“Veryvague,” he shouted just as the drone’s little blades whirred to life.
Azura gave me a reassuring face scrunch. “He’s fine. He’s got this. He sounds like a tool, but I promise, he’s almost as smart as I am.”
My lips quirked at that. “I think I’ve seen you two on the news.”
“Unfortunately, I’m sure you have,” she muttered.
As we reached the front door, the sound of a four-wheeler droned over the buzz of the drone, and Jay came around the back of the house, his eyes already assessing the commotion in my front yard. I backtracked, going down the porch stairs to meet him as he came to a stop near me. His gaze flitted to the drone, back to me, and then landed on Azura. His boyish features looked younger when he was worried, his dark brows tilted up and small mouth pressed into a pucker.
“Morning,” he said, scratching the mop of hair under his ball cap.
“Hey, Jay. This is Azura and Tristan—they’re with the lawyers helping to figure out the water issue.”
Understanding softened his features. “Oh, yeah. Okay.”
“They’re going to fly a drone over the two rivers to see if there are any blockages,” I explained. “I might be a bit before I can help with morning chores.”
Jay’s brow fell a little, and his mouth pulled to the side. “I checked the rivers.”
I gestured to the drone, which was now several feet above us. Tristan appeared to be calibrating it, swerving it, dipping it, and testing its controls. “They think the drone might be able to spot things we couldn’t.”
“Hm.” Jay seemed unnerved by the idea. “Can I watch?”
“Yeah, come inside.” I jerked my head toward the house. As we joined Azura back on the porch I leaned over to survey the dark, heavy clouds. “Will the drone be okay if it starts to snow?”
“P is equipped for most weather, barring really high winds,” Azura assured me. “Which you do have coming in. That’s why we headed right over this morning. There’s a three-day storm y’all have moving in this afternoon.”
I shuddered at the thought. “Oh.”
I led everyone into the living room where the explosive Christmas tree still took up half of the far wall. We all gathered around my kitchen island, and Azura propped up her phone for us to watch. The camera feed showed smooth, snowy landscape, and then there were trees flying by below the drone as it moved fast.
Azura folded her arms. “Fair warning—it’s a little boring when we aren’t doing the piloting.”
Jay watched with rapt attention. When the screen showed the gray, snaking shape of a river, Jay leaned forward, and I cocked my head. “How does he know where to look? Or which parts of the river are my property?”
“Tristan’s helmet is the actual proprietary part of his drone tech. He can access maps, and his AI assistant can program coordinates to match your property lines and points of interest.”
My eyes widened. “That’s wild.”
Azura’s smile reflected obvious pride for her husband’s invention. “He’s pretty smart.”
We watched in silence, then, as the drone flew lower over the river. It paused a few times, and I backed up several steps to watch Tristan through the window as well. He had his hands in the air like a conductor, his fingers flying back and forth, tapping and pressing together in patterns I was sure only he recognized.
Eventually, our attention wavered from the screen. I didn’t know what they were looking for, precisely, so I made us some coffee, and Azura asked me questions about the ranch, wanting details about how much water we’d had access to before it had dried up and wondering if the previous rancher had mentioned issues about it in the past. Jay listened mutely, not adding to the conversation much but remaining interested in the drone’s feed. I supposed, if he’d been all over my land on his own, it would be fascinating to see from a bird’s eye view.
Finally, as snow began to fall in earnest, the drone’s feed went black and Tristan came inside the house, his helmet under his arm and a tablet in his other hand. His light brown hair had gotten mussed and a little sweaty from the helmet, but he didn’t seem to mind. After kicking snow off his shoes, he joined us in the kitchen and accepted a cup of coffee with a grateful smile. I noticed for the first time that he had two different colored eyes, one hazel, and the other green.
“Found something,” he smiled.
My heartbeat skipped in elation, and I couldn’t help but think,Spencer would be jazzed by this whole thing. I reached for my phone, wanting to text him, but then I paused. No, I had senthim away. It would be too strange. I didn’t even know if he wanted to be here after I’d yelled at him and sent him away.
Jay straightened from where he sat on a stool at the island. “Did you really?”
Tristan nodded as he drank deeply from his coffee mug and then set it down. He brought the tablet forward. “Have a look.” His long fingers tapped over the screen and then he brought up a picture. The clarity was incredible considering that it had been taken from a small drone, and he circled a section of the river. “So, this doesn’t look like much of anything, but if we look closer…” He zoomed in with two fingers. “See that ground disturbance?”
I leaned in, frowning. “A little. How did you see it?”
Tristan tapped an icon, and the picture switched to thermal imaging. Most of the ground was yellow or orange, and the river glowed in violets and pinks. A branch of bright purple branched off from the river where the ground had been in the previous image. “They built culverts to divert your water underground.”
