Claimed By The Cowboy

Apparently, that made her the bad guy there.

Well, she knew when it was time to cut her losses. You couldn’t hold back the tides and you couldn’t hold back Eve Winchester when she made up her mind about something.

Jackson was still making noises about pavilions, patients and money when Elena carried the sunny bouquet over to Lucinda. “It’s for you,” she said.

Lucinda wasn’t offended by the nurse’s awestruck tone. She didn’t believe it, either. “Seriously?” She grabbed the card out of Elena’s hand. Yes, that was her name on the envelope. Typed, not handwritten: “Dr. Lucinda Wilde.”

“When will you have a list of things Mr. Winchester needs to get ready?” Jackson asked in a tone of voice that was one small step removed from a flat-out demand. “I don’t want to keep Ms. Winchester or Mr. Newport waiting.”

“Give me an hour,” Lucinda all but growled at him. Elena was watching her with naked interest, Jackson wasn’t leaving her alone about the Newports and the Winchesters, and she was holding in her hands a card from Josh Calhoun, because who else would send her flowers?

No one, that’s who. She’d always been something of an introvert. She had a few good friends and it was more than enough for her.

Never in her entire life had she wanted to go hide more than she did right now.

“Great! I’ll check back in an hour, okay?” For the love of everything holy, Jackson looked so much like an overeager golden retriever at this moment that Lucinda was tempted to dig a treat out of her pocket and throw it just to get him to go away.

“Yeah.” She should probably work a little harder on sucking up to the hospital administrators, but she just didn’t have it in her today.

Once Jackson was out of sight, Elena whispered, “Well?” and crowded closer to read the card over her shoulder.

Lucinda slipped the card into her pocket and grabbed the floral arrangement. There was no way in hell she was going to read it right now, with half of the nurses on duty pretending not to listen in. If she was going to turn beet red again, she wanted to do so in the privacy of her own closet. “It looks like I’m going to be picking up some extra shifts at a private residence. I’m going to need a few trusted nurses who can keep their mouths shut.” The irony of the situation didn’t escape her. She wasn’t going to read Josh’s note in front of them because she didn’t trust a single one of them, but she was asking them to come to Winchester’s estate and help her discreetly manage him there. “Are you interested?”

The difference was, of course, that patient privacy was the law and that law was drilled into them over and over again. Her personal life, however, was fair game and everyone knew it.

“Of course!” Elena’s gaze darted over to Sutton’s room. Yeah, everyone knew who they were talking about. “Any word on what it’ll pay?”

“I’ll make sure it’s worth your while. Now, if you’ll excuse me...” Lucinda juggled the flowers and her tablet and, randomly tapping on the screen to make it look as if she was doing something important instead of fleeing like a trapped rat, turned on her heel and started down the hallway.

She couldn’t flee fast enough. “Is he cute?” Elena called after her. “Or she—it’s fine with us either way.”

As if Lucinda hadn’t been put on the spot enough already. She had always avoided the Grey’s Anatomy–style hospital romances that seemed to permeate Midwest. And, yeah, on some level, she probably knew that people assumed she didn’t date men because she was a lesbian or asexual.

But was it really such a common assumption that Elena would announce it in the middle of the hallway like that?

“Don’t you need to check on Mrs. Adamczak?” Lucinda shot back over her shoulder as she walked through the wide swinging doors. Without giving Elena a chance to catch up, she hurried to her office and blissfully shut the door. It wasn’t much of an office. Part of the plans for the expanded cancer pavilion was redesigning the doctors’ offices to make patients feel more comfortable when they sat down for life-and-death discussions. Right now, Lucinda barely had enough room for a desk and two chairs. But she had a door and a lock, and that was all she needed right now.

She pulled the envelope out of her pocket and realized with horror that her hands were shaking. No. No. She was absolutely not going to let Josh Calhoun get to her again.

She slipped a small card out. “L—I will always be your friend. Let me take you out to dinner. J”

Below that was an Iowa phone number.

She had to stop thinking it couldn’t get worse. Because at this point, fate was merely toying with her.

Three (#ulink_227a3431-f0ed-5ef0-b748-07b6293e4326)

“I might be stuck here for a couple of days,” Josh told his grandfather, Peter Calhoun, who’d called just as Josh was getting into his truck after leaving Carson’s place.

He wasn’t sure what he hoped that his grandfather would say. Peter Calhoun was still the chairman of the Calhoun Creamery, although he was well into his eighties and little more than a figurehead at this point. For all intents and purposes, Josh ran the creamery as CEO. And he hated being away from it.

He almost wanted his grandfather to tell him to come home right now. To heck with the Newports and the Winchesters and the whole city. Chicago was not his town. And the longer he was there, the more everything would hurt.

But if he turned tail and ran—and there was no mistaking the fact that that was exactly what it would be—then what would they think of him? Brooks and Graham and Carson and, yes, Lucy?

He’d given up Lucy’s friendship once without a fight. He could not willingly forfeit the Newports’ friendship, too.

“No big rush,” his grandfather said, his voice crackling with age. “You work too hard, son. Take all the time you need.”

That was not exactly what Josh wanted to hear. “It’ll only be a few more days,” he said as if his grandfather had asked him to come home. “I think the Newport boys need me to be here long enough to see Sutton Winchester settled a little bit. I won’t be here a moment longer.”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone before his grandfather said, “Josh, I know it must be hard for you to be back in Chicago, but I’m serious. Your brothers and sisters are doing a great job holding down the fort. Take the time you need to take. The cows aren’t going anywhere. Paige has the situation well in hand and Trevor is helping cover for you. You know, I think it’s been good for him to have a little more responsibility.”

Josh scowled, not that his grandfather could see it. He did his best to take care of his siblings.

“Unless there’s something else bothering you?” Peter Calhoun asked tentatively.

“DC was fine,” Josh quickly said. “I think we’ll see some good things for the creamery in the new regulations. We should be able to capitalize on the push for hormone-free products and grow our market share.” That wasn’t what his grandfather had asked, but switching back into corporate-lawyer mode was almost automatic for him.

And they both knew it. “But...” the older man said in his gentle way.

Josh sighed. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “But Lucy Wilde is Sutton Winchester’s oncologist.”

“Is that so?” At first Josh thought his grandfather didn’t remember who Lucy was, but then he added, “Have you seen her since graduation?”

“No.” Josh left it at that. He didn’t need to tell his grandfather that Lucy had looked at him with absolute venom in her eyes, and he also didn’t need to mention that he had sent her flowers already.

“An oncologist? Well, good for her. You know...” His grandfather trailed off and Josh could infer what the old man was not saying.

You know, we always wondered what happened between you two. You know, she was such a nice girl. You know, you know, you know.

Shortly after Lucy and Josh had gone to their respective colleges far, far away from each other, Lucy’s folks had moved out of Cedar Point. The Wilde family had no more connections with Iowa that he knew of. Lucy had not come back.

But Josh had.

And he would again.

Josh knew he shouldn’t be sending flowers to anyone. What he had was his job and his family. And that was all he needed. He didn’t need the feeling of desire that hit him low in the gut. He’d lived a good five years without it, after all.

And he especially didn’t need to feel that desire for someone he had a messy history with. The less complicated his life, the happier he was.

And one thing was blindingly obvious—Lucy Wilde was complicated. With a capital C.

“If you see her again, you tell her I said hi,” his grandfather went on as if Josh were actively participating in this conversation. “You know, she was such a nice girl. I’m glad to hear she is doing well. And Josh?”

“Yeah?”

“There’s no rush. If you need to take a couple of weeks in Chicago, that’s fine. Your brother and sisters and I have everything under control.”