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Second Chance in Dry Creek
Janet Tronstad
A Love Worth Waiting For Her neighbors in Dry Creek, Montana, think Gracie Stone is rebuilding her life just fine on the family ranch. But Calen Gray knows better. Foreman of nearby Elkton Ranch, Calen has been sweet on Gracie half their lives. But harrowing circumstances kept them apart—and sent Gracie away.Now she’s back, barely holding her head up, and refusing to believe she has a second chance at happiness. With faith, love and the gentle airing of long-held secrets, Calen just might find a way to bring back her smile—forever. Return to Dry Creek: A small Montana town with a heart as big as heaven Add to front cover: USA TODAY Bestselling Author


A Love Worth Waiting For
Her neighbors in Dry Creek, Montana, think Gracie Stone is rebuilding her life just fine on the family ranch. But Calen Gray knows better. Foreman of nearby Elkton Ranch, Calen has been sweet on Gracie half their lives. But harrowing circumstances kept them apart—and sent Gracie away. Now she’s back, barely holding her head up, and refusing to believe she has a second chance at happiness. With faith, love and the gentle airing of long-held secrets, Calen just might find a way to bring back her smile—forever.
“Tessie likes you.”
“She’s special, isn’t she?” Gracie replied.
“You’re my first choice to help me take care of her,” Calen replied.
Gracie smiled and nodded. “I’m glad to help, then.”
Calen draped a blanket over Gracie’s shoulders and tucked it between them in the place under his arm where she was pressed against him. She closed her eyes as though she was weary.
Then he leaned over and kissed her forehead.
“What’s that for?” she muttered sleepily.
He smiled. “Nothing.”
“You always were a Romeo,” she whispered without opening her eyes. “A woman in every port, Buck used to say.”
“I never did take to the sea,” he corrected her mildly. He wondered suddenly how different their futures would have been if he’d been the first one to ask Gracie out on a date in high school. He had wanted to, but his nerves had failed him. By the time he got the courage, Buck had asked her instead.
Maybe there was time yet to find out where the feelings he had for her would lead if he let them....
JANET TRONSTAD
grew up on her family’s farm in central Montana and now lives in Pasadena, California, where she is always at work on her next book. She has written more than thirty books, many of them set in the fictitious town of Dry Creek, Montana, where the men spend the winters gathered around the potbellied stove in the hardware store and the women make jelly in the fall.
Second Chance in Dry Creek
Janet Tronstad






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
He causes His sun to rise on the wicked
and the good, and He makes it rain on the just
and the unjust.
—Matthew 5:45
I dedicate this book to broken families.
May God have mercy on all of us.
Contents
Chapter One (#u5fb058a2-300a-5a59-85b0-a2fefb481843)
Chapter Two (#u27e77721-d1a4-54ed-870c-9b0b80af129e)
Chapter Three (#ub5987ef6-c13c-5d71-969b-10d65ec25786)
Chapter Four (#u32c39340-0398-5393-8aed-40799944eb79)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Gracie Stone sat at the kitchen table, a cup of tea growing cold in front of her. She gathered her frayed bathrobe around her against the night’s chill and glanced up at the clock, wincing when she saw it was almost midnight. Every time she was ready to doze off, she remembered the determined voices of her grown sons as they had vowed earlier in the day that they were going to find a husband for her.
“They’re just worried about me living alone,” she muttered to Rusty, the dog lying at her feet. There had been a string of gas station robberies up north around Havre, and she supposed the boys were right to be concerned.
“But a husband? That’s a bit extreme,” she said, telling her faithful companion the same thing she’d told her sons, as she bent down to rub the dog’s ears. She had returned to the family ranch in Dry Creek, Montana, to get her old life back, not start a new one. “They should know I’m not going to take a chance on marriage again.”
Suddenly, a flicker of light shone briefly through the window above the sink.
Gracie blinked before realizing it had to be the headlights of a vehicle driving over the small rise in the lane that led to her house. She figured she might as well put the teakettle back on the burner. As she stood up, she wondered which of her three sons had looked out his window in the middle of the night and noticed that her light was on. Each lived with his newlywed wife on the ranch property, their individual houses just far apart enough to need separate driveways.
Gracie reached up to the cupboard for another mug. She would appreciate the company tonight even if she had to listen to another lecture on the virtues of matrimony. Rusty seemed to agree. He’d gotten to his feet and was running in circles around the table, barking as he went.
“Hush now,” she said. The dog was always excited to see her sons.
Just then, she heard the sound of the engine stopping. Shortly thereafter she heard a faint knock on her kitchen door.
She paused, the mug still in her hand. She hadn’t heard footsteps on the porch, and all of her sons wore cowboy boots that beat a loud rhythm as they pounded up those old wooden steps. Rusty usually didn’t carry on for this long when they came, either.
“Just a minute,” she called as she set the cup down on the counter and tightened the sash on her robe. Her feet were bare, but that couldn’t be helped. At least she was wearing an old T-shirt and sweatpants under her robe.
She stepped over to the sink and looked through the window. The porch was around the corner, but she could see a small car, its headlights still on, parked in her driveway. She didn’t recognize the vehicle, but then none of the neighbors would be knocking at her door at this time of night without phoning first anyway.
“Yes?” she said as she walked closer to the door.
Her youngest son, Tyler, had called a few hours ago to make sure she had locked both doors before going to bed, and she was glad she had followed his advice. The October night was darker than usual, so she assumed the clouds were still overhead. The stars were hidden and winter was forecast to come early this year. Tonight was already cold.
She didn’t hear anything for a minute. Rusty had stopped barking, but he walked over to the door and growled low in his throat.
“I need—” a woman started, her voice so soft Gracie couldn’t hear more than that even though she had been leaning close to the door.
Gracie breathed a sigh of relief. The robberies had been committed by two men in black ski masks. There’d been no mention of a woman. Rusty’s growl faded, and that meant he was satisfied with whoever was on the other side of the door.
Still, Gracie figured she needed to show some caution.
“Where are you headed?” she asked. Anyone who was lost on these gravel roads wouldn’t be able to find their way in the dark; that much she knew. Half of these old roads weren’t even marked. And there were no lights, of course.
“Calen Gray,” the woman said, her voice falling with each syllable as though her strength was draining away.
“Calen?” Gracie repeated in surprise. He was the foreman of the nearby Elkton Ranch and was in church most Sundays, even though she seldom greeted him. She never knew what to say; he’d seen her and her late husband at their worst years ago, and there were some things she preferred to forget. She expected he felt the same way.
Gracie was reaching for the doorknob when she heard a soft thud.
Dear Lord, what is wrong? She prayed for guidance as she turned the lock. She opened the door slowly and stared into the darkness. The light from her kitchen was weak. The headlights from the car lit up the yard, but the partially-enclosed porch stayed in shadows.
Gracie heard a moan and looked down to her right. The woman must have tried to steady herself on the wooden cabinet before crumpling to the slatted floor next to it. Rusty had slipped out of the house and was sniffing around her.
“Are you all right?” Gracie asked softly as she knelt down and motioned for Rusty to back away. The young woman’s denim-clad legs were at an awkward angle. Her skin was clammy as Gracie touched her face. There was not even a murmur in response. Gracie looked closer and brushed aside the woman’s brown hair. That’s when she saw a dark bruise above the woman’s eye. Another faded one showed on her cheek.
Gracie recognized discolorations like that, and her lips tightened. Someone had hit this young woman recently and not for the first time.
“She might not even be out of high school,” Gracie looked up and muttered to Rusty. He looked over in sympathy, but obediently kept to the edge of the steps.
Fortunately, the new wall phone her sons had installed was close to the door, and Gracie only needed to stand and reach through the opening to pull the phone to her. She called Tyler, since he’d had some medical training in the military.
“I need your help,” Gracie said when her son answered. “A woman passed out on the porch and she’s—”
“I’ll be right there,” he said. Then he hung up.
Gracie nodded even though Tyler couldn’t see her. He kept a first aid bag near his back door and he’d bring it along.
