His Pregnant Courthouse Bride

She smiled back. “Sorry I was so dead last night.”

“Long trip,” he said. “Eggs? Toast? Coffee?”

“All of the above, please.” She settled onto a stool on the far side of the island. “You have to work today, of course.”

“I cleared most of my schedule for the week,” he answered, turning back to the counter and cracking two more eggs into a bowl to whisk. “A few hours each day, rather than all day. Some hearings I can’t avoid, and a trial that’ll probably be over in a couple of hours after we finish jury selection.”

“Can I come watch?”

“Of course.” If she were in the courtroom with him, at least he wouldn’t be wondering if she were sitting here feeling like hell and unable to do a damn thing about it.

He gave her a cup of coffee and the eggs he’d already cooked. “Dig in.”

He started making his own eggs and heard her say, “You didn’t have to clear your schedule for me.”

“No, but I did anyway. You could have gone anywhere if solitude and four walls were all you wanted.”

He was pleased to hear a quiet laugh from her. “Sadly true,” she answered.

A minute later he carried his own plate and mug to the island and stood on the far side from her. “It’s okay, Amber,” he said before he started eating. “You’re welcome here and we’ll get over the awkwardness soon.”

“I didn’t expect it,” she admitted. “In some ways I felt as if all these years hadn’t passed.”

“In some ways they haven’t.” He sipped his coffee. “But even back then we didn’t share quarters.”

That drew another laugh from her, a small one.

“Look, this place is practically a hotel. Just do whatever you need to in order to feel comfortable. Spend as much time or as little as you want with me. Make your own ground rules. I’m pretty adaptable.”

She raised her face to smile at him. “Generous, too. Most of the problem is me, Wyatt. Everything is all messed up. Blown up. I feel as if I’m in a million pieces right now.”

“Hardly surprising. You want to talk some more?”

“Maybe after court. You must need to go soon.”

He glanced at the clock. Seven thirty. “Fifteen minutes. Can you be ready?”

“I am ready. But don’t you need time to change?”

Wyatt looked down at his jeans and polo shirt. “No.”

“Wow,” Amber breathed. “I might like this place.”

“Well, I do wear a robe. Most of the time.”

The sound of the laughter that pealed out of her warmed his heart. If she could still laugh like that, then everything would be okay. For her.

Because suddenly, for him, he wasn’t so sure. An attractive damsel in distress. Always his weak point, and more so for Amber.

* * *

The day was chilly and the wind whipped with ferocity. Amber almost felt like ducking as they left the house and walked to his car in the driveway. “Is this wind usual?” she asked once they were in the car.

“No. Usually we have a breeze, nothing bad, although it can get to be pretty constant if you get out onto the prairie. But here...” He shook his head as he turned over the ignition. “Some kind of front must be in the area, but I haven’t looked at the weather.”

“I was getting used to the wind in Chicago. I don’t think it ever stops. But this is pretty with the leaves tossing in the wind.”

“Until it comes time to rake,” he answered.

“Will there be anything left?” she wondered as he wove their way down the street toward where she presumed they’d find the courthouse.

It was only a few blocks away, and she was instantly charmed. She’d half expected some functional building that had been erected recently, but instead saw a gorgeous older redbrick building with impressive columns sitting in a square filled with concrete benches and tables and the remains of summer flowers. And the statue of a soldier, watching over it all.

“Did they transplant this from New England?” she asked, amazed.

“The folks who built it wanted something to remind them of home, I guess. We have a church that looks like it was snatched out of the jaws of Vermont, too.”

Amber was charmed. It might not be a large town, but what she had seen of it so far was gracious and inviting. Wyatt pulled around to the back of the courthouse and into a parking space labeled with his name: Hon. Wyatt Carter. Some of the other spaces had filled up, but they were all reserved—county attorney, court reporter and others.

“We finally emerged into the new century,” he remarked after they climbed out and headed for the back door.

“Meaning?”

