Chapter 6

Stryder

 

Stryder watched the entire thing from the safety of his booth, unsure what had just happened. One second Melody had taken his order and stormed off, the next the cook was delivering his food and passing out the tickets to the regulars. Where had Melody gone?

A couple of the men at the table behind Stryder yelled at the cook, calling him Tom. They’d asked what he’d done to scare Melody off. Tom had waved his hand over his shoulder and returned to the kitchen area. About twenty minutes later a red headed woman showed up looking harried and stressed as she threw on a pink apron and got to work.

Had Melody been fired or had she quit? Neither would be good since she had no money. Or maybe she did. Maybe Clint had finally gotten life insurance. That’d be the first unselfish thing he’d done in his life. Everything else that man had done had been wrapped up in his own wants and desires. Not those of his daughter, or his wife, or anyone else. Stryder was living proof of that fact.

Stryder had never respected the man, but when he’d done what he’d done to Stryder and Melody, Stryder hadn’t been able to think straight about the man again.

Initially, Stryder planned on staying at the small Red Top, the only motel in Two Rides, but when he got into his rented BMW that looked like it had been peppered with BBs from a machine gun, Stryder couldn’t make himself drive deeper into town. Not that Main Street was deep downtown or anything. You could see from one end to the other without moving much.

Something called him out of town, away from the buildings planted too close together, and the cement sidewalks that felt a little too much like California cities. Nah, he headed out of town, about twenty minutes. Pulling onto a dirt road with overgrown grass and bushes on either side and in between the tire ruts, Stryder took a deep breath. His windows were down and he’d never felt more out of place than in that small sports car in the big wide openness of Montana.

Grass that had gone to seed with long fluffy heads brushed the bottom of the BMW and Stryder came to a stop after a couple hundred yards from the road in front of an old Craftsman-style home with a wraparound porch and boarded windows. It didn’t look too worse for wear considering he hadn’t been there in years.

Climbing from the car, Stryder stared at his childhood home. Faded siding and chipped paint gave the place a grayed out and used up look. Behind the building stood his daddy’s old mink shed that had only ever had mink in it for a couple weeks until Stryder’s mama had decided she didn’t like how vicious the creatures could be. They’d sold them all and the shed had become more of a storage building than anything. Even chickens preferred not being in the long tin-roofed outbuilding.

Stryder closed the car door. The whisper of his patent leather dress shoes under the hem of his fourteen-hundred-dollar slacks sounded all wrong as he crossed the drive. First thing he’d have to do is find some boots and jeans. He could feel the Stryder he’d become fading away as the Stryder he used to be scoffed at his prissy clothes and lack of a hat. He climbed creaky steps to get to the porch and his footsteps echoed as he slowly walked around the old home.

A few slats on the porch were cracked, but overall the boarding job had worked and the house looked fairly intact. Long strides carried him around the entire home and something ached inside him. He knew what it was, but it took a lot of pride not to ignore it – his need to be home.

Back in front, he slowly lowered himself onto the old porch swing his daddy had made for his mama. Still sturdy, the old swing had an Adirondack look to it while it was made with lodgepoles. The chainsaw mill had been one of the few extravagances his dad had living out there. They’d gone from poor to poorer, but they’d never been in danger of losing their home.

As the morning sun lit up the land and trees as far as the eye could see, Stryder let himself breathe in the Montana air. He leaned his head back, pushing his toe on the warped wood of the deck and set himself to swinging forward and back.

That’s what he’d been missing. The clean air that left you feeling as if anything was possible. Like he could actually take a moment and just be. When you lived in a place that was all about comparison and making the next million, you tended to forget your roots calling for you. He’d missed the unrepentance of the jagged mountain peaks in the distance and the whisper of home in the breeze.

He’d missed that over the years. Oh, how he’d missed that.

Stryder didn’t feel the need to drink, to keep a glass in his hand like security blanket. While he had responsibilities, lots of them, he didn’t feel like they were out of reach. Instead, he could feel his attitude changing as he sat there and absorbed the can-do greatness of the Montana ambience.

He needed to capture that again for himself. His love of life and helping others.

Reaching into his inner jacket pocket, Stryder pulled out his cell phone and called his assistant. He tapped his finger on his mid-thigh, waiting for the call to connect.

After the second ring, Feeney answered. “Sir?”

“Feeney, tell the guys I’m relocating to Two Rides. I need everything moved here in the next seventy-two hours. Office items first. Can you handle that?” Stryder didn’t need to confirm Feeney’s abilities. He just wanted – more or less – to hear that it could be done so he could push away any doubts that might rear their ugly heads in the coming days.

“I’ll need a few additional crews to the normal requirements with the office move. Is this a standard takeover, sir?” What Feeney wasn’t saying was that Stryder didn’t usually move to the towns he bought and revived.

“Don’t worry about the extra crews. Use the miscellaneous business account.” Stryder grinned, reaching out and grabbing at a leaf left over from autumns past. “And, to answer your question, Feeney, no. This is not a standard takeover. I’m coming home.” Home. He was home and he had a lot to fix to get back to belonging in his home.

“Of course, sir. I’ll get it done. Master Trevor has been calling. I’ll patch him through the next time he calls.” Feeney never reacted to the things Stryder did or said. He was the epitome of discretion and no matter how hard Stryder had tried, Feeney’s professionalism kept their relationship strictly business. They ended the call.

Stryder had no doubt Feeney would get things done, even from the shores of California. Feeney was one of the best assistants in the business. If it couldn’t be done, Feeney would find a way to do it. There was no can’t with the man. One of the reasons Stryder paid him the high salary he did.

He’d take a page out of Feeney’s book and employ more of the anything is possible attitude. He had billions. Anything was possible.

The first place he would apply his newfound can would be with Melody.

He glanced to the east of his home, toward the line of trees that rose in the distance. The top of the Steel home could just barely be seen. When night fell, Stryder would be able to see the lights through the leaves and branches, but during the day, there was too much in the way. When did he go over and introduce himself to his neighbor?

Did he take a plate of brownies or a bag of money? The biggest question, he really wanted to ask her, had nothing to do with being neighborly, and everything to do with making things up to her.

Did he have a chance to fix anything with her? Or had she moved on completely from everything they’d been to each other? Stryder needed boots. He could feel his Montana side unwilling to approach Melody without more confidence in his stride. There was nothing confident in a suit in the Montana sun.

He needed all the confidence he could get.