Janet Tronstad - Second Chance in Dry Creek

“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.