Her Surprise Hero

by Abby Gaines

Or, I could deal with Ethan.

  “Is Ethan’s place nearby?” Cynthia asked.

  “The Double T is maybe forty minutes out. Ethan probably does it in thirty-five. Of course, he’ll be in town tonight,” Melanie continued. “He and some of the guys play poker at the Stonehouse Friday nights.”

  Cynthia had figured he was joking when he’d named poker and cow-wrangling as his hobbies. If the poker was true, then so, presumably, was the cow-wrangling. My future depends on a cow-wrangler’s goodwill.

  “But the guys are a little precious about their game,” Melanie said. “It’s like a religious experience. You’re better to wait until Monday.”

  Monday! Ethan could figure out how to complain about her over the weekend, with a simple search of the Internet. From there, all it would take was one e-mail. One phone call first thing Monday.

  “You’re right,” Cynthia lied, “it can wait.”

  How precious could a poker game be?

  CYNTHIA’S INTERRUPTING-A-POKER-GAME outfit comprised jeans, a white sleeveless georgette blouse that she knew was too dressy, and an orange bandanna knotted at her throat, to counteract the ruffle down the front of the blouse. She’d bought the bandanna for four dollars at Walgreens on her way home from court. The label promised one-hundred-percent cotton, but the fabric’s suspicious sheen hinted at polyester.

  Cynthia adjusted the knot in the mirror on her visor one last time. She turned her head to check that the black velvet ribbon still held most of her hair in place. She looked casual-ish, not desperate. About the best she could hope for.

  She got out of the car and walked into the Stonehouse. The edge-of-town tavern wasn’t a house and wasn’t made of stone. Presumably it got its name from the two enormous Stonehenge-style rocks that stood on either side of the narrow parking lot entry. She’d bet a few customers had suffered bumper damage trying to maneuver around them after a few drinks. The building itself was stucco, painted an unfortunate shade of lilac that didn’t seem to deter the clientele. The parking lot was full and when Cynthia made it inside, so was the tavern.

  Though Stonewall Hollow was a small town, most faces here were unfamiliar. Thank goodness. Women in pairs, clusters of men eyeing them, a few couples, and in the corner behind the door, a bunch of young people who may or may not be legally entitled to drink the beers stacked three deep on the table in front of them. Cynthia glanced away. Her job was to judge, not to make arrests, and she was having enough trouble with that.

  It took her a good five minutes to reach the bar through the throng.

  “I’m looking for the poker game,” she shouted over the jukebox playing “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”

  The barkeep slid a coaster across the varnished wood surface. “Drink?”

  “No, the poker—okay, a white wine spritzer.” It wouldn’t hurt to relax a little more before she humiliated herself in front of Ethan. “No ice.”

  The server looked vaguely disgusted, but he poured fifty-fifty white wine and club soda into a tall glass.

  Cynthia handed over a ten. “The poker game?” she asked again, as he counted out her change.

  He paused, a five dollar bill suspended above her palm. “Nuh-uh, no girls allowed.”

  “What about grown women?” she asked sweetly, snatching her five bucks.

  “Nope, not them, either.” He grinned. “Not with clothes on, leastways.”

  He was kidding. He had to be. She pulled a straw from the dispenser and stuck it in her drink, then took a long sip.

  She considered pulling rank to get the information she needed—do you know who I am?—but then this guy would be mad at her like the rest of the town, and being the butt of everyone’s dislike was getting old.

  Drink in hand, she moved away from the bar. The canned music switched to a country-and-western song, something about a man whose girl had left so he was falling in love with…his dog? Ugh, she must have misheard.

  The barkeep might not have told her where the game was, but she’d registered the quick, ceilingward flick of his eyes. Poker was upstairs. She wandered through the room, looking for an exit to a stairwell. She found the bathrooms, the restaurant, the haze-filled poolroom, but no stairs. She had to get behind the bar, to that door beyond the cash register.

