The weeks until Connor’s adoption hearing flew by, as December was a very busy time around ranches in Texas. It was birthing season, and most of Ginger’s cowboys went to neighboring cattle ranches to help with all of that, and that left Hope Eternal shorthanded.
Ginger worked from sunup to sundown—and beyond, as the sun set a bit earlier than usual in the winter.
Nate didn’t go anywhere, and together, they kept the ranch going, and Ginger couldn’t wait until February or March. Of course, then there was something new to be done around the ranch.
The morning she needed to be ready to accompany Nate and Connor to court, she fed the horses with Emma, who rarely came out onto the ranch. But dire circumstances required everyone with even one good leg and one good arm to help out.
Emma didn’t hate working around the ranch, but she much preferred observing it from behind the safety of the windowpane. Not only that, but Emma really couldn’t handle the heat. Thankfully, this close to Christmas, the sun’s heat wasn’t really an issue. At least not yet.
Ginger moved steadily down the right side of the stable while Emma fell rapidly behind on the left side. The ranch housed and cared for over seventy horses, and Ginger had never fed them all by herself.
That morning, she very nearly did, though Emma helped, and Nate worked in the next aisle over. Ginger didn’t often get a chance to just bend and empty yesterday’s buckets, get new ones, check on every animal. She thought she needed to take a shift in these stables more often, but overseeing the ranch required almost all of her energy.
After a few hours of checking, feeding, and watering, an alarm went off on her phone.
“Time to go,” Emma said, straightening and stretching her back. “I can finish.”
“There’s just three left,” Ginger said, silencing the alarm.
“I can do it.” Emma flashed her a smile and stepped over to give Ginger a hug. “I hope it goes well today. Call me as soon as it’s done.”
“I will.” Ginger clung to her best friend, so glad she’d been able to convince Emma to come out to Hope Eternal all those years ago. She did like living off the beaten path too, so it hadn’t really taken all that much convincing.
Emma nodded after she stepped back, and Ginger headed for the rectangle of bright light that signaled the doorway. Her nerves weren’t cut out for court hearings, she knew that. She’d only been to the one, but it had taken a miracle to get herself dressed that morning. If Connor hadn’t been there, looking at Ginger with those wide, hopeful eyes, she might not have gone.
She honestly didn’t know.
But she was going to go today, and she looked left as soon as she exited the stable. Only a moment later, Nate came out, peeling his gloves from his hands. “Ready?” he asked.
“Ready to go get changed,” she said. “Where’s Connor?”
“He should be at the Annex,” Nate said. “I told him to stay in bed when he woke up. We put Pop-tarts and his dinosaurs on the bedside table last night.”
Ginger grinned as Nate reached her. He bent down and kissed her, smelling like horses and oats and leather. She loved the sight of him, the smell of him, the taste of him.
“Mm,” he said, pulling away. “Come on. He’s probably been awake for about fifteen minutes.”
“I guess you’ll know by how many crumbs he has in the bed.”
Nate groaned. “This was a bad idea.”
“But we got the horses fed,” Ginger said as they started back toward the house. “Emma will finish, and she’ll get the chickens taken care of too.”
“We should stop and get her one of those bundt cakes she likes.”
“She’d like that,” Ginger said, impressed that Nate remembered Emma liked the miniature bundt cakes from a shop that didn’t make anything else. “She really doesn’t like working on the ranch.”
“We’ll get her two then,” he said. “Because she had to help so we could go to court.” He reached for her hand and squeezed it tight, a clear indication of his nerves.
“It’s going to be okay,” Ginger said. “It’s all approved.”
“I’ve never been to an adoption hearing,” Nate said.
“Neither have I, and neither has Connor. It’ll be okay.” Ginger had to keep telling herself that as they separated to go to their respective parts of the house to get ready. Twenty minutes later, Ginger hurried down the steps and into the garage. Nate and Connor waited in her truck, both of them wearing dark suits, complete with a white shirt and matching striped tie in blue, maroon, and gold.
“Wow,” Ginger said, sliding behind the wheel. “You two match.”
“Daddy bought us the same suit,” Connor said. “But mine is small.”
“It sure is.” Ginger grinned at the little boy, whose blond hair had been buzzed into a respectable cut only a few days ago. He’d sat in the kitchen in the West Wing while Jess used the clippers and then the scissors to get his hair just right. She’d then cut Nate’s hair too, and they both looked clean-cut and respectable.
Ginger drove them to the county courthouse, where they went through the metal detectors and then into the elevator to go to the fourth floor, where the courtrooms were for family court. There was nowhere to sit on the fourth floor, and Nate paced toward the window and back several times before Ginger took his hand in hers and forced him to stand still.
Some people already milled about, and more kept coming and coming. Ginger realized in that moment that this was not going to be a private hearing, and she wondered if the judge would know Nate wasn’t quite out of prison yet. Her stomach jiggled and dropped, but she said nothing. He was already keyed up, and she didn’t need to add to it.
“Where is he?” Nate asked, craning to look at the elevator bank. His lawyer was supposed to be there that morning, but they hadn’t seen him yet.
“He’ll be here,” Ginger said. Lawrence might wear snakeskin sometimes, but he did a good job. He’d always done right by Nate, and surely he’d arrive any minute now.
Finally, the door opened to courtroom seven, their assigned courtroom, and a bailiff came out into the hall. “We’ve got our ten-thirty group entering,” he said, stepping back. “Any requests to go first?”
“We’d like to go first,” a man said, and Nate made a startled noise. “It’s the Mulbury adoption.”
