As she refilled Nate’s cup and gave him crackers, memories of Friday night floated back into her mind. After leaving the nature preserve, they had returned to Drake’s place and made love twice before she went home.
It was the best damned sex of her life.
They hadn’t done anything particularly kinky—just plain old missionary style first, then she was on top for the second round of lovemaking—but it had been explosively hot. In fact, the second time, she came twice—something she had never experienced.
Now that late Sunday morning the three of them—Vera, Nate and herself—were meeting Drake at his new home. Since Drake had mentioned he’d been looking at the property for months, Cara knew he hadn’t purchased the house with the intention of building a permanent relationship with her, but the house tour still had the feel of him showing off.
He wanted to show them where he was building his life, and he wanted them there with him.
“Cara, why are you giving him that?” Vera asked as she entered the kitchen.
“What?”
Cara held out Nate’s sippy cup and saw that she had not filled it with milk but tomato juice. Vera started laughing, then Nate, and Cara finally joined them, shaking her head and dumping the juice in the sink. Her mother had apparently entered the house completely unnoticed by Cara; she was so damned preoccupied with Drake that she hadn’t heard her mother knock.
“That editorial on your mind?” Vera asked, taking the sippy cup and making sure to fill it with milk after Cara had rinsed it.
“Oh, yeah,” she said.
Vera handed the cup to Nate, who took it eagerly and tilted it back, sucking down the contents.
“I would’ve thought you’d be happy about it.”
“My fear is that if they’re willing to hang Garner out to dry like that, I’ll get my turn.”
“Not necessarily,” Vera said, taking a seat at the table next to Nate’s high chair. “Sounds like the Lexington paper is going to support you. Didn’t you read that nice bit they put in about how you’re well respected in Craig County?”
“Yes, but that’s a drop in the bucket. And it doesn’t mean they might not change their minds.”
“I think you’re worrying about nothing, Cara,” Vera said.
Cara moved to the end of the countertop where the kitchen was divided from the dining area.
“I didn’t tell you how my interview with the Judicial Nominating Committee really went,” she said.
“You told me they asked tough questions and you held your ground. Is that not the truth?”
“Yes, that’s the truth. But I didn’t tell you about the nature of those questions.”
Cara revealed that the committee members had peppered her with inquiries about her relationship with Drake and that she’d not recused in a timely manner.
“That’s ridiculous! You’ve only been going out two months or so, isn’t it? Why would they say you’ve been going out for months?”
“Rumors,” she said.
“And there’s no truth to them, right?”
“We only started going out in July. That’s the truth. But we did kiss once—the first time, actually—back in May. But at that time, I told Drake to essentially leave me alone.”
“Like he was ever going to do that,” Vera laughed. “I had no idea something was happening between you two back in the spring.”
“That’s just it. Nothing was happening in the spring. We didn’t act on our feelings until well into summer. And a few stolen kisses is not the same as dating for months.”
“Is that what they thought?”
“The Committee had the idea we’d been dating since winter.”
“So someone’s actually spreading lies about you. They didn’t know about your kisses back in May.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because you would’ve heard that gossip yourself and those idiots on the Committee would’ve specifically asked you about it. No, if someone had known, had seen you two kissing—and just where was it?”
“Drake gave me a ride to Littleham for an event. I had a terrible headache. We—um—kissed in his Jeep before going to the event.”
“It’s amazing no one did see you!” exclaimed Vera. “But it proves my point. If someone had, that bit of gossip would’ve been everywhere in both Van Winkle and Craig Counties. And it wasn’t.”
Her mother was right. Even Hannah Davenport had been surprised to discover she was dating Drake.
“And you’ve proven my point, I’m afraid. If people are so willing to make up lies about me, who knows what else I’ll have to face? And what if other newspapers choose to believe those lies. I count myself lucky that the Herald-Leader seems to have it in for Garner, but I can’t expect every other publication in the area having the same opinion.”
Vera grasped Cara’s upper arms and looked directly at her daughter.
“Since when are you going to let lies and rumors get you down? You’ve dealt with a hell of a lot worse.”
Cara nodded and pulled her mother into a tight hug.
“Keep telling me that. I have a feeling I’ll need to hear it again and again.”
“I’ll keep telling you until you tell me to be quiet,” Vera said as the doorbell rang, and then she released her daughter. “Really, doesn’t the man know he can just walk in?”
“Tried to tell him,” Cara said, heading to the door. “Said it’s not polite to simply walk into the house of a lady he’s courting.”
“What a gentleman,” Vera sighed.
Cara almost said aloud not behind closed doors but checked herself and hurried to the door to admit her beau.
Drake was dressed nicely, in pressed shorts and a light blue polo, looking eager and happy. The only blot on his nearly perfect presentation was a bandage on his forehead. When he was getting his kayak out of the creek the day before at the distillery, he had scraped his head on some branches as he scrambled up the bank. Fortunately, Miranda Chaplin had been at the distillery that afternoon for her rotating clinic hours and had agreed to stay past noon to make sure all the kayakers and canoers on the tour arrived safely.
