CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Natalie
The weeks went on, and I slowly settled back into life in Indigo Falls. It wasn’t long before I realized I’d been back home for several months, and I was happy. Truly happy. I hadn’t expected to feel that way in Indigo Falls after everything that had happened.
There were some things I questioned, though.
I was enjoying my work at Halliwell Hospital, but more and more I was wondering if I’d prefer a position as a nurse practitioner at a general family practice.
I knew I was only on a year contract, so I would be making some major decisions the next year anyway.
One of them was my job, sure, but the others felt more important to me.
Even though I was happy, did I really want to stay in Indigo Falls?
My best and worst memories had mainly taken place here.
I knew if I stayed, I’d have to sell the house.
I felt like I was living with my parents’ ghosts, which was also a mixed bag of good and bad.
Of course, I didn’t actually feel like the house was haunted.
It was just that memories of them, both positive and negative, plagued me as I lived in the house I’d grown up in.
Still, it wasn’t worth selling it and moving into something new if I was only going to stay here a year and move on.
These were the thoughts that were pushing down on me as I waited for Heath to come pick me up for our date.
He’d told me to dress up, and I was a little surprised by it.
He’d said he had reservations in Atlanta.
Of course, we’d gone downtown for dates before, but he hadn’t really made a big deal about it.
This time, he’d said he had booked a hotel room for us for the night and that I should pack accordingly.
I was wearing a dress that I knew he liked; he’d said it matched my eyes perfectly.
I took extra time on my hair and makeup, but I was still ready with twenty minutes or so to spare.
I walked around the kitchen trying to come up with things to do when the doorbell rang.
I assumed it was Heath and he was early.
But when I opened the door, it was Tim. “Oh.” My stomach got sudden butterflies when I met his eyes and let my gaze take in his well-muscled form. He was just wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but it looked so damn good on him. “Hey. What are you doing here?”
He flinched a little.
“Sorry,” I said instantly. I laughed. “I didn’t mean it to sound like that.”
“No, it’s okay,” he ginned, making his dimples pop. “I get it. Mom said you asked Lex to look in on Anne and Gilbert this weekend. She forgot and went off with some friends and took your extra key with her.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, it’s just for one night. It’s probably no big deal…”
“I just came to get another key, Nat. I’ll tortoise sit for you.”
I smiled. “Great—they’ll love that.” I turned to rummage through the junk drawer, that in my dad’s house was almost as neat as any other drawer. It wasn’t hard to find the extra key. I turned to him, and I swear I caught him checking out my ass. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.”
Our hands touched as I handed it to him, and I felt that same little buzz of chemistry I’d come to expect. I wish it didn’t happen. It made it a whole hell of a lot harder to move on with someone who didn’t cause that feeling.
“Well, thanks,” I said, pulling my hands away quickly.
“Can I hang out for a while? I haven’t seen you all week.”
“Oh, sorry,” I looked at my watch, “but I’ve got a date. He’s on his way now.”
Tim’s eyes dropped to the luggage resting neatly against the wall. The smile faded from his handsome face. “Gotcha.” He raised a hand and turned to leave. “He’s a lucky guy,” he said so quietly I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right.
“We’ll hang out next week, okay?” We’d been doing more of that. It was hard in some ways, but in others it just felt normal.
“Sounds good,” he said, but he kept walking.
He hadn’t been gone long when the doorbell rang again. For a minute, I’d thought he’d come back. I opened the door expecting to see him.
But it was Heath. I hated myself for feeling disappointed. Heath was incredible looking in a suit. He looked hot as hell in scrubs, too, but this was just… extra. “You look great,” I said, smiling up at him.
“That’s my line,” he said, stepping close to hand me a dozen roses in a nice vase. “Happy anniversary, baby.”
My mouth dropped open. What?
He chuckled and shook his head a little. “I didn’t think you’d realized. We’ve been dating four months.”
Was that an anniversary people usually celebrated?
I’d only dated a couple of guys that long, but we really hadn’t been serious.
Were Heath and I serious? I hadn’t really thought so.
I knew that we were exclusive, but serious?
I wasn’t so sure I was onboard for that, and I’d assumed he was on the same page.
