Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume III, Books 7-9 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 3)

by Jennifer Bramseth

  But he was too good of a lawyer to tell her that.

  “That doesn’t sound good to me,” Drake said in a worried voice.

  “I was hoping that you would make me feel better.”

  “Sorry, can’t do that. It sounds like Garner and his crew could be stirring up trouble. I wonder if he has any connections at the Courier-Journal.”

  “The state’s largest newspaper? I think we should count on that.”

  “Have you told Hannah about this yet?”

  “Not yet, but she was my next call.” She sighed, almost a hiss. “I hate putting myself and everyone around me through this.”

  “We signed up for this, remember?”

  “We?”

  “Yes, I’m the one in love with the judge. We’re in this together.”

  “I know. And that makes it worse. Because I really want this. It was always a dream of mine to sit on a higher court, but I wondered whether I’d ever get that chance. And now that it’s so close, it’s like I never knew the depths of my own ambition.”

  “A little taste of power to your liking?”

  “It’s not the power. It’s the hope. I can see something so clearly, and it’s so close but can’t get it. And to think that people are actively campaigning against me… it’s hard to swallow that kind of unfairness.”

  “You’re too good of a judge, Cara,” Drake said. “Only someone with a heart of gold could be so worried about unfairness in this world.”

  “That’s sweet, but you aren’t making me feel any better.”

  “Bet I can tonight. Want to come over for dinner?”

  Drake had moved the previous week to his new home. While she was missing having him so close in town, they were both enjoying his new digs.

  “You just want me to show you where I put all your kitchen stuff when I unpacked it last week.”

  “Actually, that would be quite helpful,” he admitted. “I made spaghetti last night, and it took me ten minutes to find my strainer.”

  “You’re not serving me that leftover mess, are you?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. How do steaks off the grill sound?”

  “Perfect.”

  Cara hung up, looked out the window, and put her head back on her desk chair. She was happy to have a date night, but her sense of unease about the call from the reporter grew.

  Because despite all the supportive things Rachel, Brady and even Drake had said to her, Cara knew that she was on her journey alone. She prayed she had the strength to persevere. Getting through Todd’s death and suddenly being single mom to a small child had taken a lot out of her.

  She’d heard that phrase about what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Perhaps that was true.

  But she didn’t relish being tested again.

  16

  Drake usually didn’t mind oral arguments, but today was different.

  He had argued a few times before the Kentucky Supreme Court and about a dozen times before the Court of Appeals. He didn’t get nervous before the justices or judges but excited, always looking forward to the intellectual engagement. Drake enjoyed talking about the law, arguing, exploring. Maybe his natural inclination to hike and get out on the water was reflected in how he practiced: always looking and trying to learn, enjoying the trip even if it had a few bumps of embarrassment or frustration along the way.

  But today all he could see ahead were extremely choppy waters.

  Not because of the facts of the case or the law but the politics and other crap that suddenly surrounded it, stuff that was completely unrelated to the case and he hoped would not influence the outcome.

  Drake pulled off Interstate 64, headed south on US 60, and stopped briefly at a chain restaurant for a quick lunch before heading to his oral argument at the Court of Appeals building, about half a mile down the road. Fortified with a hamburger and plenty of caffeine, he drove into the parking lot of the court building and saw them at once.

  The press.

  There weren’t a lot of people there—maybe five and one camera crew along a path from the parking lot to the front doors. But just one was too many.

  As he sat in his Jeep savoring the end of his anonymity, his thoughts fell upon Cara.

  That previous week the Courier-Journal had printed an article about the open Court of Appeals seat. The article started as a small homage to the retired Judge O’Toole and then transitioned to the newly developed rivalry between their honors, Judges Robson and Forrest. Garner was painted as ambitious but not graspingly so, his well-connectedness skimmed over. He came across as young, happy (pictured with the family, teeny tiny baby included), and on his way up in the world.

  The depiction of Cara had not been as favorable. While the article mentioned her widowhood, it only did so in transitioning to the so-called details of their relationship, pointing out that he had practiced in front of her for years. The article proceeded to reveal that the couple had “reportedly” been dating since “winter or spring” and that Cara did not recuse from his cases “until late July, months into the relationship.”

  The article had been bad enough, sending Cara into a rage, but the Sunday editorial had thrown her down a dark hole.

  While the newspaper did not endorse Garner (it said it did not do so because Garner and Cara technically weren’t in a contested election yet), it openly called on the Judicial Conduct Commission to investigate Cara.

  In tones of smugness hidden behind a high wall of snark and self-righteousness, the editorial asked the JCC to look into the allegations “so that the citizens of the Commonwealth can continue to have faith in the court system and not suffer from the doubts that all too often linger about judges and other candidates for public office.”

  The parting shot was for the governor to delay the appointment to the Court of Appeals until the matter “could be cleared up.”

  And if that weren’t bad enough, the damned JCC had taken up the challenge. The Tuesday following the editorial, Cara had received a judicial complaint.

  It was all so slick, so coordinated.

