Page 11 of Huck Frasier
“I’m not in love with him.”
Lark didn’t even blink. “Mm-hmm.”
“I’m not.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious.”
“Of course you are,” she said, stirring her coffee like this was a normal conversation and not a CODE RED EMOTION EMERGENCY. “That’s why you’ve spent the last ten minutes buttering toast into submission and referring to Frasier as ‘That Guy.’”
I slammed the butter knife down. “It was supposed to be one night, that turned into three. Tunisia was supposed to be… fun. Easy. Temporary. Like… a vacation hangover. And then he goes and kisses me like it’s a full-body promise and fixes my tire like he cares and then—then—he makes tea during a blackout.”
Lark snorted. “How dare he?”
“And he smellsso good.Like pine trees and recklessness.”
“You mean like soap and testosterone?”
“Exactly!”
Lark took a sip of her coffee. “So what’s the real problem?”
I flopped into the chair across from her. “The real problem is that he makes me feel… safe.”
Lark blinked. “And that’s bad?”
“It’sterrifying.I’m not used to safe. I’m used to being the one who bails first. He makes me want to stay.”
“Then stay.”
“I don’t know how.”
She reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “Maybe this time, let him teach you. Listen to me, Marley, a crazy woman raised us after Dad died, and look at us. I chase the deadlest storms I could find, and you go after the frigging gun runners and the cartel. We have to stop trying to get killed.”
I was doing so well.
I’d survived the talk. I hadn’t cried. I hadn’t broken anything. I was emotionally stable enough to walk into town and buy shampoo like a normal person.
Until I walked right into him.
Literally.
One second I was coming out of the general store. The next, I slammed face-first into a wall of muscle and tactical calm.
“Marley?”
My eyes flew up.
Frasier.
Holding a bag of dog food. Wearing aviators. With that damn little smirk like heknewI still had his black shirt at the bottom of my laundry bag.
I dropped my shampoo.
“Oh,” I said, totally smooth and not at all breathless. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said, bending to grab the bottle. “You smell like coconut.”
