Healing The Md's Heart. Nicole Foster

gave in to her need for answers and asked, “Were you planning on calling Cort this morning?”

      “Calling him, yes.” Duran pushed his coffee mug onto the tray and got to his feet. “Accepting his offer of housing—that I’m rethinking. I appreciate it, but I’m not comfortable with accepting it.”

      “Last night—”

      “Last night I promised to call him. I didn’t say I’d move in with any of them.”

      “They’re family.”

      “No, they’re strangers whom I happen to be related to. And I need some place quiet and stable—” He glanced at Noah. “I can better control that in a hotel.”

      “I could argue that,” Lia persisted. Maybe she didn’t have a right to interfere, but she knew Duran’s brothers and their families, and she couldn’t believe that they wouldn’t accept Noah as one of their own. In her opinion, that was better medicine right now than any other treatment she could prescribe. “A hotel is impersonal and there aren’t any guarantees you’re going to get the peace and quiet you want. Apart from that, weren’t you the one who said—”

      “I want to meet your family!” Noah broke in. “You said I had cousins.”

      Lia gestured to Noah, who’d made her point for her. “They aren’t going to get the chance to know him if they never get to meet him.”

      His hardened expression clearly said Duran didn’t like where the conversation was headed. For Noah’s sake, though, Lia refused to back down. It might do Duran some good, as well, she reasoned. He’d been shouldering the weight of his son’s illness alone. Support from any quarter had to be better for him than the isolation he’d imposed on himself. She assured herself she was doing the right thing because of Noah, ignoring the little nagging voice at the back of her head that she was far overstepping her boundaries, that she was involving herself in Duran’s life far more than she should.

      “I didn’t come here for a family reunion,” Duran said tightly.

      “Didn’t you? I thought that was the point.”

      “Why are you pushing this? Why is it so important to you?”

      She could have answered that in ways that were personal, knowing in part she was letting her feelings about her own family and the distance she’d always felt between them influence her urging Duran to connect with his brothers. “It’s important to you and to Noah,” she answered instead and that was true, too. “Isn’t it why you’re here?”

      Noah, oblivious to the tension, asked, “Are cousins like brothers and sisters?”

      “Kind of,” Duran answered, his attention on Lia momentarily diverted. “But cousins don’t usually live in the same house as you, like brothers and sisters would.”

      “They can be especially good friends, though, because they’re friends and they’re family,” Lia tried to explain, which was difficult, because for her it was only theory.

      “I want to meet them,” Noah insisted again, his mouth pulled in a stubborn line as he looked at his father. “You said I could.”

      “I know I did. But—” Duran pushed a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “It’s not that simple.”

      “Why?” Noah demanded.

      Duran’s frown accused Lia of pursuing a subject he’d wanted to avoid for as long as possible. “For a lot of reasons.” He stopped, seemed to consider for a minute, then finally came to a decision. “I promised you’d meet them and you will. But it might not be right away and I don’t know if staying in the same house with them is a good idea right now.” This last was aimed at Lia and she flushed, knowing she probably deserved the reprimand but was unwilling to back down.

      Before she could come back with a defense, the door pushed open and they were confronted with the morning nurse, followed by Cort.

      Duran’s eyes snapped to her, but Lia shook her head in denial she’d had anything to do with Cort’s appearance.

      “It’s not her fault,” Cort answered Duran’s unspoken question. “I invited myself.”

      “Thinks he doesn’t have to follow the rules like everyone else,” the nurse grumbled. Toting a breakfast tray that was about as wide as she was, the nurse took one look at the stack of empty dishes on the table beside Noah and scowled at Lia. “I see someone’s already done my job.”

      Lia hustled to explain. “I got here early and—”

      “Oh, save it. I’ll take the oatmeal home for Cruiser. Don’t know what that dog sees in mushy oatmeal, but he gets plenty of it.” She flung an accusatory look at Lia. “I suppose you’ve taken the boy’s vitals, too?”

      “I did, earlier, but I’m going to release him soon, so if you wouldn’t mind checking them again, I’ll have a quick word with Mr. Forrester and Cort outside.”

      “Fine, let me earn my keep, then. You three give me some space.”

      Heeding the older woman, Lia gestured Duran and Cort toward the door. “We’ll just be a few minutes,” she reassured Noah, who was eyeing the nurse doubtfully. “Don’t worry, she’s only cranky with adults.”

      “Forty years and I still get no respect,” the sassy, rotund nurse muttered as the others left the room.

      “Is she—?” Duran nodded to the door.

      “No worries,” Lia said. “She’s the best pediatric nurse we have. She just saves her bedside manner for the kids.”

      Duran didn’t seem convinced but looked to Cort. “I would have called.”

      “I’m sure you would have,” Cort said easily. “But I figured it would be harder for you to turn down my offer in person. This way you can’t hang up on me. So before you give me all the reasons why it won’t work, I’ll tell you that we’ve fixed it so you and Noah can stay at the ranch. My brother Josh used to live in one wing of the house. It’s three rooms and more than big enough for the two of you.”

      “I don’t doubt it,” Duran said. “But this is all happening pretty fast. I’m not sure it’s the best place for Noah right now.”

      “Trust me, the place is huge. You won’t have to see Jed or Del—my stepmother—if you don’t want to. Jed doesn’t get around much these days, and Del—” Cort grimaced at his mention of Jed Garrett’s wife. “Well, let’s just say she’ll be more than happy to stay out of your way.”

      “Noah would probably love being around all the animals,” Lia put in.

      Flicking a look at her, Duran said nothing for a moment. “You told Jed about me—us?”

      For the first time, Cort looked uneasy. “Yeah, I told him everything. The timing wasn’t ideal. He’s been in Albuquerque for the past few days, seeing some specialist and won’t be back until late this afternoon, so I had to do it by phone. But he knows.”

      “And?”

      “And it was a shock. But like I predicted last night, once he got past the surprise, he was more than ready to bring two more sons into the family fold.”

      Cort’s words and the troubled thread in his voice eroded Lia’s previous confidence that staying at the ranch would be best for Duran and Noah. She’d been thinking of his brothers, instead of remembering who their father was. Jed Garrett might be sick, but it hadn’t softened him, hadn’t, as far as she could tell, caused him to repent his life of taking what he wanted, discarding anything and anyone that had stood in his way of building Rancho Piñtada into one of the biggest and most successful ranch operations in New Mexico. That had included wives, lovers and his own sons, and it was only recently that there had been a tentative attempt on his part to reconcile with the family he’d had no use for.

      Duran,