Page 8 of Huck Frasier (Seals on Fraiser Mountain #5)

Frasier

T he shirt she left behind was still on the back of my chair.

It smelled like her.

Which pissed me off.

Because I wasn’t supposed to care. Wasn’t supposed to notice the little things—like how she added honey to her coffee or how her laugh started in her chest and cracked just slightly when she was caught off guard.

But I did.

I noticed all of it.

And I wanted more.

Which made me the idiot in this scenario.

Because Marley Bennett doesn’t do more, all she does is leave. Clean breaks. Complicated glances over her shoulder like she’s starring in a movie no one else auditioned for.

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. You wait. 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.