I must have grabbed it in the night, half-asleep, not thinking, when the temperature dropped.
Shit.
I should take it off before he comes back inside. But it’s soft and worn in all the right places. And it smells like him—cedar and wood smoke and something warmer underneath that makes my stomach do an inconvenient flip and my brain supply unhelpful images of exactly how this flannel got so soft. Years of being worn against his skin. Years of absorbing his warmth.
I’m still debating when the ax sounds stop.
Double shit.
I scramble out of bed, but my feet tangle in the sheets, and by the time I’ve extracted myself, the front door is already swinging open.
Tank steps inside, and the cabin shrinks.
He’s shed his jacket somewhere. His thermal stretches across his shoulders, damp with sweat despite the cold outside, and sawdust is caught in his dark hair. He looks like a lumberjack fantasy come to life, which is annoying because I don’t have lumberjack fantasies.
Or I didn’t.
His gaze lands on me, and something shifts in his expression. His eyes drop for a second, taking in the flannel swallowing my frame, my bare legs beneath the hem, my sleep-mussed hair.
His jaw tightens.
Heat flashes through me, sudden and inconvenient.
“Morning.” He clears his throat. “Coffee’s hot.”
“Thanks.” I tug at the flannel’s hem like that’ll somehow make this less awkward. “I, um... I got cold.”
“I noticed.”
He doesn’t ask me to take it off or offer to grab me something else. Just stands there, looking at me like I’ve disrupted the fundamental order of the universe.
I should return it and apologize. Reestablish the polite distance between “cohabitation arrangement” and “woman parading around in your clothes.”
Instead, I lift my chin. “Problem?”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Nope.”
“Good.” I move toward the kitchen like I own the place, hyperaware of his gaze tracking me across the room.
I busy myself with coffee, grateful for something to do with my hands. His kitchen is small but efficient—a two-burner stove, a fridge humming quietly, a French press on the counter next to a fancy bag of beans that doesn’t match the man or the mountain.
“Mugs?” I ask.
“Cabinet. Left side.”
I open it and stop. The mugs are arranged by size, from smallest to largest, with all the handles aligned.
I glance at the dish towel hanging from the oven handle. It’s folded in thirds with crisp creases.
And the firewood beside the stove? Each log is stacked with the bark facing out, like it matters.
“You’re a chaos-averse mountain hermit,” I announce.
“What?”
“Your mugs are arranged by size. Your dish towel is precision-folded. I bet your underwear drawer has a filing system.”
“It’s not—” He scrubs a hand over his jaw. “I like things in their place.”