The woman stirred again. Gracie thought maybe Rusty made her uncomfortable, but when the woman opened her eyes and glanced around frantically, she didn’t even pause as she glanced at the dog. Gracie knew it was more than that.
“It’s just my son coming over,” Gracie murmured, but that didn’t seem to soothe the woman. “He’s one of the good guys. You’re safe here. No one will hurt you.”
So it was a man she feared, Gracie thought to herself.
The woman’s eyes closed again, although her breath was still ragged.
Gracie realized she continued to hold the phone in her hand. She punched in another number, one she had memorized years ago when she’d thought she might need this kind of help herself. She’d longed for a friend back then almost as much as she did now. Her husband had kept her so isolated. But she’d never called the number until now.
“Calen?”
She had no sooner said his name than she realized she did not know him well enough these days to trust him. He’d given her that number almost twenty years ago. He might go to church now, but she didn’t really know that he was safe.
“Gracie?”
“I’m sorry—I—”
The woman moaned.
“I dialed the wrong number,” Gracie said, even though she knew it made no sense. She disconnected the call and set the phone down on the floor of the porch. It had been so long since she’d been in an abusive relationship that she had forgotten the first rule of protection. Never assume that a man is innocent just because he seems nice on the surface. No one, except her teenage sons, had known her husband was severely beating her all those years ago.
She reached over to reassure the woman. By that time, a strong beam from approaching headlights flickered through the screen on the porch. Rusty moved in closer and gave a quick yip.
“My son’s here,” Gracie murmured, and left her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “He’ll be able to help you.”
The woman seemed fragile and that only made Gracie want to protect her more. She’d been blessed with sons, but had always wanted a daughter, too.
She wondered what Calen’s relationship was to this stranger. He never asked for prayers for himself in church, so she had no idea what his life was like. But then, she never asked for prayers, either. She preferred to keep her business to herself, so she couldn’t fault him for doing the same. Still, it made her uneasy. She’d never figured Calen for the kind of man who would get involved with a woman so much younger than himself.
It was a pity really, because apart from that Calen was—
She’d scarcely started that thought when she stopped. Maybe her sons were more astute than she had realized. She might not trust any man enough to marry him, but she suddenly wished she could. Not that it would be Calen, of course. They had too much history. But sometimes, like now, she missed having a man at her side. She’d had a miserable marriage, yet she still believed a couple could live happily ever after if they loved each other enough.
She shook her head at her own foolishness and took a long look at the bruises on the woman in front of her. That should be reminder enough. Some women didn’t get a happily ever after. They got a nightmare instead. She wondered if the young woman still dreamed of true love and if she thought she’d found it with a ranch foreman who had to be twice her age.
* * *
Calen sat in his bedroom in the Elkton bunkhouse and stared at the phone in his hand. The darkness outside his window was deep and the night was silent. He’d heard the panic in Gracie’s voice. And he didn’t believe she had dialed his number by mistake.
Without thinking, he swung his legs out of bed. It would only take him a couple of minutes to go to her place and check on her. He had failed to help her when she’d needed him more than a decade ago; he wasn’t going to let her down again.
He barely had time to pray for every worry that raced through his mind before he pulled into the driveway that led to the main Stone ranch house. As he sped over the small rise, he could see a car and two pickups parked near the porch.
Calen pulled his pickup to a stop behind the last vehicle and started walking over to the porch. A dog turned and growled at him, but Calen didn’t hesitate. He was prepared to knock on Gracie’s kitchen door, but there was no need. The door was wide open, even though two people were kneeling in the shadows.
“What’s wrong?” he said as he took the steps up to the porch.
“I shouldn’t have called you,” Gracie said as she looked up. He didn’t think she was really aware of him until he spoke.
“Please leave,” she added. “Everything’s fine.”
Gracie’s long black hair was pulled into a braid that ran down her back. She always had been a striking woman, and her Cherokee ancestry was pronounced in the shadows. Dark brown eyes were cold as she looked at him. Her fine-boned hands gripped the collar of her cotton robe with enough strength to betray her agitation, even though her face told him absolutely nothing of her thoughts.
“I’m not going to leave until you tell me what’s wrong.” He was relieved to see that Gracie’s youngest son, Tyler, was the other person kneeling there. The two of them had fished together many years ago. Even as a boy, he’d always had good sense.
“We have a bit of a situation here,” Tyler answered, lifting his head.
“Someone has been beating up on this woman,” Gracie interrupted fiercely, her emotions breaking through now and her eyes flashing as they met Calen’s. “And it’s not going to happen again.”
He couldn’t miss her meaning. “I’ve never hit a woman in my life.”
Did she really think that of him? he wondered in dismay.
“You and my husband grew up together,” she continued bitterly. “You were best friends. I had forgotten that until now.”
Calen felt the guilt twist inside of him. He didn’t know how he hadn’t seen that abusive side of Buck Stone. “If I had known what was happening in this house, I would have done something. You have to believe that.”
Gracie was silent. They’d both gone through some rough times, Calen told himself. He was forty-eight years old now. She was a year younger. Maybe if he hadn’t been so strongly attracted to her when she’d moved to Dry Creek back in high school, he would have kept hanging out with Buck after he’d married her. Maybe then he would have seen the changes in the man.
“We need to call the sheriff.” Tyler spoke without looking up from the woman.
“What?” Gracie and Calen said in unison as they turned to stare at him.
“Someone may have been beating up on her,” Tyler explained. “But the reason she passed out is that she’s been shot. It’s more of a graze than anything, but she has been slowly losing blood.”
Tyler shifted his position as he held up a hand with a small spot of red. When he moved, Calen was finally able to see the face of the woman lying on the porch.
“Renee?” he whispered.
“You know her?” Gracie asked. Her tone was flat, and she didn’t give away her feelings even though he sensed she disapproved.
Calen turned to look at her squarely. “Renee is my daughter.”
A wave of shock flashed across Gracie’s face. Her skin paled and her lips parted as if she was going to say something, but couldn’t think of the words. If they’d talked about anything important in the past decade, he would have mentioned his daughter to her. He wondered if Buck had even told her about his brief marriage to Renee’s mother.
“Tell the sheriff we need an ambulance,” Tyler said as he picked up the phone lying on the porch and handed it to Calen. “Your Renee put some kind of bandage on the wound herself, but it didn’t work. The sooner we get her to an emergency room, the better.”
Calen took the phone as Tyler turned back to his patient.
“I could use some clean water,” Tyler said without looking up.
“I’ll get it.” Gracie stood.
Calen dialed the sheriff’s number as he moved slightly so he could see Renee’s face better. What kind of trouble had his daughter gotten herself into? He’d married her mother on the rebound when he’d gotten her pregnant, even though he was still half in love with Gracie. The marriage had been doomed from the start and he’d been too young and inexperienced to save it. Finally, his wife had left him, telling him she preferred to get child support instead of being stuck on a ranch in the middle of nowhere with a squalling baby and a man who smelled like horses. Nothing he’d said had prevented her from leaving. It had all happened two decades ago, but when he turned to God several years back, it was the one thing he’d needed forgiveness for the most. He wasn’t sure he’d tried hard enough to save his marriage, and he had lost his daughter in the process.
“Sheriff Wall? Could you come out to the Stone place?”
The last time Calen had seen his daughter was five years ago. He remembered that time better than he did the days of his marriage. Renee had spent several happy weeks with him on the Elkton Ranch. She’d gone back to her mother’s home in Seattle after that, only to run away two years later. He’d tried to find her, but she hadn’t left any trail.
Gracie stepped back through the open door as Calen ended the call with the sheriff. She held a steel pan filled with steaming water. A white dish towel was draped over her shoulder.
“I took the water from the teakettle,” Gracie said as she set the pan down on the porch and then handed the towel to Tyler. “So it’s boiled.”
“Thanks,” Tyler said as he dipped the towel in the water. “I want to get the wound cleaned up. I don’t know what she used to bandage it. It’s hard to see anything with her jacket on.”
