Claimed by the Cowboy

by Sarah M. Anderson

  And a beer was exactly what she needed right now to get through this evening, too.

  “What can I get you folks tonight?” a perky young waitress asked.

  “I’ve missed Chicago deep-dish pizza like you wouldn’t believe,” Josh said, looking at her. “Is it okay if we get one to share?”

  “That’s fine.” Lucinda also ordered a salad and Goose Island pale ale, while Josh ordered a Percheron Draft Stout ale.

  Once the waitress left, Lucinda decided to go on the offensive. “Okay, so explain to me how you know the Newport boys, as you call them, and why you miss Chicago deep-dish pizza.” Because if she could get Josh talking about himself, he wouldn’t ask questions about her, and he especially wouldn’t do something horrific like apologize for what happened all those years ago.

  Josh gave her a look and she got the feeling that he knew exactly what she was about. But just as she began to squirm, he said, “I went to college with them. I lived in Chicago until about five years ago.” As he said it, he dropped his gaze to the top of the table and Lucinda guessed that there were specific reasons he’d left Chicago. And whatever those reasons were, they weren’t good things. She’d dealt with enough grief in her life to recognize sorrow when she saw it.

  Her heart hurt for him. But she wasn’t getting wrapped up in his problems, because doing that would mean that she still cared about him and she didn’t. Not like that, anyway.

  So she focused on keeping things light. “Wow—I had no idea you were here.” Not that she would have done anything about it if she had. “What were you doing in Chicago? I mean, I knew you were going to go to college here, but I’d always assumed you’d gone right back to Cedar Point after you graduated and worked at the creamery.”

  He shrugged in that way he had. “College, at first. And then law school—”

  “Wait, wait—law school?” She sat back in her chair and looked at him with new eyes. “You went to law school?”

  “You don’t have to be quite so shocked by it,” he said with an easy smile.

  Her cheeks heated. “No, I didn’t mean— I mean, well, you were always really smart, you just...”

  “Never did my homework?” His eyes crinkled as his smile deepened. “Yeah, I know. That maturity thing, it did a number on me. I grew up. I had to.”

  He said the last bit with that hint of sorrow again. And Lucinda knew what he was talking about.

  They’d all had to grow up very fast after Gary had died.

  She cleared her throat and caught sight of their waitress approaching with their drinks. “So, you’re a lawyer. That’s great! What’s your specialty?”

  Josh took a long pull on his stout. “I don’t practice. My grandfather thought it would be a good idea if I knew corporate law—and I have to admit he was right—but I’m the CEO of Calhoun Creamery. So you weren’t really that far off. I went home and started in the family business. Grandpa says hi, by the way.”

  “Really? He remembers me?”

  Josh gave her a long look that made her stomach flutter—and her pulse flutter. And her eyelashes—they fluttered, too. Suddenly, she was one giant fluttering mass, like a butterfly having a seizure or something.

  “Lucy,” he said, and there was no missing the fact that his voice was deeper. It set off another round of quivering and she couldn’t do anything but sit there and listen to what he had to say. “You’re kind of unforgettable, you know that?”

  Four

  “Oh,” Lucy gasped, which did some very interesting things to her chest.

  Not that Josh was noticing her chest at the moment. He was also not noticing the way her cheeks colored prettily—nothing like the tomato red that she’d turned yesterday. No, this was a delicate pinking of her cheeks, and something inside Josh responded on a physical level that he hadn’t anticipated and sure as hell couldn’t control.

  He hadn’t been aiming for flattery. He knew Lucy too well to think that flattery would get him anywhere. He thought he was just being honest. She was unforgettable. The other day he’d recognized her the second he came around the corner and clapped eyes on her.

  But seeing her physical reaction?

  That feeling hit him again deep in his gut—want. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t as unexpected as it had been yesterday, when it had caught him off guard. But it was still so new and unfamiliar that he honestly didn’t know what to do with it. Should he compliment her again? Tell her how much he’d missed her? Should he tell her how lonely he’d been for the last five years?

  All right, so the answer was clearly no on that one. No. He was in no mood to come off as pitiful and needy, a widower who was lost without the touch of a woman to soothe his wounded soul, blah, blah, blah.

  He didn’t want to tell her about Sydney. And he didn’t want to talk about Gary, either. Or even his parents, for that matter. He didn’t want to talk about people he’d lost, because that was in the past and there was no changing it. He just wanted to keep moving forward.

  Plus, he’d made a promise to Lucy. This was just dinner between two old friends. He was out of practice when it came to flirting and seduction and, given the rough ending to their friendship back in high school, he didn’t really think testing the waters with her was a smart idea.

  Which meant he didn’t know what he was supposed to do next.

  Lucy came to his rescue, though. “Do you know,” she said, and he didn’t miss the way her voice was slightly softer than it had been just a moment ago, “you’re the only person who’s called me Lucy in years? I mean, besides my mom.”

  “And your father?”

  She sighed wearily but waved away the comment. “He passed from a heart attack about six years ago.”

  So much for getting away from the subject of people they’d lost. “I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t know.”