“We had to build a new jail outside town. It wasn’t so long ago prisoners were kept in cells over the sheriff’s office, but six cells is just about enough to dry out the drunks overnight. So...big jail. And I do a lot of my hearings over closed-circuit TV. No big deal to you, I’m sure, but it was a very big deal when we transitioned here.”

She could almost imagine it. In a very short space of time he’d given her the feeling that this was an old Western town stepping very slowly into the modern era. She looked around just before he opened the door for her and saw that the entire square was surrounded by stores. She liked it.

She followed him into a narrow hallway painted institutional green with wood floors that creaked beneath their feet. They passed restrooms, the rear side of the county clerk’s office, then climbed some equally creaky stairs to the second floor, where they entered his chambers.

The walls in the outer office were lined with books of statutes, something that must be left over from earlier days, she decided. Everyone relied on online research these days, and law libraries were available at the touch of a key if you had a subscription. They’d certainly done that in law school. But she looked around the walls, admiring the books, their solid look and feel. Two desks sat in the middle of all this magnificence.

“My reporter and clerk work there,” he said.

Then they passed through to a chamber that was all dark wood, a massive desk and a few chairs. She thought she could detect old aromas of cigar smoke embedded in the walls. The only modernity was a multiple line phone and a computer.

“My home away from home,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’ve got a few minutes. Do you want to stay here or go into the courtroom?”

She’d been in a judge’s chambers before, of course. It was inevitable for a lawyer. It didn’t look like a place to browse, and she’d come to see him in court anyway.

“Courtroom,” she answered decisively. A kind of tickled excitement awoke in her. She was going to see her old friend in the role of a judge. It was just cool enough to make her forget her other problems.

She walked through the door he pointed out and emerged in the courtroom, walking past the raised bench and past the attorney’s tables, which were already occupied, ignoring the curious looks as she took a seat in the front row. She had no idea what was on his docket for today or whether the people waiting in the gallery with her were here to deal with legal problems or just to watch, but the place was filling rapidly. The clock slipped past eight, almost as a courtesy to late arrivals, then a bailiff, in what appeared to be a deputy’s uniform, called the court to order and announced Wyatt. “All rise. The Tenth District Circuit Court of the state of Wyoming is now in session, the Honorable Wyatt Carter presiding.”

He came striding in, wearing a black robe, his jeans and boots flashing beneath it. She had to cover her mouth with her hand. She hadn’t expected to enjoy this so much.

Wyatt tapped the microphone in front of him, and the thump came across the speakers. “All right,” he said, looking out over the room. “Traffic court. Really, folks, don’t you know better?”

And thus it began.

* * *

Amber was soon amazed. Wyatt didn’t treat most of these people as if he just wanted them to pass out of his sight as soon as possible. He actually talked to them, and when he deemed it appropriate, he asked questions. He even postponed a few cases when the charges were serious and the accused claimed to be unable to afford an attorney. He promptly assigned them to the public defender on the spot.

“This is the second time you’ve come before this court for not having a driver’s license,” he said to a thirtysomething man in work clothes. “Didn’t I order you to get a license last time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So why are you still driving without one?”

The man shuffled his feet. “I need to go to work.”

Wyatt leaned back a little and studied the notes on his desk. “It says here you can’t read. The state has an application for people who can’t read. Why didn’t you get one?”

“I tried.”

At that Wyatt leaned forward. “What kind of work do you do?”

“I work at the ranches. Hired hand.”

“No reading required for that, I suppose.”

“No, sir.”

“So why didn’t you get a license?”

“I keep calling but they’re busy. I can’t even talk to someone. Always busy.”

Wyatt turned to the clerk. “You get me the license people and you get this man an appointment with them before this day is over.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Wyatt turned back to the man in front of him. “Will you go to the test when my clerk tells you the time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’d better. And I’m suspending your case pending your getting that license. Crap, can’t get through?” He turned to the clerk again. “Let ’em know I’m not happy about this.”

The clerk almost grinned. “Absolutely.”

He looked at the man. “You stay here until she gets your appointment. And you’d better find somebody to drive you home, because you cannot drive without a license and I don’t want to see you here again. Understood?”

