“Sure,” Nate said, his voice only a little scratchy.
Ginger laughed and nudged him with her hip. “You’ll be fine. They’ll love you.”
“They know I’m in the Residential Reentry Program, right?” he asked, trying to find something he could grab onto to get out of this beach day.
“Yes,” she said. “They know I operate the ranch as a center for the BOP.” She glanced at him. “You’re not seriously worried about that, are you?”
“Of course I am,” he said. “You aren’t?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice at half its usual volume.
Nate let the conversation stall there, because they were almost to the Annex, and he really needed some silence and privacy to figure out what he was going to do on Saturday. It didn’t sound like they’d be leaving the beach before two, and the bank was only open from ten to two on Saturdays.
The panic stole through him, but he kept it dormant, a silent scream moving through him as the back door opened and Connor came running across the deck. “Dad!” he yelled, and Nate fully stopped then.
“Dad,” Ginger whispered, and Nate bent to scoop Connor into his arms.
“Hey, bud,” he said, his heart expanding at a rate he’d never felt before. “Did you get some muffins?”
“Yep,” Connor said, leaning into Nate’s shoulder. “Cowboy Bill let me take Ursula to get the mail.”
“Is that right?” Nate asked. “Did we get anything?”
“Bill said we did. Something from the layer-yer.”
Nate tried to figure out what he’d said, and he glanced toward the deck, where Bill had come out and now held up an envelope. “The lawyer,” he said, and Nate’s pulse rioted again.
He felt like a yo-yo—up one moment and down the next. Panicked one moment, and anxious the next.
“Let’s see what it is,” Nate said, setting Connor back on his feet. His legs felt like he was bending them backward, but he made it to the deck and up the steps. He took the envelope from Bill and opened it, not sure what he’d find inside. He didn’t pretend to understand how the adoption of a family member worked, but Lawrence had said he’d take care of it.
This letter wasn’t from Lawrence, though. It bore the letterhead of the same firm, and Nate realized he’d passed the case onto a family lawyer in the same building.
“Jill didn’t contest the adoption,” he said as he read. “And neither did anyone in her family.” Relief streamed through him, and he beamed down at Connor. “That means we’re good to go ahead, bud.” He handed the paperwork to Ginger, because she liked to read it for herself, and Nate scooped the little boy back into his arms.
All cares and worries about that weekend’s drop-off disappeared as he and Connor laughed together, and Nate bent to touch his forehead to Connor’s. “I love you, Connor,” he whispered. He’d always loved his nephew, but this was something different. Something more.
Something parental.
Nate hated himself as he glanced over his shoulder to the sleeping form of Connor. They were packed and ready to hit the beach at seven a.m. tomorrow morning, but Nate hadn’t been able to move his drop-off.
Instead, he’d gotten Nick to do it. He could drive himself. He could leave the beach for forty minutes and get the job done.
Nate had had to explain a couple of things he wished he hadn’t had to, but Nick hadn’t judged him at all. He hadn’t asked too many questions either.
Nate slipped out of the room and closed the door behind him silently. Spencer and Nick shared a room, and Spencer got vicious if someone interrupted his sleep. So Nick had agreed to meet Nate on the back deck.
The location made him nervous, because anyone could overhear the conversation, and he didn’t want anyone else on the ranch to know about his deal with Oscar Dominguez. It was almost over, and then he could breathe.
And when he became a free man in just eighty-seven days, he wouldn’t have anything or anyone in his way to start his life again, with a son.
He slipped out the back door, and thankfully, Nick already stood against the railing. He turned toward Nate and smiled.
Nate did not. He felt like he’d swallowed one of the beehives out on the ranch, and he pushed against the nausea. “Hey,” he said, joining Nick. “Thank you for doing this.”
“No problem,” Nick said. “It’s going to the bank. Picking up the envelope. Putting it in the backpack, and taking that to a locker in the mall.”
