13
We flew to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport first, then to a little place I’d never heard of called Rapid City, South Dakota. The airport was a couple of runways in the middle of a vast, green expanse. The terminal itself was small but nice. Much to my surprise, we bypassed the rental car counters and went outside where a black SUV was waiting for us.
“You have a private driver?” I asked, stunned. “Here in South Dakota?”
“No,” Ryan smiled. “It’s a limo company.”
“Oh.” I felt a little foolish. “But if it’s a limo company, why isn’t it a limo?”
“We wouldn’t want one of those. Not for where we’re going.”
I understood that comment about an hour later.
We left the town and drove into a national forest full of hills and thick with trees. Most of the drive I was melancholy, but the scenery was a pleasant distraction. Ryan left me to my thoughts and chatted with the driver about things like the weather and how business was doing.
I checked my phone.
Eleven new messages, 15 new texts, all from the same number.
I deleted the voicemails without listening to them. I should have done the same with the texts, but I read the first five until I got so angry that I erased them all.
After almost forty minutes, we passed through Deadwood, South Dakota. The town was basically one long strip of buildings that looked like they were built in the last twenty years, but wanted you to believe they were over a century old. Lots of places with ‘saloon’ on the sign, and a couple of casinos.
“Is this the Deadwood in that old HBO show?” I asked.
“The very same.”
Shortly after that we left the national forest. Woods and mountainous hills sloped up to the left, and a vast expanse of prairie stretched off to the right. We drove another fifteen minutes, then turned off the asphalt onto a deserted side road. We passed through a lot of tall grass, and occasionally I would see creatures that looked like a cross between deer and moose.
“Elk,” Ryan explained when he saw me watching them.
Another ten minutes went by, and we turned off the road onto what could only charitably be called a gravel road. More like rutted dirt. Now I understood why we had the SUV as we bumped and jostled along.
At one point we reached a long metal gate, bounded on both sides by endless wooden fence. The driver was about to get out when Ryan said, “I’ll do it.” He jumped out, opened the gate, waited until the SUV had driven through, then closed the gate and got in the backseat again with me.
“What was that?”
“Cattle gate.”
“You have cows here?”
“Not anymore. My grandparents did, but I just keep a few horses.”
We drove another few minutes until we reached a small group of buildings. There was a barn, a small ranch-style house, and a couple of large shacks, one of which might have been a garage.
Several hundred feet away sat a much larger house, a one-story with an expansive wooden porch out front. The wood was weathered, but it looked well cared-for.
The driver pulled up in front of the main house, then hopped out and took my luggage from the back. Ryan peeled off a couple of hundreds and handed them over.
“Goodness – thank you, Mr. Miller,” the driver enthused.
“My pleasure. Thanks for the ride.”
As the SUV disappeared down the dirt road, I suddenly realized just how isolated we were. Nothing around us for miles and miles except prairie and wooded hills.
“Does anybody else live here?” I asked nervously.
Ryan smiled and pointed over at the smaller ranch house. “The MacCruders. They handle the place for me while I’m away, take care of the horses. We’ll meet them later. Let’s get you settled first.”
We walked up on the front porch and he opened the door – not locked at all.
“You don’t lock your front door?” I asked, astounded.
Ryan looked at me in amusement. “Who’s going to break in, way out here?”
He had a point. But for a girl who had six locks on her New York City apartment door, it was a novel concept.
The house was absolutely beautiful. A gigantic open main room, with exposed rafters and lots of light-colored wood paneling. There was a stone fireplace, comfortable leather sofas, a beautiful dining room table, antique desks and bookcases, and a grand piano in front of a vast bay window.
“This was your grandparents’?” I asked, trailing my fingers across the keys.
“No, they weren’t exactly the musician types. I put it in after I remodeled the place. Want to see the studio?”
He led me down the hallway to a soundproofed room with microphones, speakers, computers, mixing boards, and about a dozen different guitars hanging on the walls.
“Is this going to be a working vacation?”
“It’s not work if you love it,” he smiled.
He led me back through the house. As we passed, I looked at the dozens of pictures on the wall. I recognized Ryan’s mother and father, and Mara and Casey at all different ages. There was an older couple, silver-haired and usually in denim, who looked just as happy as the rest of Ryan’s family.
And, of course, there were shots of Ryan – from a smiling, gap-toothed seven-year-old holding his baby sister, all the way up through his high school years. In the latter ones, he looked the way I remembered him from four years ago: innocent good looks and short hair.
“Look at you, you’re so cute,” I cooed.
“Oh God,” he moaned. “Don’t look at those.”
I pointed at a few that could charitably be called his ‘awkward years,’ with braces and outdated hairstyles. He was still adorable, though. “What, you mean these?”
He took my arm good-naturedly and propelled me past the pictures. “Yeah, I’m going to have to take those down while you’re here,” he joked.
It surprised me the tiniest bit that I liked feeling his strong, powerful hand on my arm.
He led me past the modern kitchen, with its marble-topped island and a hanging rack of pots and pans, down a hallway with four bedrooms. We wound up at the farthest one, with a four-poster bed and a white billowing canopy flowing from the frame.
“Nice,” I said.
“Mara insisted on it.” He sounded a little embarrassed.
“You mean, you weren’t the one who wanted the flowing, sensual curtains?” I teased.
He gave me a
You’re a little devil
look, then said, “You’ve got your own bathroom here, so you’ll have plenty of privacy.”
I looked in. Nice. Clean white tile with light blue accents, a granite sink and counter, and a humongous claw-foot tub with a sleek modern showerhead. And there were thick, soft towels hanging neatly on a metal rod.
He went to the door and looked back at me. “I’ll let you get settled. If you want to take a shower, that’s cool – I know I’m going to. Take your time. Afterwards we’ll… I don’t know. Get a drink and relax, have some dinner.”
“Okay,” I said, suddenly shy. “Thanks.”
He smiled. “Don’t mention it.”
He turned and left. I heard his footsteps down the hall, and then the door to his bedroom closed.