Amber was amazed. Wyatt took a lot of personal interest, sometimes waiving fines when people simply couldn’t pay them. But again and again, when something caught his attention, he zoomed in.

Then came the guy who was in front of him for the second time for driving on a suspended license.

“I told you to stop driving,” Wyatt said. “What makes you think you can ignore the law like this? Your license was suspended for DUI. Now you’re in front of me again for driving when you’re not allowed to?”

The amusing part came after Wyatt ruled, telling the guy that the next time he was going to jail and was being spared this time only because he had small children to support. Then he added, “I’m leaving here in another few minutes, so you’d better find someone to drive you home. Because I’ll recognize your face now and I’ll chase you down and arrest you myself. Got it?”

Amber had never guessed that traffic court could be so fascinating and even moving. And Wyatt broke the mold.

* * *

Amber waited in the court after everyone had departed. She didn’t feel free to just walk back into Wyatt’s chambers. He might be dealing with something that was none of her business, or he might just be busy. She only waited about twenty minutes, though, before he entered the courtroom again, this time wearing his jacket and no robe and carrying a briefcase. “Free for the rest of the day,” he said with a smile. “Do you want to go home or would you rather go down the block to the diner with excellent food and service that never comes with a smile?”

That surprised a little laugh from her. “Really?”

“Maude and her daughter are the local gorgons, but the food more than makes up for it.”

“Then by all means the diner.”

“Let’s walk,” he suggested, and this time they exited the courthouse by the grand front entrance. “I think these places were built to impress and intimidate,” he said as they walked down the wide marble steps.

“I think you’re right. It’s a beautiful building.”

“That it is. And you see the stone benches and tables scattered in the little park? When the weather allows we have people at nearly every one of them playing chess or checkers.” He pointed. “Over there is the sheriff’s office.”

It looked like a regular storefront, which surprised her. “No Corinthian columns for him?”

Wyatt laughed. “None. They used to be in the courthouse basement a couple of generations ago, but then they needed more room and were getting squeezed out by the records and clerks. So they took up one side of the street there, and their offices run back inside behind the storefronts. Bigger than it looks from out here.”

They crossed Main, which was right in front of the courthouse, to a side street where he pointed out other shops to her, one of them a craft shop in a house a little way past the diner, a dentist’s office, a dress store, a bail bondsman and a couple of lawyers, one of them with the name Carter painted in gold letters on the window.

“Your father?” she asked.

“The same.”

“So you practiced there for a while?”

“Yup.” Then into the diner, which was quite busy. She couldn’t miss the silence that fell suddenly as she walked in with Wyatt and felt like a bug under a microscope.

“Ignore it,” he said under his breath. “They’re just curious. Something new to talk about.”

She hadn’t considered that possibility. Being the subject of talk wasn’t something she wanted, but then she reminded herself that she was only visiting. A week, two weeks, whatever, but eventually she was going to have to figure out the next path she needed to walk. And after what had happened in Chicago, she figured large law firms were off her list for some time. People gossiped there, too, and that gossip spread. For her it would be the kind of gossip that would make another firm leery of hiring her.

All of a sudden a man in a sheriff’s uniform stood before them. He had a burn-scarred face and a gravelly voice. “Hey, Wyatt, we were just leaving. Take our booth.”

Wyatt smiled and held out his hand to shake the other man’s. “Amber, this is Gage Dalton, our sheriff. Gage, a lawyer friend of mine from Chicago, Amber Towers.”

Gage’s crooked smile was friendly as he shook Amber’s hand. “Welcome to Conard City, Ms. Towers. If you decide you want to get out of town and visit a ranch, let me know. I’ve got several deputies who’d be glad to oblige. Or you can take a trail ride.” He laughed. “Whole bunches of things to do, if you know where to look.”

She met three more deputies as they departed, one of them a woman who had the same last name as a much older man with a Native American face. They didn’t at all resemble each other, which raised her curiosity.

“The two named Parish,” she began after they sat and the table had been cleared by a scowling woman.

