Violet Ames drove slowly along the familiar winding roads of River Gorge, Kentucky, wiping tears and saying prayers. It had been years since she’d visited the rural mountain town where her grandmother raised her, and this wasn’t the return trip she’d planned. Her version had involved an abundance of hugs and triple servings of Grandma’s double chocolate brownies, but there wouldn’t be any of that tonight.
Violet divided her attention between the dark country road before her and the sleeping infant behind her. Eight-month-old Maggie dozed silently in her little rear-facing car seat, having given up tears to fatigue only moments after the car exited the hospital parking lot. Violet rubbed her heavy lids and tried to stay composed, but it had been a tough day.
According to the midmorning phone call she’d received from River Gorge General Hospital, Violet’s grandma, a seventy-eight-year-old widow, had fallen from a ladder in her barn and nearly killed herself. The notion was unfathomable. Grandma’s barn was old and left unused after her grandfather’s death many years back, so why was her grandma even in there? And why had she climbed the ladder? There was nothing to reach with it except an old hayloft housing a decade of dust.
Violet gripped the aching muscles along the back of her neck and shoulders with one hand, steering carefully with the other. She couldn’t get her mind around the awful day. “What would have possessed her?” she whispered into the warm summer air streaming through her barely cracked window.
That was a million-dollar question, because no one at the hospital had a clue.
Her grandma, the only one who could explain what on earth she’d been up to, was lying unconscious in a bleach-and bandage-scented room, worrying her granddaughter half to death. She’d undergone surgeries for her broken hip and wrist and received sutures on her cracked head and a wrap for her swollen ankle. What she hadn’t done was open her eyes.
Her doctor said she’d wake when she was ready, and he had faith that would be soon. He’d suggested Violet be patient.
Patience wasn’t Violet’s strong suit. In fact, she wanted to scream. Her grandma had been Violet’s entire world before Maggie was born, and she knew it. Violet had made her promise to be careful with herself the year she moved from River Gorge to Winchester, nearly two hours away. And she had. “Yet here we are,” Violet muttered.
She thumped the steering wheel with one palm as hot tears spouted anew.
Maggie started behind her, jostling the car seat’s reflection in Violet’s rearview. Violet couldn’t see her face, but she heard the squirms and soft complaints as Maggie tried to find sleep once again.
Violet pressed her lips into a tight line, then wiped the new round of tears from her cheeks. They’d be at Grandma’s house soon, where they could get a good night’s sleep before returning to the hospital tomorrow, where hopefully they’d get some answers. Or better yet, find Grandma awake.
Soon the bumpy road grew steadily more uneven until cracked pavement gave way to sparse patches of dirt and loose gravel. Stones crunched and pinged beneath the tires and frame of Violet’s little yellow hatchback as she maneuvered the final stretch to her former home.
A small smile pulled through her heartbreak as Grandma’s farm came into view. Ghosts of her younger self on bicycles and horseback rushed down the drive to meet her, chased by the beloved hound dogs and yard chickens of her youth, sprayed with a garden hose held by her grandfather before he passed. Carried in Grandma’s arms when her mother waved goodbye from the passenger seat of a station wagon driven by a man she barely knew.
Violet rolled to a stop in front of the old white farmhouse, nausea fisting in her gut and fat tears blurring away the world before her. She shifted into Park and climbed out to inhale the sticky night air. Summers in River Gorge were scorching hot with the constant threat of a thunderstorm. A volatile combination Violet had always loved.
She peered at her sleeping daughter. “This will be fine,” she whispered. “Grandma will be fine.” Unwilling to wake Maggie, Violet unlatched the entire car seat and hoisted it into her arms, baby and all.
With any luck, Grandma still kept a spare house key under the plant in the big red pot outside her dining room window.
Violet carried Maggie to the potted flower garden near the front steps and tipped the planter back with one foot. “Shoot.” Nothing but bugs on the mulch-covered ground beneath.
She turned for the porch. All hope wasn’t gone. Her grandpa used to keep a spare above the front door. Grandma had hated it because she was too short to reach without something to stand on. Violet, on the other hand, hadn’t had that problem since middle school when she shot up to five foot eight and a half and stayed there.
She slowed on the steps when she caught sight of the front door already ajar.
Could the paramedics have forgotten to lock up on their way out?
Had they even gone inside the house if Grandma had fallen in the barn?
