Page 10 of Huck Frasier
And still, here I was, standing in my cabin holding a damn shirt like it was a clue in a mystery I was trying to solve.
“Tell me you’re not mooning over a woman,” Axel said from the porch. His voice was smug. Too smug. The kind of smug that comes from a man who just married the love of his life and now thinks he’s a romance expert.
“She forgot her shirt,” I muttered.
“Oh no,” he gasped dramatically. “Not the shirt! That’s practically a marriage proposal.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
He leaned against the doorframe. “Let me guess. She kissed you, rocked your world, then vanished like a magician in eyeliner.”
“Something like that.”
“You okay?”
I didn’t answer.
Because the truth was, no—I wasn’t okay.
Something had shifted those three nights. In me. In her. I felt it. I knew she did too. But instead of staying, she bolted.
Left the shirt. Took my peace of mind.
“I’m not trying to get in her head,” I said finally. “I just… I want to know why I’m still in hers.”
Axel gave a low whistle. “You’re in deep.”
“She’s impossible.”
“She’s scared.”
That landed harder than I wanted to admit.
Because yeah—Marley might wear confidence like a designer jacket, but underneath it?
Fear. Vulnerability. Maybe even guilt.
“I don’t know what to do with her,” I said quietly.
Axel didn’t miss a beat. “You don’t do anything. Youwait.She’s not the kind you chase. She’s the kind who comes back when she’s ready.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “Then you’ll know it wasn’t about you. It was about her.”
That night,I walked past the chair again.
The flannel shirt was still there.
And I didn’t move it.
Because somewhere out there, Marley Bennett was thinking.
And I was done pretending I didn’t want her to come back.
7
Marley