“Happy anniversary,” I said, trying to recover. “I don’t have anything for you…”
He took the roses back from me, set them on the foyer table, then grabbed me and kissed me. It was a good kiss—not sweet, but not exactly steamy, either. When he pulled back, he focused those gray eyes on me and said, “You’re all I need, Natalie.”
I smiled but found myself feeling slightly uncomfortable.
“Let’s go, baby.” He reached out his hand for me and I took it.
We got in his ‘weekend’ car. It was a silver Lexus LS 500 convertible, and it was beautiful.
I was just a bit overwhelmed and not at all sure how I felt about him having multiple cars.
I mean, he was a surgeon from a wealthy family.
An almost thirty-year-old with no real obligations, so there was no reason he shouldn’t have so much. It just felt… excessive. Or showy.
But I was being unkind. He was a down-to-earth guy for the most part.
“I’m guessing no top down tonight?” he asked with a grin as he held the door for me.
“I mean, I’m fine with it if you don’t mind eating dinner across from someone who looks like they have a woodland creature resting on their head where their hair should be.”
He gave me a slight smile. “Fine. No convertible this time. I’m starting to understand why those ladies wore scarves on their heads in old movies.”
We mainly talked about work on the way to the restaurant. He was taking me to a little out of the way Italian restaurant on the outskirts of Buckhead. I loved Italian—who didn’t?—so I was excited.
The part of town we were in almost looked like a little piece of Europe. There were cobbled sidewalks that were beautifully lit, and ivy all over the outside of the restaurant. I loved it. It had a very romantic feel.
Dinner, as usual, was nice. I found Heath easy to talk to.
He had a sense of humor, but he wasn’t funny in the way Tim often was.
I sometimes wondered if humor was something that faded as people grew up.
That’s what it seemed like with Heath, anyway.
He rarely cracked up at anything I said, and it had gotten to the point that I’d quit trying around him.
I sometimes wondered if he’d be happier with one of the nurses who was more… mature? calm? boring?... I wasn’t sure what the right word was. He just never seemed particularly happy with me when I was just trying to cut loose and be myself.
He was also more than a little horrified by Anne and Gilbert. When I’d taken Anne out to show him and let him hold her, he’d backed away from me so fast he’d fallen over an ottoman in the family room. “Get that thing away from me!” he’d barked at me.
Later that day I’d suggested that we might have different interests, but he’d held fast to wanting to date me.
I just hadn’t had him back over to hang out with my tortoises.
Everyone I’d ever dated before had seemed to think they were cool.
Or at least they’d pretended that they thought so.
Heath had practically run out of my house to get away from them.
Maybe he’d been attacked by a rogue turtle in his youth.
Dinner was drawing to a close, and I was looking forward to going back to the hotel room.
I was sure it was nice. Heath didn’t do anything halfway.
He also wasn’t the type to stay in a budget conscious room.
And I was in dire need of some sex, to be honest. I needed a stress release.
I’d been thinking so often about the upcoming decisions on the horizon for me, that I’d found myself getting stressed out about it.
It would be nice to just enjoy making love to a beautiful, kind man.
“Did you hear me?”
I looked up at him a little guiltily. “Sorry, my mind must’ve wandered.”
I realized that several waitstaff were heading our way. My eyes got big as I saw everything they were bringing. Extra candles, roses, Tiramisu, champagne and glasses, and the kind of blue gift bag almost anyone would realize was from Tiffany’s.
What. The. Actual. Fuck. Was he going to propose? I was suddenly sick at my stomach. Oh my God. Surely, he wouldn’t.
That would be… crazy. Four months? I still felt like I couldn’t even be myself around him.
The waitstaff set everything up for him and then disappeared with smiles on their faces. They seemed to know Heath. Had he done this sort of thing with other women? I mean it was fine unless I found out he had five or six ex-wives or something.
He reached for my hand. “Natalie, these past four months have been some of the best of my life. And it’s all because of you.”
It was?
“I’ve never dated anyone more beautiful, intelligent, or kind than you, and I find myself falling more and more in love with you every day.”
He did?
“I’m not going to propose…”
Oh, thank God.
“Yet.”
Jesus. I swallowed hard.
“But I do want to make my intentions clear. I’m serious about you, Natalie. I fully intend for you to be my wife one day.” He pushed the Tiffany bag towards me. “Open it.”
I was scared to. Was it some sort of pre-engagement ring? Was that even a thing past high school?