Tyler was removing the jacket as he spoke.
“I can boil more water if you need,” Gracie said.
“I don’t—” Tyler began and then stopped.
He unwrapped the bandage and pulled something out. “This is what she used to try and stop the bleeding.”
The faint light barely showed what it was, and it took them all a moment to see it clearly.
“A black ski mask,” Calen said finally, the bleakness in his voice thick enough to be heard by everyone on the porch.
Renee moaned. Calen wondered if she could hear them speaking.
Gracie made a sound of sympathy and, to his surprise, stepped closer and put a hand on his arm.
“It doesn’t need to mean anything,” she said softly.
Calen looked down at her. “Innocent until proven guilty, is that it?”
She nodded and he wondered if she understood the irony of it all. Gracie had served almost ten years in prison because no one had questioned her confession that she had murdered her abusive husband. People assumed she had reached her limit and snapped. No one realized she’d believed, incorrectly, that one of her sons was guilty. She had done it to spare her children.
And now she was trying to spare his child. And he was the one who should have known Gracie would never harm anyone. Back then, she had too much pride to ask for help, but he should have realized what she was doing. It wasn’t the only time he had let her down in the past, and he’d be surprised if she didn’t remember his failures every time she looked at his weather-beaten face.
He saw a flash of red lights then. The sheriff wouldn’t come in with his siren going, but he used the lights at night when it was an emergency.
For the first time, Calen understood Gracie’s urge to save her sons from the law. He felt the same way about Renee. He might have made his share of mistakes in life, but he didn’t want Renee to suffer for hers. He’d take the punishment himself if he could.
Lord, what is that daughter of mine mixed up in? Calen prayed silently. Why hadn’t Renee sent him word when she’d left her mother’s place? He would have driven anywhere to pick her up and bring her home with him. He had saved money for a down payment on a ranch of his own, but he had stopped looking for property. He wanted to have the cash to pay the investigators if they ever picked up a lead on Renee. Now it seemed that he might need his seventy thousand dollars for a defense attorney instead.
He sensed Gracie standing straight beside him even though his eyes were on Sheriff Carl Wall stepping out of his county car. Now that Calen had come to terms with what was happening, he wished it wasn’t Gracie standing next to him. He never had managed to look good in her eyes and, while he’d made his peace with that, he still wished he could stand tall when he was next to her. A man needed to have some pride around a woman he had once loved, especially when the woman had never really noticed his existence. He only hoped things didn’t get any worse—and that, if they did, Gracie wasn’t standing beside him to see it all.
Chapter Two
Gracie watched the sheriff step up onto the porch. He wasn’t wearing his uniform and looked as if he’d grabbed the closest jeans and sweatshirt he could find to put on his large frame. The man’s face was plain, but his heart was good and Gracie was glad he was here.
“What’s wrong?” the lawman asked, peering into the shadows.
The headlights were still on in Renee’s car and Rusty had gone over there to race around that vehicle for a change.
“We have a woman who’s been hurt,” Gracie said. A nudge would be all it should take for the sheriff to know that the priority was to treat Renee’s wounds. Any questions about that ski mask could wait.
“She’s lost a fair amount of blood,” Tyler added.
“Any reason we can’t move her?” the sheriff asked, as he crouched down beside her.
“No broken bones as far as I can tell,” Tyler noted as he looked Renee over. “She’d ride more comfortably in the ambulance if there’s one on the way out from Miles City.”
“It should be here in a few minutes,” the sheriff said, as he stood back up and looked around. “Any idea what happened?”
Gracie tried to keep her eyes off Calen, but she didn’t succeed. Shadows hid his face and a muscle flexed in his jaw. His brown hair hadn’t been combed, falling forward as he looked down at his daughter. She’d always thought he was one of those charming men who waltzed through life with no troubles. Her husband used to say Calen never turned down a chance to party, and that’s why Buck had claimed he’d stopped hanging out with him after they were married. But Calen wasn’t having a good time tonight. Strangely enough, the worry in his eyes made him more handsome than she remembered.
“We found a black ski mask on her,” Calen finally said, his voice flat as he looked up and faced the sheriff resolutely.
The lawman grunted in surprise. “I got a message that they’d arrested one of the thieves tonight. The other one got away. The fools tried to rob that gas station between Havre and Malta. The owner is ex-military and he had a gun behind the counter. Used it, too.”
“I thought they were looking for two men,” Gracie reminded everyone. “A gunshot wound doesn’t mean a crime has been committed.”
She knew all about the mistakes that could be made in the legal system, and she didn’t want this young woman to suffer through an arrest if she was innocent.
The sheriff shrugged. “Maybe the other one did all the talking. With a ski mask, the second one could have been a woman, if she was slight. Besides, what other reason does she have for being in this area?”
“She’s my daughter,” Calen said. “She was coming to see me.”
Gracie noticed that stopped the sheriff for a moment. “Not little Renee? I remember her riding that horse you had. She wasn’t more than twelve or so.”
The sheriff looked down at the young woman as though trying to see traces of the child she had been. Gracie wished she’d taken a minute to wash the grime off the woman’s face. She looked like a pixie who had fallen out of a tree, all bruises and smudges and torn clothes.
“She was fourteen when she was here last,” Calen continued after a moment, his voice strained. “Sixteen when she ran away from her mother’s home. That’d make her nineteen now, almost twenty. She’s always been small for her age. Any trouble she’s in is my fault. I should have made her mother send her to me. Those weeks she spent with me on the Elkton Ranch were all I had. She’s a good kid. Maybe a little wild, but she needed her father and I wasn’t there for her."
Gracie watched Calen stumble to a halt. She had always assumed he had no deep sorrows in life. She knew tonight that she’d been wrong.
“You can’t argue with the courts in those custody battles,” the sheriff said as he stood up. “Back then they almost always gave it to the mother. There wasn’t much you could have done.”
Gracie saw another flash of headlights coming down the road to her house. “That must be the ambulance now.”
They were all silent as the ambulance came close to the house and parked with the other vehicles. Two male paramedics jumped out almost before the driver had stopped. Renee made a soft sound, and Gracie figured the pounding of their footsteps had reached her unconscious.
Tyler and the sheriff stepped aside as the paramedics both knelt down, one reaching out to take her pulse and the other feeling for broken bones.
“She’s got a gunshot wound in the side,” Tyler said from the corner where he stood.
The paramedic taking the pulse looked up at the sheriff.
The lawman shrugged. “Medical problems take precedent. We don’t know for sure how she got shot.” He looked at Gracie as he talked to the young men. “A gunshot wound does not prove a crime has actually taken place.”
The other paramedic was removing Renee’s shoes when she winced and seemed to wake up a bit more.
“Looks like a sprain, too,” he said.
“I’ll get the stretcher,” the other paramedic said.
Gracie took a step closer to Renee and knelt down again, reaching over to brush the brown hair back from her face. Her eyes fluttered open and, again, the night deepened their searching violet color.
“These men are going to help you,” Gracie said, trying to gauge whether her words were penetrating. “The ambulance will take you to a clinic where they can get you all fixed up.”
“No,” the young woman gasped, as she looked around frantically and tried to sit up. “I can’t—”
Calen knelt on the other side of her, and it did not take long for Renee to see him. Her eyes focused on him and she quieted down. “Daddy?”
She lay back down.
“I’m here,” Calen said as he touched her shoulder.
“Please,” Renee said, and then gulped. “Please—Tessie—”
“I’ll do whatever I can to help you,” Calen pledged, his voice filled with emotion. “I don’t know about your partner, but—”
By that time, the paramedics were back. “Excuse us.”
Gracie and Calen both stood and moved so the men would have room to load Renee onto the stretcher. Just the lifting seemed too much and she passed out again. The driver of the ambulance had backed the vehicle as close to the steps as possible.
“If I get my hands on that Tessie of hers, I’ll give him a piece of my mind,” Calen muttered, his voice so low only Gracie would hear him. “What kind of a grown man goes by Tessie anyway?”
