“Mr. Lee? My name is Boone Marshall.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m the sheriff of Potter’s Creek.”
“The sheriff?” the man shouted. “What—”
“I’m also Jackie’s fiancé.”
Jackie’s mouth dropped open.
“His fiancé?”
Boone lifted one eyebrow as he reached over and closed Jackie’s mouth with his finger. “Yes, his fiancé. Jackie and I met when I answered a call about some vandalism. It turned out to be just a couple of teenagers with too much time on their hands. I have them doing community service right now since no real damage was done.”
Jackie’s eyes rounded further with each word out of Boone’s mouth, but he didn’t interrupt. Boone took that as a win, especially the fiancé stuff. He’d been sure Jackie would smack him for that little fib, even if it wasn’t much of a fib. Being mates was more like being married. He figured, until Jackie fully accepted him, they could be engaged.
“Do you know what’s going on with Jackie, Sheriff?”
“I do, but it’s not my place to say. Jackie will tell you when he’s ready.”
“Is he in any danger?” the man asked, as any good father would.
How to answer that?
“I’ll protect him.”
“Then he is in danger?”
“There are things that need to be resolved, but Jackie’s in the best place he could be for that. My family is pretty powerful in this area. We’ll keep Jackie safe.”
“That doesn’t exactly answer my question, Sheriff. Is my son in danger?”
“Maybe.” Boone answered as honestly as he could. He really didn’t want to get on this guy’s bad side, not when he was trying so damn hard to win over his son. “We haven’t determined that yet. There have been a few incidents I’m still investigating.”
“Is it because…”
“Because?”
“I don’t know how long you’ve known Jackie, but he’s a little different.”
“Oh.” Boone clued in just that quickly. “No, we don’t believe Jackie’s colorful personality has anything to do with it.”
“Colorful personality.” The man chuckled. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“Look, Mr. Lee, I—”
“I guess if you’re engaged to my son, you’d better call me James.”
Boone blinked in surprise. “Yes, sir.”
“James, not sir. I work for a living.”
“Yes, sir…I mean James…sir.”
James chuckled.
“As I was saying, I won’t let anything happen to Jackie. He’s my number one priority now.”
