And they were staring right back at him.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Boone said carefully, not real sure if he was dealing with a man or a woman at this point. His guess could go in either direction. “I received a call that there had been some vandalism.”
“You’re the sheriff?”
“Yes, ma—uh, yes. Sheriff Boone Marshall.” Boone almost groaned when the man or woman’s lush lips spread into a glorious smile. He so did not need to be obsessing over a woman. And if this was a man, he needed to rethink his thoughts on how men were supposed to look.
“Jackie Lee.”
The name didn’t help at all. Jackie was kind of a unisex name. Boone held out his hand instead. A handshake might be able to give him more of a clue.
Damn.
The hand held out to him was delicately boned and had hot-pink painted nails. Boone tried not to swear or curse—in case it was a woman—as he shook Jackie’s hand. There was a grip, but it wasn’t tight. It wasn’t limp either.
It was no help at all.
Maybe he could fish for information.
“You’re new to Potter’s Creek. Am I right?”
“Yes. I just moved in.” Pink fingernail polish flashed through the air as Jackie waved a hand back toward the box he or she had been leaning over. “As you can see, I’m still unpacking.”
It was only as Boone looked at the boxes that Jackie indicated that he noticed the stuff stacked all over the place. There were shelves of pottery and dishes and clothing. Colorful quilts hung from the walls, as did paintings. Jewelry dangled from small turning displays on top of the counters. Handmade bric-a-brac lined every other available space. There were even jars of jam stacked on one shelf.
“Just what kind of place is this?”
Jackie’s perfectly white teeth gleamed in the daylight. “It’s a craft store, sort of. For a commission, I provide space for local artists to sell their wares.”
Boone smiled as he rubbed his fingers over one of the quilts. “I thought I recognized this. Kye Hara made it, right?”
“Yes.”
“He’s good.” Boone could see how carefully each stitch was made on the handmade quilt. Kye really was good. He was still smiling as he turned to face Jackie. “Kye is sewing stuff all the time. You should see his sewing room. It’s filled with things he’s working on. I’ll bet you’ll get a lot of business from him.”
The broad smile on Jackie’s lips seemed to wobble just a bit. “You know Kye Hara?”
“Oh yeah. We live together.”
“Oh.” Jackie clasped his hands together and stared anywhere except at Boone. He acted as though he was suddenly nervous. “He seems really nice.”
“He is, although he drives my brother and Neumus crazy on a regular basis.”
“Your brother and Neumus?”
Oops!
How in the hell was he supposed to explain his brother’s relationship to a stranger? It wasn’t as if he could tell Jackie that Hugh, Neumus, and Kye were all mated to each other. He hadn’t been able to get close enough to Jackie to scent whether he was a shifter or not. Well, he had when they shook hands, but he’d been too distracted by Jackie’s looks to concentrate on how Jackie smelled.
“Kye is my brother-in-law.”
There.
That was simple.
“Oh?”
“He’s married to my brother Hugh, and then they have a third in their relationship, a man named Neumus.”