He turned then and Gracie put her hand on his arm. “Renee is probably in shock. She might not even know what she is saying. Tessie could be anyone.”
The two paramedics carried the stretcher down the steps toward the open door of the vehicle.
Calen followed them off the porch and to the rear of the ambulance as they were loading his daughter. “I’m going to follow along behind you.”
“I’ll be there, too,” the sheriff said as he stood at the base of the steps. “Keep a good eye on her.”
“Give us a few minutes first,” one of the paramedics said before he climbed into the ambulance behind his partner. The driver put the vehicle in gear. “It’ll take some time to get her unloaded and triaged. No point in you getting there before that.”
The paramedic closed the door. Calen walked back to the porch and stood by Gracie.
Together they watched the vehicle turn around and start down the lane, carrying his daughter. Gracie knew he was distressed, but she couldn’t think of any words to ease his troubles.
“They’ll take good care of her in Miles City,” she finally said.
She knew what it was like to see a child suffer and not be able to do anything about it. She glanced sideways and saw the shadows on Calen’s face. “I’m sorry.”
Her words made him flinch and Gracie knew she’d made a mistake. She wasn’t offering pity, but it likely sounded that way. Another apology wouldn’t help anything though, so she turned to go back into the house. She had forgotten that darkness made strangers into friends too quickly. Calen probably already regretted sharing his troubles with her, and she didn’t intend to force him.
Tyler stepped closer to the steps, and Rusty ran back to sniff his boots. Gracie had not yet reached the door to the house when she heard the dog and turned around.
“Rusty is sure wound up,” Tyler said as he crouched to greet the canine, then glanced up at Gracie before looking down again. “Are you still keeping him inside at night? Remember, he’s a barn dog. Always has been. He needs to be where he can get out and run if he wants.”
Tyler paused a moment as though suddenly unsure of himself. The light from the house shone softly on his face as he looked at his mother. “It’s not like you to need him inside. Do you? You sure you’re all right?” He hesitated. “You could come spend your nights at our place if you’d sleep better. Angelina would love to have you with us. And you know we’ve got plenty of room.”
“You also have that security system that rivals Fort Knox—” Gracie said. “I’m afraid I’d make the alarm go off if I got up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water.”
“That was Angelina’s father’s idea,” Tyler protested. “You know he’s used to living in a big city where that kind of thing is common. We don’t even turn the alarm on half the time.”
“Well, I sleep just fine where I am,” Gracie said before she realized it wasn’t true. “Well, usually.”
She stepped over and knelt down to give her dog another rub on its back. He was better than any expensive security system. And it was nobody’s business if she wanted him inside at night. She didn’t want to intrude on her sons’ lives. She loved her daughters-in-law, each one of them, but she felt a new bride needed time to set up her home without a mother-in-law sleeping over every night. It was enough that they all got together on Sundays after church for dinner. That was her time.
“That’s quite the guard dog you have there,” the sheriff said as he came back to the porch and bent down to pet Rusty, too. The canine responded by increasing his barking.
Gracie thought Rusty was showing off, begging for more attention, and she was happy for him to get it. He was a good dog.
“He wants to show us something,” Calen finally said as he studied the animal. “He likely won’t stop until we see what it is, even if it’s just an old bone he found.”
“Rusty?” Gracie asked from where she was kneeling on the cold boards of the porch, resting her hand on the dog’s back. She had meant it as a question, but Rusty took it as approval and ran over to Renee’s car again. This time his barking sounded urgent to Gracie, too.
“What in the world?” Tyler said as he stood up and started following the sheriff toward the car.
Gracie started to stand up, but her knee was suddenly locked. She had a touch of arthritis in her joints that had started giving her trouble this past summer, but usually it was nothing like this. It was the price of getting older, she told herself as she waited for the stiffness to pass. It also came from her winters spent in a cold cell, but she didn’t like to remember that.
Unfortunately, Calen had stayed back while the other two men followed the dog.
She had bitten back the initial groan, but she must have signaled something was wrong with an indrawn breath, because he studied her.
“Can I help you?” He finally stepped close and offered Gracie a hand. She looked up. He was in the shadows, but she could see the concern on his face.
She wanted to refuse. She could take care of herself. But it seemed churlish to protest, so she nodded and accepted the calloused hand he offered.
“Thank you,” she said as she stood. The sash was loose on her robe and she knotted it securely. Even with the T-shirt and sweatpants she wore, she felt self-conscious. When she’d first stepped out on the porch, she had been warm enough, but she was shivering now.
“You don’t have any shoes on,” Calen said as though he’d suddenly noticed. “Can I go inside and get some shoes—or at least some slippers—for you?”
The thought of Calen finding her pink slippers next to her bed made her blush as much as her Cherokee coloring would allow. “I walk barefoot sometimes. It’s okay. I’m fine.”
Her great-grandfather had been a chief. She was not a delicate flower.
Calen frowned. “Your teeth are chattering—”
“Hey, come over here.” Tyler interrupted them from where he stood beside Renee’s car. The sheriff was looking in the window to the backseat.
Gracie heard a soft keening then, almost like a sound Rusty would make. But the dog was standing quietly by the car. Gracie had a bad feeling about that sound. Some animal was terrified.
Without thinking, Gracie started down the steps. And then drew in her breath sharply when her feet met the hard ground. Calen had been right. This ground would be covered with frost by morning. Winter would be here in a few days—before the church’s harvest dinner could mark the change of season. And her feet were not up to this.
She almost turned back, but she heard the keening again.
“Allow me,” Calen said as he stepped closer. He hesitated for a moment, standing next to her in the darkness. Then he reached down and scooped her up as easily as he’d lift a bale of hay.
Gracie gasped. She certainly hadn’t expected that.
Before she knew it, Calen was carrying her over to the car as though she was weightless. Her stomach felt light enough for it to be true. She wasn’t used to being this close to a man. And he smelled like soap and forest pine. In the places where her cheek touched his shoulder, she could feel his muscles moving. Her bare feet dangled as he walked. She glanced up to ask him to set her down because she felt disoriented, but she stopped when she saw the set lines of his face.
He seemed so focused on getting to the car that she figured he was carrying her as an efficiency—which made her hesitate. She didn’t want to protest as though she thought it was some grand, romantic gesture when it was only a practical matter. She glanced up at him again and noticed his lips were pressed even tighter together. No, she told herself, it definitely wasn’t a romantic gesture.
* * *
Calen barely kept from grinding his teeth. He used to dream of picking Gracie up like this and, now that he had done it, he wondered where his good sense had gone. He wasn’t gaining any points with her—that much was clear. He could feel the protest almost bursting out of her, so he walked a little faster. Besides, he didn’t have time for old high school dreams. He needed to concentrate on the present right now so he could help his daughter.
“Don’t tell me she left the money from the robberies in the car?” Calen said to no one in particular as he got closer to where the sheriff stood. Of course, having the money might be a good thing, he reminded himself. At least Renee could give it back. That might gain her some leniency with the judge when she went to trial. He had heard the news reports about the robberies up north, but it never crossed his mind that Renee might be involved.
Calen set Gracie on the trunk of the car. She didn’t even meet his eyes, and he figured that couldn’t be good. So he looked away and saw Tyler.
“It’s not the money,” Tyler said once he had Calen’s attention.
If Calen hadn’t been in such a hurry, he might have wondered why Tyler’s voice had become softer as he stood there, the door to the backseat open.
Calen moved closer. The overhead light in the car gave off a dim glow, but he had no trouble seeing the beige cloth upholstery. A brown paper bag sat in the far corner with a plastic bread wrapper sticking up. A child’s car seat sat next to a red vinyl suitcase. If he wasn’t mistaken, he smelled fried chicken, likely the kind found at truck stops. He had to lean into the car before he could see the bundle of blankets on the floorboards and, even then, he took another moment to realize what it was.
“A little girl?” Calen whispered, fearful that Renee might have kidnapped a child somewhere in her flight. He wasn’t even sure if it was a girl. All he saw was a swatch of curly blond hair peeking out from the top of the blankets.
