He did. Growing up, his mother forbade television and radio, insisting instead on books and self-made music and imagination to entertain her children. There was a small portable television set they kept in the garage in case of emergency, but the fears of Washington hadn’t permeated the open land of Colorado yet.
“There was a supposed terrorist attack on the subway in D.C. Have you seen Stuart Crawford lately?”
“I have. You think he was behind it?”
“Why do you say that?”
“You know Stu. He still thinks everyone west of the Divide should secede.”
Xander laughed. “If I remember, you weren’t entirely against that idea.”
“No, I wasn’t, but it was too political for me to worry about. I’m a farmer, not a fighter.” There was a catch to his voice, not disapproval, per se, just a statement of fact. It was not lost on him that he was a pacifist who’d somehow raised a warrior.
“Stu’s son, William? Remember him? He’s the computer genius. That’s who I’m looking for.”
Roth took a break, leaned his hip against the table.
“Little Will Crawford. Think he lives somewhere west of here, might be as far as Grand Junction. But Stu’s always around. We can go see him after you humor your mother and eat some lunch, if you’d like.”
“I’d like. Thank you, Roth. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”
His father nodded once, still formal in his movements after all these years. “Of course. Now, let me get finished here, and you go see Sunshine.”
*
He’d never loved kale, but he ate it anyway, knowing how many vitamins and nutrients it had. Dark leafy greens warded off illness, as his mother liked to remind him. She was right, and her influence meant he generally ate exceptionally well, getting all of his nutrition from a balanced diet of vegetable, fruit and protein matter, with very little carbs that weren’t whole grains. Sam had been shocked at his culinary skills when she first moved in, not expecting him to be able to cook so well, but Xander was a bit of a gourmet, albeit an all-natural one. She’d joked that he should write a cookbook, The Warrior’s Guide to Clean Living. Her sherry-drenched eyes would laugh as she teased, her mouth quirked in a grin. The mouth he loved to settle his own upon, just because he could.
God, he’d only been away from her for six hours and he was already pining. If that wasn’t love, he didn’t know what was. He did know he’d never felt like this about another woman.
Sunshine cleared her son’s plate when he was finished, and, as if on cue, his father came to the door, washed and combed and neat after the slaughter, ready to escort his son into the lion’s den. Stu Crawford was an excitable sort; it would be best to have a friendly face along on their excursion. Sunshine kissed them both and told them to hurry back.
The drive to Crawford’s ranch would take twenty minutes or so. Xander and his father settled on a safe topic of conversation, Bach’s Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano. After agreeing that it was among their favorites, they evolved on to a slightly touchier subject. The Chaconne was Roth’s particular passion, and Xander had sent him a CD he’d recently acquired with Juliette Kang performing on the violin. Xander thought it masterful, Roth agreed, the young prodigy was excellent. But she wasn’t Xander.
Xander had chosen piano over violin when he was only ten, though he could play both exceptionally well. Sunshine favored the piano, while Roth favored the violin; it was the first conscious decision Xander made that went against his father’s wishes. He’d nearly mastered the Chaconne, considered one of the most difficult pieces of music to play in the world, but the piano held more of a challenge for him. He didn’t feel the strings in his soul the way he did the ivory.
They were past Avon now, the exit for Crawford’s Ranch coming up quickly.
“If he comes out with that Remington pointed anywhere but at the sky, let me talk.”
Xander glanced at his father, saw he wasn’t joking. Roth shrugged. “He’s gotten crotchety in his dotage. Perhaps has a touch of dementia.”
“He’s younger than you, isn’t he?”
“By the calendar, perhaps. But hate ages a man.”
Roth said nothing else, and Xander took the hint. He took the exit for the ranch, wound up the mountain, through the deep, undisturbed forest until the gate showed itself. Xander drove across the metal cowcatcher over the gully into the turnoff. He rolled down the window and killed the engine, kept his hand visible. The gate had a small box where visitors could announce themselves. Xander did a moment of recon, saw two cameras, assumed there were two more that weren’t as easily spotted. His father wasn’t kidding, Crawford had gotten paranoid.
A voice crackled in the box.
“By all that’s holy, is that Roth Whitfield? And Xander Moon?”
“That’s right, sir. May we come up?”