Lydia grinned. “You might still wind up getting your clothes torn or frayed sometimes. The shifting process can be hard on anything you try to bring along, even if it doesn’t rip it to shreds. That’s why it’s best to stick with durable stuff.” She gestured to her flannel shirt. “But it’s not too bad. And if you have anything in your pockets, it should be safe.”
Ruth leaned back in bed. “Nurse Andrea can be here in five minutes, and she can sit at my bedside just as well as you can. Why don’t the two of you have this conversation on your way to the courthouse?”
Courthouse?Case almost said, but then he realized what she was talking about. They would have to get a marriage license. Montana didn’t have a waiting period, so they could get hitched as soon as they had the paperwork, if they wanted.
They could be married before they even came back to the house.
As willing as Case was, now that their vows were right on the horizon, it all felt horribly rushed. It wasn’t like he was afraid to go through with it, but there was so much they didn’t know about each other yet. In Declan’s office, their marriage of convenience had felt more like an unusual kind of job offer, but now that he’d spent more time with Lydia, it all felt different and a lot more real.
Be honest with yourself. You mean that now that you’re getting feelings for her, it feels a lot more real.
He still wanted to marry her. But what that marriage would mean ... it was like that had already shifted, at least from his point of view. And shehadasked him out on a date, so he was pretty sure that it wasn’t all practicality and self-sacrifice from her side, either.
In that case, this hasty, businesslike wedding wasn’t the one he wanted to give her. He wished he could make it more special.
But there was no way to look at Ruth and guess at how much time they had. He could feel optimistic about her hanging on a little longer, and he did, but he couldn’t blame Lydia for not wanting to take a chance on it. If they weren’t married and mated by the time Reeve challenged her, Case wouldn’t count as co-alpha, and all of this would be for nothing.
He looked at her, and she looked back at him. Her dark brown eyes showed some of the same furor of mixed emotions he was feeling, but there was a little twitch of a smile around the beautiful bow of her mouth.
Yeah, it’s ridiculous, and it’s not exactly ideal, that smile seemed to say.But at least we’re in it together.
It made Case smile back.
“Okay,” he said. “Courthouse it is.”
10
So this was it. This was going to be her wedding day.
“Do you want to—” Lydia made a complicated hand gesture that she hoped somehow conveyed “go ahead and marry me after we apply for the marriage license” so she wouldn’t have to stumble through the awkwardness of spelling it all out.
She didn’t know why she apparently had this unconscious belief that turning the conversation into a bizarre, unexplained game of charades was going to make thingslessweird.
Great job dodging that awkwardness! You definitely pulled it off!
She hurriedly opened the door of her truck and slipped inside, using the beat before Case joined her to try to calm down a notch. One look at the rearview mirror confronted her with an absolutely flaming blush.
Case climbed in too, and Lydia was both relieved and chagrined to catch a hint of pink on his cheeks as well.
She wasn’t going to make him be the one to say it, so she tried her question again, choosing her words more carefully this time.
“I looked it up online, and there’s no waiting period here. As soon as we have the marriage license, we can have the wedding. Do you ....” She swallowed. “Do you want to go ahead and do that today?”
“Doyouwant that?”
He kept making the assumption that whatever she wanted was more important. It was sweet of him, and it was appealingly chivalrous in a gallant, old-fashioned way, but it made it hard for her to know what he was thinking.
“I asked you first,” Lydia said lightly.
Case gave her a quick, reflexive smile. “I was guessing that you wouldn’t want to take any chances when it comes to your grandmother’s health. If we wait, and something happens ....”
Now it was his turn to trail off, but he had a better reason than she had. He was leaving his sentence unfinished out of kindness, not embarrassment.
As awful as it sounded, Lydia had almost forgotten about that ticking clock. She’d been focused on getting everything done and dusted because that was how she was—items on a to-do list needed to be checked off, and there was no point in procrastination. Sometimes she thought she should have been a shark instead of a wolf. Some part of her always felt like she should constantly be moving forward. She got tunnel vision that way.
She would have been happy to give him time if he’d wanted it, though. That was why she’d asked. But unfortunately, he had a point. If she decided to implement their own waiting period, even though the state didn’t require one, and Ruth died—
She would never forgive herself. She would also probably die, because she wasn’t going to yield to Reeve as long as there was breath in her body, but that bothered her less than leaving her pack to be slowly crushed in his iron fist.
