Wes looked at Jax. “My dad is the only one in my family who’s strong enough to help him walk, and he’s in the middle of harvest. I know this is a bad time with the film, but I may need to go back every couple of weeks to help out. ”
“Anything you need to do, man,” Jax said. “Family comes first. We’ll make do. ”
He released a relieved breath. “Thanks. ”
“Is there any way to make it stronger?” he asked Jax.
Jax wiped his mouth after taking a bite of his burger. “Can he stand on his own?”
Wes nodded. “It’s moving his legs he can’t manage. ”
“Stronger metal on the thighs?” Lexi asked.
“Yeah. ” Rachel nodded at Lexi, then Jax. “Maybe a double design, more like those harnesses you use for falling and climbing where the straps go all the way around the leg?”
Jax shook his head and took a drink of his iced tea. “Too much chance of hurting him if he falls. ”
Rachel nodded and poked at her own lunch, deep in thought. Rubi recalled the apparatus as she forked up blueberries and the others continued to drum up ideas for strengthening the design. She wasn’t much good with machinery, but…
“Rubi,” Lexi said drawing her attention. “Didn’t you do some work for a tech lab?”
She nodded, thinking back to the robots and prosthetics she’d helped program, trying to fit that into this scenario.
Lexi glanced at Wes, then back at Rubi, a glint of suspicion in her bright blue eyes. “Why are you so quiet?”
She lifted a shoulder and feigned rapt attention in collecting as many blueberries as possible on her fork tines. “Just listening. Thinking. ”
Wes’s lips curled on one side, and he glanced at her with a mixed look in his eyes she couldn’t quite read. “I kissed her stupid. ” Wes’s low voice burned a path down the center of her chest. “Or so she said. ”
Rachel’s fork hit her plate, her brown eyes flying wide.
Rubi stiffened and cut him a look. “Wes, that’s no one’s business. ”
“Just answering the question. ” He ate another fry. “So what do you have up your sleeve, Rubi? Any ideas?”
She lifted her fork and stared at the tines, thinking—and avoiding the others’ expressions at the news. “You could make the hinges at the hip stronger. Or…maybe add hinges at the knee and make them all stronger. I imagine the rig would have to handle more of his weight until his muscles strengthen, then less when he doesn’t need as much leverage to move them. ”
Jax’s hand paused with a cucumber slice halfway to his mouth. He and Wes exchanged a look Rubi recognized—ideas were turning in their brains.
“What are you thinking?” Wes said.
She met his gaze and found him fully attentive, intensely focused on her. “I don’t really know anything about medicine or mechanics, but the round things at the hip on the rig, those are the hinges, right? They have some type of mechanism inside that makes them pivot?”
“They do. A spring mechanism. ”
Her mind focused on physics and function, much easier on her churning guts. “That would produce a movement equal to the pressure applied to the spring. To support a heavy weight, you’d need heavy springs, which would need a certain amount of strength to operate. Strength your brother may not have initially. ” She tilted her head and rested her chin in her hand, gazing at a spot over his shoulder. “You might get better control with electromagnetic conductors. ”
He sat back, brow furrowed. And, oh crap, that expression was so freaking adorable she lost her train of thought.
“I didn’t think of that,” he said, absently moving around his fries again. He still hadn’t touched his burger, despite his earlier comment about being starved. “I’d have to get up to speed on the new EM products out there. Probably pretty easy to relay them with the electric. ”
“Electric?” She lifted her brows. “You have that thing wired?”
His gaze returned to hers. “Yeah, it’s got a battery pack at the control center that sits at the base of the spine with an AC outlet for charging. Why?”
“Because with electrical capacity, you’re talking almost limitless potential for the mechanism. You can put a computer chip between the relay and the device and make it sing Sinatra if you wanted. ”
Wes’s lips parted. His eyes filled with excitement. Then he hit an invisible wall, and his face fell. “That programming… That’s some special shit, right?”