Janet Tronstad - Second Chance in Dry Creek

“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.