Second Chance in Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

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