Claimed By The Cowboy

Ah, so they were back on the script again. Josh looked to Lucinda for a reply, but she was unable to provide any other details of her patient’s medical condition to him. She was not about to break her Hippocratic oath for him.

Instead, it was Carson who answered. “We’ve been over this, Eve. He’s sick. He belongs in a hospital.” He turned to Josh. “He’s got inoperable lung cancer—years of smoking and hard living, I guess. It’s spread to his lymph nodes. Stage three.”

Josh had the decency to wince.

“But,” Eve said as she jumped back in, “he’s not going to die tomorrow.”

“You can’t just cut the cancer out?” Josh asked Lucinda.

She glared at him even harder. “I cannot share anything about my patient’s condition with a nonfamily member.”

Carson rolled his eyes at her. “As Dr. Wilde has explained to us, due to the original tumor’s location, she can’t perform surgery and traditional chemo, and radiation won’t be powerful enough to eradicate the malignant cells that have spread to the lymph system.”

Josh turned to Eve. “I’m so sorry to hear this,” he said in a gentle voice. “This must be hard for you and your sisters.”

Eve appeared stunned by this olive branch—and Lucinda appreciated someone short-circuiting the bickering.

Josh Calhoun was the same as he’d always been, that much was clear. This was what he did. She’d seen him talk down two guys in the middle of a fight so that, within minutes, they were all sharing a soda and laughing about good times or whatever it was men laughed about while one was wiping the other’s blood off his knuckles.

Once, she’d admired him for that. Okay, honestly—she’d more than admired him. She’d been fascinated by him. She’d never been much to look at, but Josh had never treated her like the know-it-all nerd everyone else did.

Well, almost everyone else. Josh’s best friend in high school, Gary, had asked her out after she’d verbally smacked down some bullies who were mocking Gary for being unable to lift his own backpack after a chemo treatment. And since no one else had ever even remotely looked at Lucy Wilde as someone they might like to go see a movie with—much less kiss—she’d said yes.

Lucinda shook her head out of the past. How long had it been since she’d allowed herself to think of Gary—or Josh? Years. It hadn’t been that hard. She’d been busy with her medical career and dealing with the likes of the Winchesters and Newports. And the Winchesters and Newports took all of her attention.

She had, of course, expressed her concerns to Sutton’s family—that was part and parcel of her job. She cared not only for her patients but their loved ones, as well. She’d had decades of helping people live and die—long before she’d become a doctor.

Long before she’d humiliated herself in front of Josh Calhoun.

But now that she thought of it, she couldn’t remember witnessing anyone else expressing their sympathies to any of the Winchester daughters. Certainly not Brooks Newport or his brothers. Carson’s grim acceptance of the situation had, until this moment, been as good as it got.

“Thank you,” Eve replied quietly. Then she turned her attention to Carson. “I’m not giving up on him. I just want what’s best for him and I don’t think being in the hospital is it.”

“What are the options?” Josh asked.

Why did he have to be here? Why did he have to be forging a peace between Eve and Carson?

Why did he have to be reminding her of things she’d tried so desperately to forget?

It was Carson who answered for her. “Eve and her sisters—our sisters—think it would be best to take him home. I’m not comfortable pulling him out of the hospital.” He stared at Eve. “We have questions and I want him to live long enough to get some answers out of him.”

It was blisteringly clear who the “we” was—Carson and his brothers.

Lucinda wanted to massage her throbbing temples.

Eve glared at him. “What you think doesn’t matter. He’s not really your father. You don’t know him and you don’t love him like I do—like my sisters do.” Her gaze swung back to Lucinda and she looked more determined than ever, which was saying something. “Money is no object. I can have a private medical facility that meets your specifications set up at his estate in a matter of days. I want him out of the hospital and safely at home. And if you won’t help move him,” she threatened, “I will find a doctor who can.”

“Beg your pardon,” Josh interrupted in that gentle tone that Lucinda didn’t really appreciate. “Does he want to stay in the hospital?”

It was a deceptively simple question and Lucinda knew it. What Sutton Winchester wanted was to go home and pretend he was not on death’s door. He never wanted to see her face or the inside of a hospital ever again. But that was not what was best for him.

“Of course, he doesn’t,” Eve stated flatly.