  Drake wanted to rip someone apart, starting with Garner Robson. But he’d put the anger aside, as much as he could, to comfort Cara.

  The article had made her mad. The editorial made her cry.

  But the judicial complaint had destroyed her.

  And she had withdrawn from him.

  While they had talked on the phone over the past three days, she didn’t want to see him. He understood that she thought that by distancing herself from him, she could distance herself from her problems, from the misconceptions about their relationship and the lies.

  So instead of seeing each other every evening, if only for a quick dinner or dessert at The Windmill, they were talking on the phone or texting. And not much at that.

  Through Hannah, Cara had already secured a meeting that day with an excellent attorney, Elizabeth Minton from Lexington. Drake had met her briefly the previous winter when Cara had appointed him to represent a child in a paternity action and Elizabeth had been representing another party. Although she practiced in several areas, Elizabeth was best known for representing lawyers and judges in disciplinary actions.

  Drake looked at the building in front of him, thinking about the case that brought him there that day. It was a case in which Cara had ruled against him. Now he expected the press to start prying into the rather ordinary crime—a DUI on a country road—and would soon see accusations in the media that Cara ruled against him only to make it look good since she was dating him.

  Except she’d ruled against him in February, months before their first kiss, and months before their chance meeting in the park.

  Not that the press and others cared about hearing the truth.

  After slipping into his suit jacket and retrieving his file from the rear of the Jeep, Drake took a deep breath and began to walk toward the building.

  To his horror and rage, the press spotted him and, instead of allowing him the courtesy of walking to them and asking
whether he’d like to talk, moved toward him and got in his face.

  A reporter thrust a small recorder at him and started assaulting him with questions.

  “Mr. Mercer, do you have a comment about the—”

  “No,” he snapped, trying to walk around the small scrum of people blocking his access to the front doors of the building.

  “Are you still dating Judge Forrest?”

  “Is it true you started dating in the winter?”

  “Is she going to withdraw her name from the nominees for the—”

  He was trapped. People were in his face, along with a camera and at least two microphones. Wasn’t there anything else in the world more interesting than him at that moment?

  “Please, I don’t—”

  “If she doesn’t get the appointment, will she run for the seat anyway?”

  Panic and fury built inside his chest in equal measure, and he had just opened his mouth to respond when he heard a stern voice from beyond the reporters.

  “Sir, I would be happy to escort you into the building. Do you need assistance?”

  The reporters immediately fell away to reveal a gray-uniformed Kentucky State Police Trooper standing a few yards away.

  “Yes. It seems I require some help, trooper.”

  “My pleasure, sir.”

  The tall trooper strode to Drake’s side and escorted him into the building.

  “Thanks,” Drake said once they were inside.

  “Just doing my job.”

  Drake squinted at the trooper’s badge. “Trooper Knox? Aren’t you the one who pulled my client over?”

  “The very same,” the trooper admitted with a nod. “Was up here at headquarters today. Been following the case and thought I’d come see the arguments.”

  “Strange that we’ve never met until today, but I’m damn glad we did,” Drake said as he shook the trooper’s hand.

  “Pleasure to meet you. Judge Forrest ruled before I ever had the chance to go to court, so I guess that’s why we never crossed paths until now.”

  “But you seem to have a particular interest in this case,” Drake said cautiously.

  “I try to keep up with the cases I’m involved in, especially if they go up on appeal. I harbor some stupid notion that someday I might want to go to law school someday.”

  “You’re still young enough to grow out of your foolish ways,” joked Drake, which got a chuckle from the trooper. He glanced outside. “If you know this case, I bet you know why those vultures out there were circling me.”

  “Yes, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to come to the argument. I’d made the connection that you were dating the judge. I came to watch the argument but also to deliver a message, if you don’t mind passing it on.”

  “Well, okay,” Drake said, flummoxed. Was this a warning?

  “You tell Judge Forrest the ones in gray have her back.”

  Drake blinked. “You… what?”

  The trooper drew closer to Drake. “I guess we’ve never crossed paths because my beat is down in Van Winkle County. I only nabbed your guy that day in Craig County because I was on my way to Bardstown for a meeting. Anyway, I appear before Judge Forrest quite a bit down in Littleham. All the cops and troopers down there have nothing but the utmost respect for her and are pissed about what’s happened.”

  “They—you are?”

  Trooper nodded and glanced behind Drake where a receptionist sat behind a glass window.

  “And it also happens that we don’t like Robson.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, in addition to likely stirring up all this trouble for Judge Forrest, he recently ruled for one of his family’s friends in a case involving a trooper. Threw out evidence. Said it was illegally obtained. Perp was caught with meth in his BMW, but since his daddy happened to be a bigwig in his father-in-law’s company, the guy got off the hook. Strange how the press didn’t report that.”

  “Yeah, strange,” agreed Drake.

  Drake glanced at a wall to his left where the portraits of the sitting judges of the Kentucky Court of Appeals lined the walls. Judge O’Toole’s portrait had been removed above the small metal plaque bearing the words District 5, Division 2. Drake wondered whether Garner’s portrait would be the one to grace that blank space instead of Cara’s in light of everything that had happened.