Drake was the only traveler with any visible injury, and Miranda, who had only been there that afternoon after the Davenports requested she switch her Friday-Saturday clinic schedule to tend to anyone on the tour. Miranda was about five months pregnant and had looked happy and healthy.
“Ready?” Drake asked, slipping his keys in his pocket. “I can’t wait to show you the place.”
“Then let’s get Nate ready and go.”
With Cara at the wheel and her mother riding shotgun, Drake took a seat in the back of Cara’s sedan next to Nate, who was delighted to have a friend on the drive. Nate peppered Drake with questions about his boat, chattering about the creek, frogs, and fishing.
“What have you told him about my new place?” Drake asked Cara.
“Too much,” she said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “I told him you were going to move and you’d have a creek in your backyard.”
Upon hearing this, Nate cheered. “Can we go to the creek?”
“I don’t know,” Drake hedged. “I don’t own the property yet. But we can look at it from the house.”
This was not the answer Nate was hoping for, and he began to cry.
“If you’re a good boy, I’ll take you to lunch and we’ll go to the park later in town. You’ll see that creek,” Cara said.
“Or we could go to the nature preserve,” Drake suggested.
“I think I’m more comfortable at the creek in town,” she said.
“Can I come along?” Drake asked.
“We’ll be going to The Windmill for lunch.”
“I’ll buy.”
“For all four of us?”
“Of course.”
Cara caught her mother’s eye. Vera was smiling at her.
“Well played,” she said to Drake.
“She knows me quite well.”
Cara kn
ew where the property was, having driven by it on the way to the nature preserve many a time. From the road, the house looked like a small ranch, but upon turning onto the long, paved drive that crept up a small hill, it quickly became apparent the building was much larger than it appeared at a distance.
There was an attached three-car garage, a swimming pool, a screened-in porch that led to a larger deck, and a sunroom on the far end of the house. The place had five bedrooms and a full basement, half-finished.
“Perfect man cave,” Cara said as they walked up the stairs.
Drake had insisted on showing the area to her, leaving Nate in the temporary care of Vera. Whilst downstairs, they’d shared a stolen kiss.
“Perfect playroom,” he said. “Nate will love it down there.”
“You’re going to let him run wild in your man cave?” she asked once they reached the kitchen and Drake closed the door behind them.
“It will be our man cave.”
Cara heard the unspoken assumption in his voice: that this house would someday be Nate’s home.
She took his hand, and he led her to the covered porch beyond the kitchen to find Vera entertaining Nate with a ball. They passed through the covered area and out onto the deck, where the view took Cara’s breath away.
She’d heard Drake rave about the property, but his detailed descriptions hadn’t done the view justice.
The mown area of the backyard was wide, horizontally stretching the length of the property. Tall stands of deciduous and cedar trees edged the property lines toward the creek. Several yards beyond the inground pool, an unmown area began, giving way to an unkempt field. Cara spied patches of land where undergrowth was thinner and suspected that a vegetable garden had once grown in that spot.
In the distance was Brush Grove Creek, flowing left to right as it made its way eastward toward its rendezvous with Old Crow Creek, about a mile away. Across the creek the land rose sharply, and Cara immediately recognized the shape of the hill. She was looking at a large swathe of the nature preserve and thought she could spot the main access road as it wound its way farther onto the acreage.
“You couldn’t ask for a better place,” she said, holding his hand and moving to the railing. “It’s perfect.”
“Not yet, but someday, I hope.”
Cara’s head dropped onto Drake’s shoulder. As she clutched his hand, she wondered when this view would become an everyday occurrence for her.
Over the next month, the newspapers were silent on the subject of the Court of Appeals matchup, preferring to devote space to other political races.
Nevertheless, Cara was constantly on the alert for any information or gossip about herself but only heard the same thing, generally reported from Hannah, CiCi, and Harriet.
There was a widespread misconception that she and Drake had started dating in the winter rather than the summer. Hannah was doing her best (according to CiCi) to squelch this nastiness, yet Cara feared that the lady did protest too much.
Cara believed it was better to let sleeping dogs lie. But when dealing with a supporter with deep pockets, considerable influence, and a strong personality, she simply backed away and tried to distance herself as best she could from the beginnings of what she recognized as plain old political mudslinging.
What unnerved her more was the fact that while the Judicial Nominating Committee had released its three candidate names (herself, Garner, and another attorney; the law required three names to be submitted to the governor), the governor had not acted. It was now the first week of October, and while the impossible had occurred—Judge O’Toole had actually retired—the governor sat on the appointment, keeping the seat vacant.
The uncertainty was driving Cara crazy. She almost had convinced herself that she was not going to get the appointment. When she shared this lack of confidence with CiCi one day during a lunch at Over a Barrel, CiCi disagreed.
“Cara, don’t you see the delay is good for you?” CiCi said, putting down a bourbon ball. “Garner’s got to be the one sweating it.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because if Garner Robson had a lock on that seat, he would’ve been appointed by now,” CiCi reasoned.