“Because if he’s got the means to be treated at home, maybe that would be best for everyone,” Josh said as if this were the obvious conclusion instead of a solution that entailed an unnecessary health risk.

Well, that went sideways on her. Lucinda gave him a dull look and Carson was none too pleased at this announcement.

Undaunted by their open hostility, Josh went on, “Carson, you’ve got to realize that if he’s more comfortable, he’ll likely be willing to answer some of those questions, don’t you think?”

She wanted to strangle him. It was bad enough that he was here and worse that she was having to talk to him. But for him to come down on the wrong side?

That, however, wasn’t the worst of it. No, what was the worst was that she could see Carson start to waver. Damn it. She knew there were many unanswered questions and she also knew that, currently, Sutton was in no mood to unburden his soul.

Carson Newport had been her ally in keeping Sutton Winchester in the hospital. But, before her eyes, she could see him switch sides. “Well...”

Josh didn’t wait for Carson to talk himself out of it. “If it won’t compromise his care, that is.” He turned his attention to Lucinda and turned on his all-American charm. “If Eve can get the room set up to your specifications, would you be willing to release Mr. Winchester? I know that no one wants to risk his health. That has to come first. I think we can all agree that your word is final, can’t we?” He glanced around their small circle, gathering approval to him like a cloak.

Lucinda blinked at him. Was that the bone he was going to throw her—that she had the final word? Very neatly, Josh Calhoun had sidestepped, diffused or completely undercut weeks of bitter arguments—and boxed her into a corner.

What she wanted to say was that he was out of his ever-loving mind and he could go crawl back into whatever hole he’d crawled out of.

But she didn’t. She had a professional reputation to maintain, and she would be damned if she let Josh Calhoun take that away from her, too. “In no way would moving him at this stage of his treatment be a good idea,” she said firmly.

This fell on deaf ears. “Okay,” Carson announced. “If we can get a room set up in his home, we can move him. But our brothers aren’t going to like this.”

“Graham and Brooks are absolutely not my brothers,” Eve said just as her phone buzzed. She glanced at it and Lucinda saw a small smile break through her icy demeanor. “Dr. Wilde, if you could get a list of equipment we’ll need, I’ll have everything else taken care of.”

“You do understand that this will be very expensive, don’t you?” Lucinda tried a last-ditch attempt. “You’ll need twenty-four-hour care to monitor him, as well—and not some random home-health nurse. He needs oncology specialists around him at all time.”

Eve and Carson shared a look. “That’s fine,” Eve said with a smile that made Lucinda’s blood run cold. “There’s plenty of room at the house. I’ll have the guest quarters prepared for your stay. Hire whomever you need.”

“Ms. Winchester!” Lucinda gaped at her in shock. When had she lost complete and total control?

Josh cleared his throat. Oh, yeah. The moment he’d walked back into her life.

But she didn’t get any further than that. Carson stepped forward and said, “That sounds like a good idea to me. Would you be able to do that, Dr. Wilde?”

This simply could not get worse. She had already been dragged into more than enough Winchester/Newport drama. Personally supervising Sutton Winchester’s care at home would only double and then triple that.

She had opened her mouth to find the words to politely yet firmly refuse when Josh spoke up. “At the very least,” he said, shooting her one of his big smiles that did absolutely nothing to her, “would you be able to see him settled?”

“I’m the head of the oncology department at Midwest,” she told him with an edge to her voice. “I cannot simply disappear to a private home for days or what could even turn out to be weeks at a time.”

Carson gave her a smile that bordered on predatory. “I’m sure, for an appropriate donation to that new cancer pavilion expansion they’ve been planning, they’ll be more than happy to help you find a way to make this work into your schedule.”

In other words, her medical services were going to the highest bidder—and there were no bidders higher in the greater Chicago region than the Winchesters and the Newports. The Newports were already funding this new children’s hospital. In the grand scheme of things, the cost of an expanded cancer pavilion meant nothing to them or the Winchesters.

Lucinda absolutely did not want to be a pawn in this tug-of-war between the two families, but that pavilion would do a lot of good for a lot of people. Damn it all to hell. “I suppose I could move a few appointments around and take a couple of days. But I won’t compromise anyone else’s care. And if I don’t believe your father will receive excellent care at home, I won’t allow him to be discharged.”