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“To rethink my options within the career, maybe,” he said with a slight shrug.
“Have you reached any conclusions?”
“Not really. I’ll probably just go back to what I was doing. I guess I just really needed a vacation.”
“Not so much of a vacation. You’ve been working pretty hard around here.”
He smiled. “I enjoyed working with my hands for a change. Made me feel…I don’t know, more grounded or something.”
“That makes sense. I enjoyed the days I spent helping you.” She didn’t know if that was due more to the work or to spending that time with Casey, but she suspected she knew the answer to that one.
“It wasn’t just work I needed to get away from for a while,” Casey said after a pause that suddenly seemed significant. “I was sort of engaged until a little over a month ago. The ending was harsh, and pretty tough on my ego, to be frank. She dumped me for a partner in a rival law firm. Now she’s wearing a big rock on her hand and making sure everyone in the greater Texas social scene knows about it.”
“You were…engaged?” Natalie repeated, feeling her stomach tighten.
“I said ‘sort of’ engaged,” he corrected. “You know that stage where you talk about getting married someday and everyone pretty much expects it but it’s not really official?”
She had never actually been in “that stage” herself, but she nodded. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head almost impatiently. “It’s not like that. Things hadn’t been that great between Tamara and me for quite a while. You know what it’s like when you work all the time. Whole days would go by when I wouldn’t even see her. The breakup was as much my fault as it was hers, it just caught me off guard. She could have handled it a little more discreetly, but I’m not sad that it’s over.”
“So, you lost a case, lost a ‘sort of’ fiancée and suffered a crisis of conscience all within a few months?”
“That about sums it up.”
“No wonder you needed a vacation.”
“Thank you.”
Turning to lean against a crooked tree trunk, she studied his face as he threw a stick for Buddy. “Casey?”
“Mmm? Come on, Buddy, bring it back. Give it back to me. Fetch.”
Buddy didn’t seem to be getting the message. He picked up the stick and ran the other way with it.
Natalie smiled, but continued her line of thought. “Why were you so secretive about what you do? I mean, I didn’t want to explain why I’d been fired because…well, you understand. But you still have a position with your firm. You don’t have anything to hide.”
He straightened, turning to look at her with a wry smile. “At first it was because I was tired of explaining myself. Tired of answering questions about why I’d taken time off from a prestigious position to do maintenance work here. It was nice just to be a handyman with no expectations to live up to, you know?”
“That makes sense.”
“And there was the fact that you never really asked me what I do,” he added. “You didn’t ask any questions about me at all. I wasn’t sure you were interested.”
“I didn’t want to ask questions because I was afraid it would encourage you to do the same,” she confessed.
“Yeah, I figured that out.” He reached out to touch her cheek. “Your face is pink. Are you getting cold?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Ready to go back to the cabin?”
“I suppose so.”
He took her hand and whistled for Buddy, who was barking at a squirrel. “C’mon, Buddy. Let’s go home.”
Home. She thought about the word as they fell in step. The cabin wasn’t home, she reminded herself. Not for any of the three of them. No matter how cozy it had become for them.
Chapter Thirteen