“Micah Parish and his daughter-in-law, Connie.”

Well, that explained a lot. “Family business, law enforcement?”

Wyatt flashed a grin. “Not exactly. Micah has a ranch, too, and his son, Ethan, left the sheriff’s department to help out there. Unfortunately, I think we’re going to see Micah retire before long. It’ll be the end of an era.”

“Meaning?”

Coffee cups slammed down in front of them and were filled by an older version of the woman who had cleared the table. Looking up at that face, Amber almost hesitated. But then she plunged in. “I can’t drink much coffee. Could I please have milk instead?”

She was answered with a grunt as the menus slapped onto the table.

“Was that a yes?” Amber asked Wyatt quietly as the woman stomped away.

“Mavis or Maude will bring your milk.” He winked. “I warned you about the service. Okay, end of an era. Micah’s been a deputy here ever since he mustered out of the army. Nearly a quarter century now. He started working for the old sheriff, Nate Tate, who retired a while back, which was another end-of-an-era event around here. Anyway, at first Micah wasn’t very well accepted.”

“Why? Because he’s Native American?”

“Bingo. A lot of those prejudices still exist. He’s become kind of iconic over the years, like the old sheriff. And folks still call Gage the new sheriff, even though it’s been years.”

“I’m beginning to get the picture.”

He nodded. “Things do change here, they just change slowly.”

She was also adding together her impressions and began to feel very uncomfortable. “Wyatt? Will my staying with you cause problems? Because people are bound to talk and you’re a judge...”

“God, you sound like my father,” he said with a hint of exasperation. “I don’t care what they say. If I did, I wouldn’t have invited you.”

But her stomach sank even more as she realized his father had objected to her visit. Wyatt had often struck her as the knight-errant type, willing to fight for what he thought was right, despite the consequences to himself. That could be an admirable thing at times, but sometimes not. Like possibly now.

She had to force herself to look at the menu and find something she thought she could eat. As self-absorbed as her problems had made her for the last six weeks, she hadn’t lost her ability to care. She didn’t want to cause this man any trouble, so she’d need to figure out something quickly.

At last she chose a grilled cheese sandwich with a side salad. Despite the lack of service, their orders were placed in front of them quickly, and Wyatt dug into what looked like a really juicy steak sandwich.

“You’re rather unconventional in your approach to being a judge,” she remarked. “I’m used to judges who don’t take an interest beyond the law.”

“I don’t know that I’m unconventional. I just know these are real people with real problems, and a lot of them are my neighbors. Some come from the next county over and I may never see them again, but they’re still human beings.”

She looked up from her sandwich with a smile. “You were always like that. I remember how much you wanted to be a defense attorney. And why. Still tilting at windmills, I see.”

He half smiled. “I don’t know if they’re windmills, but while there are some things justice should never see, I think she needs to take off that blindfold once in a while.”

“Mercy.”

“Maybe. Certainly everyone’s entitled to a fair shake, and by the time some of them come in front of me, they’ve hardly had a fair shake in their lives.”

She nodded and reached for the second half of her sandwich, glad her appetite had returned. “I worked in a different world at those big firms.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“Most of my clients had gotten more than their share of fair shakes in life. They were just looking for another one. Or maybe for a better-than-fair outcome.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Well-heeled, successful, mostly men who thought they had the world by a string. It came as a real shock when they found out they didn’t.”

Distasteful, she thought. Yes, it was the way up the ladder to maybe becoming a judge herself one day, but a lot of her clients...just because they had money didn’t mean she respected them.

But she did like the pro bono work she did when she could at the free legal clinic. She was going to miss that.

“Do you like chili?” Wyatt asked, drawing her out of her maunderings.

“Sure. Not the beans so much, though.”

“I make it without beans. How about we have that for dinner tonight?”

“You cooking?”

He laughed. “Absolutely. The chef is going to love having an excuse.”

