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And on top of all that wishing it hadn’t started raining. She’d planned on riding over, so she could leave on her own at some point. But the rain had started late this afternoon, her mother wouldn’t hear of it, and now she was stuck in the car with her parents because she couldn’t insist on driving separately without them tumbling to her plan for an early escape.
At least there would be others there. It wouldn’t just be her and the Coder.
Maybe they could actually get through an evening under the same roof without drawing blood.
Chapter Sixteen
Cody watched in satisfaction as the video on the screen unrolled exactly as he’d envisioned it. Behind the graphics promoting the Last Stand Bluebonnet Festival, it flowed as if the viewer was in free flight. The camera began at the start of a narrow path bordered with the blue flowers, their brilliant color muted slightly in the pre-dawn light. It followed the path until the blossoms spilled into a wider field, looking like a stream flowing into a pond, except the pond kept going. On and on until the rocky outcropping appeared in the distance. It grew larger as the image got closer, the flowers becoming a single unbroken mass, and he guessed people were half expecting to see the lapping of ripples against the rock.
And finally the scene turned as he’d directed the drone alongside the big rock, positioning it so the rock was always on the upper edge of the image, the masses of flowers up against it. And just when it seemed the rock would never end, the camera made the last turn around the edge of the outcropping and the world opened up.
There were several seconds where you couldn’t tell where the deep blue of the dawn sky ended, and the flowers began. And then the rim of the sun cleared the horizon, light poured back toward the camera and the image exploded into the seemingly endless expanse of brilliant blue, flower-covered rolling hills. He heard more than one exclamation and several quick intakes of breath in the room, and satisfaction filled him.
When the group gathered—which included most of the Highwater clan, in particular Sean because he’d helped with the graphics promoting the festival and Kane because he’d contributed the beautiful, soaring music that accompanied it—broke into applause at the end he couldn’t help grinning.
Nor could he seem to help slipping a glance sideways, denying even to himself he was scanning for Britt. He spotted her tall, long-legged form standing beside where her parents were sitting on the couch in the living room, across from the big flat screen he’d cast the finished product to. She was wearing a pair of black jeans that hugged every lean curve, a bright blue sweater with black trim, and a pair of black boots Chance would call spit-shined. For Britt Roth, this was downright dressed up. And he’d looked just in time to see her clapping along with everyone. She was even smiling as she watched the final image fade away.
He felt as if he’d been hit by a brick. A smile like that, at something he’d done? A smile that lit up her blue eyes until they practically glowed brighter than that sweater that clung to her in all the right places…
He gave himself an inward shake and focused on the triumph of the moment. Britt Roth, clapping and smiling, at his work. This wasn’t just a red-letter day, it was a day that needed to be blocked out entirely in red. He’d have to figure out how to do that on his calendar.
And then she startled him. She looked over at the painting on the wall, his father’s painting, the work that he’d finally, thanks to Kaitlyn, realized had inspired his own. As if she’d recognized it, as if she knew.
He hadn’t, would never have expected that.
“Well,” his mother said with obvious delight, “I’d say that’s a go.” She leaned over and put an arm around Cody which—thankfully—drew his attention away from Britt just as she turned her head and would have seen him watching her. No, admit it Rafferty, staring at her. Gaping like a landed catfish.
That extra helping of Mom’s cheesy potatoes seemed to have settled into a heavy glob in his gut. He wanted more than anything to bail and retreat to his lair, just for a breather. But when his mother announced, her pleasure with the finished video still in her voice, that it was time for dessert, he knew he couldn’t. But for the first time in his life the thought of her amazing apple pie didn’t set off a growl in his stomach.
Coward.
Run from Britt Roth? No way in hell, Rafferty.
So he stayed. There were nearly a dozen people here, he should be able to keep a few between him and her the rest of the evening. And he managed it, most of the time. Even managed to stop thinking about her as he and Ry and Kane got into a discussion about the piece of music Cody had put together for his artist brother, with a virtual orchestra playing a hammering version of Verdi’s Requiem.
“I just reinterpreted something that already existed,” he said, looking at Kane. “You’re the one who came up with that incredible music that captured the feeling I wanted exactly.”
“And someday soon,” Ry said with a grin, “we’re going to be using the fact that we have original music by superstar Kane promoting our little festival.”
Kane looked down almost shyly, as if still unused to not just the acclaim, but the acceptance of his family and their friends. Cody couldn’t imagine the hell the guy had gone through in the years he’d been on the run. But now, with his beloved Lark by his side, he was coming into his own.
Cody felt a sudden wash of that feeling he’d had before. All the Highwaters, settled and happy. All his brothers the same. If it wasn’t for Lucas, he’d be the only solo act around. And Lucas was only fourteen.
But he liked his life the way it was. Had no desire to change it. He was sure of that. Wasn’t he? An image of an old man holed up in a room full of lit screens, virtual relationships the only ones he had, shot through his mind and he mentally recoiled. People like he and Sean, tech fans, got ragged on about that all the time, being so in love with their machines they lost touch with real, live people. And maybe to some extent it was true. But Sean and Elena put the lie to the stereotype, in a big way.
He shoved the wonderings back into the cage where they belonged. Time spent thinking about such things was better spent elsewhere, he was certain. Anywhere else.
In fact, a second small slice of that pie he hadn’t been sure he wanted at all was in order. After all, Mom had made three of them just to be sure there’d be enough—he knew because he and Kaitlyn had peeled the darned apples—so it’d be a shame to let all that work go to waste.
“Nice to see you and Britt in the same room but not at each other’s throats.”
The deep drawl came from behind him just as he was about to take a bite of pie. Behind and above, he corrected as he turned around to face six-foot-two Shane Highwater. The Last Stand police chief was a towering presence in more ways than one.
“Give us time,” he muttered.
“You know,” Shane said, with a trace of a smile, “time was Lily and I were the same way.”
Cody blinked. What the hell was that supposed to mean? He couldn’t be implying what it seemed like. But Shane only chuckled and walked off, no doubt to find the wife he’d just mentioned. The wife who was now officially pregnant with their first child.
