Wild Oak Crown

People stumbling into Jack Hawthorne’s little town of Reeve’s Creek isn’t anything new. It happens from time to time. Those who need a safe place to hide from the world. Not the same way he needs a safe place, mind, but he lives with it and keeps to himself on the edge of town.

Then two come at once. One is an irritating blip on the radar of his quiet life no matter how much this stranger upset the town, and the other ... well, Sheriff Mason Carrow is there to turn Jack’s world upside down. Which is unexpected, and Jack can handle that. Mason likes to hand him surprise after surprise, though, and Jack’s in too deep before he even knows what hit him.

The monster in the swamp on the western edge of his territory is something else. It’d take some real special care to deal with, if Jack manages to keep the good Sheriff Carrow from getting in the middle of that mess.