at the back porch, standing with Maggie under a small cone of light thirty feet from the barn. She waved a hand in Wyatt’s direction, indicating he should go on without her. The look on her face said the sleeping baby on her hip was Violet’s priority. “There’s a pull string just inside the door that’ll give you some light. Not enough to fill the whole barn, but it’s something.”
Wyatt gave the ladies a long look before reluctantly leaving them behind. He’d already cleared the perimeter. He didn’t sense anyone else nearby. They would be fine, and he wouldn’t be long.
A few steps into the barn, a thin beaded-metal chain bounced against his forehead. He tugged it and squinted against the sudden burst of light. As promised, it wasn’t enough to explore the entirety of the cavernous structure, but it was all he needed. The ladder in question stood just a few yards away, blood staining the earthen floor at its base.
Wyatt accessed the flashlight app on his cell phone and searched the ground more carefully, following a line of blood to the small puddle a few inches from the nearest ladder, making it obvious that someone had wanted people to believe she’d been on the rickety-looking structure when she fell, but that wasn’t the case. She’d fallen where the line of blood began and had been moved to the ladder, where she continued to bleed until someone had found her. Aside from the blood trail, the dusty ground had been heavily trodden for an unused barn, probably evidence of whoever had discovered her and the emergency team who had taken her away.
“Do you see this?” he asked softly. His senses pinged like rapid fire. Violet’s nearness charged the air between them. He didn’t need to look to know she was there.
Violet gasped, then shuffled closer, having given up her hiding spot around the corner. “How’d you know I was here?”
“It’s my job.” And he had a feeling he’d sense her anywhere now that they’d met. Never mind the fact that the sweet scent of her so easily knotted his chest and scrambled his thoughts.
Training had surely played a part in his ability to track her movement without looking her way, but never in his life had he been so acutely aware of any woman, or so distracted by the question of where she placed her perfume. Did she dab it on her wrists, the curve of her neck? Along the valley between her breasts?
“Impressive,” she said, sounding as if she meant it.
Wyatt had always been astute, but the army had honed his natural talents to a lethal point. Those skills had been incredibly useful as a soldier but were an unyielding burden as a civilian. Hearing every sound. Knowing every lie. Those were the reasons he’d rarely been at ease since his return stateside and the catalyst for opening his private security firm. That and the fact that he was good at what he did, maybe even the best. Wyatt read people, and he protected them.
Currently, Violet seemed to be deciding if she could trust him. The answer was a resounding yes, and he’d prove that to her with time. The shifting glances she slid between him and the open barn door suggested she was also wondering whether or not she could outrun him.
She could not.
Wyatt lowered the beam of his light to the stained floor. “Who found her?”
“Ruth,” Violet said. “A friend of hers I ran into at the hospital. Grandma had invited her for lunch, but didn’t answer the door, so Ruth looked out here and saw the barn door open.”
Wyatt considered the new information. “Mrs. Ames broke her hip and wrist? Did she receive any injury that might have resulted in this kind of blood loss?”
Violet’s skin went pale. “She hit her head. They gave her a bunch of stitches.” Her free hand traveled absently to the crown of her long wavy hair, as if she might feel the sutures there.
A head injury explained the blood.
Wyatt extinguished the light and tucked his phone back into his pocket. “If your grandma was on the ladder when she fell, how do you suppose she hit her head only a few inches away from the base?”
Violet’s brows knit together. Her attention dropped back to the shadow-covered floor. “She couldn’t have.”
“Right. With her body on the ladder, her head would’ve hit farther away, unless she fell headfirst from the loft, which would’ve done more than break her hip and wrist.” He pulled his father’s Stetson from his head and rubbed exhausted fingers over short-cropped hair. “I think she fell over there.” He pointed to the wide start of a narrow line of blood, then swung his finger toward the ladder. “Someone moved her closer to the ladder, probably hoping whoever found her would jump to conclusions, which they did.”
“So she didn’t fall off the ladder.”
“I don’t think so, no.”
Violet’s beautiful face knotted. Her blue eyes snapped up to lock on his as recognition registered. “Grandma hired you because she thought she needed protection.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“From who?”
He placed the beloved hat back onto his head. “She didn’t say.”
Violet’s dark brows tented. “Do you think whoever it was might have done this to her?”
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
VIOLET WATCHED AS Wyatt grabbed the aged wood of the barn ladder and gave it a shake before climbing into the old loft. She’d never met anyone as big as Wyatt and watching him climb the ladder conjured memories of the giant on Jack’s beanstalk. Her grandma was wise to choose him. If anyone could protect her, this would be the guy. Everything about him screamed military training. She recognized his rigid stance and searching gaze. She’d seen similar traits in Maggie’s father, though the caution and compassion in Wyatt’s voice had never been present with her ex. Violet’s heart panged with regret at the unbidden memories rushing to the surface. She’d been naive to trust her heart so easily, and look where that had gotten her.
Maggie wriggled and Violet kissed her soft brown curls. She lifted a hand to shield her sleeping face from another round of dust falling from the loft. At least she’d gotten Maggie from the carnage of her train wreck relationship. Awful as the love loss had been at the time, she’d gladly endure it again if that meant she’d get to be Maggie’s mama.
Violet stepped away from the growing cloud of rustled dirt floating in the air. Soft scents of aged wood and dried hay slipped into her senses, sending a flood of nostalgia over Violet’s anxious limbs. “I used to spend hours in that loft,” she said, letting her voice carry to Wyatt. “Grandpa died when I was in middle school, and Grandma sold the animals, but I still came out here.” Trying to feel near him.
The creaking boards went silent. Wyatt had stopped to listen. “What was up here then?”
“Just hay and me.”
“What did you do?”
She smiled at the massive Wyatt-shaped shadow on the wall. He must’ve gotten his cell phone light out again. “Read. I was going to be a pilot like Amelia Earhart, or a Nobel Prize–winner like Marie Curie. Maybe a scientist like Jane Goodall.” Violet had bored her grandma to death recounting all the things she’d learned up there.
“Are you?” Wyatt’s deep tenor voice carried through the quiet air.
Violet chuckled, bouncing Maggie gently against her chest. “What? A pilot or Nobel Prize–winner or scientist? No. I’m a fifth-grade language arts teacher.” As it turned out, Violet enjoyed telling others the things she knew more than she wanted to go off and do them herself. She only wished her grandpa had lived to see her with her class, sharing the stories he’d loved with them. He would’ve been so proud. And he would have loved Maggie.
Wyatt’s steady footfall moved back toward the ladder. “There’s a good-sized bare spot up here. Looks like