Her Surprise Hero

by Abby Gaines

  The barrier provided by the enormous desk helped put things back on a proper footing. “What can I do for you, Mr. Granger?”

  “Ethan,” he corrected her as he proceeded to dwarf one of her visitor chairs. “You and I will likely get to know each other pretty well, we might as well start off right.”

  Since being found in a closet could in no way be considered starting off right, Cynthia didn’t protest the first-name issue. She repeated, “What can I do for you?”

  “It’s more what I can do for you,” he drawled. No matter that the words were patently innocuous, they washed over her and left her…warm. She touched her left cheek to be sure she wasn’t blushing. Of course she wasn’t.

  “I understand you’re…some kind of social worker?” she asked.

  One corner of his mouth lifted. “Nope, I’m not much good at touchy-feely jargon.” He talked so slowly, it was like waiting for grass to grow. Yet intelligence gleamed in his eyes. “I own the Double T ranch,” he said. “Most of the kids who get into trouble with the law in this town end up working for me.”

  “You employ them?” Cynthia picked up her silver pen and wrote Ethan Granger at the top of her legal pad. “That’s admirable.”

  “They carry out their community service sentence at my place. I run a work program.”

  Community service, she wrote. “Presumably in parallel with counseling?”

  He leaned back in his chair, long legs stretched out in front. “These kids mainly need some focus to keep them out of trouble. I provide that focus. Rather than formal counseling, I get alongside the guys, teach them skills that might come in handy when they’re looking for work. Listen to them. They talk when they want to.”

  Cynthia wondered how effective those conversations were, with his distaste for “touchy-feely.”

  “Who supervises your program?” she asked, pen poised.

  He clasped his hands behind his head, elbows wide. “I do.”

  “Are you qualified to work with convicted teenagers, Mr. Granger?” She jotted a couple of question marks after his name.

  She sensed his silence was from his reining in his irritation, but it didn’t show on his face.

  “I know how these kids think,” he said. “I had more than a few wild moments as a teen myself.”

  He’d have been taller than his friends, she guessed. A natural leader. But she couldn’t imagine him being wild.

  “You have no idea,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I was fortunate to get back on the right track. Now I’m an upstanding citizen, like yourself.” Those umber eyes were on her again. Judging her. “I’d bet a million bucks you never did anything wild in your life.”

  Judging was her job. Cynthia straightened in her chair. “How much does the county pay you to run your program, Mr. Granger? And how many hours’ free labor do you get from these young people?”

  He tensed, but didn’t move from his laid-back position. “I’ll have to check my records to give you the exact amount. But whatever free labor I get is chewed up by the time I put into the kids.” There was an edge to the drawl.

  Did he have something to hide? She wrote Talk to Sheriff re program $$.

  Ethan dropped his laconic pose faster than she’d have guessed he could move. He shot to his feet and leaned over her desk, hands splayed on the surface. “I told you, I’ll check my records,” he said pleasantly.

  “I’ll let you know if that’s necessary.” She stood. “Thank you for coming in, Mr. Granger, it’s been useful.”

  He straightened. “Ethan,” he reminded her. “Judge Piet often talks to me about the kids before he sentences them, to work out if it’s best to send them to me.”

  “That sounds most irregular.”

  “It works well. I’d like you to do the same.” Still pleasant, but with a firmness that made it plain he was yet another person telling her how to do her job.

  “You’re not a social worker or probation officer or any other professional appropriate to that kind of discussion,” she pointed out. “You’re a civilian who benefits from community service hours.” It was a gross conflict of interest.

  “I’m a civilian who cares about kids who get into trouble.”

  “And I’m the judge who determines the sentence an offender should receive.” She moved around the desk, indicating as clearly as she could it was time he left. “If I need your input, you can be sure I’ll ask.”