“Maybe the governor is just waiting until the hubbub dies down about Garner. Make the appointment after everyone’s lost interest in the story.”
“Possibly. But Garner Robson never struck me as someone who would patiently wait for something he thought he already deserved.”
“But he’s not the one driving the bus on the appointment. It’s on the governor’s desk.”
CiCi plucked another bourbon ball from a small wax bag and took a bite. After she did, she put it down on a napkin and pushed it away.
“Never known you to turn down a bourbon ball. Had too much already?” Cara asked.
She nodded and offered the half-eaten one and another in the bag to Cara. She took them just to be polite, unsure whether she’d actually consume them.
CiCi checked her watch.
“Sorry, gotta go. Have a doctor’s appointment. Annual thing,” she said, wrinkling her nose and then sighing. “Oh well. At least I’ll get to see Miranda and see how she’s doing.”
“I saw her last month at the distillery. She must be almost six months pregnant by now.”
“Did she say whether she was having a boy or girl?”
“She didn’t say and I didn’t ask.”
This lack of information cheered CiCi. “Good, I’ll get to find out.”
CiCi left, but Cara got back in line to get a cup of hot apple cider. After retrieving her treat, she still had a few minutes before returning to her office, so she crossed the street and walked to the north side of the courthouse square. When she arrived in the spot, she saw that Rachel and Brady were having a picnic on one of the concrete benches and turned to leave.
“Don’t go,” she heard Rachel calling from behind. “Come over and join us.”
She looked over her shoulder and saw both judges urging her toward an adjacent bench.
“Didn’t mean to intrude,” she said, taking a seat. They assured her she wasn’t bothering them and asked what she had in her hand. “Cider. Want a sip?”
She held out the cup to Rachel, who inhaled, but Brady passed. As she did so, her phone rang, and she pulled it from her pocket. Even though she didn’t recognize the caller, she answered.
“Hello, may I please speak with Judge Forrest?”
“Who’s calling?” she asked before acknowledging her identity.
“Rupert Mayes from the Courier-Journal,” he said. “Do you have some time to talk? We wanted to get your comment on something.”
“Comment?”
“Yes, we’re running a story this weekend on a few judicial races around the state and wanted to touch base with you.”
Part of her brain was screaming hang up now!, but the polite part of her personality beat her more practical side into submission.
“I see.”
“We wanted to confirm that you have recused from all cases involving an attorney named Drake Mercer.”
“That’s correct.”
“Do you know the date?”
She sensed a trap.
“I would have to refer to the order for the exact date.”
“Do you remember the month?”
“Yes, it was in July.”
“And is that when you began dating Mr. Mercer?”
“What?”
“When did you start dating Mr. Mercer?”
“The same week I entered the order.”
“So it isn’t true you were involved with him in the winter?”
“That is not true. We did not start dating until the summer, until July, shortly after the order was entered. And if you want that order, you can get a copy of it from CiCi Summers, the Craig County Circuit Court Clerk. Would you like her phone number or e-mail?”
“Well, oh, okay,” the reporter said.
She gave the man CiCi’s information and begg
ed off, saying she was with two other judges and needed to go. Cara hung up and exhaled, glad to be rid of the pest.
“Who was that?” Rachel asked.
“The press,” Cara said, explaining the caller was from the Louisville paper. “Asking me questions about my recusing from Drake’s cases.”
Rachel grunted in disapproval. “Digging up stuff on you?”
“I think so,” she said. “They said they were doing an article on judicial races. That makes me nervous.”
“Why?” Brady asked.
“Have you not heard the rumor?”
“What rumor?” the judges said in unison.
“That Drake and I started dating back in the winter and that I didn’t recuse in a timely manner.”
“What?” Rachel cried. “Who the hell got that idea?”
“I can’t believe you two didn’t know this.” Cara told the tale of her interview a month earlier with the Judicial Nominating Commission.
“We saw that nasty editorial about Garner Robson in the Lexington paper,” Rachel said, “but we’d never heard anything like this. We apparently live in our own little bubble.”
“Maybe it’s making the rounds outside Craig County.”
“But who started it?” Brady asked.
“Not sure,” Cara said.
The courthouse clock chimed the hour, and the three judges rose and walked in the back door together.
“Really, Cara, don’t worry about stuff like that. It will all work out. I can’t say it will be completely pleasant,” Rachel said as they reached the door, “but I know from personal experience you can survive it.”
“If you need to talk, come upstairs anytime,” Brady offered as he opened the door.
Cara thanked them, and they parted in the stairwell, with Cara exiting at the second floor while Rachel and Brady continued their ascent. She appreciated the judges’ pep talk and offer of support but hoped she wouldn’t need to bend their ear or cry on their shoulders anytime soon.
Nonetheless, the call rattled her, and as soon as she was back in her office with the door closed, she called Drake to report it, hoping he’d tell her she was worrying about nothing.
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