Wild Oak Crown

Chapter 1

Chapter 1Trees rustled and creaked in their secret language. The wind stirred up the scent of damp, fetid earth all around Jack’s little hideaway under ancient roots, laughing at the stranger lost between the great oaks. Even the near-silent skittering of insects in the undergrowth made Jack roll his eyes. Only the clumsiest oaf would make the crickets and ants bolt out of the path of destruction.

Another lost hunter probably. It happened sometimes, despite the warding and concealment Jack had erected around Reeve’s Creek. Someone with just enough of a spark in the soul to cross the boundary. They tended to be unknowing, harmless, and grateful when he escorted them toward the usual hunting territory past his town. He slung his bow over his left shoulder, careful of the quiver strung diagonally down his back.

The forest whispered its collective instructions at him, guided him off to the west of where he’d been hunting. Jack ghosted through the great army of trunks that stood guard over this little piece of the world, insubstantial as the wind through the treetops dappling shade on the hot June morning. It was a mile, give or take a few dozen steps, before he heard the crunching thrash of a person in the undergrowth. Most didn’t make it this far into his territory, more than a couple miles inside the wards he’d placed.

Red flashed brightly from a patch of thick shade ahead of him. For a second, Jack wondered if this person had some sprite in their blood because that hair sure matched that of the dryads he’d run into deep in the forest, the guards and caretakers of a grove of Japanese maples that’d somehow managed to grow in the ass-end of Texas. As he moved closer with silent steps, the figure resolved itself into a man around his mid-thirties with broad shoulders and bowlegs. There wasn’t a hat, but the light brown button-down and flash of silver on his chest as the stranger turned around only meant one thing around these parts. Sheriff.

Jack wasn’t expecting a boyish face with a serious riot of freckles, eyes the same color as a cat’s vivid amber, an upturned nose that shouldn’t have looked right on a lawman, but somehow did. The relief on the sheriff’s face was expected, but his opener wasn’t.

“You Jack Hawthorne?”

“How’d you know me?” he called back, surprised. It was a long time since the law had come for him, and as far as he knew there was no reason a sheriff would. All his family had f****d off to parts unknown a long time ago, parents and guardians and cousins alike. He didn’t want anything to do with them and they felt the same way about him, so it couldn’t be a death notification or a call on next of kin.

“Linda from town.” The stranger lowered his sweet, low alto from loud to regular as Jack finally stepped in close enough not to shout. He must’ve been nervous, because he cleared his throat and hooked a thumb over his shoulder, not anywhere in the same direction as the town. “Linda Sallet, the butcher?”

It was so damned difficult to suppress the eye roll he wanted to make at the sheriff’s question. Of course, he knew Linda. This was his town, these were his people. He knew every soul within the boundary better than he knew his blood kin. The question was, how did this man know her? “Why you askin’ her ‘bout me?”

The sheriff smiled at him and stuck out his hand. Jack took it on reflex, absorbed the feel of calluses and the broad, boxy palm. Absorbed the impression of silver and gunpowder and sea spray. “I’m Mason Carrow. Assigned to Reeve’s Creek.”

Ah. That sorta made sense. Sheriff Drew was an old and amiable drunk, pushing retirement. Nothing much happened in their little town, so the fact Drew was a drinker didn’t bother anyone much, beyond worry over his liver. Still, he supposed they needed a new lawman around but Jack figured he’d take up that post too. Sheriff Carrow was a surprise. Maybe the Powers had decided Jack had enough on his plate and sent someone who the town needed, who needed the town. Wouldn’t surprise him at all. That might be the reason he was able to pass the warding.

Jack had done that on purpose over ten years back. Once the last of his family scrammed on out of the little backwater that was Reeve’s Creek. He didn’t want anyone like them in his home. The barrier he’d put up made people slide their eyes away from his town on the map. Made people forget it existed once they left the area. Erased it from systems unless there was a need or disaster. Only those who needed to be in Reeve’s Creek were able to find it at all.

“And you were lookin’ for me, why?” The question was automatic. He was suspicious by nature, wary as a mountain cat. People weren’t really to be trusted anyway, outsiders especially, even if they were supposed to be in his town.

