11

That long-distance hint at what Lydia would look like in that tight red dress had already taken a couple years off Case’s life, and he was fine with losing them.

“You’re not going to wear it out?” he said hopefully, as he insisted on paying for the world’s greatest wedding dress and the middle-of-the-road jacket and tie combo he’d found for himself. (They were a few steps up from what a kid would wear to his senior prom, though, which made them better than most of the store’s other options, and they didn’t look like you could bring in the harvest in them, which made them better than what he already had on.)

Lydia shook her head, and Case resigned himself to the sight of the dress to end all dresses being swathed in tissue paper and stuffed in a bag.

“You had a couple more stops you wanted to make, right?” she said. “I’ll change into it in the bathroom at the courthouse. No one wants to run errands in form-fitting velvet.”

That was probably true. And society as a whole might not survive too many hours of Lydia Vasquez in that dress.

He convinced Lydia to let him take their bag, and they headed back out onto the street. Mountainview’s downtown was small enough that they could walk everywhere else, especially now that the weather had cleared up. It was a bright, beautiful day, sunny but not too hot. Perfect for a wedding, in Case’s obviously unbiased decision. Perfect day to become a werewolf too. He was pretty damn happy with all the decisions he was making today.

His wolf nosed at him, and Case carefully checked in with it. He still wasn’t sure he’d always be able to do this without suddenly either hallucinating or blacking out, which made him wary of doing it this close to the road.

What’s up, buddy?

Lydia’s voice cut through the silence before he could get an answer. “Oh, sorry—wait out here for a second? I forgot something inside.”

It was a transparent lie, and her voice was so bright and stilted that she obviously knew it, which left Case curious and a little amused, but he said sure. If it was his business, she would tell him when she wanted to. She gave him a quick smile and slipped back inside, and he turned his attention back to his wolf.

What’s up, buddy? he said again.

Is getting married like getting mated?

I think so. Either way, we’re doing both.

This prospect seemed to encourage it. It came within a millisecond of wagging its tail; Case could tell it thought he hadn’t noticed that, but he had.

She could be our mate, it said happily.

There’s no “could” about it, I don’t think. She will be, in a couple of hours.

But she could be our true mate.

Case frowned. Is there a difference between a mate and a true mate?

It flicked its ears back, irritated at him for not knowing this, like it didn’t remember that he hadn’t had any access to it and its store of knowledge until a few hours ago.

Of course there’s a difference.

So what is it?

A true mate, his wolf proclaimed, is a true mate.

Case waited for some further explanation, but it seemed to think that covered everything.

Thanks , he said dryly. You really cleared that up for me.

His wolf, apparently indifferent to sarcasm, dedicated itself to licking its paws.

Lydia came back out of the shop, her face flushed and her purse swinging heavily from her shoulder. She seemed a little short of breath, but since she didn’t offer any reason for it, Case—who had learned his lesson about asking werewolves for clarification—decided to leave it alone.

“So what’s next?” Lydia said cheerfully.

“Bakery.” Case didn’t need any help finding that: it was helpfully marked with an enormous cupcake-shaped sign.

Lydia fell into step beside him. “I should warn you, I’m not a pastry chef or anything—my talents pretty much top out at making brownies from a box—but I don’t think anybody could make a wedding cake in a day.”

“I like brownies from a box, for what it’s worth.”

“Thrift stores and brownies from a box,” she said with a smile. “You’re easy to please, Case Jackson.”

He was, actually. Like he’d told Ruth, he liked a lot of people. He liked a lot of places. He guessed he was pretty laidback, and he naturally looked for the good in things and found it.

But lately—especially today—Case’s ordinary baseline contentment had felt different. Lighter and bubblier, maybe, like he wanted to dance through Mountainview’s downtown, not walk through it. He wasn’t just casually appreciating whatever life threw at him, he was ....

He was embracing how he was experiencing all of it with her .

He did like thrift stores and their books with no dust jackets, and he did like brownies made from a mix, but when he thought about them now, he mostly wanted to share them with Lydia. He wanted to know if she preferred the chewy edge pieces of a brownie bake or the softer, meltier center ones. He wanted to pass an unknown book back and forth between them as they took turns debating if, say, this camp counselor bedroom farce was going to be suddenly interrupted by a knife-wielding killer.

He was easy to please, yeah. He enjoyed a lot of things. But he suspected that with Lydia, he would enjoy them all even more.

With her, he’d even like the things he would’ve said nobody could like.

I want to stand in line with her at the DMV.

I want to clean out a fridge with her.

I want to untangle Christmas lights with her and spend an hour trying to find the one loose bulb that’s causing all the problems.

That was a hell of a lot more than him being easygoing. That was serious.

It was, Case realized, how you might expect a guy to feel about the woman he was about to marry. Maybe the wildest decision of his life was also the smartest.

He laced his fingers through hers before he could stop himself. When he looked down at her wide brown eyes and the gorgeous, thick dark fringe of her long eyelashes, it was hard to resist kissing her, so he didn’t. He wasn’t an idiot. She probably wasn’t fantasizing about long DMV dates with him, as nice as that would have been. Their feelings probably weren’t evenly matched. But that kiss in the truck had made it abundantly clear that they were on the same page physically .