  Ethan bit down on his frustration and counted to ten—a preventative technique that was second nature to him now. As always, he kept his face impassive, a match for his neutral tone. He hadn’t lost his temper in nearly fifteen years, and he wasn’t about to let the new judge provoke him. He eyed Cynthia’s face, her sharp chin tilted up, and wondered how he could have thought, when he found her in the closet, that she looked soft.

  Must have been the way the particles of dust had floated around her, blurring her prickly edges. Her wide gray eyes had helped, along with her full mouth, which had quivered before she slipped behind her professional mask.

  “Do you have Ben Miller’s case there?” With a dip of his head, he indicated the docket on her desk.

  “That’s none of your business.” She headed for the door.

  “The boy needs a kick in the pants, a reminder that if he doesn’t raise his game he won’t make it to college,” Ethan said. “He needs to understand that the alternative to an education isn’t a lot of fun.”

  She grasped the door handle. “Next you’ll be saying hard, physical work on your ranch is the cure,” she suggested, saccharin-sweet.

  “It is. I know that kid. Give him a few unoccupied hours and he’ll find trouble. Keep him busy—”

  Cynthia pulled the door open, and flung her other arm wide. “How about I do my job, Mr. Granger, and you do yours?”

  “Your job being to suspect me of milking the system before you’ve known me two minutes?” He walked toward her, using his superior height to…not to intimidate, he hadn’t done that in years. Just to let her know she didn’t get to trample all over him in her shiny black high-heeled shoes. “You’re here to serve this town. I’m trying to help you understand the needs of some of its people.” Up close, he caught the scent of her perfume. Lilies, with something spicy.

  “I’m here to mete out justice. Individual circumstances can be brought up for consideration at sentencing.”

  “This place doesn’t run like any city courthouse.”

  “I know. People keep barging into my chambers uninvited,” she said pointedly.

  Her undertone of humor took him by surprise. Disarmed him.

  Ethan looked down at her. She didn’t seem hostile now. More…stressed. Had to be tough, first day in a new job, new town. He spread his hands in apology. “I’m sorry I barged in, but I wanted to talk to you before you start hearing cases. Not just about my work program, there’s something else I need to say.”

  Cynthia sighed, but she closed the door and returned to the desk. Ethan settled into his chair, too. He quashed his reservations. This wasn’t about his personal comfort level, this was his family. “Among those cases—” he jerked his thumb at the docket “—is Sam Barrett’s. My son.”

  He wondered if he’d ever get used to saying my son.

  She glanced at the pages. “I don’t recall the details.” Her cool tone told him to butt out.

  But as Ethan was fast learning, where your kid’s concerned, everything’s your business. Futile to wish he’d been able to build up to the role of father slowly, starting with holding a helpless baby in his arms. Discovering he had an eighteen-year-old son, one who took after Ethan in all the worst ways, was a shock he was still grappling with, along with the slew of parenting techniques he was failing to acquire.

  “He’s up for vandalizing the library,” he told Cynthia. “Graffiti.”

  Disapproval clouded her features.

  Ethan leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. “He’s not a bad kid, he’s
just been hanging around with some unsuitable influences.” He imagined every parent in history had told the authorities—and themselves—the same thing when their child got into trouble. “He’s been through a difficult time. But he’ll plead guilty…he’s honest, at least.”

  “Mr. Granger, this information can be presented in court, presentencing. It’s not appropriate—”

  “I want you to sentence him to work for me,” Ethan blurted. He knew immediately he’d handled it wrong.

  Cynthia’s hands lifted from the desk as if he’d sent a thousand volts across the surface. “You’re trying to dictate what sentence I should hand out to your son?”

  “Sam’s only been with me for three months.” The back of Ethan’s neck heated. “He’s eighteen, he can leave whenever he likes, get into whatever trouble he can find. I’m already on borrowed time—I need to straighten him out fast.”

  “A process you have well under control.”