“Oh, uh,” Sheriff Carrow stumbled over himself. A blotchy red blush made his freckles stand out. “I wanted to meet everyone in town. Well, who belonged to the town.” Those sturdy hands hooked onto the sheriff’s work belt, there wasn’t a pistol in the hostler Jack noted, and his eyes dropped down for a moment. “Linda said you were kinda like the mayor around here.”

Amber eyes glanced at him through the flagrant red of his eyelashes, shy. Wasn’t the look he expected to get. Jack knew how he came off to others. Scruffy and unkempt, a wild man who was more forest creature than human. He was sure he had leaves and twigs tangled up in his blond hair with streaks of sap littered all over his muted hunting clothes, dirt caked on his boots and jeans. When he showed up in town, people usually gave him some weird combination of scorn and snobbery. What the hell did this guy have to be shy about?

Sheriff Carrow was a beautiful fall day in comparison to Jack’s backwater bayou. The forest had started to take sharper notice of the newcomer and was bending in curiosity toward him, leaves stirring against each other in a bid for noisy attention and trunks creaking as they swayed around the dappled clearing. The innate power of his home surged under their feet and Jack had to grit his teeth to keep the gasp in check. That was new.

His unexpected guest must have felt something from the restless caterwaul of the earth. The sheriff glanced around the little clearing with a narrowed, suspicious air before he seemed to shake off the feeling. “Awful windy today. Got a place we can talk?”

There wasn’t a breath of a breeze despite the leaves shaking. Maybe it was for the best if Jack took the sheriff out of the forest, even though he didn’t feel they had anything else to talk about. Sheriff Carrow said he wanted to meet Jack. Well, mission accomplished. But if the man wanted to talk, Jack would indulge him.

The small cabin he called home was only a quarter-mile from the farthest western edge of town, close enough Jack walked most of the time unless he had to deal with a big load going to Linda or bring a load of building materials for his little patch of non-forest. He had his old Chevy truck for that. It wasn’t much and he liked it that way.

Originally, Jack had lived in this same spot, but the house that once stood here was three times the size, full of junk and bad memories. He’d torn it down and burned every piece of that hellhole the moment his last cousin had hightailed it to somewhere else. The cabin took Jack two months to build, old-fashioned logs and pegs, chimney and a rammed earth floor under the floorboards. Two different small drying shacks occupied opposite sides of his big backyard and both perpendicular to his little garden.

A curious hum came from his guest as they crossed the front yard full of early autumn wildflowers. The bluebonnets seemed more interested than the Susans in the sheriff, though Jack felt all the tiny sparks of the flowers flare in response to the new human presence. What the hell was going on with the forest today? It wasn’t usually so aware of the humans who came and went through his home.

“This is hand-built?” The sheriff had an awed look on his face, eyes wide and appreciative as he laid a hand along the wall right next to the front door. The whole house answered in its own way, the atmosphere warming up, almost inviting the stranger in. Jack would need to have a long talk with everything. There wasn’t a reason for the whole world around him to welcome Sheriff Carrow as it did. This was so out of the ordinary, Jack’s whole body shivered with the eeriness of it all.

“Yeah,” Jack croaked, thrown off balance as his attention darted to the rest of his small home. What next? His altar resonating in such a way that the sheriff would want to touch it? His bed deciding to make itself and fold down the blankets in invitation? What the blue f**k was going on?

“It’s well made.” The sheriff managed to catch Jack’s eyes as that hand on the wall moved in a smooth, slow glide across the sanded pine. A shiver raced up his spine like Sheriff Carrow was touching Jack’s bare skin. s**t. The sea spray scent seemed to intensify in the cozy living room of his home, almost drowning out the natural moss and moon flower smells that lingered. “You made this place.”

There was no upward tilt to the sheriff’s words, no question in them, but Jack nodded anyway, like one of those stupid bobbleheads from a backwater tourist trap. A smile curled at the edges of Sheriff Carrow’s mouth.

“Just logs and nails. Wasn’t shit.”

A secretive smile curled at the sheriff’s generous mouth. “I always liked a man who worked with his hands.”