“That’s right.” Nate took a deep breath. “Then you text me the number and the code, and I’ll take care of the rest. Come back to the beach. Done.” The weight of the money in Nate’s pocket seemed to weigh him down. “And I have something for you.” He pulled the bills out and tried to slip them to Nick quickly.
But Nick wouldn’t take it. “I don’t need to get paid. Friends do favors for each other.”
Nate shoved the money back in his pocket. “Okay.”
“How much money do you have?” Nick asked.
“A lot,” Nate said.
“How?”
“I inherited Ward’s entire estate,” Nate said. “And I invested wisely before prison.”
“You were in investments, right?” Nick asked.
“Yes.”
“This is legal money?”
“Mine is,” Nate said. “This drop is too. It’s just something I wasn’t able to pay out before I got arrested.” He looked at Nick. “Honestly.”
“And Ginger doesn’t know.” He wasn’t asking.
“It’s not illegal,” Nate said. “I just want it to be over, so I don’t have this hanging over my head anymore.”
“I get that.”
But Nate wasn’t sure how he could. Nick was nineteen years old.
“Thank you,” Nate said. “I really will pay you for this.”
“It’s not necessary,” Nick said, clapping Nate on the shoulder. “See you in the morning.”
Nate hardly slept, and when he lifted his backpack over the tailgate of Ginger’s truck the next morning, he felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.
Thankfully, Connor had enough energy for both of them, and he occupied Ginger’s attention. Nate watched as they laughed together, and he had a flash of a future with the three of them as a family.
So much about him had changed, as he’d never really envisioned himself as a husband and father. But he sure did now.
That hope that had been growing inside him swelled, and he took a moment to revel in the fantasy of him and Ginger, married, with Connor as their son.
“Ready?” she asked, breaking through the image in his mind.
“Yep,” he said, hoping he could make it through this morning.
Hours later, Nate couldn’t focus, though Connor kept calling to him from the waves. Nick should’ve been back fifteen minutes ago. Then twenty. Then thirty.
He checked his phone over and over, but there were no calls and no messages. Ginger’s family was set to arrive in only twenty minutes, and Nate couldn’t remember any of their names, though he and Ginger had been talking about them all week.
Flipping over his phone again, Nate considered what to do. He couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. “I’ve got to use the restroom,” he said to Ginger. “Keep an eye on Connor?”
“Of course.”
He bent down and kissed her, easily slipping his hand into her purse and taking her car keys. He walked away, his muscles vibrating with his pulse. Around the side of the small brick building that housed the bathroom, Nate dialed Nick.
“Come on,” he muttered. Maybe the kid had met a girl at the mall. Maybe he’d spied his favorite hamburger joint. Nate prayed for either of those as the line rang.
“Nate,” a man said, but it wasn’t Nick.
It was Oscar.
Nate strode toward the parking lot. “Where is he?”
“Dad,” Connor said, and Nate spun toward him while Oscar said he didn’t appreciate someone else making the drop.
Nate pulle
d the phone away from his mouth. “Come on,” he said to Connor. “We have to go for a ride.” He picked up his son and hurried toward the truck.
“I had a thing,” Nate said. “Nick is nothing. He doesn’t even know how much or why I’m giving you money.”
“He knows it’s me,” Oscar said.
“Also not true,” Nate said, opening the door and sliding Connor in the passenger seat. “I didn’t tell him anything but how to get the money from my bank and where to drop it.” He ran around the hood and opened the driver’s door.
“Nate.”
He turned toward Ginger, who wore confusion on her face.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll be right back,” he said, getting behind the wheel. He slammed the door and said to Oscar, “Tell me where he is right now. You got your money, and we’re done. You don’t need Nick.” He took off even as Ginger stepped toward him, a look of extreme anger on her face.
He couldn’t go back though, and try to explain to her that he’d put her cousin in danger. He knew how much Nick meant to her, and Nate kicked himself for putting the kid in danger.
