“Let’s change the subject.” Then, thinking about what he’d just said, he pulled a face and murmured, “What I was trying to say is my dad plays golf with a Senator. Hell, I know a few Congressmen myself. Anything you need, you’ve got it. And all without reverting to type and talking to the local Capo.” He rolled his eyes at his own words.
She blinked at him, apparently in surprise at the extent of his reach. “I don’t think a Senator or a Congressman can solve my problem, James, but thanks for trying.”
He jerked a shoulder and explained, “I thought it might be unlikely, but still, you never know. You’re emoting way more than I’ve ever seen in all the time I’ve known you. There has to be a reason for that.”
“There is one thing, and it’s not a—James! Look out!”
His gaze darted back to the road, and he immediately saw what had frozen her solid in her seat.
A small landslide had destroyed the surface of the cliff face. Because it wasn’t a public road, there’d been no checks, and no alert as to this kind of terrain. Rocks, some huge boulders, were in their way. Before he could press on the brakes, the Orion had dealt with the collapse, managing to swerve around the largest boulder in their path, and carry them through like nothing had happened.
That is until the front left tire swerved out from under them.
He groaned, because the sound preceding the swerve had been something the Orion couldn’t counter. The swerve, sure. It put them back on the straight and narrow. But as clever as the Orion was, it couldn’t change its own damn tire.
Especially when said tire was back at the garage.
Shit.
“What the hell just happened?” Hailey breathed, gulping down air like she’d had her head held under water instead of having the living daylight scared out of her.
He shot her a look, saw her wide-eyed terror and grimaced at her. “It’s okay, Hailey. The Orion is prepared for all kinds of eventualities.” He had to admit though, as much faith as he had in the technology they’d spent a fortune on developing, his instincts had been to grab the wheel and take over. He could understand why she was terrified, because his heart was pounding too.
“Then why did we swerve?” Hailey questioned.
“The debris… it must have popped a tire.”
“Oh crap,” she said with a wince. “What do we do?”
“I have to call out one of the technicians from the compound.” So saying, James pressed a few buttons on the console dash and waited for the call to connect. When it did, he murmured, “Gonzalo? A tire’s blown on the Orion. I need you to come with a spare.”
“Don’t you carry them?” Hailey asked crossly. She was back to scowling again.
Although, truth was, he thought he preferred her scowling to that lost puppy look she’d just had. Seeing Hailey scared was the last thing he wanted.
Watching her come? Yeah.
Crapping herself in terror? Not so much.
“No. Not in prototypes,” he answered, cutting her a look.
She huffed. “Aidan was right. We should never have come out in this.”
“Are you kidding?” he immediately snapped. “We’ve just had the best real-time demonstration of the Orion’s capabilities. The way it was programmed, I knew it could handle those kinds of scenarios. It’s one of the hardest parts of the program. Trying to figure out the impossible. But, that was…” He shook his head, impressed by what had just happened even though it hadn’t turned out perfectly. “It was far more than I could ever have expected. I always have faith in whatever we turn out, because I know we test it above and beyond what most of our competitors could even imagine. But now? After this? Wow.”
He could tell she was still mad, but a smile danced about her lips as she said, “Sounds like you’re starting to believe your own press.”
Before he could do more than grin sheepishly at her, Gonzalo asked, “Sir?”
Damn, he’d forgotten the tech was on the other end of the line still. By the looks of her blush, so had Hailey.
“Sorry, Gonzalo. We just had to maneuver through a landslide on the top of the mountain heading toward the Vistabel viewpoint. We managed to scrape through without any damage save to the wheel, but I’m not sure if a truck will be able to make it through. It might be wise to come in a smaller sedan with the spare, and then we just maneuver through it once we can drive again. Can you arrange for someone to come and clear the debris though? Also, this side of the hill might need shoring up.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Arias. I’ll get that arranged. We’ll be up there as soon as we can.”
“Thanks, Gonzalo.” James cut the call, then stared at Hailey. “The viewpoint’s not far from here if you want to go see it.”
“Is that where we were heading all along?”