Jack almost reared back into the wall shelves holding his formularies, stunned for a moment. This man, one he’d never laid eyes on before in his life, wasn’t being so openly flirtatious. No one flirted with him. He was rough, crass, stoic, like a badly made ax handle hewn out of splintering pine. Sure, he’d get the job done and had a sparse handful of satisfied users to his credit. That didn’t make him someone worth the effort to make moon-eyes with. Ain’t a man on the whole great Earth who’d look at him as anything more than a quick f**k behind some seedy bar, never mind worth the effort to seduce.

The amber eyes sharpened, speculative in the cramped dimness of Jack’s living room. While the smile didn’t leave, it softened into something lighter, less wicked. “Anyway, I just wanted to come meet you.”

“Howdy,” Jack grumbled. A snort came from the sheriff. A faint scent of vanilla drifted from his kitchen and Jack remembered the few manners his aunt had managed to instill in him. He gestured to the bright space through the doorway on his left and glanced at his guest. “Want something t’ drink?”

Sheriff Carrow rocked on his feet and shifted his weight from his right leg to his left, hip jutted out as he rested his hands on his gear belt, and dropped his chin so he was looking at the weathered wood floor. The absence of a pistol was odd in a way Jack couldn’t put a finger on and so obvious. Unsafe. Especially around this part of the world. “If it’s not an imposition.”

Bashful. That’s what the sheriff seemed to radiate. There was no cause for it though. Sometimes people baffled the hell out of him.

Jack shook off the strangeness of Sheriff Carrow in his home with a little shrug of his shoulders and led his unexpected guest into the kitchen with a quick, flapping wave of his hand. Grumbled a “Have a seat.” The heavy boots of the sheriff thudded with the stroll through his bright, fragrant kitchen as Jack turned his attention to the cupboards high up on the walls.

Coffee. A guaranteed crowd-pleaser in a pinch. His coffee was just the crappy stuff from Nathan’s little grocery in their little town. Jack had his way to gussy it up though. He popped in a couple of pieces of clove in the basket, letting it brew while he pulled down chipped blue mugs from the dish cabinet to the left of the sink. A glance from the corner of his eyes at the sheriff had him pulling the milk out of his ancient yellow fridge. The sugar was already on the table. As he finished piling stuff in the middle of his small kitchen table, Jack noticed he wasn’t the only one sneaking glances.

His guest’s gaze darted everywhere, from the bundles of plants strung up to dry in the rafters to the simple granite mortar and pestle near his loosely defined workspace. From Jack himself to the jars and salves and powders on display to the open shelves anchored floor to ceiling on the wall behind Jack. Despite the questions alive in the air, the atmosphere was calm and warm, his house doing its best to be nonthreatening to the newcomer. For a moment, Jack wondered what the sheriff thought of the obvious strangeness of the place. The thought wasn’t worth the time to ask though. If anything about Jack bothered the man, he’d run the first chance he got now that he’d seen it.

“Is that nightshade?” The sheriff’s left elbow planted on the table top and a finger pointed almost straight up, but his eyes glittered as he stared at Jack bringing the coffee to the table. Jack didn’t have to look. The sleepy resonance from it reached him without effort.

“Yep.” Jack set a mug in front of his guest and took the seat across from him. The brilliant shade of the sheriff’s red hair turned molten in the sunlight coming in the windows. “Got oleander too, and it’s a lot deadlier.” He pointed a little to the right of Sheriff Carrow’s shoulder, up at the rafters. Three bundles of pristine white oleander hung in the middle of a massive circle of bundled rosemary. It was the best way Jack had found to keep the faint malevolence of the white flowers at bay.

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it.” The sheriff wrapped his hands around the plain blue mug of coffee and shrugged, a lopsided grin spread across his face. “I’m just surprised to see it. Haven’t come across nightshade since my mom took me to this New Age shop when I was a teenager.”

Jack swallowed down the snort of contempt. There was nothing wrong with New Age shops. Honest. Some were run by others like him, he knew that, while others were just grifters looking for a quick buck at the expense of the gullible. Without laying eyes on the place, there was no way for him to tell the difference.

