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What was it about all these guys who’d gotten hog-tied anyway? Could they just not stand to see a guy still footloose? First Mom, then his brothers, and now Chief Highwater? But that wasn’t the crazy part, the crazy part was the barest idea that he and Roth—

He broke off the thought fiercely. That was the most ridiculous idea ever. He’d rather spend his life playing the futile game of tic-tac-toe. Against himself. With a pencil.

*

Britt was trying to focus on her task list for tomorrow—Saturday was just another workday for her—when her mother said, “Well that was a lovely evening.” They were making the short drive out of the Rafferty gate and back through their own just down the road. “We should do that more often,” her mother went on. “We’ll have to have them all over soon.”

Warn me so I can be gone.

Britt sucked in a breath and managed to say nothing aloud from the back seat.

“And I’m proud of you,” Mom added with a glance back at her. “You managed to act like an adult all evening, even with Cody being in the spotlight.”

Britt’s brow furrowed. “You think I’m jealous of him? What am I, a little kid?”

“Around him, you act it,” her father pointed out.

“Oh, for—” She broke off what she’d been going to say, afraid it might prove their point. “I can be civil. And fair. That video turned out great.”

That did as she’d hoped and got them off talking about the reason for the gathering. And besides, it was true. She couldn’t deny that. The combination of the video—from one of those dratted drones—and Sean’s graphics that framed it, and Kane’s incredible music, was amazing.

Which reminded her of the conversation she’d overheard, about the music Cody had created for Ry, a custom reinterpretation of an old masterpiece that Ry said was his working music, both inspiring and energy-producing.

She’d never denied Cody was good at what he did, she’d only said he was obsessed. And she still thought she was right about that.

Just as you are, about your chosen path.

Her father had said that after hearing about her first encounter with one of the Coder’s flying beasts, when she’d been so furious she’d come looking for something to do to work it off.

She hadn’t liked the comparison. Horses were living, breathing things, beautiful, and worth obsession. More than a concoction of metal, plastic, and batteries, anyway. But one of those concoctions had produced that beautiful piece she’d just seen. That beautiful portrayal of this country she loved.

That beautiful recreation of the painting Kyle Rafferty had done.

In his own way, Cody had honored his father just as his brothers had. It was one of the kindest thoughts she’d ever had about the guy, and she wasn’t at all sure she liked it.

She kept her mouth shut the rest of the way home.

Chapter Seventeen

“Never let a computer know you’re in a hurry,” Cody muttered as he watched the little icon spin.

He tapped a finger on the desk, waiting for the seemingly endless upload to finish. It was high-quality video and sound, and the city server’s upload speed left a lot to be desired for that kind of thing. He should have just done it from home, but the mayor had wanted to see it before it went public. And since the guy had been willing to come into city hall on a Saturday morning, Cody could hardly complain.

As it had turned out, the mayor had brought friends, and when they all reacted much as the group at the house had last night upon seeing the video, the man had had little choice but to simply give Cody the go-ahead.

The spinning finally stopped. He leaned forward and made a couple of tweaks. Then he exited the program and loaded the city’s festival website. And grinned as the video started and ran perfectly. He grabbed his phone and sent a text to his mother, who was standing by at home ready to run a test from her end. A couple of minutes later he got back a hugely smiling emoji. He then tried it on his phone, because sometimes those settings needed adjusting. But it also ran perfectly, sized down for the smaller screen yet everything still readable.

He was grinning as he exited the website, removed his drive from the city machine, and got up. It was only 9:18 a.m., and he was done with the big chore for the day. Heck, for the month. He walked away with a spring in his step, looking forward to a day free to dig into the work that meant the most to him.

There was already traffic on Main Street as he pulled out of the city hall lot. Bluebonnet season was officially here. Tourists galore in Last Stand for the next month. Then they’d have a bit of a breather until Independence Day and the rodeo.

He arrived home focused on his plan for the rest of the day. He didn’t hold out a lot of hope that the tweaks he’d made to the Fox—named after his father’s platoon—would do what was needed, but it was worth a try. It had veered off course with the previous sensor adjustment. Only the built-in obstacle-avoidance system had kept it from crashing. He’d obviously gone too far, so today he was going to back it off a bit and still hope the stabilization system could compensate for the extra weight of the bigger battery.

He made the adjustments, set up the drone for takeoff, then went to the main system in his lair. He watched the video from the adjusted drone on one monitor, scanning the readouts from the various systems on another. He was well used to this remote piloting—it was second nature to him now, something he barely had to think about.

When it had first lifted off, he thought he saw a wobble. But it didn’t occur again, so he decided it must have been a gust of the wind that had kicked up on his way home from town. He would only have time for a short flight today, since there was weather heading in, but it might be enough to see if the changes worked. Eventually the little flyer was going to have to be stable enough to take on inclement weather, but until he got this new combination of settings sorted out he’d be avoiding storms.

He heard a string of barks coming through the headphones. He smiled; obviously Tri had spotted the drone. Or knowing the hyper-alert former MWD, he might have heard that faint whoosh of the propellers chewing the air. He turned the drone that way, and saw Chance and Ariel, out in the smaller pen with one of the newer arrivals, a wire-strung yellow Labrador who could single-handedly destroy the breed’s reputation for being easygoing.