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“Brothers in fur, huh?” Ry quipped.
Chance smiled. “They did seem to recognize him in that way.”
“Where are the new kids?” Ry asked.
“In kennels, for the moment,” Chance answered. “Once they settle from the trip, probably after we feed them, they’ll be out in the runs.”
“You’ll have to come back and meet them,” Ariel said. And oddly, she was looking at Kaitlyn, not Ry. But maybe she just assumed Ry would be back.
“I’d love to,” she said, meaning it.
“You should have her take some photos,” Ry said. “She’s really good. The way she frames stuff, her lighting choices… You can pick her work out amid a bunch of others, because it draws your eye.”
Kaitlyn’s breath caught, she hoped not audibly. He’d told her this, but somehow him saying it to someone else felt different. Because it obviously wasn’t something he was just saying to put her at ease?
Or was it just that he was saying it? And it meant more coming from him?
Because he was an artist himself, she told herself firmly. That was why it meant more. Because it wasn’t just somebody who had no artistic eye, it was someone with a keenly developed one. That’s all it was. It couldn’t be more.
She couldn’t allow it to be more.
Chapter Twenty-One
He needed todistract her. She was clearly worried. She’d been looking at her phone as if she were expecting a horrible call at any moment, ever since he’d picked her up at the inn at six. It was a chilly, stormy morning, but she still wore only the same denim jacket. He wondered if she even had anything else, anything warmer. Or maybe she was just so distracted with worry she hadn’t thought about it.
“It’s really become a basic procedure,” he said. “They won’t even put him completely out, just a local.”
He glanced at her as he spoke. He saw the worry in her eyes, but she managed a slight smile anyway. “I know. I looked it up at the inn last night.” Her smile quirked upward at one corner in that wry way she had. “Free Wi-Fi,” she said.
And suddenly the start-stop with her phone yesterday made sense. She’d wanted to do that research right then, but he guessed she probably had a pretty tight data cap.
He pondered his next words for a moment as he drove, wondering how to say it. He finally went for casual. “You’ve got that at the ranch, too. Cody’s got it rigged so you have access anywhere within sight of the main house.”
She blinked. “That’s a big area.”
“And he’s a big nerd,” he said with a grin. “He can set you up with a password for while you’re here.”
“He’d do that? What if I was some kind of hacker or something?”
He waited until they’d negotiated a curve in the road, then glanced at her with a raised a brow. “Are you?”
“No, but what if I was?”
“I’d wish you luck,” he said with a smile. “It takes my little brother about fifteen minutes just to describe the security he’s got on that system. Another ten about routers and repeaters and mesh and I don’t know what all.”
“He sounds like a handy guy to have around.”
“He is. I’ll have to play you the music he did for me.”
Her brows rose. “He’s a musician, too?”
“Not exactly. But he put together a version of Verdi’s ‘Requiem,’ with something he calls a virtual orchestra, that I blast out when I’m stuck. It really gets things moving.” And somehow he knew she’d appreciate it, despite the modern, electronic edge, although he sometimes wondered what Verdi would think of this reimagining.
“And the drones?”
His smile faded. “He doesn’t really explain those. Because we all know what his goal is there.”
She just waited. He glanced at her again, saw she was looking at him. But she just waited. She wouldn’t push. Funny, when it came to her work, she was confident, even bold, but here, now, she wouldn’t even ask for an explanation of his rather cryptic statement. She wanted one—he could see that in her eyes—but she wouldn’t push.
