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“Yeah,” the blond said. “I was just letting Chance know we have visitors. In case they’re trying try off-leash.”
Kaitlyn blinked. “Trying try?”
“T-R-I,” Ry said. “It’s the dog’s name. Both for tripod because he lost a leg, and because he never stops trying.”
“How clever,” Jillian said, but her attention was still on the newcomer, whom Ry quickly confirmed was his brother Cody, as Kaitlyn had guessed from the drone.
“Lucas named him,” Cody said. “Our oldest brother’s foster kid.”
“That’s very noble of your family,” Jillian said. “Taking in foster children. And dogs.”
Kaitlyn happened to be looking at Ry—as she already did too much—when Jillian spoke. And she didn’t think she’d mistaken the flash of irritation that crossed his face. But he didn’t respond, merely handed the drone over to his brother.
“So you’re the reporter fromTexas Artworks, huh?” Cody asked, looking at Jillian with obvious male appreciation. Which only made Ry’s lack of the same more obvious to Kaitlyn.
She wasn’t sure what it meant.
Or how it made her feel.
Chapter Six
Ry told himselfhe should be thankful Ms. Jacobs had zeroed in on Cody, if only because it got her attention off of him. But there was enough of a predatory gleam in those unnatural eyes to make him want to warn his little brother. But Cody was no kid, and if he wanted to risk the burn Ry was sure would come with a woman like this, it was on him.
Of course, he was sure of that burn because he’d been there himself. Already he knew instinctively Jillian Jacobs and Chelsea were the same type.
He noticed the photographer was also looking at the fair-haired duo. “That,” he muttered, just loud enough for her to hear, “would be a little too much like looking in a mirror for me.”
Her gaze shot to his face, as if he’d startled her. “That’s probably why she’s looking so hard,” she said, and immediately looked as if she wished she hadn’t said it. He had to bite back a laugh, but he couldn’t stop his smile.
“Good to know,” he said, eyebrows raised in an exaggerated way to show his lack of surprise. And then he got that smile again, that real, honest, open smile, with no artifice, no hint of it being something to hide behind. And as Ms. Jacobs laughed at something Cody said, in that way that rang hollow in his ears, he thought he’d take one of those smiles over a thousand of those flattering laughs.
Yeah, he’d better warn his little brother. Cody was indeed far from a kid at twenty-eight, but that didn’t mean he’d run into the likes of this woman before. He spent too much time in skirmishes with Britt Roth—his childhood nemesis from the next ranch over—and with his tech toys. Of course, there had been his years at college, the only one of the Rafferty boys who’d actually finished that chore, and that time he’d come back from an exhibition in Dallas in an odd sort of mood, satisfied yet a bit wistful, but nobody, not even their mother, had been able to pry out of him what had happened. Which in itself was notable, given that if anything, Cody was too open. Which was why she’d been worried about him in the first place.
After a few more minutes Cody, clearly reluctantly, said he had to go. He had a meeting with the police chief about a new camera system for the station to replace the ancient one that had finally failed.
“He’s not just having Sean do it?” Ry asked, referring to the chief’s younger, detective brother, who was probably the only one in Last Stand who could give Cody a run for his tech money.
“Sean’s out of town. With Elena, so he doesn’t want to bother him.”
“Better hustle,” Ry advised. “You don’t want to keep Shane Highwater waiting.”
“I know,” Cody said with an eye roll. “That guy’s scary as hell when he wants to be.”
“So don’t make him want to be by being late.”
“I’ve heard that name before,” the reporter said as she watched Cody go. “Shane Highwater, I mean.”
“He hit the national news when he killed a suicide bomber a few years back. There was video that went viral. The guy was nearly to his target, a crowded arena. Who knows how many would have died and been injured.”
“That’s it. That’s why he seemed familiar when I saw him in town Monday,” Kaitlyn said suddenly. When she went on she sounded a little in awe. “I saw that video. The guy was holding a dead man’s switch.”
Ry nodded. Clearly she understood the significance of that. “Only reason Shane’s not dead was that it malfunctioned.”
“Wait,” the reporter said, “you’re saying he did that thinking he’d die, too?”
She sounded astonished at the very idea. Which told Ry even more about her than she realized, he was sure. “He’s a Texan to the bone,” he said.
“And we grow them tough,” Kaitlyn whispered.
