Lydia could feel her curiosity about him—and, to be frank, her attraction to him—starting to distract her, pulling her back from the brink of whatever blues-induced breakdown she’d been about to have. She took another swig of her cider for courage and then said, “I’m Lydia, by the way. Lydia Vasquez.”
“Case Jackson.”
Case. Short for Casey, she was guessing? She liked it. There was a solidity to it that suited him.
Oh, get a hold of yourself. You don’t even know him.
To her surprise, her wolf intervened, even though it usually didn’t take much interest in purely human affairs:You know that he noticed you were upset, and that he bothered to do something about it. That’s not nothing.
True. And she knew that this couldn’t be how he’d planned on spending his evening, but he was still hanging out here on the porch with her without complaining about it, which wasn’t nothing either. He didn’t seem anxious for her to say that she was okay so he could escape back inside. He was content to stand here and keep her company. That was a rare quality.
It was also one she shouldn’t take advantage of.
“You don’t have to stay out here. I didn’t mean to take you away from the music.”
Case shrugged, letting that roll off him like it was nothing. “It’s not like you dragged me out here.” His smile was so easy and charming that she felt like seeing it made everything better. “Besides, if it helps, it’s a big improvement over the last time I was at a live show.”
“What happened then?”
He touched his head. “Somebody cracked me with a beer bottle and I woke up in jail.”
He sounded rueful, not upset, but Lydia was already prepared to be outraged on his behalf.
“They threw you in jail for being thevictim? I always thought this town was better than that!”
“Oh, not here. Over in Oregon. I move around a lot.”
“That must be incredible,” Lydia said before she could stop herself. She could hear the throb of longing in her voice: thirty-plus years of pent-up wanderlust and wearying responsibility briefly escaping into the atmosphere like a cloud of steam.
She’d always known that pack alphas’ lives were about duty, not freedom or pleasure, and she had accepted that a long time ago. She could never leave Mountainview for too long, and Ruthhad to be even more careful than that. When Ruth was gone, Lydia would be as trapped by obligation as her grandmother was.
It was part of the job, and there was no use wishing it was otherwise. But for a second, she wished she could leave her home behind—not forever, just for a week or two—and move through the world as easily as Case seemed to.
“Uh, except for the beer bottle part,” she added hastily, both to him and to her own daydreams. “That bit doesn’t sound like it was much fun. Did he just not like your face?”
She found it hard to imagine anyone reacting badly to Case’s face, but maybe he’d been jealous.
“Technically, he didn’t like that I shoved him,” Case said, with a wry twist to his mouth, “but I was trying to stop him from kicking somebody’s service dog.”
Thatriled up her wolf, understandably enough: a dog was practically a cousin. It let out a low growl inside her head, and she adamantly seconded it.
“He tried to kick a dog? What an asshole! I’m glad you shoved him. I hope it hurt.”
“Probably not as much as it should have, but I did punch him after the bottle thing.”
“Good,” Lydia said fiercely. “Was the dog okay?”
“As far as I know.” A melancholy look flitted across his face. “That’s the problem with moving around so much, I guess. You don’t always know how things work out.”
A couple left the Rip-Roar arm-in-arm, sidling past Lydia and Case as they crossed the porch to head to their car. She had been so wrapped up in Case that it felt strange to see anyone else, to be reminded that the rest of the world was still spinning on. All her problems were still there, even if she’d temporarily forgotten about them. It was like a mysterious bubble had been popped.
But somehow it was better than it was before. If the panic attack had been lurking around the corner waiting to pounce on her all over again, Case’s presence had somehow scared it off. She still felt tired and worried and scared, but he had made her feel—
Lydia’s thoughts skidded to an abrupt halt.
What had she said to Ruth a couple hours ago?
You know I literally saw him kick a dog once?
