Not bothering to get dressed, Jack opened the door in his boxers.
Cohen, Mason, and Parker stood on his front step, each man wearing a different emotion. Mason looked positively tickled while Parker was mildly interested, but Cohen was leaning against the door frame like he had someplace better to be.
“This was on the step,” the sheriff said, handing him a brown box. The return label was no longer white but filthy, nearly hiding the sender’s name, but Jack didn’t pay it any attention. He threw it over his shoulder, and it landed on the small table that lay by the door in the entryway.
“What’s happening, fellas?” Jack asked.
“Well, the talk of the town is that you’ve kidnapped Nora Ledger. Her family and customers haven’t seen her since the scavenger hunt,” Mason answered. “Some people are saying that she is locked in your secret sex dungeon.”
Cohen rolled his eyes. “You’re such a creep, Mason. Seriously.” He faced Jack, shaking his head. “No one actually believes you have a sex dungeon or that you’re keeping that woman against her will, but her sister did come into the station yesterday. She wants to know how long to wait before she reports Nora missing.”
“Holy shit,” Parker exclaimed, elbowing Mason in the stomach. “I think your brother just made a joke!”
“Fuck, you’re right! Who would have thought that the man actually had a decent enough sense of humor?”
Cohen ignored them and went on. “You need to come to the fishing hole, Jack. You need distance from that woman who’s got you entranced. It’s good for a man to have his alone time.”
“Is that what you tell Alana?” Mason blinked at his older brother innocently.
“Let me just see Nora off to work. I’ll join you shortly,” Jack added before the two brothers could start arguing about Alana Wixx.
The redheaded woman was always at odds with the sheriff, but most of the people in town believed there was a clandestine affair going on between the pair.
Not that it was clandestine or an affair. Both were single and surly.
They would make a good match if you didn’t mind mixing fire and dynamite together. It would be a dangerous situation for everyone in Half Moon Key if those two decided to stop fighting and start loving.
Not that it would ever happen. Jack had it on good authority … Mrs. Francis … that Alana and Cohen were always going to be enemies. There would be no mendingthosefences.
“Are you telling us to get lost?” Mason asked with a laugh.
“Yup. Go on ahead, and as soon as Nora leaves, I’ll get to fish with you guys.”
“Good enough for me,” Parker announced, turning back and going straight for his car.
Mason grinned at his brother. “What about you, Mr. Sheriff? Do you think our local lion is being honest?”
Cohen rolled his yes. “Get in the truck before I decide to leave you here.” He then pointed his index toward Jack. “If you’re not on the water in the next thirty minutes, I’m coming back here with siren blazing, you understand?”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Jack teased.
He quickly closed the door, intent on telling Nora what the plans were, but his attention was stolen by the box he threw on the small end table.
Now that his friends were no longer on his doorstep, razing him for having a sex-fest with his new girlfriend, Jack could study the package more clearly. The address label was indeed quite dirty, but that’s not what caught his attention.
It was the name on the label.
RJ Phillips.
With hands he wouldn’t let tremble, he opened the box, laying its contents onto the surface of the table. As soon as he saw what was inside, his gut clenched. His heart hammered on while he looked around, desperate to see someone jumping out from behind a curtain to screamgotcha!
But it wasn’t a joke.
And it definitely wasn’t fucking funny.
Jack flipped open the page of the book and gasped. The novel was one he knew well, given that he had written it a long time ago. It was the first RJ Phillips book ever to be published. He had a lot of pride in that work, but that wasn’t why he was all turned around.
Right there, on the cover page of the book, was an inscription that was most assuredlynotsupposed to be there.