Chapter Twenty-Three
Runa
The house held a lot of complex feelings for me.
The property, on the other hand, was a lot simpler. It was my safe haven. My peace. My joy.
Stepping off the back patio, I breathed in the crisp air, the slightly sweet scent of hay from the cattle feed, and the lodgepole pine trees all around the property.
The tension that had been creeping in melted. My shoulders softened. My heartbeat evened out.
It was like the whole ranch was there telling me it was all going to be okay.
I took a walk over to the cattle, petting a few soft heads, then walking along the fence until I veered off into a thick cluster of trees.
The land started a slow ascent that would turn into a sharp drop-off if I kept going.
I’d lost my footing on the way down once, falling hard and fast, making my stomach take up temporary residence in my throat as I tried to protect my head from the jagged juts of rock.
I’d bruised a rib and hid it from my grandfather so he wouldn’t lecture me about it. I nearly threw up from the pain when he’d demanded I take a horseback ride with him the next day.
Once I’d made my way down the hill, the ground started a punishing incline, making my thighs burn, reminding me how out of shape I’d gotten, until I reached the top, turning in a circle to take in the view.
I expected to feel that same floating, wonder-filled sensation I always had as a teen.
Instead, it was something dangerously close to anxiety that crept up my spine, curled around, and tightened around my throat.
Weird.
Maybe it was just that my prefrontal cortex had finally finished developing, stripping me of the careless recklessness of youth, making me see danger where I’d once seen freedom.
Because eighteen-year-old me never would have stood in that spot and worried about breaking a leg and how much a hospital cast might cost without insurance.
Or, worse yet, surgery. That younger me would likely be thinking that if I ran, I would be able to make it to the rock formation and back for dinner.
That was my destination now.
The geological dike was one of my favorite parts of the property. It was a giant, ancient crack in the earth where magma had forced its way inside to create wild, ragged rock formations.
As reckless as I was as a kid, I only went down into the crack a few times.
Even then, I’d been heart-poundingly nervous, too aware that if a rock slipped, I could easily get trapped and never be found, leaving me to slowly dehydrate to death.
Or how easily I could trip, whack my head, and bleed out.
Still, it was a place of peace for me.
But as I got to the top of the hill that scaled down toward the site, I saw things that had never been there before: stakes and warning tape, a truck, and heavy-duty construction equipment.
Was this where they found the minerals?
In my old safe space?
There was a quick twist of anger at the idea of one of my favorite spaces being gutted. And also a small bit of regret that my dumb teenage ass hadn’t seen the rocks for what they were. One stolen one and I might have set myself up for years.
Greg’s words came back to me about the rare earth minerals.
Mineralized carbonatite.
When I’d looked into it, it turned out they use the stuff for permanent magnets for electric cars, wind turbines, and handheld electronics. But there were other potential uses for lasers and guidance systems for the military.
I knew they’d done testing and a survey to come up with estimates for how many rare earth minerals were found. But I couldn’t remember how much Greg said. And I had no reference for what that amount would be worth anyway.
That said, from what I understood, the site was shut down. Everything had to be put on hold until I was found and consulted about what I wanted to do with the property.
That should have been done years ago.
Yet that truck bed had piles of plain-looking rocks in it. There was a coffee cup on the roof.
Had I misunderstood what Greg said? Was there a small operation underway just to continue to pay for the upkeep of the house, staff, and the cattle operation?
I mean, there had to be money for that, right?
I had to have just been mistaken.
I made my way down, curious to see the rocks, to see what I’d missed all those years I spent around them.
“You can’t be here,” a voice barked as I reached out to touch one of the familiar cream rocks with subtle black coloring in the craggy indents.
I yelped and turned, my hand going to my waistband, where I had a small gun in a holster—in case I needed to scare off any animals.
“Oh!” I said, my hand falling and going to my heart instead. “Sonny! Jesus. You scared me!”
Sonny had been a fixture in my life since his father started working on the ranch when I was ten or so. He’d been a year older than me, and as we got older, I developed the most insane, one-sided crush on him.
He was tall and fit from all the farm work, with a chiseled face, bright blue eyes, and sandy hair.
God, how I used to follow him around while trying not to look like I was doing just that.
He’d been nice to me. He kind of had to be, given who my grandfather was.
I remember one night, after getting welts from such a bad lashing, I’d been sitting outside not far from the driveway, trying not to cry.
Sonny came swaggering over toward his truck before spotting me.
“What’s wrong, kid?” he asked. “What is it?” he pressed when my voice caught. When I didn’t answer, he exhaled hard and came to sit beside me. “Boy trouble?”
A snort escaped me at that. I never had boy troubles.
I wasn’t an ugly teen, but I wasn’t as soft, curvy, or girly as the other girls in my grade.
No boys looked at me twice. And if they did, it was to ask me to do something like off-roading or skeet shooting.
Never to go sneak off onto someone’s property and make out.
“Come on. You can tell me.”
With that, he nudged me and I nearly screamed as his elbow met one of my welts.
His whole body stiffened as he reached out, grabbed the back of my shirt, and yanked it up halfway.
“Jesus, kid. The old man did that?”
“The old man does that a lot.”
“My old man has beat my ass a few times, but, fuck, nothing like that. That ain’t right. Not on a girl, either.”
It was pathetic how much my heart swelled at being seen as a girl.
He’d been even nicer to me after that incident. Sometimes even covering for me when my grandfather was angry at me for something. He would claim he asked me to do something for him, giving me an alibi. Or he’d take the blame for something I’d screwed up.
To say my crush went nuclear after that would be an understatement.
And it all culminated in a late night when I’d snuck back out of my room after being grounded.
I’d been taking a walk when I saw a light on inside the hay shed.
When I’d made it over, I found Sonny sitting on a bale of hay, a shotgun propped up beside him.
“What are you doing?”
“Wolves got a calf last night. Your grandfather wants one of us out here until he can get some guardian dogs.”
“He’s been sentimental about Buckeye dying. He doesn’t seem to want to replace him yet,” I said, moving into the hay shed, having no idea right then—or perhaps hoping and planning—that it would be the night I lost my virginity to the boy I’d been crushing on for years.
It hadn’t exactly been amazing, but it hadn’t been awful, either. And I’d romanticized it because of who it was. Enough so that I pretended it didn’t break my heart that he mostly ignored me afterward, except for two other occasions where we’d caught each other alone and he’d slept with me again.
But when he caught me getting too clingy, he’d been quick to shut me down. Then he started dating a girl who was my complete antithesis—blonde-haired, peppy, with big boobs, and a high, girly voice, who laughed at everything he said and pretended to always be weak and helpless.
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.