  “Thank you,” she said, but she didn’t sound like she was on the verge of an emotional collapse. “My mom went through a brief period where every time she saw me, she would say, ‘If only you’d been a cardiologist, Lucy,’ but she got over it. It’s fine. She misses him—I miss him—but no one lives forever. It was his time.”

  Josh gaped at her. He remembered Gary’s funeral. It had almost destroyed her—and then he couldn’t help but feel he’d finished the job. “I guess as an oncologist, you deal with death every day?”

  She nodded and took another drink. “It does go with the territory. I won’t say it’s gotten easier over the years, but I’ve come to accept that I can’t save everyone.” Incredibly, she even managed a small smile. “Although I do try.”

  Josh drained half of his bottle of beer in one swig. He hated this town. Everyone and everything in it represented an ongoing, never-ending struggle between life and death, but it seemed to him that death won a hell of a lot more than life did.

  Desperately, he changed subjects. “Seems to me that you’ve been pretty successful at that. You’re the youngest-ever head of the oncology department at Midwest—and the first woman. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing that they don’t give those titles to just anyone.”

  Her eyes got wide again and he was struck by their light blue color, with a touch of gray around the edges. Something rare and wonderful and completely Lucy. “Did you look me up?”

  “Of course,” he said, figuring a little internet stalking was no big deal between friends. “I even read some of your published papers.”

  Her eyes narrowed and an old feeling of being busted floated up out of the past. Then she grinned at him. “You always were a terrible liar.”

  Josh laughed. This was better. Lucy might be unforgettable, but he had sort of forgotten how much fun it was to talk to her. She had always held his feet to the fire and expected more out of him. “Okay, okay—you got me. But I did read the titles of some of your papers, and some of them had a very
helpful opening paragraph that summarized things in words I almost understood.” She giggled, a sweet sound, and he heard himself say, “You’re really quite brilliant, you know.” Which even he knew was straight-up flirting.

  There was that blush again. It made her look soft and, in a way, almost vulnerable.

  Josh’s arms began to itch with an unfamiliar urge to pull her against him, to settle his hands around her waist, to pull those massive glasses off her face and tilt her head back and...

  What the hell was wrong with him? Seriously, aside from his sisters hugging him, he hadn’t touched anyone in the last five years. But now he’d spent no more than thirty-five minutes, tops, with Lucy Wilde and suddenly he could barely control himself?

  Thankfully, the waitress came back with Lucy’s salad and Josh ordered another beer. He didn’t normally drink quite as much as he had in the last thirty-six hours, but this was Chicago. He needed all the liquid courage he could handle.

  “So tell me about you,” he went on. He wasn’t trying to make her blush, but the fact that it kept happening was... Well, it was something.

  She gave him a look as she poured her dressing over her lettuce. “There’s not much to tell. I went to college, I went to med school, I did my residencies, I do my job. It’s a good job and I like doing it. We’re making a lot of progress on alternative therapies and targeting the DNA structures of malignant cells and...” She wrinkled her nose in a way that Josh might have called adorable if the gesture hadn’t been paired with one of Lucy’s cut-the-crap looks. “I’m going to eat this salad and you’re going to tell me about you because I, unlike some people at this table, have not Googled anyone recently.” And then she shoved a huge forkful of salad into her mouth.

  Josh couldn’t help but grin at her. There was something comforting about the fact that, after all these years, Lucy was still just as snarky as she had ever been. “I’m sure there’s more to tell than that.” Her eyes narrowed at this. She chewed vigorously and held up her fork as if she were going to stab him in the hand with it. “Okay, I get the hint.” Now it was his turn to feel uncomfortable because—

  Because of Sydney.

  “So you went to college with the Newports?” Lucy said in between bites.

  “Yup. I met Graham first and then I became friends with all three of them. I was a little lost my first year.” Which was kind of an understatement. He’d spent his freshman year in a daze. He’d been homesick and, because he’d lost Gary and, in a different way, Lucy, he felt very alone. “We all got along pretty well. They didn’t seem to mind that I was a country bumpkin.”

  Lucy rolled her eyes at him. “I hate it when you do that,” she said. “You were always underselling yourself back in high school. Used to drive me nuts.”

  He’d never really thought of it in those terms. “I wasn’t underselling myself,” he said defensively. “I was just immature as all hell.”

  She smirked at him. “No argument here.”

  He gave her a dull look. “If I was so immature, how come you put up with me?”

  The question hung in the air and Lucy was the one to look away first. In that moment, Josh had to wonder if they would’ve been friends if it hadn’t been for Gary. Maybe she had been right yesterday when she’d said that they couldn’t be friends anymore.

  “Because you’re a good person,” Lucy said in a quiet voice. “I mean, you were the heir to the Calhoun Creamery fortune. You could’ve easily been a selfish, egotistical bully of a boy. Who would’ve stopped you? You were cute and charming and you could have run that entire town into the ground. And you didn’t.”

  Josh didn’t know what to say to that. Yes, he’d always been destined for the creamery. But his parents—God rest their souls—and his grandparents had never handed him a single thing on a silver platter.