  Which meant ignoring the Staff Only, No Patrons Allowed sign. As a law-abiding citizen, that went against her instincts, so Cynthia ditched her straw and took a fortifying slug of spritzer before setting her glass back on the bar. Feigning deafness to the bartender’s protest, she pushed through the swing gate and headed for the forbidden door.

  She wrinkled her nose as she climbed the stairs. Unlike the well-ventilated bar, the hallway smelled of cigarette smoke and beer. On the upper landing, she paused. In the long hallway punctuated by doors, only one stood ajar, a thread of light falling onto the worn red carpet.

  With a nod to local custom, Cynthia walked in without knocking.

  Half a dozen men—no women, naked or otherwise—sat around a square table, cards in hand. A light hung low over the table and a green baize mat took up much of the surface. At Cynthia’s entrance, a couple of the players looked up. Not Ethan, sitting at the far end, intent on his five cards, a sizable stack of chips in front of him. Smoke curled from the ashtray at his left hand—all of them had cigars, she observed. Including Sheriff Davis, trying hard not to notice her.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” she said.

  “Aw, man.” The guy nearest her tossed his cards onto the table facedown. “Who let her in?” He turned around, recognized her and said, “Sorry, Judge.”

  “Evening, Judge,” the man next to him said.

  The sheriff gave a casual salute. “There a problem, Judge Merritt? ’Cause if there’s not, the boys don’t welcome interference in their game.” As if he wasn’t one of the six men wishing she was somewhere else.

  At least, she assumed Ethan shared the sentiment. He still hadn’t looked up. His fingers wrapped around a tumbler of amber liquid. Whiskey? Was he drunk? Too drunk to see reason?

  “Mr. Granger,” she said.

  He picked up his cigar, took a drag, then eyed her through the smoke he blew out. His scrutiny started with the black velvet ribbon in her hair, then moved down.

  “Howdy, cowgirl.” His reaction to the bandanna. His eyes moved lower.

  “Sorry to interrupt.” Cynthia managed a tight smile. “But I’d like a word.”

  “Can it wait until tomorrow?” The sheriff sounded exasperated, as if she’d tried his patience good and proper at today’s newspaper interview. He chugged his Bud.

  “Now,” she said to Ethan.

  “This game is the highlight of my week.” He held up his glass so the glow from the low-hanging light caught it. “I can forget about the garbage that fills the day and do one simple thing that brings me a great deal of pleasure.”

  “How touching.” She squeezed past a guy with an impressive beer gut and advanced on Ethan.

  His eyes narrowed, but that might have been the smoke. “So I’m not inclined to quit the game to talk to you,” he explained.

  He hadn’t actually said no.

  “Five minutes,” she promised. Behind her, someone sighed.

  “A man could miss a lot of poker in five minutes.” Ethan took a drink. “How about, whatever it is, Your Honor, you tell me here.”

  Had she been that difficult to deal with on the phone this past week? Maybe.

  “It’s confidential.” She wondered if he’d told these guys he planned to complain about her. If they’d laughed about her. She pushed her hands into the pockets of her jeans and held his gaze.

  He gave one last, longing look at his cards, then put them down. “Talk quietly among yourselves, fellas.”

  “Sorry to drag you out of your game,” Cynthia said when they reached the dimly lit hallway.

  “How sorry?” He wore a blue-and-brown plaid shirt with jeans and boots. Nothing special, so it had to be long legal practice that had her gauging the bre
adth of his shoulders, the muscle of his forearm where his sleeves were rolled up.

  “Not that sorry,” she admitted.

  A smile ghosted across his lips. “Okay, Judge, let’s cut to the chase. Melanie told you about my visit to the courthouse.”

  Cynthia wiped her palms on her jeans. “While you’re entitled to complain, I think we should talk about whatever’s bothering you first.”

  “As I recall, I’ve spoken to you on the phone five times in the past week. Each time, you’ve brushed me off like a burr off a blanket.”

  “I—” she pushed out the words stuck in her throat “—I apologize.”

  He stared hard at her. Then he rubbed his chin. “You do that often?”

  “Whenever it’s justified.” Her dad had taught her to make certain she was right before she spoke. She rarely needed to say sorry.

