Chapter Six
LEVIWASBEGINNINGto wonder if Quinn Sullivan was actually going to return with the binder as she’d promised she would.
He wondered, too—if that were the case—if he would be able to get rid of Camilla by simply telling her that he had somebody managing the financials and flashing the binder. He actually could hire somebody. But he liked to take his time to mull stuff like this over.
He could ask around, find out who Damien used. Though, Levi would still need to meet whoever Damien suggested personally. He didn’t do business with faceless fat cats. Not anymore.
Damien was his best friend, who had become very successful running a winery, and the guy really was a business savant.
Levi wasn’t a slouch. His Wagyu beef operation had required a whole lot of certifications and other things that he had initially thought would be impossible.
But he would never admit that something felt impossible. He was physically incapable of it. He had known he could do the work—he just wasn’t sure that he could show it in the paperwork. But Damien had been a big help with that and, Damien being Damien, had never made him feel like it was a negative that he had needed his input.
It also made sense, though, because Damien had more experience with certifications and the like.
He never really needed to talk about the actual reasons he needed the assistance.
And they didn’t much get into the negative history of the ranch.
He wondered how much Quinn knew about the deal he’d made with her dad.
It was clear that she thought she was a clever little genius because of all that schooling.
School, in his estimation, was nothing but privilege. Had nothing to do with how smart you were. Just whether or not you could get there. Fine for some if they could jump through all the hoops they needed to in high school to get scholarships. Fine for some if their mommy and daddy were alive and could pay for it. And even if not alive to pay for it, just alive so they could be the adults, rather than him having to do it.
His were in the grave, and he hadn’t gone to school because he had been busy taking care of his siblings and, before that, his mother while her health declined.
Anyway, sitting down, staring at papers all day, it was all bullshit anyway. The words jumped around and the letters turned themselves every which way. It was such a pain in the ass to sit there and try to read a page of shit he didn’t even care about while the ranch was going to hell or his mother needed something. It just didn’t make sense.
Of course, there had been times that all that had jumped up and bit him in the ass, but he dealt with it. He made mistakes, being young and inexperienced, and he covered it.
He didn’t need somebody like Quinn Sullivan showing up and acting like she knew better than him just because she’d gone to school and he didn’t even have a high school diploma.
Of course, very few people knew that. His siblings didn’t know that. There wasn’t any reason to talk about it.
Not that he cared. It just didn’t come up.
But he went back down the driveway around the same time she had shown up yesterday, and parked his truck next to the old cabin. Just in case.
Then there she was. When she parked her car and got out of the driver side, she was clutching a big, flowered binder to her chest that he swore was nearly as big as she was.
He only looked at her. He’d gotten the feeling when she’d been here last that his silence, and his pace, was off-putting to her.
He was going to use that. Use the fact that he liked to chew on his words a minute before he spoke, whereas she spit words out like they were tacks she needed to expel as quickly as possible.
“Here I am,” she said. She stared at him. Clearly, she expected him to say something. So he didn’t. “I said that I would come back, and I have. Is there somewhere that we can sit?”
He looked around, then looked at the cabin and back to her.
“Oh, no, ma’am,” he said. “The inside of my house is not fit for a lady like yourself.”
She frowned at him. For some reason, he noticed that she was wearing white ankle socks. White tennis shoes. He didn’t know why he noticed that detail. And he also didn’t know why his immediate thought was that the socks were cute.
He looked back up at her face. Covered in freckles, her nose wrinkling slightly. Like a mad little bunny rabbit. “I’m not sure that I... A lady such as myself? I work on a ranch, Mr. Granger.”
He was amused he’d managed to get her to call him that.
He’d known her since she was knee-high to a prairie dog.
Well, known was a strong word.
But they’d grown up in a town the size of a vole’s tit, plus he’d had business with her family once upon a time. And still, he’d managed to set the tone and get her acting all formal.
“Miss Sullivan,” he said, drawing it out to the point of a drawl. “I just hate to be inhospitable, but I don’t want you seeing the state of things.” He was a liar. But he was having fun with it.
He realized she wasn’t just thrown off by him taking his time to speak. She thought he was dumb. She thought she knew more than him. So let her twist about a little bit, and he might as well play into it.
“Well...” She wandered over to the stump that he had been cutting on yesterday, and put one white tennis shoe–clad foot right up on it.
Her dress rode dangerously high up on her pale thigh—and she was too damned young for him—but he wasn’t made of stone, so he did notice. Then she put the binder down on her thigh and opened it up, supporting the other side on her forearm. “This is the first page. I’m going to show you the different ways that you can use your acreage to increase profits.”
He only looked at her. And he could see her mounting discomfort, and took great joy in it.
She started talking, running right over the silence, and he was regretful to find out that she actually did know some things. He wondered how much of it was intel from the old deal he’d done with her dad.
He’d been a dumb kid when he’d signed that lease. Ten years with his land tied up growing soybeans for a factory-farming outfit at a terrible rate, thanks to all the cash Brian Sullivan was skimming from the deal.
