Chapter 20
Blake
I lay in the hospital bed, steeped with anger. I had come to find Silver, and was willing to change my life in order to be with her and our son. Not only did she reject me, but she made sure I would never come back again, and in more than one way.
The bullet had torn into the muscle of my thigh. The doctors told me that the muscle had been destroyed, complicated by the fact that I had had so many muscle injuries in that leg in the past. I was also not as young as I used to be. The combination would keep me from a comeback. I had nothing now.
Jill sat in the corner, a smirk on her face. I saw it then. She was jealous of her sister. Silver had gone on and done things with her life and raised her from their childhood beginnings. Jill, on the other hand, had followed in her mother’s footsteps and was destined for the streets. She wanted what Silver had, and would do anything in order to get that. That included me.
For the time being, I would keep Jill around. I would need help at home, after all, and she needed a place to live. She would earn her keep for once, and then I would find a way to set her on her own.
Silver’s betrayal tore at me in a way that the doctors could never put back together. I staggered beneath the realization that despite the happiness of the previous two days, I would not have my family with me. She had seen to that. I didn’t know what happened that last evening. The woman I loved had suddenly turned into a cold, calculating witch. She punched me with every verbal fist in her arsenal, and I had no idea what I did to deserve that. I really was trying so hard.
I would go back to Dallas for the time being. I’d have to make some hard decisions about my life. Silver had been my goal for so long, and in the last couple days adding my son to that, seemed to be the pot at the end of the rainbow. That was all behind me now.
The doctors kept me in the hospital for another week, releasing me to physical therapy which they arranged for me to take back in Dallas. Jill drove us home; the ride was long and very quiet. She still didn’t know what to say, how to make it apparent to me that she wanted to be with me. I knew this, and I gave her no opportunity to speak up about it. As much as it hurt to be rejected by Silver, I did not want to get involved with her sister.
We set up the physical therapy and Jill drove me into town every day. The pain in my leg was nothing compared to the pain in my heart. I worked hard, as that would let me quell the demon was inside of me. I might not be able to ride again, but that wouldn’t stop me from doing something different. I only had to make up my mind what that would be.
I spent most afternoons out by the pool. It was where I remembered her; where we had been the closest. I sat for long hours and thought about her, what she and my son were doing at that moment. I imagined that she had looked for a new location for restaurant. I realized that I might never see her, or Kirk again.
That was when a cold resolve began in the pit of my stomach. Silver may have decided she didn’t want me in her life, but I had yet to decide that I didn’t want my son in my life. He was my son, after all. I was entitled to see him.
I gave some thought to the restaurant that Silver had built. Perhaps there was something in that line for me. After all, my name did carry a reputation and beef was what every good Texan ate. I went into the bank where I’d been doing business for so many years. I proposed a business plan to them and received financing. I began my search for an existing restaurant that I could convert, or lot where I could build a new one.
I finally found the ideal situation. Not far from the arena there was an old railroad yard. It had long before been disconnected from the main trunk, although there were still a half-dozen railroad cars abandoned there. They were cattle cars and not at all luxurious, but they were exactly what I needed. I sat down with an architect and we designed a restaurant that utilized the cattle cars as the front façade of the building. I applied for a liquor license and began searching for the best beef supplier I could find. I named the restaurant The Cattle Car, and my idea was to advertise heavily at the rodeos. I would also set up a series of fans on the roof that would blow the fragrance of grilling beef for quite a distance, hopefully all the way to the arena. I knew the smell of grilled beef would be welcomed in a place where the stronger odors came from the animal barns. I hoped that those who attended the events would consider my restaurant the destination afterwards.
It worked just exactly the way I knew it would. The only thing I changed was I added my name, calling it Blake Temple’s Cattle Car. I staffed it with beautiful young women in short skirts, low-buttoned, western shirts and western hats. There was straw on the floor and the booths looked like rodeo pens; the tables a version of a gate topped with glass.
It was an overnight success, and I barely had to spend any money at all to publicize it. It was so successful that I began looking for second location. It only made sense to repeat the formula as it worked the first time, so I looked in cities along the circuit. I built a second in Kansas City, a third in Oklahoma City, and a fourth in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I told myself that wasn’t deliberate; it was simply another city on the circuit, but I knew better.
With each new restaurant came yet another challenge. I repeated the same formula that I had used in Dallas and it was faultless, however my life had become all about restaurant management and that was hardly where I had intended to go. It nearly choked me to stay locked in an office all day. So I looked around and hired a general manager who took my place. He went from restaurant to restaurant, overseeing the staff, the food supplies, the construction, and the interior design of each unit. Eventually I franchised and new restaurants with my name on them sprang up over half the United States. It was an explosive growth, taking place over a very brief period of time.
And yet I still was not content. That was going to change.