  “In that case, apology accepted.” Definite mockery in his tone.

  Cynthia ploughed on. “While your irritation with me is perhaps justified—definitely justified,” she amended when his chin jutted, “lodging a complaint is an overreaction.”

  He leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest. “Uh-huh.” Was that amusement?

  “It can’t be easy having your son in trouble with the law,” she sympathized.

  Subtly, his stance hardened. “You think?”

  “Especially when you run a respected rehabilitation program yourself.”

  “Respected by everyone except you,” he pointed out.

  She’d never expected this to be easy. She locked her jaw and said, “But it’s important not to let your personal stake cloud your judgment.”

  His eyes glittered. “So if I’m unhappy with the way you handled my son’s case, it’s my own fault?”

  There was no answer that wouldn’t put Cynthia in the wrong. In the silence, music filtered up from the jukebox downstairs: Bruce Springsteen, “Dancing in the Dark.” The walls closed in on her; she should have turned a light on before she barged into the card game.

  “Seems you’ve annoyed a lot of people since you arrived in town,” Ethan observed. “Sending Paul Dayton to jail was a brave move. I wouldn’t be surprised if he lodges a complaint—” a pause “—too.”

  “I did the right thing,” she said stiffly.

  “I hear Tania Leach isn’t your number one fan, either.”

  He knew about the newspaper profile. Of course he did, he probably had platoons of loyal fans calling to report her every failure. Cynthia hooked her thumbs through the loops of her jeans. “I admit I had a difficult interview with the Gazette.”

  “Difficult?” He straightened, reached for her bandanna, and tugged one end out from her collar. “I heard it was a disaster.”

  She flinched, but didn’t step back. Using both hands, he spread the orange fabric she’d carefully tucked away, revealing the words printed in the corner: Welcome to Stonewall Hollow.

  “Cute,” he said. “A nice souvenir to take back to Atlanta.”

  Her hand went to her throat, but when her fingers brushed his, she whisked it away. “I’m not leaving anytime soon.” Not until she had enough small community experience to satisfy the superior court selection committee, and not until she could convince her dad her head was in the right place.

  “Maybe you won’t have a choice.” He tucked the bandanna back in.

  Cynthia bit down on her cheeks and submitted, while she shuffled through the available strategies. The convince-Ethan-he’s-unreasonable option went on the discard pile. “I didn’t set out to offend anyone in court. It’s important to me to do a good job.”

  “Two things are important to me,” he returned. “My son and my work program. You’ve implied more than once that my work program is crooked, but you’ve refused to come see for yourself. You won’t give an inch on Sam’s community service.”

  She discarded the idea of explaining herself, too. That would only work with a reasonable person.

  “I’m sorry.” Apologizing could at least do no harm. “If your work program means as much to you as my job does to me, I understand how angry you must feel.”

  “I’m not angry,” he snapped.

  Okay, she was wrong. Apologizing could make things worse. She held one last card. Cynthia breathed a prayer and played her ace.

  “I’d like to take up your invitation to visit the ranch,” she said.

  Ethan stilled. At last.

  “You’re right, I should check out your program,” she continued. “I’d like to take an objective look, and give you a chance to answer my questions.”

  He shook his head. “Why are you so panicked about me placing a complaint? I’ll bet judges get complaints all the time, and ninety-nine percent of them are ignored. Hell, if I’d thought you’d take it so seriously, I’d have complained a week ago.”

  “I’m not panicked,” she said frostily.

  “Panicked enough to grovel to me.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Even if a couple of people complain,” he interrupted, “surely you can find a few others to say nice things about you.”

  “The evidence suggests otherwise,” she admitted, glad of the darkness now. Her cheeks felt as if they were on fire. This was humiliating. “Even the mayor’s assistant made it plain she doesn’t like me today, and I’d never met the woman.”

  “Linnet did?” he said sharply.

  “Um…yes.” If he said that wasn’t possible, because Linnet liked absolutely everyone, Cynthia’s mortification would be complete.

  But he seemed lost in thought.

  “Have you ever needed a second chance, Mr. Granger?”

