Page 99 of York

God, I’d hated her with the fire of a thousand suns. And he brought her with him to work nearly weekly. Just to vex me, I swear.

But at that point, things were getting so bad with my grandfather that I didn’t have the mental capacity to be as upset with him as he probably deserved.

We’d had a conversation not long before I ran off, though, that was real and honest. He’d admitted he should have treated me better. It was all forgiven.

I guess I should have known he was still working at the ranch. It was his father’s whole life. It seemed like it started to be that for him, too, before I’d left.

He looked good.

Time had made him even more attractive than he’d been as a teenager. His features more chiseled. His body had put on a solid twenty pounds of muscle since then.

“Runa?” Sonny asked, head whipping back like I’d struck him. “Holy shit. You’re here.”

“I am. I just heard about my grandfather. I got a plane right out.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry about your loss. It was a rough couple of years there at the end.”

“I wish I’d known earlier. It seems like he wanted to make amends.”

“Yeah, he got a lot softer after you left. Think he finally saw how fucked up he treated you. Had a lot of regrets.”

“But just as much pride,” I said. “He could have reached out. Not just had pictures taken of me.”

“Think he thought he had more time. Then… he didn’t.”

I nodded, feeling that little stabbing sensation I imagined I would feel for years to come, getting duller as I accepted that this door was closed.

I shook those thoughts off.

“So, this is the stuff, huh? Do you know how often I used to hang out here as a kid? Just hanging out amongst millions of dollars. God, I was a dumbass.”

“They just look like rocks,” Sonny said.

“Yeah. So, who figured it out then?”

“Your father, actually.”

“My father? My father who knew nothing about geology?” Or anything that didn’t have to do with spending money and partying.

“I guess he was doing research on rare minerals. Then set out to see if there were any on the ranch. Sure enough—” He waved toward the truck.

“Are you out here alone?” I asked, taking a step closer to the crack that looked a lot wider than it had when I was a kid. Sure, the earth was always moving, shifting, cracks grew wider, erosion happened.

But this… this wasn’t that.

This was mining of the rocks.

“Not anymore,” Sonny said. He sounded playful, but I knew him well enough to hear the false note in his voice.

Before I could even think to move, though, I felt him moving in behind me, the warmth of his body heat, the breeze of his breath on my hair.

His hand grabbed my gun and yanked it out of the holster, then pressed it into my back.

“You bastard,” I said, shaking my head.

I was too pissed off to be shocked.

Because it all just… clicked into place.