Claimed By The Cowboy

She spun on her heel and he knew she was done with him, but, damn it, he wasn’t willing to let it go. He reached out and grabbed her hand. “Lucy, it doesn’t have to be like this.”

She froze. Her gaze dropped down to where he had her by the hand. Her skin was warm and soft against his, softer than he’d expected it to be. He closed his fingers around hers and, without really thinking about it, pulled her closer to him.

A feeling so unfamiliar, so foreign that he couldn’t name it right away, hit him low in the gut. Lucy. This was Lucy, and against all odds he’d missed her. He took another step into her, closing the distance between them.

Dear God in heaven, what he was feeling right now? Desire. Want.

Need.

Josh Calhoun did a gut check and, for the first time in five years, his gut told him to go for it.

For Lucy Wilde, of all people.

His heart began to pound and his skin began to prickle. He inhaled deeply. She smelled of hospitals and antiseptics and, underneath that, a hint of something sweet, and all he wanted to do was lean his head down and taste her to find out what that sweetness was.

Then she looked up at him, her light blue eyes impossibly wide. “Yes, it does.”

He wasn’t going to accept that. “Have dinner with me.”

That made her laugh—and pull her hand away from his grip. “Seriously? Am I not making myself clear? I thought you were smarter than this, Josh. I don’t want to see you. We’re not friends anymore.”

“We are.” Her eyeballs bugged out of her head at this declaration. “Well, we can be again.”

“No,” she said softly, turning away from him. This time he didn’t try to stop her. “After what happened? No, we can’t.”

He watched her go, her words echoing louder in his head the farther away she got.

She hated him. Well, he supposed he deserved nothing less than her contempt. She’d needed him to comfort her after her high school sweetheart had died and he’d...

He’d forced himself to turn her down. He’d embarrassed her then and he’d embarrassed her again, that much was obvious. She only ever got that red when she lost her temper.

But she didn’t realize how hard it’d been to say no to her. How much it’d hurt to know that he’d added to her pain. To have twice watched Lucy Wilde walk away from him and know that he’d screwed it up.

Damn it all to hell and back.

He watched a construction worker scurry out of Lucy’s way right before she disappeared around a corner. He should let it go. She’d made her position more than clear. Just as she had seventeen years ago when he’d rejected her.

But it’d been different then. He’d been a kid in mourning for his best friend and due to leave Cedar Point in just a few weeks for college in Chicago. He’d rationalized that a clean break was best for all of them.

Now?

Now his gut was telling him that maybe it was okay to look at another woman and feel something. Something good. Something right.

He hadn’t felt anything in so long...

No. He wasn’t going to let Lucy Wilde walk away from him a second time with so much unsaid between them. He wasn’t the same confused kid he’d been. He was a man now and he knew what he wanted.

He made his way back over to where Carson had been waiting for him, texting on his phone the whole time. With any luck, Carson hadn’t been paying attention to his and Lucy’s conversation.

“That seemed to go well,” he said without looking up.

Josh sighed. One thing was abundantly clear.

His luck had run out.

* * *

Lucinda did her very best to ban all thoughts of Josh Calhoun from her mind as she moved through her afternoon. She’d spent more time at the children’s hospital site than she’d meant to and was behind schedule. She hated being behind schedule. Things happened on time or there were dire consequences in her world. When it came to the health of her patients, waiting could be fatal.

This was what she kept telling herself as she moved around Midwest’s oncology ward, her hair still damp from the quick shower she’d taken to wash the construction dust off. Like any other day, some people were making progress and some people were losing the battle. Mrs. Adamczak was sitting up in bed and smiling for the first time in weeks. Mr. Gadhavi, however, had not responded to treatment and, as hard as it would be, Lucinda was going to recommend that he be sent home for hospice.

This was where her focus needed to be—on the people she could still help. That did not include Gary Everly and it did not include Josh Calhoun.

It did, however, include Sutton Winchester.

It was madness that she was even going to consider allowing him to continue his treatment away from this hospital. If it were any other person in the entire city of Chicago, it wouldn’t be an option. It wouldn’t even be a figment of someone’s imagination.

But Sutton Winchester wasn’t any other person. And his children weren’t going to let her forget it.

But before she could even get to his room, she was stopped by the vice president of Midwest, John Jackson, outside the nurses station on the oncology ward. “Dr. Wilde,” Jackson said with an unnaturally bright look to his eyes. “Just the doctor I was looking for!”

Lucinda didn’t have time for ego stroking right now. She knew that if Jackson worked up a proper head of steam, he could go on for hours. “How much money did they offer you?”

Jackson pulled up short and blinked at her. “How did you...”

“Because I’m not stupid, Mr. Jackson. I was there when Eve Winchester decided that this was going to be a reality whether I thought it was a good idea or not. You should merely count yourself lucky that you’re going to get the money for the cancer pavilion expansion out of it, shouldn’t you?”

Jackson didn’t know her very well and it was clear that he didn’t know how he was supposed to take this attitude. But he hadn’t made it to being a vice president of a hospital without understanding how to cover his tracks. “Just think of all the people that we’ll be able to help,” he said, putting all available lipstick on this pig of a situation.

“Yes, yes—I know. I hope you at least negotiated for the entire cost of construction?”

“The Newports and the Winchesters have agreed to $250 million!” The man actually did a little dance. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Whatever you did, Dr. Wilde, do you think you could do it again? We could use a new cardiac cath lab, too.”

She glared at him hard enough that he took a step backward. God, this whole situation had left her with a bad taste in her mouth. What else could go wrong today?

At that exact moment, the ward doors opened and a cart laden with floral arrangements was wheeled in. This was normally a happy time of her day as she got to see the flowers bring a bit of hope to people’s eyes.

“As I said to Mr. Winchester’s children, I will only allow him to be treated in his home if they can get a room set up to my specifications and if it won’t compromise the treatment of my other patients,” she told Jackson as she kept an eye on the beautiful arrangements being off-loaded. She shouldn’t like the flowers. She never got any, and the last time anyone had actually given her flowers had been at her senior prom with Gary.

He’d only been able to stand for the photos and for one dance. He’d gotten her a corsage, though. And then he made Josh Calhoun dance with her several other times throughout the night.

The last bouquet on the cart was a small arrangement of sunflowers and daisies—bright and sunny and full of the promise of tomorrow. The delivery guy set the bouquet on the nurses station counter and Lucinda saw one of her favorite nurses, Elena, glance at the card. Elena’s eyes got very wide very fast, and then she looked up at Lucinda and smiled.

Elena must have a new boyfriend. That was sweet of him to send flowers to work.

Lucinda turned her attention back to Mr. Jackson. “...find a way to make this work,” he was saying in his best salesman tone.

Elena held the card out to another nurse, who read the name on it and started giggling. “Fine,” she told Jackson. Because who was she? Just Sutton Winchester’s doctor, that’s all. Just the one person who wanted him to get the best treatment in the best place from the best people.