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Frowning, he asked, “You quit?”
She nodded. “I quit.”
What might have been hope brightened his eyes again. He took another step closer. “Why?”
“Because I wanted more out of life than working myself into the ground to satisfy people who had been so willing to believe the worst of me. People who didn’t really care about me outside the money I could make for them, who only accepted me back among them because they were afraid I’d cause trouble for them if they didn’t. I still want a rewarding and satisfying career, and I want it to be in the field I’ve trained for—but I don’t want that to be the only thing in my life. I want more.”
“Funny,” he said huskily. “I’ve been thinking much the same way lately. I’m tired of being a drone in a corporate hive. I want to walk my own path.”
“Is that path wide enough for two?” she asked in a whisper.
He closed his eyes for just a moment, then opened them again and reached for her. “Oh, yeah.”
She emerged from the kiss a long time later, flushed and tousled and happier than she could ever remember. “I was going to come to you,” she confessed. “I debated whether to call you or just show up in Dallas, but I’d finally decided on the latter. I wanted to see your face when I asked you if you still felt the same way I did.”
He looked delighted by her admission. “You were coming to Dallas?”
“I already have the plane reservations.”
Laughing, he hugged her tightly. “You can use them, anyway. I want you to meet my family.”
The thought of meeting all those people he had described to her made her mouth go dry, but she nodded. “I’d like to meet them.”
He covered her mouth with his again. Buddy bounced around them, happily welcoming them back.
After finally emerging for air, Natalie smiled down at the dog. “He seems happy to see us.”
“He is. Kyle said he’s given them no problems and he seemed content enough living with them, but he went nuts when he saw me. It was almost like he was asking what took me so long to come back for him. He seems to feel the same way about you, judging by how happy he looks to see you.”
“I’m glad to see him, too.” She ruffled the dog’s silky ears. “I missed you, Buddy. M
aybe you’ve turned me into a dog person, after all.”
“Hey, Nat?” Casey asked, his voice husky again.
She smiled besottedly up at him. “Yes?”
“I’m freezing. Want to go inside?”
“Okay.” She reached up to stroke a fingertip down his cheek. “We could check out the hot tub again. Just to make sure it’s still working correctly, of course.”
“I’ve always liked the way you think,” he murmured, catching her hand and placing a kiss against it. He tucked her snugly against him as they turned together toward the cabin, then looked back over his shoulder. “Come on, Buddy.”
Natalie rested her chin on her crossed hands on Casey’s bare, still rapidly rising-and-falling chest, gazing thoughtfully up at him. “So,” she asked, “where are we going to hang our shingle? Texas or Tennessee? Or somewhere in between?”He opened his eyes with a rough laugh. “You want to talk about work now?”
She smiled. “It was just a passing thought while we, um, recover our strength.”
Stroking her hair, he lifted his other arm and slid his hand beneath his head, getting comfortable. “It doesn’t really matter to me where we are, as long as it’s together. Either way, one of us is going to have to get licensed to practice in another state.”
“That’s true.”
After a moment, he said, “You know, I’ve actually been giving this some thought the past few days, ever since I came to the conclusion that I wanted to make a big change in my life. A change that included you, of course,” he added.
She smiled.
“You know I’m close to my family. I’ve never lived more than a few miles away from my parents, my cousins.”
“Texas, then,” she said with a shrug. It truly didn’t matter to her, she realized in a sort of wonder.
