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