sheriff’s actions reminded Gracie of how important it was to get to the hospital quickly.
She suddenly felt apprehensive. Who knew what was happening with Renee? And it wasn’t just her wound that could be giving her trouble. When Gracie had taken Wade to the clinic, the receptionist had recognized the Stone family name. Gracie wondered if Renee would face the same kind of questions from the staff that she had fielded on that day. There were not many criminals around here, and they stood out.
Gracie didn’t know why people were so curious about her time in prison, but they were. Maybe it was all the cop shows that were on television. The news that she had been declared innocent had stirred up almost as much gossip as when she had been found guilty ten years ago. She frequently spoke about the Bible study group she’d belonged to in prison, but she never talked about the rest of her prison experience. She didn’t want to even call up those memories. Once she started, the hopeless faces all came back to her. Susie, who had the teenage sons that refused to come to visit her. Martha, who worried about her elderly mother. The woman from Idaho who longed for the ocean and had died of an overdose in her cell after someone had smuggled drugs in to her.
In an abrupt motion, Calen turned around to look at her, and she wondered if she had made some distressed sound without being aware of it. Just thinking about her days behind bars made her sad.
“You okay?” he asked.
She couldn’t see his eyes in the dark, so she couldn’t tell if they were full of pity. But then, he couldn’t see her face either, so he wouldn’t notice the tears that had sprung to her eyes. He probably thought the sheriff’s sudden turn with the car had startled her. He should know a rancher like her knew the usefulness of all the dirt roads around here.
“Everything’s fine,” Gracie said, forcing herself to be cheerful, as she glanced over at the dark shape beside her. Tessie was napping in her child seat.
“I know it’s late,” Calen muttered apologetically, still watching her. “You must be tired.”
“Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t sleeping anyway.”
“Something worrying you?”
“Just my sons. They—” Gracie caught herself in time. Calen didn’t need to know her sons were pressuring her to get married again. No one needed to know that particular fact. “They can be a little stubborn at times when they get an idea into their heads.”
Calen chuckled then, his voice suddenly warm and relaxed. “What is it this time? I remember Tyler laid out his plans once for how he was going to raise a llama on your place with no one knowing. He figured he’d build a shelter for it down in the coulee where we were fishing, and feed it with oats he’d sneak away from the barn.”
“I didn’t know.” Gracie felt exposed. How could this man know more about her youngest son than she did?
“I think it was supposed to be a Christmas surprise. Nothing ever came of it, though.”
“Ahh,” Gracie murmured. Her sons always had wanted a spectacular Christmas. Maybe that’s why Buck had been so set against the day. Her late husband had been jealous of anything that took attention away from him. All he ever allowed in the way of a holiday celebration was to have their closest neighbors, the Mitchells, over for dinner. And, since Gracie had found out he’d been having an affair with Tilly Mitchell, she didn’t suppose she could count his neighborliness as being selfless, even in that regard. Gracie had always used her best china, too, for those dinners. She shook her head at how naive she had been.
After a moment of silence, Calen turned to face the front again.
Before long, the sheriff drove the car onto the freeway. He cleared this throat almost at the same time and looked into the rearview mirror. “Did Tessie talk to you while you were in the house changing your clothes?”
“No,” Gracie conceded. She wasn’t sure, but she thought even a two-year-old should have a few dozen words in her vocabulary. Maybe Tessie couldn’t talk normally. The toddlers at church were always chattering away.
“Well, she’s been through a tough night,” the lawman said.
No one had anything to add to that.
After a few more miles, Gracie noticed the extra straps on the back of the front seats. She had expected the mesh division that separated the rear seat from the driver, but she hadn’t realized they’d also added new straps to these sheriff cars.
The county had gotten a new car for Sheriff Wall in the time since he had arrested her ten years ago. The vehicle still had the same smell to it, though. It wasn’t unpleasant exactly, but it did make her realize that fear had an odor all its own.
Tessie wasn’t the only one who had been through a lot tonight. Gracie figured the toddler’s mother was only at the beginning of her ordeal. Gracie knew what it felt like to be arrested, and she figured Renee would find out before long. Everything changed once a person was on the wrong side of the law. A prison was designed to make a person feel trapped and helpless. Even though Gracie had been innocent, that did not mean the same problems that the other inmates faced didn’t weigh on her mind.
“Renee’s going to be worried about her daughter,” Gracie said. “They probably won’t let us see her yet, but one of the nurses can give Renee a message.”
She wondered if that same receptionist would be on duty. If so, maybe the Stone family’s notoriety could be used for something positive. If the woman took a message, Gracie might even answer one or two of her personal questions.
Gracie didn’t know what would happen to Tessie if her mother went to prison, but armed robbery would carry a long sentence. She would not put that into words, but everyone in this car was probably thinking the same thing.
Gracie looked up at Calen. His shoulders were slumped a little as he sat in the front seat, his head bowed slightly. She wondered if he was praying. She hoped so. At least Renee and Tessie had him to take care of them.
And, we all have You, Father, she prayed. She hadn’t had the assurance of God’s love when she had gone to prison. And it would have made a huge difference.
She sat back then, trying to picture Calen as a father. Or even a husband, for that matter. She finally gave up and smiled. The stories Buck used to tell of him and Calen in high school did not match up with the man she’d seen tonight.
“Do you still have that trophy Buck gave you?” Gracie asked after a few minutes.
Calen grunted and turned around again. “That thing will be at the bottom of my closet until the day I die. Unless I sell it for junk metal first. Only Buck would give me a brass trophy that said Number One Romeo of Custer Country.”
The man’s voice sounded better, at least. Gracie was glad they did have some good memories they could share.
“He found that trophy in some pawnshop,” Calen continued. “But he had the words re-done. I think he gave up one of his good knives in trade for it. Just to give me a hard time—calling me Romeo.”
“Well, you always were popular with the girls,” Gracie teased him softly.
“Not with the one that mattered,” he shot back too quickly to have thought about it.
She didn’t know what to say to that. She ran through the names of the girls in their class, trying to figure out which one he’d been sweet on. She was surprised Buck hadn’t told her. Even though everyone knew Buck was her boyfriend, he didn’t like her being around other people and she missed out on most of the gossip. For all of Calen’s flirting, she couldn’t remember ever hearing that he had been serious about anyone.
By the time she had decided to ask him who he meant, he’d already turned around and the moment was gone. Then a semitruck passed and made too much noise for talking. She watched the red taillights for a while. There was seldom much traffic on the freeway going through this part of the state, and it was particularly deserted in the middle of the night.