“That’s Lawrence,” Nate said, but Ginger had spotted him on her own. “I didn’t even see him.” He released Ginger’s hand, and said, “Come on, bud,” to Connor, scooping him into his arms a moment later. He hurried toward the door and Lawrence, and by the time Ginger made it through the press of people to one of the rows inside the courtroom, Nate, Connor, and Lawrence sat at the front table.
“Guess we’re going first,” she muttered, taking a seat on the end of the row as the bailiff kept telling everyone to move down. Keep moving down.
People filled the room, and Ginger was suddenly glad Lawrence had stepped up and demanded to go first. At the same time, Ginger wished she had a moment to catch her breath, and she’d like to have seen how this procedure worked before it was Nate and Connor on the hot seat.
She reminded herself that she didn’t need to know the procedure here. That was why Nate paid Lawrence.
Once everyone was settled, a silence descended on the room. At least until the door in the back opened, and out came two women. Everyone scrambled to their feet to show respect. One woman took her place in a booth on floor-level, and the other sat behind the bench.
“Ready, Randy?” she asked, a smile on her face.
The bailiff grinned back at her. “Everyone’s here, ma’am.”
“And we have our first case already seated,” she said, gesturing to Lawrence, Nate, and Connor. “So I guess we’re ready.”
“The Mulbury’s,” Randy said, before turning to the courtroom. “This is courtroom seven, with the honorable Judge Denise Jerry. You’re up, sir.”
Lawrence stood up and asked the judge how she was. “Fine,” she drawled, still shuffling papers on her bench.
“All of our paperwork is in order,” Lawrence said. “There was no contest from Jane Copeland, Connor Mulbury’s birth mother. No contest from any of her family members, or any of Nathaniel’s. Both Connor and Nate want to form this family unit and start new when the time comes.”
The judge looked up, first at Lawrence and then to Nate and Connor. “Sir, please stand up.”
Nate did, quickly buttoning his suit coat. He nudged Connor, who also stood up. Nate smoothed his hair and they both faced the judge again. “Your Honor.”
“This is your late brother’s son?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“His will named you the legal guardian, with specific instructions to adopt Connor as soon as you could.”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
She looked down at her papers again, a tiny crease appearing between her eyebrows. Ginger pulled in a breath and held it.
“You’re still in state custody,” the judge finally said.
“Yes, ma’am. Until February seventeenth.”
“You’re at Hope Eternal Ranch?”
Ginger glanced away from the bench when Nate didn’t answer. He was bent over whispering something to Connor. He straightened, and Connor said, “Yes, Your Honor. We live at Hope Eternal Ranch.”
A collective “aw” rose into the air, and Ginger’s heart swelled with so much love for him.
“Who’s responsible for you there?” Judge Jerry asked.
“My dad,” Connor said, looking up at Nate. “And Spencer. And Jack. And Nick. There’s Emma, Jess, Jill, and Ginger too. And so many horses, and—” He stopped when Nate put his hand on the top of his head, and several people in the courtroom chuckled.
Including the judge. “So you have a lot of people looking after you.”
“And Ursula,” Connor said.
“And you, Mister Mulbury?”
“I report to Ginger Talbot, ma’am. She reports to the BOP.”
“Did Miss Talbot come with you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Nate turned toward the audience, his eyes searching for her.
Ginger hadn’t realized she’d need to be part of the proceedings. She stood up, lifting her right hand halfway as if everyone wasn’t looking at her now.
The judge gestured for Ginger to join Nate and Connor at the small table on the other side of the short wall keeping the audience back from the podium. She made it to the table and reached down and pressed her palm flat against the wood, using it to steady herself.
“Your reports have been favorable,” Judge Jerry said, clearly a prompt.
“Yes, Your Honor,” she said, her voice scratchy. “Nate is such an excellent cowboy, I’m hoping to hire him on permanently once he’s eligible.”
She shuffled some more papers, which seemed to take a very long time. “And young man Connor. You want your Uncle Nate to be your father?”
He looked up at Nate, who nodded a couple of times. “Yes,” Connor said.
“Anything to add, Mister Matthews?”
“Only that Nathaniel is capable and ready for this responsibility, Your Honor. He’s already been doing it for months now.”
“Yes,” the judge mused. She finally closed the folder and looked up. “All right. I see no reason for the two of you not to be a family. I’m signing this now to make this a legal adoption, and to make things even easier, no one has to change any names.” She beamed out at them, and Nate did something Ginger had never seen him do before.
He whooped and picked up Connor, who laughed as he looked down at his new father.
Ginger wanted to commit this moment to memory, because it was so full of joy and so precious.
“You can have two minutes for a picture,” the bailiff said. “We’re ready for the Jacobsen’s.” He stepped over to the separating wall and Ginger moved forward with Lawrence. They stood back while Nate and Connor posed by the judge.
Ginger snapped pictures, the smiles now captured digitally forever.
Then they left the courtroom. Nate clapped Lawrence on the back of his shoulder, and said, “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” Lawrence said with a big smile. “I’ll see you in a couple of months.” He held up one palm. “Not a day before, okay, Nate? I don’t want to see you until February.”
“Deal,” Nate said. They watched Lawrence leave, and Nate finally turned his attention to Ginger. He burst out laughing again, and he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her right off her feet. She giggled with him, and Nate bent to pick up Connor. “Come on,” he said. “This calls for the biggest ice cream cone in Texas, and I know just where to get one.”
“Yeah!” Connor cheered, and it was a good long while before Ginger could stop smiling.