  “I always admired you for that,” Lucy added. “You were an honorable man then and, even though you might have made me a little mad yesterday, it’s clear that’s still who you are. You came to Chicago to help some friends out and brokered a peace between two groups of people who’ve been driving me crazy for weeks. Of course,” she went on in an unnaturally perky voice, “if you barge into a medical decision like that again, I’ll take back what I said about you.”

  “That would be terrible,” he agreed just as their pizza was delivered to the table. “You have no idea how good this smells. Iowa doesn’t have a clue how to make pizza.”

  They both scooped slices onto their plates and began to eat. The silence stretched between them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Josh was still trying to break down what Lucy had said and reconcile it with everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. There was almost too much information to process.

  “So,” Lucy finally said in between bites of pizza, “how long did you live in Chicago?”

  “Almost twelve years. I used to work for the Newports.” She was gaping at him. “What?”

  She shrugged. “Just having trouble reconciling the guy who used to take me cow tipping with a corporate lawyer who worked for the Newports.”

  Josh couldn’t help but laugh at that. “It’s been a long time since I tipped a cow. Don’t tell my grandpa,” he hurried to add.

  “You really have grown up,” she said. And before Josh could think of anything to say to that, her phone buzzed. “Sorry,” she said, digging into her purse. “It’s probably the Winchesters. Just a moment.”

  “No worries. Take your time.” He finished his first slice of pizza and dove into a second while Lucy stared at her phone, texting and grimacing. With a heavy sigh, she dropped her phone back in her purse. “Sorry,” she said again. “I’m basically always on call. Especially when it comes to certain, shall we say, difficult patients.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “That was Grace—have you met her?” Josh shook his head no. He would’ve answered out loud, but a proper Chicago pizza had a lot of cheese and he was still chewing. “She was telling me that they’ve got everything set up for her father at home and she wanted to know when I can come by and check it out.”

  Josh finally got past the cheese and took another drink of beer. “I owe you an apology, you know.”

  Everything about Lucy went stiff. It almost looked as if she was expecting a brawl to break out. “Oh?”

  “For yesterday. It was never my intention to undermine you or make you look bad in front of your patients. I know how dedicated you are, but—”

  “But you were just doing what you always do, Josh. Keeping the peace.”

  That didn’t exactly clarify whether or not she was in a forgiving mood. But, then again, she had come to dinner with him and she hadn’t stabbed him with her fork, so that had to count for something, right? “What are you going to do? That is, if you can tell me.”

  “I think I can. I’ve got surgery in the morning and the rest of my day is packed, so it looks like I’ll be going over after dinner tomorrow night to check out the room.” Her shoulders slumped and he could tell that she was not happy with this development. “They’re basically buying the hospital’s cancer pavilion expansion, and for that I had to agree to spend nights at the Winchester estate for as long as it takes.”

  This was his fault. And, more than that, he felt responsible for making it better. That wouldn’t be easy, balancing what Carson and his brothers wanted against what the Winchester girls wanted, all while making sure he didn’t undermine Lucy’s authority.

  “Tell me how I can help,” he said earnestly. Because there had to be a way to make this work.

  Lucy gave him a measured look. “I suppose convincing everyone that Sutton’s better off in the hospital is out of the question?”

  He had a feeling it was, but he said, “I can give it a try.”

  She shook her head, but she was smiling when she did it. “I appreciate that, but we
both know that ship has sailed.” She wiped her mouth on her napkin and tossed it onto her plate. She’d only had one piece of pizza and her salad. Somehow, Josh had eaten most of the rest by himself.

  She had promised him one dinner. But that didn’t seem like it would be enough, not now. “You know,” he said in a casual tone, “the thing I miss most about Chicago is the food. The pizza, the Korean barbecue, the Indian naan—we have a Chinese restaurant back in Cedar Point now, and it’s not bad. But it’s not like what you can get here.” He steeled himself for the rejection he was pretty sure was coming, but he asked anyway. “Let me take you out to dinner tomorrow night before you go over to the Winchesters. I don’t know about you, but I would kill for some Thai food.”

  He wasn’t necessarily asking her out on a date, right? No more than he’d asked her out on a date tonight. They were old friends, so why not catch up over dinner?

  But he wasn’t being honest with himself. Because the difference between having dinner with Lucy and having dinner with Carson or Graham or Brooks was so huge as to be laughable. The Newport boys were his best friends, but when he looked at them he didn’t get the feeling in his gut that previously he’d thought was out of his reach forever.

  He and Lucy were friends. And he had always liked her.

  She wasn’t looking at him. She had placed her fingers on top of the tablecloth and was staring down at them, and he got the feeling that she was about to deliver bad news. Hell.

  Then she said, “I don’t think I’ll have time,” which was not the same thing as no, I won’t. “I have a busy day tomorrow and then I’ll have to go home and pack up so that I can move out to the Winchester estate for who knows how long. I’m sorry.”

  “You know,” Josh said, trying to keep from laughing at her, “they have this thing now—maybe you’ve heard of it? It’s called ‘takeout.’ Modern technology at its finest. You order the food and then—it’s the latest thing—you take it home and eat it there.”