But then the keening sounded again and it was decidedly feminine.
“Are you okay?” Calen said then, bending down so he could see further into the car. For a moment, it didn’t matter who the girl was, she was terrified and he wanted to soothe her.
The blankets dipped slightly and he saw two tearful blue eyes peeking out. Calen knew the moment she saw him, as the sound she was making turned to a shriek and the blanket covered her eyes again.
Calen backed out of the car.
“I don’t want to scare her,” he said. Gracie had slid down from the trunk and was standing beside Tyler. Both of them had frowns on their faces. The sheriff had a flashlight and was shining the beam into the front seat of the car.
“I think I have something,” the lawman said as he opened that door.
The sheriff reached inside and pulled out a white envelope, squinting at it in the soft light of the car, and then looked at Calen. “It’s got your name on it.”
The man handed the letter to him. “I hope this gives us some answers. I haven’t received any alerts about missing children, but she might have been snatched tonight and not listed as missing yet.”
“Oh, I can’t believe Renee would kidnap some poor child,” Gracie burst out with a protest and gathered the collar of her robe more tightly around her. “She doesn’t look like she’s much more than a child herself.”
Calen glanced over and gave her a grateful smile before looking down. In her bathrobe, Gracie didn’t look that much older than Renee.
“Here,” he said with a gesture to the open door of the backseat. “You may as well sit inside the car. The child is going to need to talk to someone before long anyway.”
Calen bowed his head, holding the envelope. Father, give me wisdom for anything I read. Be with my daughter and the child in the car. Protect them both. Amen.
As he pulled the envelope flap back, Calen noticed how quiet it was. He glanced into the car again and saw that the girl had crawled up into Gracie’s lap. The little one still had tear streaks on her cheeks, but she looked calm for the first time. Maybe they’d be able to get some answers after all.
The envelope started to feel heavy in his hands. What had Renee wanted to say to him after all these years anyway?
Chapter Three
Gracie felt the girl snuggle as close as she could to her in the backseat of the car. Even then, the poor thing was shivering, and Gracie didn’t think it was from the cold alone because the girl had the blanket wrapped around her when she climbed over to Gracie.
“What’s your name?” Gracie whispered as she put her hand on the child’s head in much the same way as she soothed Rusty. She’d guess the child was two, maybe three years old.
The girl looked up at her, her eyes filling with tears.
Gracie felt her start to tremble more and she drew the little one closer to her. “That’s all right. You don’t need to talk right now. We’ll figure it out later.”
The words soothed the girl and she nestled back against Gracie, drawing the blanket over her head.
Gracie wished, and not for the first time since she had come back to Dry Creek, that she was more accepted in this community. She’d have more to offer this little one if she could call up a neighbor and ask how to help her talk. Her sons thought she needed a husband, but what she really needed was friends. The young mothers at church led their children away when she came near, and conversations stopped when she entered a room. She understood, of course. No one knew what to say to her now that she was an ex-con and, no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t seem to make it any better.
Mrs. Hargrove and her husband, Charley, accepted her, of course, but they were more like a kindly aunt and uncle than friends. For almost a year, Gracie had hid from what was happening, just as this little girl was doing now with her blanket. It was time to pull the covering away from her eyes and admit that she might never be accepted in this community. The people here acted like prison was a germ they could catch by being near her, and that was foolish. But they were right that she was different from them in ways they might find impossible to ever accept.
Looking down, she gently wiped the tears off the girl’s cheek. Gracie might not know as much about little girls as the women in the church did, but she knew how this poor child felt. Prison had taught her one thing. She recognized fear when she saw it.
After the child was breathing deeply in sleep, Gracie looked back at the men standing just outside the car. They had been watching her and the girl. Gracie shook her head slightly at them to show she knew nothing more than they did.
After a minute or so had passed in silence, Calen pulled the single sheet of paper out of the envelope and unfolded it.
Gracie could see it was written in pencil, and Calen squinted, probably having a hard time making out the faint letters in the wan light coming from the interior of the car. Then the sheriff stepped over with his flashlight and shone the beam on the letter.
“Oh.” Calen pulled back at the sudden light. Then, he began to read.
“Dad.” He cleared his throat, his voice heavy with an emotion that made Gracie blink back tears. A good parent always wanted to protect their child. She looked down at the little girl she held, thinking of how forlorn her sons must have been when she was in prison. She had missed them. During those years, seeing women grieve for the lost time with their children forged her strongest bond with the others, especially when she realized that their grief, like hers, was filled with guilt as well.
“Dad,” Calen began to read the letter again. “I’m in trouble and I don’t have anyone to take care of Tessie, my daughter—”
Calen broke off reading and looked over to where Gracie held the girl.
“This must be Tessie,” he whispered in wonder.
Gracie nodded. She saw the hope in Calen’s face. His whole face changed when he realized the girl was his daughter’s child. His mouth relaxed, his eyes lifted in a smile.
“Well, what do you know?” the sheriff said then as he looked at Calen. “You’re a grandpa. What else does your daughter say?”
Calen looked back at the letter. He sounded eager now. “It says here that Tessie is a special child, and Renee doesn’t want her to go into the foster-care system if something happens.”
Calen paused at that and looked at the sheriff. “Is that what they’ll do? Send her away?”
The sheriff thought a minute. “I need to call family services in when I arrest someone and they have a child with them. Of course, until the arrest, I don’t have much need to. As long as I know the child’s safe.”
“You can’t let Tessie go into the foster-care system,” Gracie protested. “The poor thing is terrified already.”
She could feel how fragile the child was.
“Foster care is no place for a toddler,” Tyler added as he stepped around the sheriff and moved closer to the car. His voice challenged the lawman.
“I don’t know what the courts will do,” the sheriff said defensively. “But sometimes foster care is for the best.”
“No, it’s not,” Tyler said swiftly. “Not by a long shot.”
Gracie’s heart broke. Her two youngest sons had never complained to her about being sent to that state home when she went to prison, but she knew in that instant she could never do enough to make it up to them.
She looked up at Tyler. The light from the sheriff’s flashlight was directed at the letter in Calen’s hands, but it caught the expression on Tyler’s face as well. He was looking at the girl in her arms as if he dared anyone to take the child away.
Gracie forced herself to remain calm. Tessie was still asleep, her head lying on Gracie’s shoulder. She looked up then and saw the ranch foreman staring at them.
“I suppose you think I let my sons down, too,” Gracie said to Calen.
“I’m not one to judge,” he said.
* * *
Calen had too much pride to beg, either. He’d been bucked off a horse once, but he had walked back to camp without asking for help even though his leg bone was splintered. Seeing Gracie with his new granddaughter made him want to fall to his knees and plead with her to tell him what she had done to give peace to the girl.
“Tessie will live with me as long as she needs,” Calen said, the decision made in his heart before he spoke the words. “And no one is going to send Renee away for long. She’ll get well and be on her feet again in no time. She’d want Tessie to be with me.”
“I don’t know,” the sheriff cautioned him. “Renee could be looking at four counts of robbery. I wouldn’t go making any plans right now. Besides, the family-services folks are going to ask you how you’re going to take care of that little one if her mother doesn’t get out for a while.”
“She’ll live with me,” Calen repeated.
“I know that,” the sheriff answered with some irritation in his voice. “But they’re going to want to know if she has a bed to sleep in and a doll to play with—that kind of thing. They’re not going to be too impressed with her growing up in some bunkhouse filled with ranch hands and dirty socks.”
“The men at the Elkton Ranch keep the bunkhouse neat,” Calen said stiffly, as he realized he didn’t know the first thing about how to take care of a little girl. He could protect her, sure. Rattlesnakes or flash floods would be no problem. But he didn’t quite know what she would eat. Did she have teeth yet? He supposed she was past needing baby food.
The sheriff grunted. “Have you ever held a child in your arms?”
“I held Renee.”
The sheriff gave him a look. “Recently, I mean.”
