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Britt gaped at him.

“Well,” Maggie said thoughtfully, “they have been in the same room for a couple of hours and haven’t come to blows.”

“That’s a collaboration in itself, isn’t it?” Joey said, her tone a hair too bright.

They were teasing her. All of them. As if they found the antagonism between her and Cody a source of great amusement. And she found she didn’t like that idea. But she tried for a thoughtful tone, like Maggie’s, when she said, “I think for a collaboration both parties have to be aware, don’t they?”

Maggie gave her a look then that she couldn’t interpret at all. “You two are very aware. Of most things, anyway.”

Britt had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

*

“Yes, strictly element and composition wise, it would be very dramatic,” Kaitlyn was saying as Cody walked up to them. Leave it to those two to carry on some esoteric artistic conversation at a party. But he was smiling, because Kaitlyn had come such a long way in a short time, from the shy, almost beaten-down woman she’d been to this, a welcomed and confident member of the Raffertys. And because Ry was obviously so darned happy it fairly radiated from him.

Ry nodded at her assessment. “It would be Dorado and Flyer.”

“What would?” Cody asked, wondering what Ry’s own gleaming black horse and Chance’s flashy palomino had to do with anything.

They both turned to look at him. “You,” Kaitlyn said. He blinked.

“And Britt,” Ry added, as blithely as if discussing some perfectly natural idea. Which this assuredly was not.

“Wash your mouth out,” Cody said ungraciously.

“We were speaking visually, of course,” Kaitlyn said. “About color contrast.”

He grimaced at them both. “I don’t know which of you to worry about most—you trying to get us to pose for a photo, or you doing a painting.”

Kaitlyn was a brilliant photographer who could probably even make a couple as impossible as he and Roth look like they belonged. Ry could probably make them look inevitable, and he wouldn’t need them to pose to do it, because he had inherited that from their father as well, that amazing memory for detail that he was able to replicate on canvas.

And you are going insane.

If this was anything other than his mother’s birthday party, he’d have bailed a while ago. Like right after he’d realized the woman he’d been about to approach was Roth.

“Oh, I’d never try to get you two to pose together,” Kaitlyn said. “My equipment is too expensive to replace.”

“Exactly,” Ry agreed. “That would be like throwing a pair of cranky pit bulls into the proverbial pit.”

Cody wasn’t sure how he should feel about that assessment. “How’s Nick?” he asked abruptly, not caring if the subject change was obvious.

Kaitlyn smiled warmly, as she always did when the subject of her father-by-choice came up. “Great. That pacemaker has made all the difference in the world.”

“I’m glad. I liked him,” he said honestly.

“He’s going to be after you to build him a computer,” she warned, but with a smile.

He grinned at her. “We already talked about it.”

She looked surprised but pleased. Then, as something across the room caught his eye, Ry leaned in a little.

“You notice Shane and Lily?” he whispered conspiratorially.

Cody’s brow furrowed. “I saw them, yeah, but only to say hello and thanks for coming. Why?”

“They’re joined at the hip tonight.”

“Aren’t they usually?” Cody said it wryly, but he had a healthy respect that he considered well earned, for Last Stand’s police chief.