  “Are you okay?” asked the trooper.

  “Yeah, just trying to clear my head before this argument.”

  “I’ll leave you alone with your thoughts. Not gonna tell you good luck,” he joked.

  “Thanks again,” Drake said.

  “I meant what I said. Please pass it on.”

  “I will. And thanks. She needs a bit of good news.”

  The trooper nodded. “Here to serve,” he said and disappeared into the hallway.

  Cara returned to Bourbon Springs by early evening after her meeting in Lexington with her new attorney, Elizabeth Minton. Even though she had offered to pay (and thankfully had the funds to do so), Elizabeth had refused out of a sense of intense outrage.

  “All this is total bullshit,” Elizabeth had spat once Cara had told her the truth about her relationship with Drake. “I’m happy to do this for you. And for what it’s worth, even though Garner has a lot of supposed support, his reputation in Lexington isn’t that great.”

  Cara was tired of hearing stories about Garner Robson. What she wanted was her problems to go away, which but that didn’t look like that it would happen anytime soon.

  The meeting had gone reasonably well, up to the point when Elizabeth cautioned her about talking with Drake.

  “He’s obviously a witness in all this,” she’d said. “You’ll need to be careful about what you say to him since your conversations aren’t privileged.”

  The thought popped into Cara’s mind at once, the thing Elizabeth wasn’t saying.

  What you two say to each other isn’t secret because you’re not married.

  Cara confirmed she understood her attorney’s advice and left Elizabeth’s office feeling only marginally better about her circumstances. There were no worries on her part about her counsel’s abilities. Elizabeth was one of the best lawyers in the state when it came to professional discipline of judges and attorneys.

  Cara’s problem was that she needed her services.

  But her really big problem that day was Drake. She wasn’t sure what to do about him.

  How could they continue to see each other while she was under such a cloud of suspicion? It wasn’t fair to him to put him through such public scrutiny. And the crazy impracticalities if not impossibilities of watching what they said around each other was mind-boggling.

  When he came to pick her up that evening for their date at The Windmill, they weren’t in the Jeep for more than a minute before he asked her what was wrong.

  “You get bad news from Elizabeth today?” he asked.

  “No, nothing like that. She was very encouraging, optimistic. And you haven’t even told me about your argument yet.”

  “You’re trying to change the subject.”

  “Of course I am.” She put her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes as they sped northward up Ashbrooke Pike. “But humor me.”

  “Well, the press was waiting on me when I got to the Court of Appeals.”

  She sat straight up in her seat. “What?”

  Drake told her what happened. “I have a happy ending though.” He told her of his encounter with Trooper Knox and passed on his comments. “And I think the argument itself went well.”

  The press was bothering Drake?

  The next thing she feared was the press showing up on her doorstep—strange that hadn’t happened yet—and trying to get pictures of her, comments from her. And pictures of Nate as well.

  Her mind was made up.

  “I’m sorry that happened to you,” she said, looking at her hands, tightly clasped in her lap.

  “Didn’t bother me too much.” She could tell he wasn’t bei
ng completely honest.

  Drake pulled into the parking lot at The Windmill, parked, and unlatched his seat belt, but Cara remained still.

  “Do you mind if we get takeout?” she asked.

  He rested his left wrist on the steering wheel and turned to her, concern etched across his face.

  “Cara, don’t be afraid to show yourself in public.”

  “That’s not really it,” she said, “although I’ll admit to being a little uncomfortable right now out and about. I just want to be with you. Alone.”

  He nodded and pressed his lips together, and she could tell he was biting back his words.

  “Come inside the diner with me?” His voice cracked ever so slightly.

  She nodded and smiled weakly, and he gave her a quick kiss.

  Half an hour later, they were on the deck at his house enjoying the colorful display splashed across the October sky as the sun slipped below the trees and beyond the Knobs. Their meal that evening was the classic double cheeseburger from The Windmill, accompanied by fries and milkshakes. She had wanted the onion rings but thought the better of it since she hoped they would at least share kisses that night.

  Perhaps good-bye kisses, she thought with regret.

  After they’d consumed their meals in near silence, with Drake only mentioning a few points about his oral argument, they retreated to a covered swing on the porch. They sat there together, Drake with his left arm around Cara and she resting her head on his shoulder.

  “Do you know what I’m about to tell you?” she whispered.

  He moved, and her head came off his shoulder. Grabbing her hands, he took a long breath and stared at her.

  “If you’re breaking up with me, I can’t handle that.”

  “I’m not,” she said, choking back tears and failing. They spilled from her eyes, stinging and blinding her. “I think we just need to stop seeing each other until—”

  “And that sounds exactly like breaking up.”

  “It’s not, Drake. I just don’t think we should see each other until the investigation is over.”

  He dropped her hands and stood. “And that could take months! Surely Elizabeth told you how long these things take. Disciplinary investigations can drag on.”