“Hey, now,” Mason grumbled. “Don’t make this easy on him, Jack. Besides, I’m a great fisherman when Sheriff Long Face is not bringing the mood way down. What’s up your ass, anyway? It’s Half Moon Key. There can’t be that much stuff happening in town to make youthisstressed out.”
Cohen arched a brow at him. “You sure about that? You’re plenty of trouble enough for every other citizen from where I'm standing.”
Mason batted his eyes at his brother. “Ah, big bro, you say the sweetest thing.”
“Any chance this has anything to do with a certain shopkeeper with red hair?” Parker watched the other shifter’s reaction carefully.
Jack snorted a laugh but quickly managed to pass it off as a cough.
Cohen tensed, and he nearly snapped his fishing rod in two. “I’ve got no clue what the hell you’re talking about. But I will say this. Don’t think that because the two of you are in good relationships that I should be in one too.”
“I gotta agree with Cohen,” Jack cut in.
“Don’t take his side,” Mason sighed. “We all know he can’t be too far away fromher.” He didn’t need to say her name. All three men knew exactly who Mason was talking about.
“Nothing is going on between Miss Wixx and me,” Cohen snapped under his breath.
Jack whistled low, but it was Mason who went, “Miss Wixx?” He elbowed Jack, who only ignored the jab. “We’re back to calling her Miss Wixx now, are we?”
Cohen flipped him off. “Leave it alone. We will never be together, and both of us are totally okay with that.”
“You sure about that?” Parker took a chance asking this question, but it was better to ask the question that needed to be asked than to assume that someone else was going to ask it. Besides, it wasn’t like Cohen would ever take Mason’s ribbing seriously. “You and Alana are always at each other’s throats. If you’re not into her or have never been into her, what’s the story there?”
The sheriff’s jaw clenched down hard. “Well, I do know that whatever is or isn’t between Miss Wixx and me has nothing to do with you three.”
“Hmm,” Mason imitated his brother perfectly.
“If you say so,” Jack added.
Parker smiled at his new friends and shook his head in a silent warning. They better not poke the bear … or in this case, they better not poke the wolf.
“Do you think that the elders will ever get the electric glitch fixed?” Parker asked, hoping that the change of topic would please the sheriff.
Much to his surprise, it had the opposite effect. Cohen’s entire demeanor completely changed. He became colder and more withdrawn. He pulled his hat over his eyes, but Parker still saw his look darken.
“Is this something we aren’t supposed to talk about?” Parker asked.
“Something like that, yeah,” Jack answered.
“You all need to stop asking questions, but more than that, you need to leave it alone. Half Moon Key was fine before you got here. Hell, it was even fine before me, and Jack got here. It will keep on existing just the way it is long after we’re dead.”
“Even if we live to be as old as Mrs. Francis?” Mason’s cheeky question had Cohen growling.
“Didn’t I just say to drop it?”
Parker shrugged. “Fine, consider it dropped. But I don’t think I fully agree with you about the town being okay without us. That bank has no security when the grid goes down, and I don’t like that one bit. No one in Half Moon Key should be okay with their bank being nothing more than a sitting duck for such long periods of time.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed,” Jack said, “there is nothing actually normal about this town.”
“Well, sure, be that as it may, it’s not about the money for me.” Parker gave the brothers and Jack a pointed look.
“Your girl works there,” Mason nodded, completely understanding Parker’s reservations about the bank’s lax security.
“Exactly. She works there, and that makes me nervous.”
“You sure that isn’t just your old job rearing its head into this?” Cohen wondered.
Parker shook his head. “If you were with someone, would you actually like it? Her there without any backup?”