stop before I bore you into a coma. Though it’s very important to me, even I know some of the technical rhetoric is on the dry side.”
    He stiffened. “I have no doubt your lecture is in another language, it’s so technically superior. Certainly nothing the rest of us mere mortals could possibly understand.”
    “I’d hardly say that.” She shot him a bewildered look. “I just assumed it would be yawn-worthy to nonmedical people.”
    “You assumed wrong.”
    “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time,” she returned a little heatedly. And only then did he realize that she was watching him as if he were an animal that may or may not have rabies. “I just don’t see why anyone would be interested—”
    “I am,” Wiley said, and though he had a suspicion he was overreacting, he didn’t care. One way or another, he was going to prove to former child prodigy Payton Pruitt that she was one smart cookie who didn’t make him crumble.
    * * *
    Payton’s hotel room was quiet when she entered, save for the gentle hum of the air-conditioning. Tossing her purse and hotel card key on a credenza, she toed out of her high heels, sank onto the edge of the bed and closed her eyes.
    What a night.
    She pulled in a measured breath and let it out just as slowly. It didn’t help. She couldn’t pull in the peace of the room any more than she could sprout wings and fly. The funny thing was, she’d been prepared for a certain amount of upset. She had run into the first stirrings of the emotional upheaval by deciding to attend the reunion in the first place. But she’d thought that for her pride’s sake, it would be worth the risk.
    Then Wiley showed up and blew that theory to smithereens.
    Wiley Sharpe.
    Heaven help her, what a scrumptious man he’d become. Gorgeous. Confident. Sensually charismatic. There wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t suffer brain-melting hot flashes when confronted with Wiley’s masculinity. From nine to ninety, females fell for him in droves. And, damn the man, he knew it.
    What she hadn’t known was that she—practical, intellectual Payton—could be just as susceptible as the rest of the drooling horde.
    She flopped back onto the firm hotel mattress, arms outstretched. It was criminal how easily he got past her defenses with his stunning smiles and careless charm. She could accept that a decade ago, his friendly but impersonal touch could send her awakening nervous system into spastic overload. But not now. She wasn’t supposed to lose it at the merest touch, but she lost it in a big way when Wiley inadvertently brushed her lip with his finger. Erotic heat had surged through