But Nick wouldn’t take it. “I don’t need to get paid. Friends do favors for each other.”
Nate shoved the money back in his pocket. “Okay.”
“How much money do you have?” Nick asked.
“A lot,” Nate said.
“How?”
“I inherited Ward’s entire estate,” Nate said. “And I invested wisely before prison.”
“You were in investments, right?” Nick asked.
“Yes.”
“This is legal money?”
“Mine is,” Nate said. “This drop is too. It’s just something I wasn’t able to pay out before I got arrested.” He looked at Nick. “Honestly.”
“And Ginger doesn’t know.” He wasn’t asking.
“It’s not illegal,” Nate said. “I just want it to be over, so I don’t have this hanging over my head anymore.”
“I get that.”
But Nate wasn’t sure how he could. Nick was nineteen years old.
“Thank you,” Nate said. “I really will pay you for this.”
“It’s not necessary,” Nick said, clapping Nate on the shoulder. “See you in the morning.”
Nate hardly slept, and when he lifted his backpack over the tailgate of Ginger’s truck the next morning, he felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.
Thankfully, Connor had enough energy for both of them, and he occupied Ginger’s attention. Nate watched as they laughed together, and he had a flash of a future with the three of them as a family.
So much about him had changed, as he’d never really envisioned himself as a husband and father. But he sure did now.
That hope that had been growing inside him swelled, and he took a moment to revel in the fantasy of him and Ginger, married, with Connor as their son.
“Ready?” she asked, breaking through the image in his mind.
“Yep,” he said, hoping he could make it through this morning.
Hours later, Nate couldn’t focus, though Connor kept calling to him from the waves. Nick should’ve been back fifteen minutes ago. Then twenty. Then thirty.
He checked his phone over and over, but there were no calls and no messages. Ginger’s family was set to arrive in only twenty minutes, and Nate couldn’t remember any of their names, though he and Ginger had been talking about them all week.
Flipping over his phone again, Nate considered what to do. He couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. “I’ve got to use the restroom,” he said to Ginger. “Keep an eye on Connor?”
“Of course.”
He bent down and kissed her, easily slipping his hand into her purse and taking her car keys. He walked away, his muscles vibrating with his pulse. Around the side of the small brick building that housed the bathroom, Nate dialed Nick.
“Come on,” he muttered. Maybe the kid had met a girl at the mall. Maybe he’d spied his favorite hamburger joint. Nate prayed for either of those as the line rang.
“Nate,” a man said, but it wasn’t Nick.
It was Oscar.
Nate strode toward the parking lot. “Where is he?”
“Dad,” Connor said, and Nate spun toward him while Oscar said he didn’t appreciate someone else making the drop.
Nate pulled the phone away from his mouth. “Come on,” he said to Connor. “We have to go for a ride.” He picked up his son and hurried toward the truck.
“I had a thing,” Nate said. “Nick is nothing. He doesn’t even know how much or why I’m giving you money.”
“He knows it’s me,” Oscar said.
“Also not true,” Nate said, opening the door and sliding Connor in the passenger seat. “I didn’t tell him anything but how to get the money from my bank and where to drop it.” He ran around the hood and opened the driver’s door.
“Nate.”
He turned toward Ginger, who wore confusion on her face.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll be right back,” he said, getting behind the wheel. He slammed the door and said to Oscar, “Tell me where he is right now. You got your money, and we’re done. You don’t need Nick.” He took off even as Ginger stepped toward him, a look of extreme anger on her face.
He couldn’t go back though, and try to explain to her that he’d put her cousin in danger. He knew how much Nick meant to her, and Nate kicked himself for putting the kid in danger.
He was going to make this right.
He was going to end this. Today.
Then he would explain everything to Ginger and hope that she could forgive him.
Chapter Sixteen
Ginger couldn’t believe what had just happened. Fury roared through her as the taillights of her truck disappeared around a bend in the road that led back to Sweet Water Falls.
Her parents were due to arrive in ten minutes. They were expecting to meet her boyfriend and his son. And they’d both just disappeared.
Her torso felt like someone had hollowed her out and filled her with bleach. And where the heck was Nick? He’d left over an hour ago to go get a new battery for his phone. He should’ve been back by now.
She turned in a full circle, trying to figure out what to do. She was supposed to report anything the inmate did that went against his terms of the reentry program. And leaving without telling her where he was going—and all by himself—was definitely against Nate’s terms.
Unrest rolled through her gut. She didn’t want him to get in trouble. She also didn’t want to stand here on this beach, alone and wondering if Nate was making a run for the Southern border the way Hyrum had.
“He’s not Hyrum,” she told herself, not for the first time. She faced the water, wishing it would confirm what she’d just said. Only the whooshing of waves against sand met her ears. Spencer laughed from the towel where he lay, looking at something on his phone. Emma looked over at him, then back at her paperback.
Everything seemed normal and serene, but Ginger didn’t fit in the scene. Not without Nate and Connor. She glanced at the parking lot, but he didn’t return with her truck, and Ginger realized she could report him for stealing the vehicle. She really didn’t want to do that. Why had he left and put her in this position?
He knew he couldn’t go anywhere by himself. “This is why you shouldn’t have let him run over to the mall alone,” she muttered, as her feet took her toward her friends and co-workers enjoying themselves in the sun and surf.
That episode where Nate had gone to the mall to buy her a birthday present was weeks old, and he’d never indicated he was anything but happy at the ranch. He’d told her time and time again that he was grateful for the opportunity to be at Hope Eternal.
So what had changed?
She sighed as she sank into the beach chair next to Emma. She had to call the BOP. If she didn’t and they found out that Nate had gone missing, even for an hour, and she hadn’t reported it, she’d never get another inmate at the ranch.
She’d already contacted the Warden at River Bay and said she’d take someone else if he had them, and James Dickerson had said he’d look through his files. Ginger knew who she wanted, because Nate had talked to her about a friend of his. Ted Burrows.