  Ethan’s veins felt as if they were pushing blood faster than his thumping heart could handle; something was about to burst. He measured each word as he delivered it. “I can’t help Sam if I’m not with him. If you sentence him to work with me, I’ll be able to engage with him. He’ll be forced to engage with me.” And hopefully do more than grunt at Ethan. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t put money on that.

  “Mr. Granger, the court isn’t your personal parenting support service.” Two spots of color appeared in Cynthia’s cheeks. “I resent being told how to do my job.”

  “I resent the look in my son’s eyes that says he despises me,” Ethan shot back. And realized what he’d said. He clamped his mouth shut. Dammit, he’d put resentment and bitterness—the foundations of the kind of anger that led a man to his breaking point—behind him. Yet the new judge had him more riled in five minutes than he’d been in over a decade. It’s this trouble with Sam. He was walking on damned eggshells so much around the boy, not to mention struggling to listen to his own mother’s “advice” on the subject without snapping, he was venting on the judge.

  Cynthia folded her arms across her chest. Incongruously, Ethan noticed she was curvier than he might have expected for such a slim woman.

  “Your conflict of interest is even more blatant than I thought,” she said.

  “Small town is a synonym for conflict of interest,” he told her. “Everyone knows everybody else’s business and doesn’t hesitate to share an opinion. You need to understand that, get used to it.”

  “And you need to get used to my professionalism.” Her shoulders were stiff as concrete; Ethan had the bizarre urge to run his fingers over them, to loosen her up.

  “I know I can help Sam,” he said. A lie. He’d never been less certain of anything. He’d never wanted anything so much. “I’m asking you to mete out justice in a way that gives me and my son a chance.”

  Her gaze wandered somewhere to Ethan’s right. Following it, he saw a statue of Lady Justice on the mantelpiece. He levered himself out of his chair and went over to the statue. He weighed the cool bronze in his right hand. “Justice isn’t always about the law.”

  “My professors at Harvard would beg to differ.” She sounded distant, as if she was breathing the rarefied air of the Ivy League.

  He needed her here, in the real world where his real son was causing him real problems. “I’m sure you can think of times when applying the law didn’t serve the cause of justice.” He caught a flicker in her eyes, and pressed his case. “I need you to do what’s right for me and my son.”

  “I will do the right thing,” Cynthia said. “You can rest assured of that.”

  An entirely unsatisfactory response. But if he argued, Ethan risked making a bad situation worse. He set Justice back in her place, watching over the judge. “Then I’ll see you in Court.”

  “Fine.”

  It wasn’t fine. She radiated hostility and he needed to fix that. Hostility tended to grow overnight, like mushrooms in fall. That wouldn’t serve Sam tomorrow. He stuck out his hand, forcing her to make the neutral contact.

  It turned out shaking hands with the judge in no way counted as neutral. Ethan couldn’t help registering the softness of her fingers that belied the firmness of her grip, the intriguing smoke-gray eyes.

  Maybe he should ask her to dinner so he could explain more about the work he did with teenagers.

  No way. She’d turn him down faster than she could say “conflict of interest,” and she might hold a dinner invitation against Sam tomorrow.

  Judge Merritt may be the prettiest woman he’d met in a long time, but that was irrelevant.

  Ethan would judge the Judge strictly on her performance in court.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “ALL RISE FOR THE Honorable Judge Merritt presiding,” the bailiff intoned. “Court is now in session.”

  Cynthia’s heels tapped against the polished floorboards as she took her first steps into the courtroom as a judge. The sound echoed in the cavernous space, bouncing off the pressed steel ceiling high above. Sunlight filtered through the semisheer blinds that covered the tall windows. Though it was a bright day, low-hanging lamps supplemented the natural light. The frosted glass shades looked old enough to have been here since the electric lightbulb was invented.

  She sat down at the bench which, unlike in a modern courtroom, wasn’t raised above floor level. To her left was the witness stand and the six seats used by the jury in a state court jury trial—they were empty today. To her right, the dock where the defendants would stand. Two dark cherry wood tables for lawyers and their clients faced the bench. Immediately behind, a wooden rail separated the officials’ area from the pew-style public seating.