Lydia’s mouth was lush and satiny, even when Case tried to stick to the corner of it so he didn’t drag her into a full-on middle-of-the-sidewalk make-out session. Even touching her made him dizzy.

Okay, this is considerably better than standing in line with her at the DMV.

“Mm,” Lydia said happily, her voice a pleasant buzz against his lips as he eased back but didn’t quite pull away. “So you really like brownies from a box, huh?”

He did. He was maybe even falling in love with them.

But he couldn’t say that. Brownies probably had too much going on right now to fall in love with him in return.

In lieu of a better, more truthful answer, he nodded. It was hard to say anything more with his heart in his throat the way it was.

“Anyway,” he said, with a faux-breeziness that he kind of doubted he pulled off, “I’ve heard that about wedding cakes too. But I figured we could still get some kind of wedding pastry. Cupcakes, maybe. Or wedding cookies.”

“That’s a good idea. I’m going to really be testing the structural integrity of my new skin-tight dress, though.”

Case could swear his heartbeat sped up a little at this reminder of the wonder dress, greatest of all dresses. He didn’t know if he could survive it showcasing even more of Lydia’s decolletage and rounded hourglass figure, but he would sure as hell do his best.

The bakery—Sweet Indulgences—was a pleasant surprise. Mountainview’s natural scenery may have been jaw-droppingly gorgeous, but most of the town was a little drab. Lydia had given him a short rundown of the village’s history, so Case knew it had been through some tough, lean times. It was slowly coming out of those hard years, but the signs of tension and hard-bitten frugality were everywhere. Mountainview’s struggles had left its citizens and aging alpha reluctant to take any risks, and even enjoying themselves—doing something just for fun—clearly felt chancy, even dangerous.

That attitude came through in how minimalist and utilitarian everything was. There were few flowerbeds around town. Most buildings didn’t show even a splash of color, not even in their awnings or shop windows, like they were afraid to look frivolous. Case had the feeling he knew exactly what they were worrying about: if all they were contributing was fun, were they really contributing anything at all?

Surrounded by all that self-imposed austerity, the pink frosting on Sweet Indulgence’s cupcake sign felt like a bold declaration of purpose.

The inside of the bakery took that stance as far as it possibly could. Everything here was soft, easy, and meant to be enjoyed. The air was delicately scented with vanilla. The walls, floor tiles, café-style tables and chairs were all warm pastels. Best of all, the glass-fronted display cases were chock-full of mouthwatering desserts.

Sweet Indulgences didn’t skimp on the practical or savory sides of baking, either—Case clocked plenty of fresh-baked bread, from sourdough to rye and everything in between, along with quiches, pretzels, pepperoni rolls, and pasties—but the focus was clearly exactly where the bakery’s name had suggested it would be.

Good. Lydia deserved some sweet indulgences. Besides, a wedding practically required them.

The woman behind the counter perked up immediately at their arrival. “Welcome to Sweet Indulgences! How can I sweeten your day— Lydia ?”

Lydia smiled. “Hi, Polly.” In an undertone, she added to Case, “She’s pack, so you don’t have to worry about giving anything away. But just in case she gets customers while we’re in here, we should probably play it safe.”

No problem. He still wasn’t that used to talking about werewolves anyway.

That’s sad , his wolf said solemnly. Everyone should talk about werewolves.

Case mentally gave it a consoling pat on the head and turned his attention to Polly.

“I’ve barely seen you since high school,” Polly was saying. “I was starting to think you didn’t have a sweet tooth at all. Or—” She turned to Case with a mischievous look. “Or are you here because of his sweet tooth?”

Lydia laughed. “A little bit of both. That is, I do have a sweet tooth, I just haven’t done much about it over the years, and he has one too.” She ushered Case forward. “Case, this is Polly Simpson. Polly, this is Case Jackson, my—fiancé.”

Polly had to be the most exuberant person Case had ever met, because she literally clapped her hands with excitement at this.

“Oh, congratulations! Have you guys set a date yet?”

Case stifled a laugh by coughing into his fist, and Lydia gave him a light, friendly jab with her elbow.

“Sort of,” she said to Polly. It sounded like she was suppressing a giggle or two of her own. “We were thinking, um, today?”

Polly’s jaw dropped. “Wait, did you say—I mean, I know you were looking for a co-alpha to help out with Reeve, so you’d want to get it done fast, but ... today ?!”

“It’s a small wedding,” Lydia said hastily. “Just the two of us and a judge.. If it were a big wedding, we would have contacted you a long time ago to get an actual wedding cake.”

Polly waved her off. “Oh, don’t worry about that. Wedding cakes are an absolute pain in the ass to make, anyway. But you do want a little something, right?”

As soon as they confirmed that they did, Polly’s hand-clap of delight escalated to an actual squeal of glee. She immediately shooed them over to one of the spindly tables and flipped her OPEN sign over to CLOSED.

“You don’t need to go to any trouble on our account—”

Polly waved off their protests. “It’s your wedding day. You may not have a big-ass cake, but you deserve a big-ass cake tasting . My treat. I never get to do things like this.”

