Polly gave them a little grin. “It’s good to see you like this, Lydia,” she said sincerely, pushing the pastel bakery box across the counter towards Case. (She was clearly taking his word for it about how strong he was, so he had to hope he wouldn’t make a fool of himself.) “You two are obviously good for each other. I know it’s none of my business, but you were always soserious.”
“I’ve had a lot to be serious about,” Lydia pointed out.
Polly’s face fell slightly. “I know. I’m sorry Ruth’s in such bad shape.”
“And Reeve.”
“Oh, if Reeve comes to town, I’m moving the fuck out,” Polly said, blunt but upbeat at the same time. “As far as I’m concerned, other people can do the same. Better that than forcing you into a bad situation—but Case here is clearly a verygoodsituation. It’s nice to see you having fun with somebody.”
Lydia blushed. To Case’s delight, she also leaned against him and let her head rest against his shoulder.
“He’s easy to have fun with. Easy to be with, period.”
He didn’t think she was putting on an act for Polly. She wasn’t that kind of person.
Case leaned on her, too, his cheek against her hair.
Ditto, he wanted to say, but there was nothing romantic about “ditto.” Actually, he guessed he wanted to say a lot morethan that, but he wasn’t sure how much of it she wanted to hear, and he wasn’t sure how much he should really say for the first time with an audience around. Even one as friendly as Polly.
With all that in mind, he went with the safe option.
Which was, in fact:
“Ditto.”
12
Lydia managed to wrangle the thrift store bag away from Case now that he was stuck with the much heavier and much more cumbersome bakery bag, and she felt proud of herself for achieving that much. It was obvious that he would’ve kept hauling both of them around if she’d let him.
Someone had to convince him not to shoulder everything alone, and since she was his fiancée and would be his wife—and mate—in another hour or two, that someone should obviously be her.
Don’t think about how it won’t last, she told herself.The sun’s shining, the pack’s happy, and Reeve’s in a bad mood. And I have a killer dress, a sugar high, and Case. For once in my life, I’m going to live in the moment and be happy. It’s my wedding day, after all.
“Any other stops you want to make?” Lydia asked.
She was torn between hoping Case would have an infinite number of stops in mind, so many that their pre-wedding errands would somehow mess with the concept of linear time and stretch the day out like taffy, and hoping that he would want to rush to the courthouse because, like her, he was actually looking forward to it.
It wasn’t until he answered that she realized one possibility had definitely had the edge for her, and it was the one he’d gone with.
“Nope,” he said happily. “Let’s go get married.”
Let’s go get marriedhad to be her new favorite sentence.
It was a passion that could even survive having to stand in a long line for the marriage license.
There was no separate office for handling marriage licenses, not here. That kind of thing was for big cities, and this was avillage that barely needed traffic lights. In Mountainview, the same tiny group of overworked courthouse employees handled everything, and they handled it all in one place, at one time. Lydia and Case were in line behind a bunch of people who needed their driver’s licenses renewed.
Case, for some reason, found this delightful.
“I didn’t realize you didn’t have a separate DMV here,” he said, when she asked him what he was getting such a kick out of.
“Mountainview’s so small we barely have a separate anything. We’re lucky Polly’s bakery wasn’t in the corner of the thrift shop.”
Case faked a shudder. “Selling gently used pastries?”
That really was a horrifying thought. “Let’s say they’d all have to be at least a day old, but not necessarily more than that.”
“That’s not so bad.” He hoisted the bag up a little, jostling it to draw her attention to it. “I bet everything here will still be delicious tomorrow. Actually, it had better be, because if we eat it all today, I think we might die.”
