Page 6 of Caught With the Sheriff

Nobody else is ever getting near her again. Not without going through me first.

CHAPTER 3

Jasper

Isip my coffee and open up my computer. I haven’t had shit for sleep and I called my mom and asked her if she could keep an eye on Claudia for awhile this morning. It’s not my shift but my nerves are tingling and have been since last night.

Willow Wilder had been absolutely wrecked last night. So shy and quiet. Defenseless and fragile. My whole damn body ached to pull her to me and dare anybody to come near her. I want to kill anybody that even looks at her funny.

That’s not me but I can’t seem to make myself stop.

And as soon as I punched Willow Wilder into the system, I knew exactly why she is a wreck. The police report came up immediately. It’s only been a year. But the information was enough to give me chills.

Crazed stalker fan. Shy little writer at a book signing. The words on the screen blur until all I see is a red haze of fury.

Somebody hurt her. Badly.

I scroll through pages of interviews and reports. There were a ton of witnesses to it. He didn’t even try and hide what he was doing.

But nobody managed to stop him until it was too late.

I go to the damn search engine and start looking up newspaper reports and the lurid details are so much worse than the police report.

They’re saying it’s a miracle that she survived. They have pictures of her tiny figure lying there on the ground surrounded by blood and ruined books.

Her eyes are closed and she’s pale and lifeless. My hands shake as I scroll down the page, reading each story, looking for anything to add to the story. To find out who the hell I have to kill.

But he’s in jail. Or he was.

I pull up the current incarcerations and immediately my blood freezes in my veins.

He’s out. For at least a month. And of course they didn’t actually let her know.

Because they think he’s sane. But when I look at the pictures I can see the wild, insane look in his cold eyes.

And he might be here. He might have been in her house, outside her bathroom door and turning that damn knob, trying to get in.

“Fuck this shit,” I growl under my breath.

I’ve got to take care of this immediately. I grab my keys and don’t even pause when Cal glances up at me. “Finally going home?”

“Something like that,” I growl under my breath. He just grunts and goes back to his paperwork. We’re not busy this early in the morning but there’s always something to do even with our small town.

The hardware store is open already. I push through the doors and grunt at the owner. He grins. “Need something, Sheriff?”

“Lock. Security cameras. Deadbolts. Everything.”

He nods his head. “Check the back of the store. The last aisle.”

I nod at him and head for the back, grabbing a cart and filling it up as I go. I need tools and screws and who the fuck knows what else. I’m not in construction but I can damn sure follow instructions if it’s going to keep Willow Wilder safe.

My hands shake as I toss more stuff into the cart, barely seeing any of it.

I just see her wide eyes with the sooty lashes staring at me. Terrified.

Nobody gets to put that look in her eyes.

It takes about half an hour and an obscene amount of money that I’m sure there’s going to be gossip about shortly. But I don’t give a shit. I have stuff to do.