Page 70 of One Last Chance

Sully frowned. “No. Uh . . . did I hurt you?”

She smiled. “No. I can see why my sister liked you.”

He smiled.

Axel didn’t. He looked at her with wide eyes. “Seriously?”

“But Kennedy isn’t me, okay? Are we clear?”

Sully nodded. Glanced at Axel. “Sorry, man.”

Axel held up a hand, shook his head. “Listen . . . uh . . .”

She didn’t need any crazy, mispurposed showdown here. “Sully. How do you know my sister?”

He drew in a breath. “Okay, for the record, I don’t know where she is.”

“That was pretty clear,” Axel growled.

“Right. Okay, so . . . uh, she showed up at the Bowie cabin about . . . three years ago, I guess. In May, right after fishing season started. She was wounded . . . shot, actually, across the shoulder. I think she must have gotten lost—I don’t know where she came from. But she wouldn’t let me take her into Copper Mountain. She said someone was stalking her and had found her. She was really scared, and?—”

He looked at Axel. “Believe me, I wanted to take her in, but I didn’t want to leave her either. She was . . . she had a mind of her own, and her wound wasn’t deep. Only needed some stitches. I did it myself.”

“Oh, that makes us all feel better,” Axel said.

“Hey. I’m really good with knots, thank you.”

“Did she say who was stalking her?” Flynn asked.Down, Axel.

“No.”

“But it’s the same person who shot her?”

“Maybe. Probably. She didn’t say.”

“What happened then?” Flynn folded her arms, gave him a hard look.

Sully looked away, down to the ground, back to her, and met her eyes. “She stayed.”

Silence.

“Shestayed?” Axel said.

Thank you. She actually appreciated his tone this time.

“Listen. We . . . the fishing camp has many rooms. And she was a guest of the Bowie Outpost. It was . . . Okay, so yes, we might have had a spark. But . . . it wasn’t . . . Okay, listen. She wanted to stay. And—” He swallowed, and to Flynn’s eye, it looked like his eyes glistened. “Fine. I asked her to marry me.”

Oh.

“That’s why you stayed at the lodge that winter,” Axel said quietly. “I remember Hudson and Mal talking about it. You didn’t come in for an entire year.”

“They brought supplies out to me.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Flynn said. “While I was home, crushed at the disappearance of my sister, she was holed up with you? Playing house?”

“I didn’t know she was officially missing. She said she came out to Alaska on purpose, and yeah, she mentioned family, but people come out here all the time to leave their past behind. It didn’t occur to me to ask Deke if she was on the missing persons list.”

Flynn folded her arms. Looked away.

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