“Babies are babies. They haven’t changed in the past twenty years.” Calen resolutely stepped closer to the car and crouched a little, holding out his arms to where Gracie sat with his granddaughter. “If you slide her out, I should be able to take her without even waking her up.”
It would come back to him, Calen told himself, hoping no one noticed the sweat forming on his forehead. He saw the mothers at church picking up their toddlers all the time. No one seemed to have a problem holding one. Even the fathers managed.
Gracie had barely let go of Tessie, laying her gently in his arms, when the girl jerked awake and screamed. She turned to Gracie so quickly and with such force that Calen almost dropped her.
“I’m sorry,” Calen said, as his granddaughter wrapped herself around Gracie’s neck and clung to the woman as if she was her only security in this frightening storm. “My hands must be cold.”
Gracie managed to give him a sympathetic glance while she began to rub Tessie on her back. “It’s not that.”
“Family services is not going to be impressed,” the sheriff muttered as he walked a little closer, too.
Calen was feeling a touch of panic.
“Maybe she’s hungry.” He should have thought of that earlier. Children liked to eat. He patted his shirt pockets. Sometimes he had a piece of hard candy there.
He found nothing.
Calen looked over to ask if anyone else had candy, but what he saw left him silent. It was like looking at one of those old masterpiece paintings of the Madonna and child. Gracie was humming a tune as she soothed Tessie. The girl had a good hold on the woman’s braid and had pulled it around to the front. But they were both calm, and Tessie had given up her terrified grip.
“I think—” Gracie said softly as she motioned for the sheriff to come closer. “Here—let’s see if she will go to you.”
Calen stepped back and watched as the sheriff confidently held out his arms to the girl. The sheriff had young daughters of his own and no doubt knew a few tricks.
No sooner had Gracie started to slide Tessie toward the sheriff than the girl started to screech even louder than before. The lawman stepped back in surprise.
“I didn’t mean any harm,” he sputtered. “Kids like me.”
“It’s not you,” Gracie said confidently. “The girl is just afraid of men in general.”
“But—” Calen started to protest. How was he going to take care of her if she was panic stricken around men? There were over a dozen men who lived in the bunkhouse. He might be able to get a trailer and park it near the ranch, but then who would watch Tessie while he worked? Would she learn to trust him? He suddenly realized this was all going to be more complicated than he had thought at first.
And then he saw the answer.
“She likes you,” Calen said to Gracie in relief. “Maybe I could hire you to come with us and help me take care of her—just while Renee is in the hospital.”
Gracie looked at him in astonishment. “Me? It’s been years since I had little children around. The mothers do everything different now. Diapers are different. Baby food—I don’t even know what has changed there. I think they puree their baby food now.”
“Looks like you’re doing fine to me,” the sheriff said staunchly.
“I’ll lend you a book if you need one,” Tyler offered as he stepped over. “In fact, I think Angelina just got another baby book.”
“But she’s not due for five months,” Gracie protested, at least momentarily distracted from Calen’s offer.
Tyler shrugged and grinned. “She believes in preparation.”
Gracie’s face softened.
“So, you’ll do it?” Calen pressed. He figured he better take advantage of the sentimental moment. If the woman had time to think, she’d refuse. “Ten dollars an hour sound okay?”
“I can’t take your money.”
“Well, I have to pay you something,” Calen insisted, feeling a little frantic. He knew that if Gracie made a deal with him, she would honor it. She never went back on her word; she’d even stayed married to Buck Stone when anyone with any sense would have left.
“I could go up to twenty dollars an hour,” he offered. Now wasn’t the time to look for a bargain, he told himself. He’d go to fifty if he had to, but it would only make her suspicious if he put that figure out right away.
“I really couldn’t—” Gracie began.
Tyler interrupted then, with a glance at them both. “What my mother is trying to say is that you shouldn’t have to pay for a favor like this. Not when you need help and we’re set up to give it to you. But if you want, you could always take her to the harvest dinner at church instead to—to reciprocate, as it were. Neighborlylike.”
Calen watched Gracie’s mouth open and close and then open again. He figured she was as speechless as he was. Then Calen felt a slow grin spreading across his face. Tyler always did have a good head for when to throw a hook into the water.
“I’d be more than happy to take you to the harvest dinner,” Calen said, crouching down so he could look inside the car and make direct eye contact with Gracie. He didn’t want any misunderstanding. “I’ll even get you a corsage to wear.”
Gracie tried to say something, but only a squeak came out.
It sounded as though Tyler choked back a laugh, but Calen wasn’t sure because the man sounded perfectly solemn when he said, “Well, it’s a date then.”
Gracie’s face was reflected in the light from the side of the barn, and she looked a little flustered as she shot Tyler an indignant glance.
Then she cleared her throat and looked right at Calen. He remembered she had a certain regal way of holding her head when she was embarrassed, and he was seeing it now.
“We can talk about that later,” she said, then pressed her lips together for a second. “First, we have to figure out whether I should keep Tessie out here at my place, or if we should take her in to see her mother now at the hospital.”
As soon as Gracie took charge, Calen knew everything was going to be all right.
He stood up. “We need to take her in. It might be her only chance to see her mother for a while. I don’t know how much the tyke knows about what’s been happening, but I think she’ll want to see her mom.”
Gracie nodded. “I agree. But tomorrow, we’ll call Mrs. Hargrove and ask if she can keep Tessie until we sort everything else out.”
With that, Gracie swung around, preparing to get out of the car with Calen’s granddaughter in her arms.
Calen didn’t nod, but he didn’t protest, either. He wondered what he had gotten himself into. In the various times he’d thought about going up to Gracie since she’d been back, he had never imagined anything like this. There was going to be no way he would look good in Gracie’s eyes if she saw Tessie shriek every time he tried to hold her. After a while, the woman was bound to ask herself if there was something wrong with him. Maybe it would be best if Mrs. Hargrove was the one to help him after all.
Not that he had time to worry about his pride now, he told himself. They needed to go into Miles City and see how Renee was doing.
“I’ll drive us there,” he said.
“I don’t see how you’re going to do that.” Gracie stood. “There’s no room for a child’s seat in your pickup. Not that you even have a child’s seat.”
Calen grimaced.
“I didn’t think of that,” he admitted. Then he looked in the window of the car. “But we can use that one. It buckles right in. We’ll go in—”
Calen looked around. Both Gracie and Tyler drove pickups, too.
“I’ll drive all of you,” the sheriff finally offered. “I’m set up to carry anyone in an emergency.”
“Well, this qualifies,” Calen said as he stepped close to Gracie. Tessie’s eyes grew wide, but she seemed to feel safe as long as she was in Gracie’s arms.
“Hold on,” he said as he swept them both up together. “Let’s get you to the house so you can get some shoes on. No point in anyone catching pneumonia.”
Calen liked the heft of the woman and child in his arms. Tessie’s face was so close he could feel her warm breath on his neck. He shifted them both slightly in his arms and thought he heard the girl giggle softly.
“You like that?” he whispered.
He regretted the question, because it made Tessie hide her face in Gracie’s shoulder. It only took him a couple more steps to reach the porch, anyway.
“I’ll go help the sheriff move the child seat.” Calen set Gracie firmly on the bottom step to the porch. Tessie wiggled in her arms, trying to avoid looking at him.
Calen quickly dropped a kiss on the girl’s head. She froze but didn’t make a sound. So he kissed the top of Gracie’s head, too.
He wasn’t sure which of the two was more stunned.
“I’ll get the door for you,” Calen said then, signaling both of them that he was stepping around them.
Two steps brought him to where he could reach the knob. A twist of the hand and the door swung open.
“I won’t be long,” Gracie whispered, and then slipped into her house still carrying the girl.
He closed the door after they were inside. He stood on the step a moment, rubbing his cold hands. Hopefully, Gracie and Tessie would take a minute to warm up while he and the sheriff got ready to go to Miles City.
A smile split his face then. He had kissed Gracie Stone. Well, sort of.
He walked back to the sheriff.
