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He sighed. “Do it for her.”
“That, too, and I’m glad you thought of it. But I also meant something a little more in your area of expertise, like you did for us in the barn.”
“The cameras,” he said with sudden realization. “Of course. I should have thought of that. Thanks, Mom.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek before whirling to take off for the house.
“Boots!” she called after him.
“Yeah, yeah.”
And with a grin and a lighter heart, he looked back at the woman who had accomplished the miracle of holding a shattered family together. She was smiling back at him, and he knew it would be all right. If Mom approved, it would somehow be all right.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“This is so sweet of you, Cody.”
He turned to look at Mrs. Roth. She was smiling at him, as she had been all day. She’d even brought him a sandwich for lunch when he’d been mounting the last camera in the barn that housed their horses. She was so grateful for his help, while he was spending the entire time thinking it wasn’t enough. How did he make up for what he’d let happen?
He dropped down from the ladder and stood in front of her. There was no one else around at the moment, unlike the rest of the day when various hands and Mr. Roth had been coming and going. And call him a coward, but he didn’t want to have this talk in front of a bunch of people he didn’t know—or Britt’s father. Nor did he want to dwell on why he was having trouble hanging on to that faintly derisive “Roth” moniker when he thought of her.
Something about carrying her down that rocky slope, knowing she was badly hurting and why, had knocked it right out of him.
Not to mention how it had felt in other ways.
“Don’t be so nice,” he said to the woman in front of him.
She gave him a puzzled look. “After all you’ve done? Setting up these cameras, and helping with the horses while Brittany is out of commission? Why even that silly Ghost of hers, the cause of all this, behaves better for you.”
He drew in a deep breath. He’d never have a better opening than this. “Ghost wasn’t the only cause of all this.”
She waited, silently, her gaze fastened on him. It must be a mom thing, waiting you out until you broke. He didn’t even try to resist but explained what he thought had happened with the drone.
“I haven’t been back up there and found it yet,” he finished, “but it was close to where she was, and even if she didn’t see it, I’m sure it made noise when it hit, and the timing is…well, it happened exactly when it would have had to, to be the cause.”
“I see.”
He felt a bit of relief that it was out, that he’d confessed, but the tension started to build again as she just looked at him. He waited, expecting her to order him off their ranch at the least, slap him at the worst. When she didn’t say anything, he asked quietly, “Do you want me to leave?”
She tilted her head slightly, and he felt like some germ-sized creature under a microscope. Another mom skill: making you feel as if they saw every tiny, hidden aspect of you.
Finally, she spoke.
“Tell me something, Cody. Would that horse of yours have spooked at the sound of something hitting a rock?”
“Trey? No. He barely spooks at rattlesnakes.”
“Hmm. You know, I was out riding last fire season when one of your drones went by, checking for smoke. My horse tossed his head and snorted, but that was it. And remember when you had that drone lead us to Ghost’s dam, when she was down and trapped? None of the horses we rode then spooked at it.”
“That’s different. Those are ranch horses, they’re used to all manner of things. Ghost is…a specialist.”
To his surprise, she laughed. “Now there’s a word for it. Brittany would like that.”
“I don’t think she’d like anything I have to say. Now more than ever.”
“You are two of the hardest-headed people I know,” she said. “Sometimes I wonder…”
This echoing of his own mother’s words made him wonder if he and Britt had been a topic of conversation between the two women. Then he nearly laughed at himself; of course they had been. What did two mothers who were friends always talk about, eventually? Their kids, of course.
And then sometimes I’m certain.