Chapter Three

On the way home, he took a detour to the grocery. Despite having just driven all the way from Chicago, she opted to stay in the car. Instead she pulled her jacket snugly around her to wait, then decided to climb out and stroll around the parking lot.

The wind seemed to be dying a bit. To the west she saw brilliant blue sky right over the mountains, although it remained overcast overhead. The ends of the earth, she thought again, but this time with amusement. The town had some appeal to it, though, and she suspected if you lived your whole life here, you might get to know almost everyone. They wouldn’t necessarily be friends, but you’d recognize them.

Having been anonymous on crowded streets for so long, she wondered how that would feel. Good? Bad? Or maybe people here were so used to it they never even thought about it.

But she thought about it now.

He didn’t keep her waiting long, and as they drove back to his house, she leaned her head back and watched the passing houses. Some better kept than others, a whole mishmash of different designs, but lots of trees lining the streets. Pretty. A grace of its own.

But then they were home, and after he’d put his purchases in the refrigerator, he invited her to join him at the kitchen table.

Now, she thought edgily, he was going to want to talk. He had every right to bring up her mess. Every right to understand better. Hadn’t she basically thrown herself on his mercy by coming out here, by calling him in the first place? Of course she had, and she owed him the whole sordid story. And maybe the story of everything else she’d done since starting her career. It wasn’t like it was all bad.

But he surprised her with the direction he took. “What’s off-limits because of the baby?”

“Off-limits?” she asked, not following.

“Foods, beverages, that kind of thing.”

The question startled her a bit, because she hadn’t been thinking much about that aspect. She knew to avoid alcohol and over-the-counter meds, but other than that...

He frowned faintly. “Have you seen a doctor yet, Amber?”

“Well, my regular doctor. He said to make an appointment with an obstetrician, and he gave me some vitamins to take. He also advised me to limit myself to a couple of cups of coffee but...well, I think he was expecting the obstetrician to give me all the details.”

“But you haven’t gone.”

“Not yet.” She looked down, feeling inexplicably stupid. “I’m not an idiot,” she protested. “But with all that’s been going on... I was going to get to it. I’m not that far along...”

“Okay.” He brought her a glass of milk instead of coffee, which he made for himself. “I’m not criticizing you. You’ve been through a rough time. But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to see the obstetrician here. Just to be on the safe side.”

She didn’t answer. Instead of looking at him, she turned her head and stared out through the window at the gray day. Okay, she hadn’t really been dealing with the reality of this pregnancy. She’d hardly been thinking about it except in the vaguest of ways. Yes, she’d followed the directions she’d been given, but beyond that...beyond that, she didn’t want to face the fact that she was becoming a mother and that her whole life and all her dreams had changed. She might tell herself she wasn’t stupid, but stupidity had gotten her here, and now stupidity was keeping her from facing reality.

Too much, she thought. Too much. She didn’t know how she was going to deal with it all. No idea where to go, how to handle it. All she knew was that she’d had to get away from that law firm. Everyone knew she’d been seeing Tom. Everyone knew he’d lied about his divorce, because he’d done it before. But so far none of them knew she’d managed to get pregnant. The one humiliation in the whole affair that hadn’t become public.

But if she had stayed, it would have become very public. She suspected she wouldn’t be welcome there once everyone knew about the baby. Tom was a junior partner. She was no one. Time to get out before she felt as if she were in the public stocks.

Wyatt had agreed with her once she told him what had happened. Staying at the firm would have been very uncomfortable, and while she could have lied and said the baby was someone else’s...well, most people wouldn’t have believed it, and she’d have had Tom trying to make her life enough of a hell that she’d quit anyway.

At least that was her read, and Wyatt had agreed that she might not be able to convince everyone that the father was someone else. How much that would affect her future at the firm was anyone’s guess. Wyatt said he’d like to believe no one would give her trouble, but... He’d let that dangle.

It was her suspicion that the moment she became a potential embarrassment to Tom, her career would be in jeopardy. Maybe they’d have given her time to find another position, but she didn’t want the humiliation. There was already enough of that, knowing she’d had an affair with a married man, and that others knew it as well.