Page 9 of Drifter’s Heart

My suit jacket stretches far too tight across my shoulders. For a moment I wonder if I took one of Cordell’s instead of mine from the dusty closet at Coyote Falls before I walked away nearly a year ago, but then I discard the notion. I would never fit my arms through his skinny tailored silk cut. Ha. At least that humor would fit the farce of the moment. The last time I walked into Rand Enterprises, it was with the owner and CEO for his final in-person meeting.

Today, I doubt Cord even knows I’m here. I ban every thought of his temptation of a sister from my mind and focus on the task before me. Even a decade later, I’m as out of place in the boardroom as ever, and this time I’m here without the man himself.

Despite walking away from Coyote Falls by choice months ago, I miss the dust crawling into every crack and crevice, pasted on by a thick layer of sweat after a hard day’s work. Staying in one place has never been my forte, but something about that patch of shitty dirt and the looming mountain behind the homestead once seemed like home. Another thing I’ll never admit as I force my features into something more palatable than the customary scowl that got me by at Coyote for over a decade.

That same facade doesn’t fly in the business world. I began my career here as a new college graduate, but now I’ve been out of touch for so long that I forgot my manners. Probably left them somewhere in the brutal switchbacks behind the homestead that match my current mood.

Hell, I almost want to go back there right now, if it will get me away from the eighteen suits, all with bank accounts as big as my best friend’s, staring at me like I’m the least of them in this room.

Shit, they’re probably right. I should not be in this room.

John Lancaster, a friend and my boss for this project, stands off to my side, shuffling papers. Maybe the PowerPoint presentation at my back doesn’t bother him half as much as it does to me. Every slide represents a cluttered overload of chatter, social expectation, and overlord hierarchy of why I left Rand—the man and the company—in the first place.

“All right, gents. And… lady.” He nods to the single steel-haired woman seated across the black, mirror-finish table I want to scratch for shits and giggles. An oversized R personally engraved by my pen would suit the occasion perfectly. “Mister West has agreed to share his vision for the Archimedes Tower design with us.”

“You mean justification for how we’re spending this year’s profit,” someone, I’m not sure who, says from across the table.

John blows out a breath that puffs his face like an overfed squirrel. I know that face. It’s the one I used to get when he marked my papers back at college. The same one that found I’d come up with something so weird and wonderful that he either couldn’t define it or wanted to slap me over the head with it before he grudgingly offered praise.

Sometimes.

I figure this is the latter occasion.

My mentor coughs. Apparently, time has mellowed the professor turned principal architect. There will be no paper-slapping today. “We all know that pollution has been a problem in this state. Mister West has freelanced for us before on many environmental projects. He offers us a way⁠—”

The stakeholders’ eyes glaze over within seconds. We need them for today’s buy-in, but thanks to sitting in on years of Cord’s presentations, I can pitch like a pro, seeing as one taught me how.

I press a hand to John’s shoulder. “I’ve got this, old friend. Thank you.” I nod respectfully, picturing each and every one of them wearing chaps. The assless kind, decorated with neon tassels.

My favorite.

Imagining the design I’ve spent hours working on over the past months as I press the clicker through my presentation, I describe the building based on Archimedes’s Claw. It’s a brilliant project, and a perfect pitch. If they don’t want it, I’ll simply take the patent elsewhere.

They won’t say no.

“The outside is covered in glass panels, not so dissimilar to this.” I place my scarred, work-roughened hand flat to the tabletop.

Someone gasps at the desecration of their sterile, pristine altar.

I take perverse pleasure in the handprint I leave behind. “The solar-panel aspect of the arm catches the sun from approximately eight in the morning during summer seasons and…” I keep talking until my voice creaks, explaining both power collection and consumption, how the design will benefit the city overall. We have inroads integrated on that front as well. John worked his not-insubstantial network at Montana U to get us in front of the mayor last week. This is our last hurdle to pass. Fortunately no one interrupts my pitch.

“That was impressive,” John murmurs as the last of the stakeholders file out of the room near on an hour later. “I’ve never seen them so quiet. They usually behave like a bunch of overprivileged toddlers with their hands in each other’s fruit salad bowls.”

I cough into my fist to suppress a laugh. “Those toddlers hold the purse strings. And seeing as I’ve managed one for the last decade, I have a good idea of how to sell them their own toys back.” I shake John’s hand, all too ready to leave the building bearing that same overprivileged toddler’s name emblazoned on everything from the building’s lobby to the wall before me. The giant R beckons like a siren.

I look away, but the damn letter is burned into my retinas.

I left Coyote Falls to earn myself space, and here I am, back again. Different soil, same brand name.

It’s not that Rand Enterprises is the only place that will hire me, but they do have the money that will provide the funding for everything I want outside of working the land with Cord. Hell, I could ask him and he’d donate the cash without a second’s thought, but it’s not the same as earning it the right way.

And I’m still invested in the endless well of all things Rand.

Fuck me. Every time I try to walk away from him, I’m still wrapped up in his mess.

Only this is my mess, and my show. Not his.

John’s hand still grips mine. I pull free, trying not to visibly wipe the other man’s sweat from my skin. “Tell me how it goes.”