He hadn’t asked for help. He’d taken it.
And somewhere inside that farmhouse, someone now feared them enough to stay silent, at least for tonight.
They had crossed a line.
And Rena didn’t know if they’d ever find their way back.
CHAPTER TWO
Friday Morning
Ellen McKenna watched her son Jake ride off across the field on horseback alongside their ranch hand, Mateo Delgado. Yesterday they’d discovered that the run-in—a simple, three-sided structure used to give cattle shelter from the elements—had been seriously damaged during last weekend’s hailstorm. Overnight rain had caused part of it to collapse. With a brief break in the weather this morning, they planned to make repairs so the herd would have protection when the storm returned this afternoon.
The rain last night had been short-lived, but the already saturated ground couldn’t absorb the sudden two-hour downpour. The narrow gravel road that cut through their farm toward the pasture still had standing water, leaving the surface pocked and muddy, but fortunately it hadn’t been washed out. Jake and Mateo would also check for damage along the road, making notes and fixing whatever they could in the few hours they had before the rain was supposed to start up again.
She’d packed them each a full thermos of coffee and sandwiches in case the job took longer than expected. Their cattle grazed onthe far side of their fourteen hundred acres, half of which was dedicated to their herd. There was plenty of high ground for the cattle to migrate to if the fields flooded. Most of their crops had survived the hailstorm last weekend, and though the ground was still saturated, the plants were thriving.
But they might not thrive if the fields flooded. They might lose everything.
They’d lost half their grapevines in the hailstorm, but it looked like the rest were going to flower. It would be the first year they had fruit on the vines.
It had been John’s dream to create their own wine label, but it had never been the right time to start the vineyard. Three years ago, after a particularly good year for cattle, they planted a small, uneven twelve-acre plot bisected by Whisper Creek. It was the perfect soil for wine grapes, according to John, who’d consulted with his closest friend—a successful vintner—on the project. On one side, they planted Tempranillo, on the other, Sangiovese. But it takes three years, sometimes four, for the vines to age and flower.
This was the year, and John wasn’t here to see it.
She looked up at the dark gray sky, thinking—believing—that her husband was watching over them, that he would see the first grape harvest. They wouldn’t have their own winery—she’d have to sell the grapes this year and maybe next—but it was a start.
And someday, she would turn the old bunkhouse into a winery and bottle their own label—a label John had designed years ago.
Whisper Creek Vineyard.
“John, I miss you so much,” she murmured.
Two and a half months from now, on July first, would have been their twentieth wedding anniversary. Now, she was a widow at forty-one.
It had been eleven months since her husband died in a tragic accident. Eleven months since her life had been shattered. She wasstill broken, but she’d put the pieces together as best she could for their four kids.
Some of those pieces still had wide cracks between them that she filled with work, because that helped. Being busy, being exhausted, thinking about the farm and everything she had to do to survive, all that helped her ignore the pain in her heart.
Running a farm was so much harder and more expensive without John. But she wouldnotlose it. Shecouldn’tlose it. It had been in the McKenna family for generations.
And she could feel her husband here, on the land. She saw him in the field, felt his presence in the house, heard his laugh when the wind flitted through the drafty barn. If she lost the farm, she’d lose her husband all over again, and she knew she would never recover.
She saw a white Ford truck turn up their long driveway. She recognized it immediately.Verdacorp.
She didn’t need this today.
“Ellen?” Penny called out from the house. “Come in and eat.”
“Just a minute, Grandma,” she said.
Penny McKenna stepped out the side door, drying her hands on her apron. She squinted and saw what had caught Ellen’s attention.
“Them again,” she said, her jaw tilted up. “I swear, those good ole boys don’t know how to take no for an answer.”
“Grandma, let me handle it, okay?”
“I’ll get the shotgun.”