She was, Case decided, some kind of cake-related fairy godmother. Before he could say “bibbity-bobbity-boo,” she had weighed three separate tables down with samples of the best Sweet Indulgences had to offer.

“Start wherever you like, and let me know if you have any questions,” she said, beaming at them. “I’ll go do some accounting behind the counter, so I’ll be within earshot if you need help, but I won’t be hanging over you.”

She bustled back to the register and tucked herself away, as promised, leaving Case and Lydia to do their best to sort through an overwhelming number of pastries.

“Where do we even start?” Lydia said.

She sounded like she was joking, but Case saw a genuine glint of budding panic in her eyes. Not only had Lydia never stepped foot in Sweet Indulgences, she wasn’t used to getting any lower-case sweet indulgences, period. Having a whole truckload of them dumped on her at once had to be overwhelming. Any second now, a lifetime’s worth of self-sacrificing practicality might reassert itself, and she’d decide that she should grab the nearest cupcake and call it a day.

Case didn’t want that to happen. Lydia deserved better, and it was past time someone made sure she got it.

So he grabbed the nearest cupcake—which actually wasn’t a cupcake at all, but some kind of powdered-sugar-dusted cookie with a raspberry jam heart stamped into it—and handed it to her.

“Here. We start here.”

That hint of panic on the horizon disappeared, and Lydia gave him a warm smile. She broke the soft, crumbly cookie in two and passed him half.

“We both have to try it, or it’s not much of a wedding cookie tasting, is it?”

“Good point.”

“I like the heart,” Lydia said, giving the sticky jam a delicate tap with her finger. Then she licked it clean, something which made Case’s mouth instantly dry up. “The jam’s good on its own, too.”

“Sure,” he said hoarsely. “I love jam. Jam’s great.”

He shoved the cookie in his mouth before he could do any more rhapsodizing about the excellence of jam, and— God . Okay, this was excellent jam. It deserved all the praise he could possibly heap on it, even if he’d really been talking about the sight of Lydia’s eyes half-closing in pleasure as she licked it off her finger.

Even without that tantalizing visual in mind, though, the cookie was delicious. It was sweet and buttery, and the contrast between the powdered sugar and the tart raspberry jam added the perfect, lingering finish.

Case had never been much of a wine guy, but he would happily talk about aftertaste and light undertones of flavor when it came to this cookie. Damn.

“I agree with whatever your face is doing right now,” Lydia said solemnly. “Polly? What are these little sandwich cookies with the jam hearts on them?”

“Linzer cookies,” Polly said at once. “Good choice, and the hearts are cute for a wedding. I’ll put some in a box for you.”

“So that’s it?”

“No,” Case and Polly said at the same time. She gave him a “you go ahead” hand wave and went back to her ledgers.

Case cleared his throat. At this point, he would technically be more than happy to eat nothing but linzer cookies for the rest of his life, but he didn’t want Lydia to walk out of here having only tried one cookie, even if it was an exceptional one.

“We probably want an assortment,” Case said. “That has to be the fun of having something smaller than a wedding cake, right? Variety?”

Lydia considered this and then nodded. “That makes sense. Want to try a macaron?”

Polly had given them a couple of the brightly colored French cookies, so Lydia took a lemon one while Case took a pistachio.

These were instantly approved as additions to their wedding order, and they added vanilla, salted caramel, and matcha ones into the mix too.

Polly had terrific cream horns and eclairs, but Lydia reluctantly vetoed them as being potentially messy enough to put her dress in danger. She didn’t want to try to scrub pastry cream out of velvet, and Case could sympathize with that.

Lydia wasn’t wild about the baklava, but when she saw how much Case liked it, she insisted on adding a couple pieces to their order. He did the same thing when it came to the triangular poppy seed turnover-style cookies that he was lukewarm on but she clearly loved.

“They’re hamantaschen,” Polly said, wrapping a few up in wax paper. “Usually I only serve them during Purim, but I got a whim and made a batch this morning. Now I’m glad I did.”

Finally, they tackled the cupcakes. Polly had a few that were mini, but most of them were approximately the size of Case’s head. Bigger, even, since they came with enormous caps of buttercream frosting.

Lydia scraped most of the frosting off hers, but Case tried his as it was. He had to confess that even though it would probably send him into sugar shock, it might be worth it. Nothing compared to the linzer cookies and the baklava, in his opinion, but this cupcake came pretty close. They requested a couple of mini chocolate cupcakes, and when Polly saw the heap of frosting Lydia had left on her plate, she insisted they take a couple of dense, deliciously spicy-sweet gingerbread cupcakes that only had squiggles of royal icing on top.

“Are we even going to be able to carry all of this out of here?” Lydia whispered to him as she watched Polly cheerfully box everything up for them.

“I’m very strong,” Case said, with as much dignity as someone who’d pigged out on buttercream frosting could possibly muster. “I’m sure I can lift it.”

“That’s good. And obviously carrying something so heavy will burn all the calories we just consumed, leaving us open to consuming even more.”

“Exactly. That’s science.”

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 so serious. ”

“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 very good situation. 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 more than 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.”