“You got a heater in your car?” Calen asked. The man had his flashlight shining around in Renee’s car still.
“Top of the line.” The sheriff nodded proudly as he looked up.
“I want to be sure my girls are warm enough.”
The sheriff grunted at that. “Gracie stopped being a girl some time ago.”
“Not to me.” Calen reached into the back of the car and unbuckled the car seat. Tyler opened the opposite door, and there was no missing the grin on his face. Gracie’s son must have heard him.
“We’ll have to go fishing again someday,” Tyler said. “I always did enjoy sitting on the creek bed with you.”
“I’ll be there the first warm day we have next spring. I haven’t been fishing the past year or two, and I miss it.”
Tyler nodded. “I think my old fishing pole is in the barn loft.”
Calen wished it was that easy to slip back into his early relationship with Gracie. Not that they’d exactly been friends in high school. She’d always been Buck Stone’s girl, and he’d been a little tongue-tied around her. He glanced over at the house. Why was it that a man like him couldn’t seem to get the words out of his mouth to impress a woman he cared about, when he could flirt with all of the others with ease?
He finished unbuckling the child’s seat and pulled it out.
“I guess this goes in the back?” Calen asked as the lawman opened the door to the county car.
The sheriff nodded to him. “You’ll sit up front with me.”
“Okay.” Calen figured that if he was in the front, he wouldn’t have to worry about impressing Gracie with his witty conversation during the trip into Miles City.
He felt his shirt pockets again. He wished he had one of those hard mints at least. But there was nothing there. In high school, he always had wrapped candies to give to the girls. He knew that was why they came around him so often, but he’d never told Buck that. He grinned just remembering it.
He glanced over at the porch again and his grin faded. He wondered what secret Buck had that had gotten him Gracie. Calen would have traded all the hard candy in his pockets back then to know what she had seen in his friend and not in him.
Chapter Four
Gracie sat in the back of the sheriff’s car and looked straight ahead. Tyler had gone home and the rest of them were headed to the hospital. It was bitter cold out, but the heat inside the vehicle was stifling, so she had removed her jacket. Now she wished she’d taken time to find a cotton blouse to go with her jeans instead of pulling on the first thing she had seen in her closet, a heavy black turtleneck. The waiting room at the hospital would be chilly, though, she reminded herself.
A few months ago, when her oldest son, Wade, had hurt his thumb, she’d dragged him there to see a doctor, and the automatic door in the reception area had seemed to open whenever anyone walked in front of it. The room got so much fresh air it was hard to heat or cool. She could still hear the incessant sliding of that door in her mind.
“Hold on,” the sheriff said as he turned off the gravel road, taking a shortcut to the highway. Bits of gravel pinged against the underside of the car, but Gracie hardly noticed. The darkness was thick except for the focused beam of the county car as the sheriff drove them down the dirt road, following the path that the Elkton Ranch trucks used every fall as they took their cattle to market.
The sheriff’s actions reminded Gracie of how important it was to get to the hospital quickly.
She suddenly felt apprehensive. Who knew what was happening with Renee? And it wasn’t just her wound that could be giving her trouble. When Gracie had taken Wade to the clinic, the receptionist had recognized the Stone family name. Gracie wondered if Renee would face the same kind of questions from the staff that she had fielded on that day. There were not many criminals around here, and they stood out.
Gracie didn’t know why people were so curious about her time in prison, but they were. Maybe it was all the cop shows that were on television. The news that she had been declared innocent had stirred up almost as much gossip as when she had been found guilty ten years ago. She frequently spoke about the Bible study group she’d belonged to in prison, but she never talked about the rest of her prison experience. She didn’t want to even call up those memories. Once she started, the hopeless faces all came back to her. Susie, who had the teenage sons that refused to come to visit her. Martha, who worried about her elderly mother. The woman from Idaho who longed for the ocean and had died of an overdose in her cell after someone had smuggled drugs in to her.
In an abrupt motion, Calen turned around to look at her, and she wondered if she had made some distressed sound without being aware of it. Just thinking about her days behind bars made her sad.
“You okay?” he asked.
She couldn’t see his eyes in the dark, so she couldn’t tell if they were full of pity. But then, he couldn’t see her face either, so he wouldn’t notice the tears that had sprung to her eyes. He probably thought the sheriff’s sudden turn with the car had startled her. He should know a rancher like her knew the usefulness of all the dirt roads around here.
“Everything’s fine,” Gracie said, forcing herself to be cheerful, as she glanced over at the dark shape beside her. Tessie was napping in her child seat.
“I know it’s late,” Calen muttered apologetically, still watching her. “You must be tired.”
“Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t sleeping anyway.”
“Something worrying you?”
“Just my sons. They—” Gracie caught herself in time. Calen didn’t need to know her sons were pressuring her to get married again. No one needed to know that particular fact. “They can be a little stubborn at times when they get an idea into their heads.”
Calen chuckled then, his voice suddenly warm and relaxed. “What is it this time? I remember Tyler laid out his plans once for how he was going to raise a llama on your place with no one knowing. He figured he’d build a shelter for it down in the coulee where we were fishing, and feed it with oats he’d sneak away from the barn.”
“I didn’t know.” Gracie felt exposed. How could this man know more about her youngest son than she did?
“I think it was supposed to be a Christmas surprise. Nothing ever came of it, though.”
“Ahh,” Gracie murmured. Her sons always had wanted a spectacular Christmas. Maybe that’s why Buck had been so set against the day. Her late husband had been jealous of anything that took attention away from him. All he ever allowed in the way of a holiday celebration was to have their closest neighbors, the Mitchells, over for dinner. And, since Gracie had found out he’d been having an affair with Tilly Mitchell, she didn’t suppose she could count his neighborliness as being selfless, even in that regard. Gracie had always used her best china, too, for those dinners. She shook her head at how naive she had been.
After a moment of silence, Calen turned to face the front again.
Before long, the sheriff drove the car onto the freeway. He cleared this throat almost at the same time and looked into the rearview mirror. “Did Tessie talk to you while you were in the house changing your clothes?”
“No,” Gracie conceded. She wasn’t sure, but she thought even a two-year-old should have a few dozen words in her vocabulary. Maybe Tessie couldn’t talk normally. The toddlers at church were always chattering away.
“Well, she’s been through a tough night,” the lawman said.
No one had anything to add to that.
After a few more miles, Gracie noticed the extra straps on the back of the front seats. She had expected the mesh division that separated the rear seat from the driver, but she hadn’t realized they’d also added new straps to these sheriff cars.
The county had gotten a new car for Sheriff Wall in the time since he had arrested her ten years ago. The vehicle still had the same smell to it, though. It wasn’t unpleasant exactly, but it did make her realize that fear had an odor all its own.
Tessie wasn’t the only one who had been through a lot tonight. Gracie figured the toddler’s mother was only at the beginning of her ordeal. Gracie knew what it felt like to be arrested, and she figured Renee would find out before long. Everything changed once a person was on the wrong side of the law. A prison was designed to make a person feel trapped and helpless. Even though Gracie had been innocent, that did not mean the same problems that the other inmates faced didn’t weigh on her mind.
“Renee’s going to be worried about her daughter,” Gracie said. “They probably won’t let us see her yet, but one of the nurses can give Renee a message.”
She wondered if that same receptionist would be on duty. If so, maybe the Stone family’s notoriety could be used for something positive. If the woman took a message, Gracie might even answer one or two of her personal questions.
Gracie didn’t know what would happen to Tessie if her mother went to prison, but armed robbery would carry a long sentence. She would not put that into words, but everyone in this car was probably thinking the same thing.
Gracie looked up at Calen. His shoulders were slumped a little as he sat in the front seat, his head bowed slightly. She wondered if he was praying. She hoped so. At least Renee and Tessie had him to take care of them.
And, we all have You, Father, she prayed. She hadn’t had the assurance of God’s love when she had gone to prison. And it would have made a huge difference.
