Page 6 of Flint’s Fate (Silver Falls Shifters #3)

CHAPTER 5

JENNA

J enna wasn’t one to wait around for someone else to save her. If someone was trying to scare her off Cold Creek Orchards, they were in for a damn rude awakening.

She’d spent the morning making calls, knocking on doors, and pulling together a work crew. The orchard needed more than her two hands, and although she wasn’t raised there, she was beginning to understand that Silver Falls had its own unique rhythm—a rhythm still deeply influenced by favors, alliances, and old grudges.

By early afternoon, a handful of locals had gathered near the barn, ready to work. Some she recognized from town, others had identified themselves as friends of Maribel’s. They weren’t doing this for her. They were doing it for her aunt. And Jenna was fine with that—for now.

One couple stood out. Marty and Ellen Yost.

The elderly orchard owners had a quiet grit to them, the kind of people who had seen Silver Falls change over the decades and had survived more than their share of hardship. Marty was wiry, with sharp blue eyes and a slow way of speaking that made every word feel important. Ellen, on the other hand, had the warm but no-nonsense air of someone who had spent years keeping her husband and their business in check.

“You’re Maribel’s girl, all right,” Ellen said, wiping her hands on her work gloves as she took in Jenna. “Stubborn as a mule and looking to prove a point.”

“I don’t scare easy,” said Jenna lifting her chin.

Marty chuckled. “That’s what she said, too.” He leaned on his cane, eyeing the orchard. “Shame what’s happened here. Cold Creek used to be the best damn orchard in the valley.”

Jenna’s stomach tightened. “Used to be?”

Marty met her gaze. “Your aunt held on longer than most, but she wasn’t the only one having problems. Some of us got bought out, some had ‘accidents.’” His voice dropped slightly. “Some just disappeared.”

Jenna frowned. “You think what happened to Maribel wasn’t an accident?”

Ellen shot him a warning look, but Marty didn’t back down. “You ever hear about the old land feuds?”

Jenna shook her head, and Ellen sighed, clearly irritated with her husband’s loose tongue. “Most of it’s just town gossip. Before the land was divided, some families believed they had a stronger claim to certain parcels than others. There were disputes. Some settled legal. Some… not so much.”

Jenna crossed her arms. “And you think that still matters now?”

Ellen glanced at Marty before answering. “It always matters, darlin’. Especially when there’s money involved.”

Jenna’s grip tightened. That wasn’t just a warning. It was a reminder—one she would not ignore. Whatever had started years ago, it wasn’t over.

The work went smoothly for most of the day. They pruned the trees and cleared the debris, allowing Jenna to see progress for the first time since her arrival. The orchard wasn’t just land. It was Maribel’s legacy. And now it was hers.

She wasn’t about to let it rot.

Late in the afternoon, she stepped inside the barn, searching for more tools. The place smelled of aged wood, hay, and dust. Sunlight streamed through cracks in the old beams, casting long shadows across the packed dirt floor.

She ran her hands along a workbench, picking up a rusted hammer. Years of neglect had overtaken the barn and the rest of the orchard, though the barn showed signs of past use. As she stepped further inside, her foot hit something solid beneath the dirt.

She froze.

The barn floor was supposed to be nothing but compacted earth.

Frowning, she crouched and brushed away a layer of dust, revealing the edge of something wooden. A plank—no, a hatch.

Jenna sat back on her heels. It was some kind of cellar door.

Her pulse kicked up. She had walked through this barn dozens of times as a kid, had played in the rafters while Maribel worked, but she had never seen this before, which meant her aunt had kept it hidden.

Jenna pushed to her feet, dusting off her hands. Secrets. More of them. She wasn’t leaving until she found out what Maribel had been hiding.

Jenna stared at the hidden cellar door as if it were a snake ready to strike. The dust still coating her fingertips. Time had worn the old wooden planks, but iron hinges reinforced them, and they remained solid. Someone had built this to last. And someone—Maribel—had wanted it kept out of sight.

Her gut twisted with anticipation. She reached for the rusted handle.

Before she could lift it, a large, calloused hand clamped over hers. “Don’t.” Flint’s deep, steady voice cut through the quiet barn like a warning bell.

