Hearing Brook Lynn scream his name, pain and terror in her voice...and then seeing her with a bloody cut on her lip and a hard knot on her jaw... Yeah, he’d lost it. He’d been overcome by a rage far worse than the ones he’d once unleashed on Pax and inmates who’d attacked him.
Jase’s switch hadn’t just flipped. It had fried, the circuits blown. By some miracle, Brook Lynn’s pleas for him to stop beating Stanton had reached his ears, and he’d managed to pull back before he’d actually killed the guy. But honestly? He doubted the end result would matter. Assault and battery was assault and battery no matter how you sliced it, and it was a major violation of his parole. He’d be charged tonight, face a judge within the next few days, and then he would most likely be sent back to prison.
He waited for panic to come...but...no. There was only a cold sense of calm. He’d protected his woman, and he would never regret that. As long as Brook Lynn was safe, he was at peace.
Was Brook Lynn scared of him again? She’d wondered what would happen if his temper ever overtook him, and finally she’d gotten an answer. The worst possible scenario.
Hinges on the door creaked, and Sheriff Lintz finally ambled his way back inside the room.
“Lawyer” was all Jase said.
The sheriff pushed back his Stetson, revealing a receding salt-and-pepper hairline. “You’re free to go, son.”
Jase blinked at him. “Excuse me?” Was this a trick? The guy must know about his past by now. And he was just going to let him loose in the wild?
“No charges will be filed against you at this time. Or at all,” the sheriff added, striding deeper into the room, his boots thumping against the tile floor. He sat across from Jase, who hadn’t risen. “Me and my boys talked to all the party guests. We were told time and time again how Brook Lynn and West were attacked and you came to their rescue. How you defended them. Now Stanton Gillis, on the other hand, is being charged with assault and, considering the things we found in the trunk of his car, attempted murder. He’ll be locked away for a long time.”
Jase’s relief was palpable, and any resentment he held against Stanton Gillis evaporated like mist. A day hadn’t gone by that he hadn’t felt sorry for the pain he’d caused Pax’s family—and tonight he’d finally seen the extent of it. The guy had held on to his bitterness all this time, letting it drive his every thought and action, and nothing good had come of it.
“You know I’m an ex-con,” he said, still refusing to believe that he was being freed.
“That’s right, I surely do. I’ve known who and what you are since the moment you moved to town.”
Jase blinked in surprise. The sheriff had known, and yet he had never harassed Jase. Never tried to convince him to move away. Never warned him away from Brook Lynn.
“And the people of this town know, too,” the sheriff added. “I made sure of it.”
Jase’s heart almost stopped. How long had they known? Nobody had said anything or treated him any differently. “I get why you did it, but not why—”
“No, you don’t get it. People would have found out sooner or later, and then we would have had ourselves a lynch mob, one person’s outrage feeding everyone else’s. I decided to be proactive and save us all the trouble.”
“Save me, you mean. But why? You don’t know me.”
“Son,” the sheriff said, resting his boot on the edge of Jase’s chair. “I like to think I’m a pretty good judge of character. I’ve seen the best, and I’ve seen the worst. I don’t know you, you’re right about that, but I’ve watched you. You got you some faults, that’s for sure, but who among us doesn’t? You’ve also got you some character, and that’s more than a lot of others can say.”
It was almost too much to take in. This was the first time in his life he’d lived somewhere that truly felt like home, where he was accepted, faults and all. “You have to know there are conditions to my parole...”
“Your parole hasn’t been violated. Even ex-cons have a right to defend themselves and their loved ones.”
“I...don’t know what to say.”