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Elena laughed, and as he remembered how many times her killer wit had skewered someone who richly deserved it, he relaxed a little. “That was for your computer-building skills. I never thought I’d see my mother spending hours chatting with friends all over the country, and even the world. And loving it, I might add.”
Cody smiled at that. “I just helped Sean a bit.”
“You wrote the software that was intuitive, that fit the way her mind works.”
“Her mind,” Cody said, wearing his most serious expression, “is terrifyingly brilliant.”
“And unique,” Sean put in, after greeting his wife with a kiss that stopped just short of being passionate enough to be embarrassing. It still managed to invoke a strange sort of feeling in Cody, however. He knew Sean had never, ever expected to find a woman who “got” him, and that it had turned out to be the woman he’d adored from afar for years only made it more amazing.
He was too happy for Sean to be envious. But he felt…something. A wistfulness, maybe. Like he felt about his brothers.
He shook it off, smiled as she gave Sean careful instructions on how to warm up the enchiladas, gave her son a hug and a kiss as he barreled into the room to greet Cody with a grin and the highest five he could manage, then left them to it with a cheery wave and a promise to see him at his mother’s birthday party.
Cody watched Marcos—the kid had grown a few inches, although not as far or fast as Lucas had, yet anyway—happily dart over to the gaming setup he and Sean had put together and begin to get out the controllers.
He looked back at his old friend. “You struck gold, you know,” he said quietly.
Sean met his gaze steadily. “Believe me, I know.”
And there it was again, that same wistful feeling. He was really starting to feel the odd one out, even here. But then Marcos had the game they’d had to stop last time just before a breakthrough booted up.
“Let the game begin!” Cody boomed out in his best announcer voice. Marcos laughed, Sean grinned, and the weird feeling receded.
Relieved, he sat down, took up one of the controllers, and the game began.
Chapter Eight
Britt wasn’t certain what had brought on this urge, whether it was the discussion with Sage or her mother’s request, but she’d already spent more time getting ready for this party than she had spent on anything else in recent memory, except training Ghost.
She’d blame them both, she decided. Sage for throwing it out there as a challenge, which one of them could glam up the most, and her mother for asking in that long-suffering tone that she show up in something other than a slightly less worn pair of jeans and boots. And repeating it every day including this morning, when the Tuesday of the party had finally dawned.
It had been a while since she’d bothered with anything more than the basics, so she was a bit out of practice. But after a couple of false starts resulting in washing her face and starting over, the makeup thing started to come back to her.
Then came the harder part. She walked over to her closet and pulled open the door. Frowned at the pile of clothes in the corner; she’d meant to do laundry the other night, but had been so distracted all week long, after The Incident, as she’d taken to calling the encounter with the drone, she’d forgotten about it.
But her everyday clothes were not the issue here. No, what she needed was in the back, rarely visited section of her closet. Here were the fancier duds, as her father called them. Not just the suit she wore when she needed to impress a potential sponsor with her seriousness, but the dresses. The one she’d worn to the Highwater weddings. The one she’d worn to the Christmas ball last year. Even the one she’d worn for her college graduation. She pushed them all aside and went for the one that had been tickling the back of her mind all afternoon.
The bright, royal-blue, deep V-necked dress, made out of a soft, slippery sort of fabric that stopped just above her knees, still had the tag on. She’d bought it on a shopping trip with Sage before her wedding last year, only because Sage had practically demanded it.
“It matches your eyes, it shows just enough cleavage, and enough leg with that flippy skirt, and besides, it’s sexy as hell on you.”
“You’re supposed to be shopping for you,” Britt had pointed out.
“I am. I can multitask,” she’d said blithely.
But then, Sage had been blithe ever since Scott had come home and they’d patched things up. No, more than that, they’d rebuilt from the ground up, and were now rock solid.
Britt smothered a sigh as she looked at the blue dress. She didn’t begrudge Sage, she was delighted for her; she’d been in love with Scott Parrish since they were teenagers. In love in a way Britt doubted she herself would ever find. But then, Sage had doubted too, and now there she was, hog-tied and happy as she always said. They’d be there tonight, of course. Half the town would be there over the course of the evening, such was the standing of Maggie Rafferty in Last Stand. Throw in having the Last Stand Saloon to themselves with food catered by Valencia’s, she’d be surprised if the whole town didn’t drop in.
She grabbed the blue dress before she could change her mind.
*
Cody came into the living room with Lucas, who looked uncomfortable in the more formal wear, just as Mom finished fussing with Chance’s string tie. For a moment taking another step was beyond him. It wasn’t that Chance was going—he always honored their mother in that way—it was that he was smiling about it.
Before he would have been stone-faced.
Before, it would have been a task he had to do.