But he’d read the contract wrong, and he’d agreed to longer terms, a greater loss of control and a smaller profit than he’d thought, and he’d reaped—no pun intended—what he’d sown for years after.
He’d been planning all that time, ready to jump into the beef industry and take control back, and in the last six years he’d done that and been successful. He’d started making up for the lost years, had made enough to send Camilla to college.
But there was more he could do, that much he knew.
She was talking about seasonality and the way to keep things rotating.
“Now,” she said, “I know you mostly do beef. Wagyu. I looked it up. Because, of course, in order to put this together I had to know as much about your operation as possible.”
He nodded. “Right.”
For all that she had done her research, she still somehow believed he lived down here. That this was the house. Of course. And she was making assumptions on his management, because if he had Wagyu, and he still wasn’t turning a very big profit...
“And you’re probably thinking, all the available fields would be best used for more grazing land.”
“I am?” he asked, keeping his tone blank.
“Yes,” she said. “Because that’s how cattle ranchers often think. But no. Not necessarily. It just depends on how quickly you want to increase the amount of cattle that you have. My money would be on diversification. Because every segment of the industry is volatile. So while you can certainly specialize, I think you might be better off growing a staple crop.”
“I’ve done that,” he said, keeping his expression flat.
Her face went red. “Oh. Right. Of course. I just...”
“You’re not looking as well researched as I was led to believe.”
“Well.” She started flipping pages madly. “Let’s get into your tax structure.”
He looked at the page, all full of tables and numbers, and he blinked hard and looked away. “Listen. You seem very smart. But smart isn’t the be-all and end-all. Not this kind of smart. Have you ever actually done work on a cattle ranch?”
“No. But I know about the particulars of running it as a business. The valuation, and the amount of work you have to go through to get different certifications, the USDA weigh stations...”
“Great. So, if you read about flying a plane, do you think you can actually get in the cockpit and pilot a plane?”
For the first time she looked a little bit uncertain.
“How about this?” she said, suddenly. “You take the binder and look it over.” She dumped it into his hands and he regarded it with as much trust as he might allocate to a live snake. “Tomorrow, I’ll come back to the ranch and I’ll put in a day’s work.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you want to see whether or not I have something to offer you, if you want me to prove myself, that’s just fine by me. I’ll come tomorrow and report for work, and you can see what you think of the information I’ve compiled into the binder. Then after that you’ll see I do have something to offer you and you’ll be more amenable to the easement.”
More amenable to the easement. She hadn’t really asked what he wanted or why at all. She was talking herself in circles like an overactive ferret chattering at her own tail.
And why not let her? She was smart, so very smart, and why not let her get hog-tied by her own brilliance?
“I start work at six o’clock sharp, Miss Sullivan.”
“I’ll be here. What sort of shoes should I wear?”
He looked back down at the cute little white sneakers and the cute little socks. “Not those.”
“Work boots. I assume,” she said.
“If you assumed, then why did you ask?”
“Because I know well enough to try and be prepared. I’m not an idiot.”
He felt strongly that this was up for debate.
“Sure. Work boots. Not some fancy little JCPenney cowgirl boots.”
And then she looked like she might actually implode. Which was gratifying as hell.
“You know I actually live on a ranch, right? I have stood ankle height in horse shit on more than one occasion.”
He arched a brow. “Then you ought to be cleaning the stalls out a little more often.”
She frowned. Deeply. “You know what I mean.”
He crossed his arms and leaned heavily against the side of the cabin. “I don’t know that I do. Perhaps you should be a little more exacting in your language. I would have thought that your fancy book-learning institution might’ve taught you that. Ma’am.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you being intentionally provocative?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so. Because that’s a college word, so I’d have to figure the exact meaning.”
He had intended to lean in to her assumption that he was a dumbass, though he had a feeling he might be overplaying that hand.
The truth was, pretty much to spite the world he had done his level best to educate himself however he could. Audiobooks were a particular boon. The fact that you could listen to all kinds of information had been life-changing to him. There were still issues, for sure. But people always underestimated him. He knew the land, and he could find out what he needed to know.
And he had sure as hell worked on making sure he had a vocabulary that could knock someone on their ass if necessary.
Quinn Sullivan was begging to be knocked on her ass.
“Somehow I don’t believe you.”
He lifted a shoulder. “That’s too bad. It’s not up to you to believe me or disbelieve me. Remember, I’m the one with the road.”
Her cheeks turned as red as her hair.
He’d made her mad. Damned mad.
And he liked it.
“I’m fine. Thank you. I will be back here in work boots tomorrow.”
“I leave at six, sharp. Bring your own coffee. I don’t share. Oh, yeah... And the house is up the road a piece.” He smiled. He couldn’t help it. “I was messing with you.”
“You were... Excuse me?”
“This isn’t my house. Drive up the road a couple more miles tomorrow. You’ll see it.”
And he took that binder with him, all tucked up under his arm, and he left her there, satisfied he’d taken her down quite a few notches.