Violet flipped the interior light on and swung the door wide. Maybe her grandma hadn’t fully secured the door before heading outside to the barn, and the open door had gone unnoticed by the EMTs.
Eerie silence greeted Violet as she edged her way inside, trying desperately not to wake her daughter. She set Maggie, in her car seat, against the far wall, then pushed the door shut behind them. “Hello?” she called, as much from habit and manners as anything.
The fine hairs along Violet’s neck and arms rose to attention. The couch cushions were all slightly askew and a small drawer in the side table was open. She double-checked that the television and DVD player were still there, then shook her head in a relieved sigh. It wasn’t a robbery.
Violet rubbed the gooseflesh from her arms. Of course it wasn’t. No one in town would bother breaking into her grandma’s house. For one thing, everyone was perpetually invited in, and for another, it was a small town. Folks here knew her grandma barely got by on her grandpa’s small pension. Besides all that, there was nothing to take that Grandma wouldn’t freely give.
A small sound rose on the night air, perking Violet’s ears and causing her to rethink her theory. Another little bump drew Violet’s attention to the kitchen near the back of the home and jerked her heart rate into a sprint.
She pulled her cell phone from one pocket and dialed the local authorities before inching away from the darkened hallway, back toward the front door and Maggie.
“Hello,” she whispered to the tinny voice answering her call. “I think there’s someone in my grandma’s house.”
No sooner had she uttered the words than a hulking shadow erupted from the home’s depths, bearing down on her fast with long, pounding strides. Violet screamed as his iron hands connected with her shoulders, knocking her end over end as he barreled past her and out the front door.
Maggie screamed in her car seat as the calamity of her mother’s crashing body mixed with the loud bang of Grandma’s front door hitting the wall.
Violet scrambled onto her hands and knees, then raced to Maggie’s side. She climbed off the ground slightly bruised but wholly motivated to get her baby to safety. She wasted no time escaping the house with Maggie and locking them both into her car, engine running, while she waited for local authorities to arrive.
* * *
WYATT STONE DOUBLE-CHECKED his GPS as the quiet country road turned to gravel beneath his sturdy truck tires. He knew Gladys Ames lived on a rural property, but this was nearly isolated. No wonder she had been scared.
He drove with one hand on the wheel while he dug through a pile of papers on his dashboard with the other, fishing for a business card in decent condition. Normally, Wyatt was better organized, but his fledgling private security business had been growing legs faster than he could keep up or recruit a staff large enough to handle all the work, and that left Wyatt running on caffeine and determination more often than sleep and preparation.
A set of bobbing headlights appeared around the next pitted gravel bend and headed his way, demanding the lion’s share of the narrow road and forcing Wyatt’s truck onto the grass with two wheels. The sheriff’s cruiser lumbered past at a crawl, leaving Wyatt to wait for the opportunity to forge on. Once he could, Wyatt pressed the gas pedal with a little more purpose than before. Gladys Ames had sent several messages to Fortress Security over the past few days, arranging for protection while she “handled some business,” but Wyatt wasn’t supposed to start work until tomorrow. So what had she gotten herself into that required a sheriff’s presence since their last correspondence?
He slid his truck into the space behind a small yellow hatchback and climbed down from the cab.
A brunette with a baby in one arm and a half dozen assorted duffel bags dangling from her shoulders and hands froze at the sight of him.
It wasn’t the first time a lone woman had looked at him that way. It wouldn’t be the last.
His size and general appearance put most folks on edge, especially women. Certainly at night. Definitely alone.
Wyatt stopped moving.
“Ma’am.” He tugged the curved brim of his worn-out Stetson and nodded. “I’m Wyatt Stone from Fortress Security, a private protection agency in Lexington. I’m here to see Gladys Ames.”
This dark-haired beauty didn’t speak or budge, though her arms must’ve been feeling the weight of her burdens. She was lean and tall for a woman, but Wyatt still had more than a half a foot on her. Like most people he met in this business, she looked incredibly vulnerable, breakable and scared. And he had a bad habit of looking dangerous, or so he’d been told.
Wyatt ran through a mental list of ways to get past this beautiful guard dog without scaring her any further. He was there to help Gladys Ames, and a general web search had revealed her to be in her seventies. Definitely not this woman.