He was going to make this right.
He was going to end this. Today.
Then he would explain everything to Ginger and hope that she could forgive him.
Chapter Sixteen
Ginger couldn’t believe what had just happened. Fury roared through her as the taillights of her truck disappeared around a bend in the road that led back to Sweet Water Falls.
Her parents were due to arrive in ten minutes. They were expecting to meet her boyfriend and his son. And they’d both just disappeared.
Her torso felt like someone had hollowed her out and filled her with bleach. And where the heck was Nick? He’d left over an hour ago to go get a new battery for his phone. He should’ve been back by now.
She turned in a full circle, trying to figure out what to do. She was supposed to report anything the inmate did that went against his terms of the reentry program. And leaving without telling her where he was going—and all by himself—was definitely against Nate’s terms.
Unrest rolled through her gut. She didn’t want him to get in trouble. She also didn’t want to stand here on this beach, alone and wondering if Nate was making a run for the Southern border the way Hyrum had.
“He’s not Hyrum,” she told herself, not for the first time. She faced the water, wishing it would confirm what she’d just said. Only the whooshing of waves against sand met her ears. Spencer laughed from the towel where he lay, looking at something on his phone. Emma looked over at him, then back at her paperback.
Everything seemed normal and serene, but Ginger didn’t fit in the scene. Not without Nate and Connor. She glanced at the parking lot, but he didn’t return with her truck, and Ginger realized she could report him for stealing the vehicle. She really didn’t want to do that. Why had he left and put her in this position?
He knew he couldn’t go anywhere by himself. “This is why you shouldn’t have let him run over to the mall alone,” she muttered, as her feet took her toward her friends and co-workers enjoying themselves in the sun and surf.
That episode where Nate had gone to the mall to buy her a birthday present was weeks old, and he’d never indicated he was anything but happy at the ranch. He’d told her time and time again that he was grateful for the opportunity to be at Hope Eternal.
So what had changed?
She sighed as she sank into the beach chair next to Emma. She had to call the BOP. If she didn’t and they found out that Nate had gone missing, even for an hour, and she hadn’t reported it, she’d never get another inmate at the ranch.
She’d already contacted the Warden at River Bay and said she’d take someone else if he had them, and James Dickerson had said he’d look through his files. Ginger knew who she wanted, because Nate had talked to her about a friend of his. Ted Burrows.
She frowned, and she wasn’t sure how long she flipped her phone over in her palm before Emma asked, “What’s going on?”
“Nate left,” Ginger said as quietly as she could. “With Connor.”
Emma abandoned her book completely, her eyes widening. “What? When?”
“Just now. A few minutes ago.” Ginger shook her head, the first threat of tears burning behind her eyelids. “I have to call the Bureau.”
Emma stood up so fast, her beach chair flipped onto its back. “He took your truck?”
“Ginger,” Spencer said, pushing himself up on his elbow. “Look at this.” He wore a concerned look on his face and pressed on the side of his phone.
“…breaking news from the Sweet Water Mall.” Spencer turned the phone toward Ginger, and Emma came back to peer at the device too. A female reporter stood in front of the camera, the panorama of the mall behind her. “The police have already shut down the mall to new shoppers, and they’re apparently moving through the building in a grid pattern, searching for this man.”
An image of Nick came up on the screen, and Ginger yelped, immediately pressing her hand over her mouth.
“No way,” Emma said, her voice little more than air.
“Nickolas Talbot,” the reporter continued speaking though Nick’s picture remained on the screen. “The nineteen-year-old was last seen walking with an unidentified man, who reportedly had a handgun. We’ll bring you more as this story develops.”
“No,” Ginger said. She needed more now. Right now. She scrambled for her phone, her heart beating out of control. She couldn’t quite get enough air, and her fingers slipped on the phone.
“I’m calling him,” Spencer said, but Ginger stabbed at her screen anyway.
