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Chapter Eighteen
Ginger worked to keep her hands at her sides instead of fidgeting with the folder she’d brought with her or adjusting her clothes. She’d already pulled down her already perfectly flat shirt.
She could feel the magnetism of Nate, and she also had to work not to turn and stare at him. Whispers ran through the courtroom, though there weren’t very many people there.
“Ginger Talbot,” the judge said. She couldn’t remember his name, but he looked like a wise, no-nonsense man she wouldn’t want to cross. “You own Hope Eternal Ranch, correct?”
“Yes, sir. Your Honor. Yes.” She cleared her throat and wished she’d accepted the bottle of water the Warden had offered her. Her head spun, because she still couldn’t believe she was here.
The judge peered over the top of his glasses at her. “Mister Mulbury worked at your ranch for almost four months, correct?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“Tell me about how it went.” He settled back into his seat and crossed his arms.
Ginger took a deep breath and opened her folder. She and Emma had been up for the last two nights to prepare the contents in the folder. When Ginger had finally admitted that she couldn’t go to work around the ranch as if she didn’t know Nate had a hearing this afternoon, everyone had chipped in to help her.
“Nate is an excellent cowboy,” Ginger said, her voice shaking the tiniest bit. She really didn’t want the judge to know how she felt about Nate, but Spencer and Emma had told her that it was obvious she was in love with him.
“I only have to look at you for half a second to see how miserable you are,” Emma said.
“Just go talk to him and get him back,” Spencer had said.
“Everyone knows you’re in love with him but you,” Nick had told her.
The last month had been torture for Ginger, and she’d spent a lot of time walking the road she and Nate had used to stroll together, wondering where she’d gone wrong. Nick had finally texted her in all caps:IT’S NOT WRONG TO FALL IN LOVE.
She cleared her throat and continued with, “Not only that, but he stepped up to the challenge of becoming an instant father. He was always concerned about Connor, his four-year-old nephew, and I have several statements from the cowboys that he lived with about how Nate would sit with Connor in the bathroom while the boy bathed, reading to him from a paperback book, doing voices for the different characters.”
She tried to breathe and focus on the letters that formed the words on the page in front of her. She did not want to cry in court, not in front of the judge. Certainly not in front of Nate. She’d never witnessed the reading during bath time, but it was just so Nate, and she wished she had.
“He always made sure Connor had what he needed, and most of what he wanted. We all helped take care of Connor on the ranch, and we’ve all grown to love him. But none as much as Nate, obviously.” She shuffled her papers, because she had too much evidence, she was sure. “And Your Honor, Connor loves Nate with his whole heart.”
She paused again, this time not caring that her voice had pitched up slightly. “Just this morning, when I went into his bedroom to tell him I was coming to speak for Nate, he said, ‘Tell Daddy I love him.’”
Ginger settled her weight on one foot. “But that’s just one side of Nate. He has a hard-working side too, which I’m sure if you asked his Unit Officers or Manager about, they’d tell you the same thing. He didn’t get selected to work in the Unit Office because he was lazy. I assigned him to build new bird blinds on the ranch, something he’d never done before. When he showed me the finished product, it was perfect. Only then did he admit that he’d rebuilt it four times to get it right.”
She looked up, hoping the judge was actually listening. He looked one breath away from falling asleep. “Who does that? Who builds something four times just to make sure it’s right?” She shook her head. “No one I’ve ever hired. They would’ve come to get me to ask a million questions, or they would’ve given up. Nate did neither. He figured it out.”
She could sense she needed to wrap things up. “I put him in charge of our eleven-year-old riding program. He interacted with the children, worked with horses, and managed a ton of moving pieces.” She closed the folder. “He’s a great cowboy, Your Honor. I’d take him back at the ranch in a heartbeat. But he’s more than a cowboy. He’s a good father. He’s a good friend. He’s a good man.”
Ginger nodded, because she didn’t have anything else to say. “He was only trying to make things right with his past, so he could move forward into the future without the baggage. Don’t we all have something we wish we could tie up so it can’t weigh us down anymore? I know I do. The difference between Nate and me is that he’s brave enough to do what it takes to cut ties with those things holding him back. I learned that from him, and I’m trying to do the same now so I can have a brighter, more hopeful future.”
She backed up a step, wondering where she was supposed to go now.
“Are you finished?” the judge asked.
“Yes, sir.” She turned when someone touched her arm, and she let the Warden lead her to the first row of chairs behind the railing. Ginger’s heel caught on the leg of one chair, and she almost fell. Instead, she just landed hard in the seat, but the embarrassment felt the same as a fall.
“Mister Brandt? Your argument?”
The lawyer at the table opposite of Nate’s stood. “We have nothing, Your Honor. Nathaniel Mulbury was an exemplary inmate, and we believed him a perfect candidate for the RRC program.” He glanced at Nate and his lawyer. “We still do.”
“Your Honor,” Nate’s lawyer said, standing. “River Bay is over-crowded, and Mister Mulbury’s been in Administrative Detention since his return to the facility. That’s hardly ideal, and we request he be returned to Hope Eternal Ranch to finish out his sentence.”
“Ah, the sentence,” the judge said, and Ginger’s stomach clenched. She’d emailed Greg several times, asking what could happen to Nate, and the bottom line was, he’d probably have to complete his whole sentence now. “Let’s talk about that.”
The judge started talking, and honestly, Ginger got lost in all the legal talk about sentences served and punishments given and accolades for good behavior and how that affected the sentence.
