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The supply barn sat away from the house, a metal shed that they’d purchased from the neighboring farm years ago. Now it held a spraying system, a mechanical grape harvester, a fertilizer spreader, a rotary mower, shredder and trimmers, as well as an excavator. He parked the wheelbarrow next to one of their work trucks and washed his hands in the sink.
Jonas sat on a swing in the gazebo between the house and the barn, the one they’d built a couple years ago for tastings and other events. A timber-framed structure with hanging lights, in the summer it was stocked with hand-hewn picnic tables and a tasting bar, and they held events on the weekends.
Fraser was still working in the field, although it looked like he was finishing up.
Poor Creed. Out of all his children, Creed, his last and adopted son, seemed the most interested in the winery, and he’d be out here too if not for the accident—not the shooting—that’d fractured his femur. They’d done surgery and implanted pins, but the poor kid was still in a cast, although he’d started PT and was regaining movement.
Admittedly, Garrett didn’t love the fact that Fraser had turned the winery into a top secret security compound to protect a fugitive royal from Lauchtenland, but he really liked Imani. And he really liked how Imani made Creed smile, laugh, and made him feel like a hero. The kid’d had too many tough breaks before he’d joined the family, and Garrett wanted him to see the man he’d become.
He walked into the entry and pulled off his boots, his hat, his jacket. No, he didn’t hate the fact that his boys had come home, even if they had shown up injured.
He’d really hoped that Iris would come home too. And in his gut, he just couldn’t escape the idea that she was still in danger, despite her shrugging it away.
Maybe it was just the father in him. Weird that he didn’t worry about the boys like he did Iris.
But today, right now, everyone was safe, and that’s all that mattered.
He came into the house, and that’s when he noticed the dark kitchen. No fragrance of bacon frying, no scrambled eggs, no savory morning muffins baking in the oven.
Huh.
But Jenny had been tired lately, going back to bed sometimes in the morning after breakfast. And yesterday, when he’d gotten home from the airport, she’d been napping on the sofa.
He took the stairs up and down the hall, past the boy’s bedrooms and Iris’s, which was now occupied by Pippa and Imani, the door closed. His door was also closed, so he eased it open, wishing he’d fixed the whine of the hinges.
No one in the bed, although the covers were mussed, as if Jenny had just gotten up. With the sun already cleared the treetops, he put the time at nearly ten a.m.
“Jenny?” He paused. There, from the bathroom, the sound of the shower. Okay, so she had gotten up late. Hopefully she’d leave it running for him, and he could slick off the residue of the morning’s work.
He walked down the hallway of their closets that connected to the bedroom. The door hung open, steam puffing out, the wood a little moist.
Weird.
And that’s when he realized what he wasn’t hearing—singing.
Jenny always sang in the shower. Often hymns, and her current streak was “How Firm a Foundation.”
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in God’s excellent Word!
“Jenny?”
He pushed the door open, and for a second, his entire body hollowed.
His wife lay on the floor in her pajamas, collapsed, bleeding from the temple.
“Jenny!” He knelt next to her, turned her over.
She was breathing. And the cut wasn’t terrible—a wound above her eye that had stained the white throw rug. But her eyes were closed.
“Honey, wake up. Wake—up.” He fought the rush of heat in his chest.Please!
Her eyes opened, and she blinked, trying to orient herself. “Garrett?” Her hand went to her head, but he caught it, then reached for a washcloth and pressed it against the wound. The bleeding had already clotted, but the wound was surrounded by a terrible goose egg.
She started to sit up, and he caught her, helped her. “Oh, wow, I must have fallen.”
He looked around and found the bath mat against the wall. “Maybe you slipped on the bath mat.”
“Yeah, that’s it.” She didn’t look at him but put her hand to the towel. Winced. “Wow. Did I hit the counter?”
