He realized she’d seen his frown and was trying to reassure him. “Yeah,” he said quickly, “I’m sure that’ll work, and I’ll have a look. I was thinking ... you guysshouldhave a hotel here, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know Mountainview’s a small town, and it’s not exactly on the way to anywhere, but the views are breathtaking. I’ve been all over the country, and trust me, this kind of natural beauty is hard to come by. People would come here just for the view. If the town’s been struggling to make ends meet, a little tourist trade probably wouldn’t go amiss.”
“Shifters,” Lydia said, with a resigned shrug. “There’s always been a big emphasis on us keeping ourselves to ourselves, as my grandmother would put it. Wendy’s been wanting to open a B&B for years, but everybody knows Ruth says it’s not safe, so she can’t get the funding.”
Case could understand wanting space and privacy. He liked to keep his private life private too, and he’d always been big—too big, maybe—on boundaries and compartmentalization. But there was a difference between not spilling your guts to everyone you met and doing your best to never meet anyone at all.
Mountainview already had citizens who weren’t shifters, and he’d seen that pack members already tried to keep their voices down when they were discussing shifter business out in the open. Would things really change that much if they got a few tourists in to boost the local economy? Was it caution keepingthem from welcoming the outside world in, or was it an old, unreasonable fear?
Even Lydia seemed to take it for granted that things around here couldn’t change. She was trying to preserve the order that had already existed, not create a new one.
But a more prosperous Mountainview could mean a Mountainview pack that wasn’t as fragile. One that was able to rally behind its alpha-in-waiting and help fight off a challenger it didn’t want any more than she did.
Lydia had been ready to marryanyonewho would aid her in the battle against Reeve. She’d been ready to make her life dramatically worse for Mountainview. It seemed to Case that the town should at least be willing to make its collective lifebetterfor her. Anyone would be willing to do that!
And if she’s not going to ask for it, I will.
That was his first instinct. But he didn’t know if she really wanted him to get involved. It was hard to say what their partnership was supposed to look like.
Partnership. Marriage.
Mate bond, his wolf insisted.That matters more than anything else.
That’s just another way of saying a marriage.
That was what Lydia had said, anyway, and she wouldn’t have lied to him. But for some reason his wolf said,No, very steadily and surely, and it didn’t sound like it was lying either.
That was more weirdness than he had time to get into right now, and he didn’t have time to argue Mountainview into entering the modern world, either. What hecoulddo was book a hotel room.
He found a lodge two towns over that looked picturesque enough to be honeymoon-worthy, and he showed it to Lydia for approval.
“That’s gorgeous,” she said, her face lighting up as she scrolled down through the photos of cloud-like white duvets, mouthwatering room service options, and a heated outdoor pool that shimmered black-and-gold under a full harvest moon. “Let me—oh, Case, it’s really expensive.”
He’d checked the price already. “It’s fine,” he said firmly, fighting off his own sense of embarrassment about talking about money, especially when it seemed like bragging. “I’ll pay for it.”
“We should split it.”
“We’re married now,” Case pointed out. His heart gave an exuberant, dizzying flip-flop at the words, but he tried not to show it. He felt like he should be matter-of-fact for this. “What’s mine is yours.”
Lydia gave him a surprisingly searching look, and he tried not to hide from that inquisitive gaze.
“I don’t want to take too much,” she said.
“You won’t.”
“And what’s mine is yours too, if you want it.”
She sounded a bit like she wasn’t sure that he would. He suspected it was because Mountainview was wearing her down: she loved her home and her pack, but she had a hard time thinking of what someone else would see in it. It didn’t seem reasonable to her that Case would look around this rundown little village with its glumness and worries and see a place that was uniquely worth staying in, more than anywhere he’d ever been before. He guessed he could understand that. Even he would’ve had a hard time explaining why Mountainview drew him in the way he did.
You can explain it fine.He didn’t need his wolf to point that out to him; he could do it himself.You may not know the whole story, but you know the biggest part. You like Mountainview because it’s home for Lydia, so you want it to be home for you too.
But again, what if Lydia didn’t want him to be at home here?
What if, what if, what if,his wolf grumbled.I know I just got here, but I feel like you weren’t always this unsure of yourself.
I never had anyone else to think about before.