  His head jerked up. “It’s Ethan.”

  “Ethan,” she said, “I messed up, I’ve apologized, I want to start over. I’ll visit the ranch, if you’ll drop your complaint.” Yep, she was groveling.

  “What do I get in return?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It can’t have been easy for you to climb down off your high horse and come here. Which means this complaint is a big deal. If I’m going to drop it, I need more of an…incentive.” His eyes settled on her lips.

  She fought the temptation to cover her mouth with her fingers. “What kind of incentive?” It came out breathless.

  “I want you to seriously reconsider transferring Sam’s community service to the ranch.”

  Cynthia lurched backward as if a bucket of cold water had hit her. “That’s blackmail.”

  “It would be blackmail if I insisted you shift Sam to the ranch,” he said. “I’m asking you to weigh the options once you’ve seen my program in action, and make the best decision for Sam.”

  Every instinct told her she’d made the right call in keeping Sam away from the ranch. Still, she examined the suggestion from all sides. What harm would it do to take a look?

  Someone called from the poker room. “Ethan, you done out there?”

  Without taking his eyes off her, he raised his voice to reply. “Give me one minute.” To Cynthia he said, “Sunday afternoon, three o’clock. Take the Old West Road ten miles, then right onto Picards Line. Look out for the Double T sign.”

  Sunday? So soon?

  She nodded.

  “Then we have a deal.” He stuck out his hand.

  She stared at his strong, blunt fingers. Had she done everything she could to fix the mess she was in?

  “I want your support,” she blurted.

  Ethan’s hand closed. “What?”

  “This town sees you as some kind of hero. If you act as if you—you like me, your attitude will rub off on other people.”

  “Like you?” He couldn’t have sounded more horrified if she’d asked him to marry her. Sabrina had done exactly that: forced a fake engagement on Jake, now her husband, to save her career. Back then, Cynthia had been smugly sure she’d never need to resort to such desperate measures.

  This was completely different.

  “I mean like me in a collegial sense,” she explained. “I wan
t to get to know this town, I want people to give me a chance. They’re more likely to do that if you’re…warm toward me.”

  Her face felt like a furnace. Maybe he wouldn’t notice.

  “Warm,” he said slowly, eyes on her cheeks. She should have had ice in that spritzer.

  “Nothing drastic,” she said with a nonchalance she didn’t feel. “Just a friendly attitude, a few smiles, maybe the occasional coffee together in public.”

  “You’re unbelievable,” he said. “You come here to beg me not to complain about you, and now you expect me to act as if we’re best pals.”

  “What I’ve proposed works for both of us. If you want me to reconsider Sam’s position…” Adrenaline zipped through her veins. Ethan had accused her of never having done anything wild, but this bizarre negotiation was…Creative and pragmatic, she told herself. Excellent qualities in a judge.

  Ethan hadn’t answered.

  “Well?” she said, not as firmly as she’d have liked.

  They both shifted, and it put them closer together. Cynthia didn’t want to be the first to back away.

  “I don’t appreciate being manipulated,” he said.

  She sensed the prize within reach. Now wasn’t the time to feel guilty. “You started it.”

  He raked a hand through his hair. “If I agree to act…warm…you’ll come out to the ranch and consider reassigning Sam.”

  “Definitely,” she agreed, generous in victory.

  Did he just inch closer? She could see the weave of his plaid shirt. Or maybe she was just staring. So near, his masculine appeal was overpowering.

  A tiny step backward brought her up against the wall. Refusing to show her discomfort, she extended a hand. Now they could seal the deal, one that was much more to her satisfaction.

  He didn’t move. Surely he wouldn’t pull out now! She tipped her head back to meet his intense gaze.

  “I thought you wanted warm,” he said.

  “I—yes, in a collegial—”

  His lips brushed hers, silencing her. Then before she could react, he came back, kissed her again. For less than a second, but enough for Cynthia to catch the smoky taste of whiskey. Her mouth burned as if lightning had struck.

  When the kiss ended, he was so close, she could see shadow where he would shave tomorrow morning.