“I have a business card,” he offered, “and a signed contract for services to begin tomorrow morning. I told Mrs. Ames I’d come sooner if I could. No additional charge, of course.” Honestly, coming here straight from his last job had saved him five hours of traveling back to Lexington only to turn around and leave for River Gorge in the morning. He was going right past anyway. It made sense to start work a few hours early in exchange for an extra night of boarding.
The woman adjusted her baby on her hip and struggled with the cluster of bags hanging all over her. “Grandma hired you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Wyatt outstretched his hand, a new business card wedged between his fingers. “How about a trade? I take those bags off your hands, and you have a look at the card. Is Mrs. Ames inside?” He checked his watch, hadn’t even thought about the time or a seventysomething woman’s schedule. It was already after nine. “I don’t want to wake her.”
Tears sprang to the beauty’s eyes and a small whimper puckered her rosebud mouth. “She’s in the hospital.”
Wyatt’s senses went on alert. “Why?”
The woman slouched. Her face twisted in grief and agony. She made the proposed trade, then gathered her little girl more tightly against her chest, stroking her puffy brown curls.
Wyatt scanned the scene, impatiently waiting for an answer to his question. Had someone hurt his new client before he’d even gotten there? The road-hogging cruiser came back to mind. “Why was the sheriff here?”
“Grandma’s in the hospital because she fell. Sheriff Masterson was here because there was a break-in. He dusted for prints and took some photos of the mess, but nothing was missing as far as I can tell. He made a report and said he’d follow up.”
Wyatt stifled a curse and headed for the house as eight years of military training and a lifetime of natural instinct snapped into effect. “How badly was Mrs. Ames hurt? Was anything taken? Who found her when she fell? I need as many details as you have.”
He let himself inside and unloaded the bags onto a tweed couch beside the door. He ran his fingers along the jamb and door’s edge looking for signs of forced entry, then did the same with the windows before moving on.
The condition of each room grew progressively worse as he pushed deeper into the home. The television was untouched, and a small dish near the kitchen sink held what looked like a set of wedding rings. “This wasn’t a robbery.”
He turned to discuss the situation further, but the brunette hadn’t followed him inside.
Wyatt strode back through the house and onto the porch. “Are you coming in?”
“I don’t know.”
He shifted his weight and locked restless hands over both hips. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to protect Mrs. Ames, who assured me tomorrow morning was a fine time to start.”
“Well, I guess she was wrong.” The woman looked down at the card in her hand, as if she’d forgotten it was there.
“Tell me what happened.” Wyatt moved to the porch’s edge and lowered himself onto the top step. “I can’t help until I know what I just walked into, but I assure you I can help.”
Her eyes filled with tears again. “I don’t know.”
“You said she fell?” He highly doubted that was an accident, given her recent outreach to a security firm. “Is she going to be okay?”
“She’s unconscious. Broke a hip and a wrist. She hasn’t woken since the fall.” The woman covered her mouth and nose with one trembling palm. A moment later, she stiffened her spine, wiped her nose and eyes against her arm, then locked both hands protectively around her daughter’s back, seeming determined to be strong.
Wyatt pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. “Here.”
“Thanks.” She mopped her face and released a long, shuddered breath. “I’m her granddaughter, Violet, and this is my daughter, Maggie. I got the call this morning about her fall. We live in Winchester, so we came right out, and we were at the hospital all day, but she never woke up. I thought we’d stay here tonight, but when I got here…” She gave the house behind him a wary look.
Wyatt rested one boot on the step below him and stretched his other leg out. He’d been in the truck far too long, folded up like a clean pair of fatigues. “I’m sorry about your grandma.” He worked his jaw, considering the unusual set of events. “What do you know about the fall?”
“Not much, and what I’ve been told doesn’t make sense.” Violet rubbed one hand over her forehead. She’d clearly had a horrible day, and his unexpected appearance wasn’t doing anything to improve it.
“Tell me what you do know.”
She rolled wide blue eyes back to him. “The hospital staff said she was on a ladder in the barn, but Grandma hasn’t kept anything in there in years.”
Violet swung her face away from him and squinted into the darkness beyond the house. Her shoulders squared, and her expression turned suspicious and hard. The visible heartbreak was replaced by something Wyatt knew well. Resolve. “Maybe it’s time we see the barn,” she suggested.
Wyatt dragged his six-foot-four and two-hundred-fifty-pound frame back onto its feet with a nod of approval.
He and Violet were going to get along nicely.