Page 80 of York

“Yeah,” I agreed, reaching out to grab her knees, giving them a squeeze. “What’s going on in your head?”

“I don’t know. My mind is racing back and forth between it all—the plane crash, the money, my grandfather’s illness, the money, the fact that I’m all alone in the world. I mean, I know I was alone already, but this is a much more final way.”

“You’re not alone. I’m here.”

Her gaze flicked up.

“And if I’m some rare mineral heiress?”

“Got a feeling Denali will be even more spoiled than she already is.”

“Yeah.”

“And you might get yourself an SUV to match mine.”

“In a more fun color.”

“And maybe you’ll get yourself a pass to the national parks.”

“And a camper, since I doubt Denny will want to rough it in a tent.”

“After seeing her princess routine in the pool, I think you might be right about that.”

“Probably best not to get ahead of ourselves, though. Trust me when I say I didn’t leave town on good terms. My grandfather and I had a screaming match the night before. It was the ugliest it had ever been. I don’t know if I believe he would leave anything to me. He had a lot of friends, somehow. I could see him leaving them the ranch and leaving me some notebook full of his list of disappointments in me.”

“Guess we won’t know until you call.”

“Yeah,” she said, exhaling hard. “I guess I’ll call in the morning. But I get the feeling that this is going to be a trip back to Wyoming to discuss things and prove my identity and all that jazz. I don’t know if this is the time for that.”

“Well, no one is saying you have to go anywhere alone,” I reminded her.

“You’d go with me to Wyoming?”

“I’d kind of insist on it at this point.”

She sat with that for a minute.

“Okay then. I guess we will see what the lawyer says tomorrow.”

“Yep,” I agreed as we both got up. “But just for the record, I thought you were pretty cool before you became some rare mineral heiress.”

She rolled her eyes at that.

But when I pressed a hand to her lower back as we walked, she didn’t pull away.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Runa

I couldn’t sleep.

Not even Denali’s slow, rhythmic breathing and her stars projected onto the ceiling and walls were enough to lull me to sleep.

Not after all the news York had just given me.

My family: dead. All of them. My entire lineage, gone. Without me even knowing.

There was grief—more than I expected. But the more I sat with it, the more it felt like grief for what could have been, not for what had been. I grieved the mother and father I should have had, the ones I maybe hoped they would grow into one day. But the news of their money-wasting, extravagant ways told me not much had changed in the years I’d been away.