The line rang on Spencer’s phone, and he’d put it on speaker, so they could all hear. It rang and rang and rang. “This is Nick,” his voicemail said.
Spencer tapped the red phone icon to hang up, and Ginger tried calling Nick too. Ringing. Same voicemail.
“We have to go to the mall,” Ginger said, standing. She didn’t have the mental capacity to fold up her chair or find her sandals, not right now.
“We can’t go to the mall,” Spencer said, jumping to his feet and darting in front of her.
“Why is he even at the mall?” Ginger didn’t care if tears made her weak, because she couldn’t hold them back for another second.
Spencer engulfed her in an embrace, and Ginger wanted Nate to be the one standing in front of her, trying to get her to see reason.
A terrible, awful, horrifying thought crossed her mind.
Nate.
He’d rushed out of here like the devil himself was chasing him. Had he known Nick was in trouble? And if so, how?
He’d been talking on the phone. Perhaps he’d been talking to Nick.
“Come on,” Jack said, and Ginger stepped away from Spencer. She wiped her eyes and kept her head down. She’d known her cowboys for years now, but she still didn’t want to be seen as the weak girl-boss that cried over her cousin.
Ginger told herself it was okay to have feelings, and she bent to pick up the shopping bag she’d brought with all the crackers and chips.
“I’ve got it,” Jack said. “Let’s get back to the ranch and figure things out.”
Ginger nodded and had taken three steps when she realized she didn’t have a ride back to the ranch. “He took my truck.”
“You can ride with me,” Emma said, linking her arm through Ginger’s and keeping her moving.
Numbness spread through her, and Ginger only made it to Emma’s car because her friend had a hold on her arm.
“It’s going to be fine,” Emma said. “We’ll get back to the ranch, and Nate will be there. I just can’t see him taking your truck and fleeing.”
Ginger’s brain felt encased in quicksand, and she was sinking fast. She wanted to tell Emma that neither of them had believed that Hyrum had stolen a truck from the ranch either. They couldn’t see him doing that, not when he’d told Ginger he loved her and hoped to be with her after he got fully relea
sed.
At least Nate hadn’t done that.
“I have to call the Bureau,” Ginger said, pure misery streaming through her. “If I don’t….” She didn’t even want to think about what might happen if she didn’t. She could be arrested too, for helping an inmate escape.
She tapped to her favorites and chose number two. The only person higher than the Bureau of Prisons was Emma, and Ginger didn’t recognize her life in that moment.
The line only rang once before someone answered with, “Bureau of Prisons, how may I direct your call?”
“I need to speak to Warden James Dickerson,” Ginger said. “Immediately. My inmate at the Residential Reentry Center number two-four-seven-one-nine has fled.”
“Hold please,” the woman chirped, as if Ginger wanted to order a pepperoni pizza.
The Warden must’ve had a Bat-phone or something, because he came on the line only ten seconds later with, “Ginger? Nate’s gone?” He sounded as stupefied as Ginger felt, and all she could do was nod.
Only when she realized that Warden Dickerson couldn’t see her did she pull in a deep breath and get herself together. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I need to report him as missing. He took my truck and his son.” Her voice clamped around the last word, and she couldn’t continue.
“How long ago?” the Warden asked.
She honestly didn’t know. She could’ve been standing on the beach for an hour before she went to sit beside Emma. But then her parents would’ve arrived.
“Maybe fifteen minutes,” she said. “Probably ten.”
“License plate?”
Ginger rattled it off for him, and the call ended with him saying, “Stay at the ranch. I’m going to text you my personal number. If he comes back, I need you to call me instantly. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” she said miserably. She was never going to get another inmate from the BOP, and the ranch benefited from that money. She slouched into the passenger window thinking, I never want another inmate from the BOP anyway. Never, never, never.
Hopeful Cowboy: A Mulbury Boys Novel (Hope Eternal Ranch Romance Book 1) Page 14
