Page 30 of Fall Wedding With the Mountain Man
But it looked it was probably going to be him.
Because even though this was my opportunity, I was currently behind in my caseload. I had been ever since the trip to Deer Springs.
My mind was stuck back there somehow. Or maybe it was my heart. My pussy was definitely going through some withdrawals, too.
Rick huffed and grabbed the files we’d been reviewing, stalking off to his own office.
But I couldn’t bring myself to care. I thought of Deer Springs for the thousandth time today.
Shelby and her new life. Leona, Frankie… and Hudson.
Everything I’d worked so hard towards felt meaningless now. All I wanted was Hudson.
Is this what happened to Shelby?
I didn’t know what to do. Or how to fix it.
Five minutes later, Rick came back, cursing under his breath. Then he asked, “Should I ask Caroline to sit in with me instead?”
“No. No. I’ve got this.”
“Do you? Because ever since you went to your friend’s wedding, you’ve been fucking up here at work.”
That wasn’t true. I just wasn’t putting in eighty hours a week anymore. There were late-night phone calls to Hudson. Video calls to see Shelby. Half my heart was in the Ozarks, stolen by my best friend, a tiny kitten, and a burly, sexy mountain man. I even missed Frankie and Bandit, too. What I wouldn’t give right now for one more dog lick.
When I didn’t say anything in response, Rick scoffed and left my office.
He knew I wasn’t competition anymore. He’d already won the promotion, even if the law firm hadn’t made a final decision yet.
How had I never noticed the stress before?
I was at home, which was currently a beautiful old pre-war garden apartment in Harlem that I rented for an obscene amount every month.
My entire life was a question mark right now.
Ever since middle school, I’d had an unwavering focus on becoming a lawyer. And not justanylawyer, but one at a prestigious law firm in the epicenter of commerce, New York City.
I’d dreamed of the life. Vision-boarded it. Then worked hard to achieve it.
And now? Now?
After all this work, how could I want something differentnow?
I do though. I want Hudson. And Leona. And Shelby. And Frankie. And Autumn Harvest Festivals. And everything else that I don’t know about yet that makes up life in the Ozarks.
The only question was, did I have the strength to follow my new dream, even if it meant blowing up my old one?
It was two in the morning, and I was pacing around my apartment, full of frenetic energy.
Giving up one dream to follow another was hard. Harder than I’d thought.
And would he want me?
What if everything we’d experienced was just a fling to him?
I knew in my heart that it wasn’t, though. He hadn’t asked me to stay, but I knew it was because he didn’t want to hurt me by asking. He knew my life was here.
Or… it had been here.