She sat back then, trying to picture Calen as a father. Or even a husband, for that matter. She finally gave up and smiled. The stories Buck used to tell of him and Calen in high school did not match up with the man she’d seen tonight.
“Do you still have that trophy Buck gave you?” Gracie asked after a few minutes.
Calen grunted and turned around again. “That thing will be at the bottom of my closet until the day I die. Unless I sell it for junk metal first. Only Buck would give me a brass trophy that said Number One Romeo of Custer Country.”
The man’s voice sounded better, at least. Gracie was glad they did have some good memories they could share.
“He found that trophy in some pawnshop,” Calen continued. “But he had the words re-done. I think he gave up one of his good knives in trade for it. Just to give me a hard time—calling me Romeo.”
“Well, you always were popular with the girls,” Gracie teased him softly.
“Not with the one that mattered,” he shot back too quickly to have thought about it.
She didn’t know what to say to that. She ran through the names of the girls in their class, trying to figure out which one he’d been sweet on. She was surprised Buck hadn’t told her. Even though everyone knew Buck was her boyfriend, he didn’t like her being around other people and she missed out on most of the gossip. For all of Calen’s flirting, she couldn’t remember ever hearing that he had been serious about anyone.
By the time she had decided to ask him who he meant, he’d already turned around and the moment was gone. Then a semitruck passed and made too much noise for talking. She watched the red taillights for a while. There was seldom much traffic on the freeway going through this part of the state, and it was particularly deserted in the middle of the night.
Gracie settled back against the seat. She hadn’t thought about those old high school days for years. The only time she had seen Calen during her marriage was that one night when he’d brought Buck home after her husband had passed out from drinking too much in some bar. She’d been so embarrassed; she’d told Calen more than she should have about her life with Buck. She couldn’t bring herself to admit that her husband hit her regularly, but she knew the ranch foreman had sensed her unhappiness. She’d felt close to him that night. That’s when he’d given her the number for his private phone at the Elkton bunkhouse.
Funny how she’d thought of that phone number so often back then that she’d memorized it. She’d almost dialed it a time or two when Buck had gotten particularly out of hand, but she never did. She was saving it as a last resort.
It wasn’t long before Gracie saw the outlines of buildings that, even in the dark, marked the outskirts of Miles City. The hospital was at the main exit. She could tell from the green numbers on the dash of the car that it was a little after two o’clock in the morning. She hated to wake up Tessie, but they needed to be inside asking about the child’s mother as soon as possible.
“They have coffee in the vending machines inside,” Calen said as the sheriff pulled into the parking lot. Light streamed out of the windows of the hospital. “And I have lots of dollar bills.”
Gracie nodded. The rest of the night promised to be long.
* * *
The sheriff stepped out of the car the minute it stopped and headed toward the hospital.
Soon after that, Calen closed his door, wondering if he should offer to carry Tessie. He didn’t want to startle his granddaughter.
“I should have a stroller.” He opened the door for Gracie so she could bring the sleeping child out of the backseat with her. “She’s too heavy for—”
“For someone my age,” Gracie said with a grimace as she swung her legs out of the car and then stood up, settling Tessie against her shoulder.
“She’s too heavy for anyone,” Calen corrected, as he moved close enough to grab Gracie if she needed help.
By that time, the sheriff was almost to the hospital.
The lawman stopped and turned. “I’ll send word when I’ve had a chance to see Renee.”
Then he stepped up to the entrance door.
“You can go with him if you want,” Gracie offered as she looked over at Calen. “I know you’re worried.”
They were still yards from the hospital and going slow.
He shook his head. “I can’t leave you alone to carry Tessie.”
Calen wasn’t used to someone else taking on his responsibility, even temporarily. Especially when the wind had started to blow and a few drops of cold rain had already landed on his face. Then he saw, under an overhang, just what he needed—a hospital wheelchair.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, as he ran over there and rolled the chair back to where Gracie stood.
“Next best thing to a stroller,” Calen said. “Tessie will be fine in one of these.”
Gracie looked relieved when Tessie was settled in the chair.
“I can push it,” he said then. The girl was still half-asleep, but she didn’t seem to care who was behind her as long as Gracie walked along beside her and held her hand. They moved much faster with the chair.
Calen blinked as they crossed through the doorway into the main waiting room of the hospital. After all the darkness of the night, the light seemed particularly bright, so they stood inside for a moment and allowed their eyes to adjust.
“You must be the father,” a young woman called to Calen from the check-in desk, so he pushed the wheelchair closer.
“For Renee Hampton?” the receptionist added.
He didn’t know any Hamptons, but the woman set a clipboard down on the counter in front of him.
“The paramedics said you’d be coming,” she added.
“Yes.” Calen felt proud. He didn’t care what last name his daughter gave. He hadn’t been labeled a father often in his life, and he liked the feeling.
“They said you wouldn’t know much, but do your best with the forms.” The woman smiled as she pointed.
Calen picked up the clipboard. “Thanks.”
He noticed then that the woman’s smile tightened. She’d finally noticed Gracie standing beside him. “You’re Mrs. Stone, aren’t you?”
The receptionist’s voice was barely polite. It had an avid tone to it, though, as if she expected something awful to happen and was anticipating it.
Gracie didn’t respond in kind. She nodded and smiled quite pleasantly. “I was hoping you can tell us how Renee is doing.”
“I’m afraid that would be a violation of our policy,” the receptionist said, more shortly than was necessary, in Calen’s opinion.
“Did Sheriff Wall go in?” Calen asked, thinking maybe that was the reason for the sudden coldness.
The receptionist nodded. Her eyes warmed as she looked at him. “But he didn’t say why.”
“Good,” Gracie muttered at his side. “Shows some sense.”
The receptionist did not even look at Gracie.
Calen thought the awkwardness might be in his own mind until the young woman leaned forward, speaking to the side as though to shut Gracie out. “One of the paramedics told me Renee had been shot. And not in a hunting accident, if you know what I mean.”
“That’s nothing but speculation,” Gracie responded sharply, and then stepped closer to the counter as though forcing the young woman to deal with her.
The hospital worker, her cheeks bright pink from the reproof, did not respond.
“I’m sure the sheriff will sort it all out.” Calen kept his voice as neutral as possible. Years of managing squabbles among the men on the Elkton Ranch had taught him not to throw fuel on any fire. There were no other people in the waiting room, but a public spectacle would do no good right now.
Calen turned then and, motioning for Gracie to go first, started to push the wheelchair over to a line of chairs on the opposite wall. A stack of blankets sat on a small table next to the chairs. He figured Gracie only accompanied him because he had Tessie. The woman was still upset.
Calen picked a pink blanket from the stack and spread it over his granddaughter. Then he sat down.
“People shouldn’t gossip,” Gracie whispered after she lowered herself into the chair next to him.
“There’s no way we can keep something like this quiet.” Calen looked over at Gracie. In the light, he could see that her hair was partially pulled out of her braid. Tessie’s work, no doubt. He felt the urge to smooth the hair back, but he didn’t think she would like it.
“The newspapers around here are pretty good, though,” he finally said. “They know not to speculate too much, especially if there’s going to be a trial.”
“That’s not the way I remember it,” Gracie protested, her voice low and bitter. “The newspapers around here print anything if they think it will sell a few more papers. They certainly covered my return last year. Like the arrest itself a decade ago wasn’t enough.”
Calen crossed his leg so he could rest the clipboard on his right foot, but he didn’t start filling in the information. He cleared his throat instead and said the words he owed her. “I should have apologized years ago for not coming to your defense when you were arrested.”
“I never asked for any help.”
He nodded. “That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have offered it.”
Gracie didn’t say anything. She stared down at the floor as if she was caught up in memories.
“I was baking a cake that day,” she finally said as she looked up. “A lemon chiffon. Buck’s favorite. We’d had a fight about letting the boys go ice skating. I thought maybe if he had a piece of cake, he’d change his mind. It was a few days after Christmas, and I thought they needed to have some fun before they went back to school. It wasn’t until I heard Wade yelling from the barn that I knew something was wrong.”

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