That was what she’d always heard. She’d just never thought it could possibly apply to her.
She watched Case walk out ahead of her. She couldn’t believe that she’d hurt him. It was tearing her heart to pieces to think about it.
She gathered up her courage and turned her attention back to her wolf.
Do you think, she said,that Case could be my true mate? My fated mate?
Oh, it said, with a surprised delight that resonated through her, like a gong strike reverberating on all her nerve endings. Joy seemed to ring through her body.Oh, you’re right. He is. That makes sense now. We belong to each other. Of course he’s our true mate. Of course he’s your true love.
18
Once Case really gave his wolf free rein, it had no problem leading him straight to the water.
That wasn’t entirely why he let it take control, though. He felt guilty about it, too. He needed to learn how to work with his wolf and handle its instincts and senses as naturally as he did his own, and that wasn’t exactly what he was doing. He was letting it take the lead so he could lick his wounds. He wouldn’t be much help to Lydia if he didn’t learn what he needed to know.
That was why he was here. She had asked him to marry her because she needed his help, not because she loved him.
Maybe they would wind up having something more. They already had more than they’d started with, and heknewthat: Lydia was self-contained, but she was honest, and she wouldn’t hint at feelings she didn’t have.
It was ridiculous to feel hurt because she hadn’t fallen head-over-heels for him the way he had for her. By any ordinary standards, she was right. Theyhadpractically been strangers back then. That didn’t mean she thought they still were. In fact, she’d given him a hundred signs that she didn’t.
He stopped at the edge of the riverbank, breathing in the scent and taste of the sweet, crystal-clear water. The river sparkled in the sunlight, with little flecks of white foam shining like snow.
Case raised his head and took in the waterfall. It was even more striking than he’d imagined, and he could see why Lydia used to make trips to Toplin’s Green to see it. It fell down several neat shelves of rock, the water looking white against the dark shale.
It had that silky appearance waterfalls got sometimes, where it was like a rippling piece of fabric, inviting touch. It churned upa fine mist when it hit the riverbed, and Case could see the arcs of a dozen tiny rainbows.
Lydia caught up to him, falling in at this side. He’d spent so many years on his own, but it already felt natural to have her next to him.
He wanted to go back to every beautiful vista he’d ever seen in his travels so he could see them with her. What would she think about Monument Valley, with its soaring, castle-like expanses of red-orange sandstone? Or the redwoods in California, which made everything human feel impossibly tiny and short-lived? He couldn’t believe he’d missed the chance to get her opinions on the places he’d loved. He would have to fix that, if she would let him.
“Case—”
“I’m sorry,” Case said. “I shouldn’t have left you behind like that.”
That didn’t sound like enough of an apology. She deserved some kind of explanation. But it was hard to say why he’d walked off without telling her he was in love with her, and he didn’t want to make things hard for her.
He went with something that was equally true, if not quite the whole story.
“I didn’t like the idea that it would have been that easy for it to have gone wrong,” he said. “If my wolf and I hadn’t wanted the same thing, it would have faded away, right? I wouldn’t have been able to turn and get to the porch in time to ....”
His throat closed up around the words.
As long as he lived, he would never forget the image of Reeve looming over her, shaggy and enormous, long lines of drool falling from his open mouth as he’d literallysalivatedover the chance to get Lydia out of the way with one snap of his powerful jaws.
Case had already known that Reeve was trouble. Now, though ... now he’d seen firsthand exactly how horrible and unscrupulous he was.
He wasn’t going to let Reeve have Mountainview. And if Reeve made a single move to hurt Lydia ever again, Case was going to tear him apart.
Lydia slipped her hand into his, and she finished his sentence for him:
“In time to save me. But you did, Case.”
He exhaled, and some of the tightness in his chest seemed to loosen. Yeah. He’d gotten there in time.
“And—” Lydia squeezed his hand a little tighter. “I was thinking about what I said. About how we were strangers, and it didn’t make any sense that you could convince yourliteral animal instinctsto save me.”
Case felt his face heat up. “I overreacted—”