The sheriff added a generous pour of milk to his coffee, and sugar besides, before he tried a sip. A glottal sound came from his guest as he lowered the cup. “This is damned good coffee.”

The tingle of a blush started at the bridge of his nose. Jack dropped his head, let his hair fall into his face to obscure how it spread to his cheeks in a matter of seconds. “Musta had nothin’ but shitty coffee ‘fore,” he muttered.

That got a laugh, not loud, but honest and filling. “You must be right.”

Sunlit silence wrapped around the room in an easy way, the herbs and flowers above them lending a heady scent of contentment to Jack’s kitchen. It was his favorite room of his small home, though he didn’t share it often with anyone. Sheriff Carrow’s slow, thoughtful sips as he glanced around with curious eyes fit and didn’t. It was like Jack had invited home some wild Fae for a cup of coffee, with the way the sheriff’s hair blazed and the sun highlighted the gold in his tanned skin.

As the coffee in his mug dwindled at an alarming rate, the impulse to find a reason to delay the sheriff’s inevitable departure flitted across his mind. Which was ridiculous. Was his house infecting him with the same weird behavior it had been infected with?

His unexpected guest hummed as he consumed the last of his coffee and stood, the heavy old chair scraping soft against the floor. A smile brightened his face as he took one last glance around, still just curious as far as Jack could tell. “I have to get going. Thank you for the drink.” His gaze finally landed on Jack again as he held out his blunt hand for a shake.

As a rule, Jack didn’t shake hands. His were tough and too strong, with patchwork scars and chapped skin. Something compelled him to though. Jack slipped his rough palm to rest against the sheriff’s, calluses catching for a fraction of a second. He choked down a gasp when Sheriff Carrow closed his fingers with careful precision and a spark jumped between their palms. Mason’s whole face lit up with a grin.

“I’ll be seeing you around, I’m sure,” the sheriff said, warm and earnest.

“Yeah,” Jack answered, the word coming out like glass crushing between his teeth, rough and sharp. His eyes dropped to their hands, shying away from the sheriff’s bright eyes. A strong gust of wind whipped through the kitchen out of nowhere and slammed the window behind the sheriff shut with a crack. Jack jerked his eyes up and was met with the sheriff’s assessing stare.

Sheriff Carrow held his gaze for a moment longer and stepped back, hand dropping to loop in his work belt. It seemed like this firebrand in his kitchen wanted to say something else, but the look crossed his face for only a second before it was gone and the smile got bigger. There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation or awkwardness as his guest pivoted on his boot heel and strolled out of Jack’s kitchen, without a care in the world if his easy stride was an indication.

His whole house seemed to lean towards the sheriff’s retreating figure, just a little. Yeah, Jack needed to have a long think on this new man in town. First though, he had to finish his hunting for the day. Wasn’t like he was gonna get supper any other way.

* * * *

Something thrummed across his dreams that night though, asleep on the rickety old Adirondack chair nestled under the window of his weathered back porch. Dry and garish, tacky in the way his aunt’s jewelry always was. Jack dragged his eyelids open for a moment and glanced around the darkness, the waxing crescent moon a mere suggestion of light at the brink of the horizon. Nothing was out of place from what he could tell. Just the tinder-dry grass and heavy heads of flowers in his backyard and the forest beyond, the trunks all melted into a single shadow. Even the critters were quiet this deep in the night.

Must’ve been his dreams, then. Flashes of blazing red and clear amber. Jack had a hell of a time trying to grasp onto the images at the edge of his mind but gave it up in the end. He tugged the heavy quilt up to his shoulders and melted into the soft padding of his chair, drifting back into the flickering landscape of sleep.

That should’ve been his first warning, though he dismissed it then, but Jack couldn’t dismiss the uncomfortable rasp against his awareness as he was scooting his eggs across the frying pan the next morning. It was enough to make his hair stand on end. Very few things bothered Jack, on purpose. He had let the whispers and the heavy discipline of his childhood roll off his back like it was nothing. When the sensation didn’t come again, he ignored it as a fluke and carried on.