“For what?Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.Well, I’m not fine, I’m pissed as hell.”He told her what he’d seen when he started patrol, and what they’d discovered as they searched the farm and woods in their territory.
“Oh crap,” she said as he showed her one of the disabled cameras.“That’s what I saw yesterday.”
“Yeah.I’m so sorry that I didn’t look harder.I should have trusted your instincts that something was wrong.”
She gave him a small, understanding smile.“It’s okay, I promise.I thought I was imagining things.I’m just glad my gut wasn’t wrong.”
Crew nodded.“You did the right thing.Anything that seems out of place needs to be investigated.I thought we’d checked thoroughly too, but we just hadn’t looked high enough in the trees or we would have seen the camera.”
“What happens now?”Zara asked.
“We’re going to start sweeping the territory more frequently.Our patrols have always focused on the cleared areas, but now we know that Colton has been mucking around in the trees, every part of our territory needs to be checked.”
Fallon’s eyes shone with determination.“I’ll help with the patrols.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Crew said.“You saw the original camera, so you clearly see things that we missed.”
“I’d like to help too,” Zara said.
“Me too,” Tatum said.
“We’ll figure out a new schedule for patrols,” Crew said.“Maybe shorter time frames with our mates doing grid searches to add to the regular patrols of the cleared space.”
“Sounds good to me,” Grey said.“Whatever we need to do to keep our herd safe.”
Avi’s horse snorted in his head as he agreed with Grey.
Fallon nudged Avi.“Camera hunting with my soulmate wasn’t on my bingo card.”
He chuckled.“Buckle up, sweetheart.Life on the farm is wild.”
After a wild start to the day, Fallon left Avi to rest from his overnight shift and took his place in the garden working with Zara.In the main garden, which had loads of fall vegetables ready to be harvested, they worked together to find ripe pumpkins, squash, and zucchini.
“I’m thinking a nice vegetable medley on the grill for dinner,” Zara said.
“That sounds yummy,” Fallon said.“What would we have with it?”
“Pork loin, maybe.Or chicken.I’ll have to see what’s in the freezer.”
“What’s the plan for the pumpkins?”
“Baked goods for the freezer.Tris likes to bake up a bunch of pumpkin pies for winter, plus she’s got a kickass pumpkin bread with a cream cheese filling recipe.”
“I’d love to help.”
“I’m sure she’d be thrilled.”Zara sat back on her heels.“It’s amazing how the soulmates for the herd members are just what is needed to help run the farm.It started off with Tris coming to be the caretaker.Nancy helps, but Tris was mostly running things on her own.And then I came along and have gardening and foraging expertise.Then Tatum is a research machine—anything we need to know, she can find it.And then there’s you coming in with sewing knowledge and kitchen know-how.Crew said the farm really feels like it’s running well for the first time since they’ve owned it.Even with all the problems with Colton and his herd, the guys know that we’ve got the house taken care of and they can focus on the farm work and keeping everyone safe.”
“It’s amazing how we’ve come into each other’s lives at just the right time.”
Zara smiled.“For sure.”
Fallon lifted a medium-sized pumpkin and twisted it from the vine, setting it on the rolling cart with the others.She paused and looked around, thinking about how much safer she felt knowing the cameras that Colton had planted were gone.
“I’m going to run the pumpkins to the back porch for Tris before the cart gets too heavy to push.”
“I’ll be here, elbow-deep in zucchini and yellow squash.”