  And in the front pew stood Ethan Granger.

  Cynthia adjusted her robe as everyone sat. She drew confidence from the authority the black garment imparted.

  The public seating, street level and mezzanine, was surprisingly full given this morning’s caseload: a few college kids charged with various misdemeanors, a DUI, a dad being sued for child support payments. And Sam Barrett.

  She’d asked Melanie about Sam right after Ethan left her chambers. This wasn’t the first time the boy had been in trouble, so she was able to read the transcripts of his previous trials. If he’d only been in Stonewall Hollow three months, he hadn’t wasted any time finding the wrong side of the law.

  Cynthia had a bad feeling about Sam and his dad; she’d lain awake last night in the cottage she’d rented sight unseen before she arrived. Around 3 a.m. she’d been grateful the place didn’t possess anything resembling a broom closet.

  Ethan sat with his hat on his knees—Georgia courtroom etiquette forbade the wearing of hats in court. The young man next to him must be Sam.

  She put them out of her mind. Today was all about making a strong start in her new job. Taking the first step on her road home.

  The bailiff called the first case, a rancher representing himself on a DUI rap. The man pleaded not guilty on the grounds he’d driven in an emergency, taking his dog to the vet. Cynthia pointed out that “emergency” was not a legal defense, and found him guilty.

  “Next time, pay for a house call or take a cab to the vet,” she ordered, before she revoked his license for a year and fined him five hundred dollars.

  Her sentence drew a protest from one of the man’s friends. “But, Judge, Ernie never drives drunk—in fact, he’s always our designated driver. It was a special circumstance.”

  “He won’t take a taxi,” Ernie’s wife, Cynthia guessed, said loudly. “It’ll be me driving him everywhere, you know that, don’t you? He’s on the planning committee for the county fair—do you realize how many meetings that involves?”

  Cynthia tapped the block with her gavel. “Order.” In the city, she’d have looked to the attending police officers to quiet the protest. But the sheriff, leaning against the wall between windows, was nodding in apparent sympathy for the dissenters. Great. “Twelve months is the minimum disqualification period specified under Georgia State law
,” she stated. Maybe she should have mentioned that before she sentenced him—she would learn from the mistake. “If you’d hired a lawyer, you would know that and might have found a more effective defense.” She could never understand why people chose to represent themselves.

  As the muttering subsided, the clerk announced the next case, a civil hearing for the man who was behind on child support. Cynthia’s order for the defendant to make back payments infuriated him—he insisted his ex-wife’s new boyfriend was getting the benefit of having the kids around and should pay for the privilege. The ex-wife complained the award was insufficient.

  “The state has an appeal process if either party feels it necessary,” Cynthia informed them. “This court will not tolerate disputes over rulings.” Because if they went on like this, they’d be here forever. And as the only judge in town, the hostility felt personal.

  She’d talked through the order of cases with the clerk yesterday, and had set Sam Barrett last, wanting to get a few sentences under her belt. She’d also hoped most of the spectators here to check out the lady judge would have got bored and left.

  But by the time Sam stepped into the dock, the room was packed. Ethan sat in the front row, where he’d been all morning—scrutinizing her performance?—and now people were patting him on the shoulder, shaking his hand, sympathizing.

  Cynthia stifled thoughts of her calm, quiet chambers. And the closet.

  Sam pleaded guilty to defacing public property. The D.A. read out reports from the sheriff and the librarian about the damage. Sam had acted alone, attacking the library with a spray can around midnight.

  “Ethan Granger has a submission on sentencing,” the boy’s lawyer said. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard those words this morning. An hour earlier, Ethan had been called to comment on a repeat offender who’d punched a hole in a window in a fit of rage. Every woman in the courthouse, young or old, had been riveted on him, Cynthia noticed. She’d made notes while he spoke, mainly to give herself a reason not to look at him.