Jenna bit back a curse and turned her head. He stood just behind her, towering, radiating heat, his eyes locked onto the cellar door with predatory focus.

“You have a habit of sneaking up on me,” she muttered, trying to ignore the way her body still reacted to him.

“I have developed a habit of keeping you from making bad decisions,” Flint corrected, his grip firm. “And this?” He glanced at the hidden door. “This is a bad decision.”

Jenna snorted. “It’s a trapdoor, Mercer, not a damn bear pit.”

His jaw flexed. “You don’t know that.”

Jenna wrenched her hand free and crossed her arms. “What exactly do you think is waiting for me down there? Booby traps? Ghosts? A time bomb?”

Flint didn’t blink. “If Maribel hid this, she had a reason.”

Jenna knew that, but she wasn’t going to stand around debating it. She squared her shoulders. “I’m opening it.”

Flint let out a slow breath through his nose, his eyes darkening with warning. “Not alone, you’re not.”

She grinned. “What, you gonna wrestle me for it?”

His lips twitched—just a fraction—before he stepped around her and gripped the handle himself. “That might be fun if there weren’t a lot of other people here. But since there are, I’m inspecting it first.”

Jenna opened her mouth to argue, but before she could shoot him down, he yanked open the hatch. A rush of stale air rolled out, thick with damp earth and something older—something forgotten. Flint crouched, scanning the darkness below. A wooden ladder descended into the space, disappearing into the shadows.

Jenna peered over his shoulder. “Well? See any bear traps?”

Flint shot her a look, grabbed a flashlight, then moved down the ladder with the ease of a man who’d spent his life navigating danger. The second his boots hit the dirt floor, he scanned the space.

Jenna wasn’t about to stand there twiddling her thumbs. She climbed down after him, landing lightly beside him.

The cellar wasn’t large, but someone had built it deliberately. Wooden shelves lined the stone walls, stacked with dust-covered crates, faded ledgers, and bundles of yellowed documents. A single table sat in the center, an oil lamp still resting on it, long since burned out.

Jenna moved toward the shelves, brushing away cobwebs. “Maribel hid all this?”

Flint flipped open a crate, revealing neatly bound records—land ownership, historical claims, old maps of Silver Falls. His fingers traced the weathered parchment, his brow furrowing.

“This isn’t just history,” he murmured. “These are land disputes. Some of them go back over a century.”

Jenna’s pulse kicked up. “And Maribel had them?”

Flint didn’t answer immediately. He pulled another ledger free, flipping through pages covered in looping cursive. Then he froze.

Jenna moved closer, scanning over his shoulder. The handwriting was familiar. Not from the past. From Maribel. She snatched the journal from his hands, flipping to the first page.

Cold Creek is more than just an orchard. It’s the last piece of something they want. And if they think I’ll roll over and sell, they don’t know me as well as they think they do.

Jenna’s grip tightened.

Flint’s voice was low, edged with something she couldn’t quite place. “She knew.”

Jenna met his gaze. “And whatever she knew? It got her killed.”

Retrieving the journal from Jenna, Flint tucked it into his shirt before leading her back to the ladder. The second they were back above ground, Flint tried to stop her.

“Jenna...”

She didn’t let him finish. “Don’t.”

He stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “You need to be careful.”

She tilted her chin. “Careful is what gets people nowhere.”

Flint’s eyes focused on her. “Maribel was careful, and she’s dead.”

The words hit harder than she expected, but she refused to show it.

Jenna grabbed the journal and shoved it into her jacket. “I’m not Maribel.”

Flint’s gaze swept over her, assessing, challenging. “No, you’re not.” His voice dropped. “But you’re walking the same road she did.”

Jenna brushed past him, already forming a plan in her head. She didn’t need Flint Mercer to stop her. She needed to find out who the hell wanted her dead—and why—and if they had killed her aunt. She wasn’t waiting around for another threat to land on her doorstep.

