Page 37 of Huck Frasier (Seals on Fraiser Mountain #5)

Marley

I f someone had told me that planning a wedding while eight and a half months pregnant was a good idea, I would have called them delusional.

But here I was — barefoot on my sister;s porch, phone in one hand, checklist in the other, barking orders at a cousin of Fraiser’s who thought “rustic charm” meant folding chairs with hay bales.

“Thomas, if you put one more hay bale near the altar, I will set it on fire myself. Now go string up the lights straight . Not diagonal. Straight.”

Thomas slunk away, mumbling about Pinterest bridezillas.

Behind me, Fraiser lurked like a giant guard dog, pretending to whittle down a list of RSVP no-shows while really just watching me with that look. The one that said he’d rather wrestle a bear than interfere with my wedding day plans.

I rounded on him, jabbing my pen at his clipboard. “Are the groomsmen’s suits pressed?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Are your relatives taken care of? Did they get the hotel basket with the monogrammed mugs?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And the cake tasting with Tessa? Did you—”

He stepped in, grabbed my pen, and tossed it on the table behind me. Before I could protest, he framed my face in his giant palms and kissed me until my brain short-circuited.

When he pulled back, he murmured against my lips, “Breathe, Marley.”

I blinked. “I don’t have time to breathe.”

“Then I’ll do it for you.”