Second Chance in Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad
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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