Jenna had ensured the volunteers would be fed—thanks to Sal at the pizza joint in town. Jenna figured if people were going to work to help bring the orchard back, the least she could do was feed them. It had been a fun day. She’d been able to forget here and there the suspicious circumstances of her aunt’s death and the fact that someone appeared to be after her—regardless of what she told Flint she suspected.

Everyone had left, and she had the farmhouse to herself. Knowing Flint, he was hanging out somewhere in the dark, and there was some comfort in that. Even knowing that, the night was too still.

Jenna lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting. Sleep hadn’t come easily—not with everything she’d uncovered in Maribel’s journal. words had burned into her memory, looping in her mind like a warning.

Cold Creek is more than just an orchard. It’s the last piece of something they want.

But who were they?

She’d spent hours going through what she’d found in the hidden cellar, tracing land disputes back to when Silver Falls had been nothing more than wilderness and warring families. The orchard had always been valuable, always contested. But Maribel had held on, refusing to sell, surrender, or cave to the pressure.

And now, Maribel was gone. Jenna wasn’t na?ve enough to think that was a coincidence. She rolled onto her side, glaring at the bedside clock. 2:47 AM. With a frustrated sigh, she threw back the covers and sat up, rubbing a hand over her face. Maybe she’d go downstairs, make tea, do something other than lie here waiting for answers to fall from the sky.

Then she felt it. A shift in the air. Jenna froze, every instinct going razor-sharp. The house was silent, but something was… off. The kind of off that made her she-cat prowl beneath her skin, restless and uneasy. She pushed to her feet, grabbing the gun from her bedside table, barely making a sound as she crossed the room.

The farmhouse wasn’t old enough to creak under every step, but she still moved carefully, her senses tuning in to the quiet. It wasn’t until she reached the front window that she saw it. She looked toward the barn and could see the cellar door was open.

Her stomach clenched. She’d placed a lock on the door and had locked it. Double-checked it.

Jenna didn’t hesitate. She left the farmhouse through the back door, circling around the house silently, sticking near the shadows. She thumbed the safety off her gun as she approached the barn, crouching near the entrance, pulse steady. The air in the barn seemed charged with a kind of malevolent energy. The scent of damp earth and age still lingered, but there was something new—a presence.

Someone had been here. She moved toward the gaping hole in the barn floor. Someone had gone down there. Jenna gritted her teeth and took the first step down the ladder.

A creak echoed beneath her boots. The old wooden ladder groaned slightly under her controlled descent. The moment her feet hit the ground, she scanned the small, cluttered space, keeping the gun close.

Nothing looked different—at first. Then she saw it.

A single file, pulled from one crate and left open on the table. Her breath hitched. The paper inside wasn’t from Maribel’s collection. It was newer. The name at the top sent a cold rush through her veins.

Jenna Hartford.

Someone had added her to this mess.

A growl rumbled low in her throat, but she forced herself to focus. Someone had come onto her property, into the hidden cellar, gone through the records, and left this on purpose.

Jenna flipped through the file, eyes narrowing. It was thin, but the implications were loud and clear. Property ownership records, legal cases tied to Cold Creek Orchards, even a redacted report on Maribel’s death.

Her hands tightened around the edges of the pages.

Who the hell was watching her this closely? A creaking noise from above made her whip her head up. The barn doors were open. The wind stirred the night air, whispering through the trees. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

Then came the growl. Not from her. Not from a single source.

Jenna lifted the gun, stepping away from the table and crept up the ladder. The last thing she wanted was to get trapped down here, especially if someone set fire to the barn. As she reached the top, she peeked out, scanning the shadows as she crept into the barn and moved toward the door.

She flattened herself against the wall and snuck toward the barn door, searching the darkness beyond the barn. The growl came again—this time closer, deeper. She stared out the open doorway just in time to see them.

Two sets of glowing eyes, low to the ground, watching her from the edge of the woods. Not one threat, but two.

Jenna’s pulse didn’t spike—it slowed, steady, measured. Her she-cat bristled, pushing at the edges of her control.

The figures in the darkness didn’t move. Didn’t run. They were watching. Waiting. Hunting.

Jenna tightened her grip on the gun, her voice steady when she finally spoke. “Come on then,” she murmured, voice carrying just enough to reach them. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”