The Rival

Chapter Seven

BYTHETIMEshe got up the next morning, she was stamping about the kitchen in work boots. She was in a fury. He was the worst. He was absolutelythe worst.

And he was making fun of her. With his angular jaw and large hands and...and...

And.

Did he think she was a greenhorn?

She had grown up on a ranch. He knew that!

She’d been mucking stalls, feeding horses, fixing fences and managing the pastures since she was in Velcro shoes.

And no, they didn’t currently do the kind of ranch work that he did, but they had made this place profitable. She had managed to get herself to school, where she had learned all about the economics of this kind of thing, about the legalities, managing a business, and whether Mr. Free Citizen of Pyrite Falls wanted to admit that those things mattered, they did. They absolutely did.

So there.

She started the coffee maker, which was designed to fit a thermos right underneath the spout. With bleary eyes, she shoved it beneath and pushed the on button. Then she turned to get some cream out of the fridge, and heard a splattering noise.

She turned around to see that she had put the thermos beneath the spout, upside down. And the coffee was running out over the bottom of the container.

With absolutely no deference given to whether or not her sisters were sleeping in their upstairs bedrooms in their adorably eclectic farmhouse, Quinn let out a howl of rage.

A moment later, Fia appeared at the top of the stairs. “Are you fighting a dragon down here?”

“Philosophically,” Quinn said, having shut the machine off and hurriedly begun cleaning up the mess. “Yes.”

She reset everything and put the thermos beneath, this time checking to see if it was right side up. “I often think it’s utterly unfair that a person has to make coffee before they’ve had coffee.”

“One of those true injustices in the world, I agree,” said Fia, crossing her arms beneath her breasts and leaning against the wall. “Did you need some help?”

“I don’t need help. I’m going to work at Levi Granger’s ranch this morning. Because apparently I have to prove to him that I know what I’m doing.”

“You’re off to a great start,” said Fia, looking around the kitchen.

“Don’t oppose me, Fia,” she said testily. “I’ve had enough of it.”

“I’m not opposing you. I am teasing you.”

It felt the same to Quinn. And she was far too raw for any of it.

“He’s infuriating,” said Quinn.

“I’m sure that he is,” Fia said, and Quinn felt she sounded patronizing.

“Do you know Levi?” It was possible that Fia knew him in a different context, but the idea made Quinn feel scratchy.

Fia shook her head. “No. He’s way too much older than me for us to have known each other socially back in the day. Anyway. You know I don’t...go out or anything.”

“Yeah. I do.”

She had long assumed it was because Landry King had broken Fia’s heart. And yet Fia didn’t seem like a romantic. But then, she had often thought perhaps that was why, as well.

Rory was a ridiculous romantic. She had dreams of being swept off her feet.

Quinn had no such dreams. Quinn just hadn’t decided yet if she wanted any kind of romantic entanglement.

It seemed like a hassle, from her perspective.

Watching the dissolution of her parents’ marriage had been disheartening.

And really, her dad leaving had put a big dent in her ability to trust anything with a penis. How could you ever get back to trusting somebody that you had known your entire life when they proved that they were...not at all who you thought. How could you ever look at anyone the same way again?

Quinn hadn’t been able to. It was one reason she’d been so angry.

Her dad hadn’t just left them; he’d taken with him Quinn’s entire view of the world.

Nothing had ever been the same.

But right now, Fia’s expression just looked so...sad. It made Quinn wonder. It made her wonder if she knew her sister at all.

“Fia...”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Quinn. And certainly nothing that requires a summit at five thirty in the morning. I don’t know anything about Levi Granger other than the fact that he has a reputation for being stubborn. He does not have a reputation for being dangerous in any way, though, so I imagine that you’ll be fine. Unless he is a very stealthy murderer of young women that he puts to work on his ranch.”

Quinn wrinkled her nose. “Well, let’s hope not.”

Fia smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Listen. It doesn’t matter if you think you know someone or not. You can’t always trust them. Just... I haven’t heard anything bad about him, but I want you to be careful.”

“Be careful, of what?”

“Just the same speech I gave you in college. Watch your drink and all of that.”

“He’s a neighbor.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. We don’t really know him.”

“I don’t think I’m in any danger from him. Though, he did not respond well to the binder.”

“I’m not sure that I would’ve responded well to the binder, either.” Fia moved forward and patted her on the arm. “In all seriousness, he’s been in the community long enough that if there was anything untoward about him, we would know. But I love you, and break a leg. Well, no. Don’t do that. That doesn’t really work when you’re talking ranch work. Because you actually might break a leg.”

“I will not, Fia. I know how to do farm chores.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. This is what I do. This is my area of study.”

“What kind of ranch work do we do?” Fia asked, sweetly.

“I know how to ride a horse. I know how to muck stalls. I know how to buck hay.”

“When have you bucked hay?”

“I have,” she insisted.

The look her sister gave her was so skeptical it nearly lit the fuse on Quinn’s explosive temper. But she didn’t indulge in that. Not anymore. “Like physically, you have done the work?” Fia asked.

Quinn took a heavy, calming breath. “Yes. I think. I mean, I remember being out when the hands were doing it a couple of years ago.”

“You’re tiny,” said Fia. “Very cute, but pocket-sized women are sort of impractical for heavy lifting. Believe me, it is also my burden to bear.” She smiled. “But we’re very good at getting things out of hard-to-reach places.”

“Well, I’ll let him know if he has anything that has fallen into a tight crevice, I can try my hand at it. Literally. And I’m leaving now.” She grabbed her thermos and headed out the door, getting into her car and making her way down the dirt road that led to the main highway.

Things were already bustling on the ranch. This was the time when ranchers got up to do things. That was another perk of being a Sullivan, she had to admit. Unless it was a bread-baking day, they didn’t keep quite the same early hours as the other families. They didn’t really have to. Because their primary focus wasn’t animals.

But there were already trucks on the roads, ranch hands moving between plots of land and getting a start to the day’s work. By the time she got out to the main highway, there was even more traffic. The day started early for almost everyone that lived in Pyrite Falls, even if they weren’t ranchers. Because they often had quite the commute to get to work.

It was a difficult life. But there was something kind of profound about it, because it was harder to make it here than not. It was a place you had to choose. You could fall into it, for certain. Inherit land. But it wouldn’t simply sustain itself. You had to make it sustainable.

There was something poetic about that, at least to her.

She was pondering that when she turned onto the road that would carry her to Levi’s house.

He had said that the house was farther up the road. But she had no real idea how far, or how she was supposed to gauge it.

She drove on, though, passing the little shanty he’d been chopping wood in front of both days when she had arrived.

Why hadn’t he told her it wasn’t the house?

He was sort of determined to mess with her. To prove that he was smarter than her.

Maybe that was it.

She thought about that for a moment. She wondered if it made him feel intimidated that she had gone to college.

Maybe. She was proud of her accomplishments. She had worked hard for them.

It just wasn’t an assumption around here that people would go on to have higher education. It had been interesting to actually be at school. Many of the people that had been there had found it to be compulsory. Like moving on to the next grade in high school. Not a discussion at all, but an inevitability. It wasn’t like that here. It never had been. Many people expected to go into some kind of trade. Many of the women expected to get married, to be a ranch wife.

But not Quinn. Even before her father had defected, that hadn’t been her goal.

But after... Well, afterward it had become even more important to her that she got an education. That she made her own way.

Because she had seen what could happen to a woman when she made her entire world a man, and that man left.

Her mother had collapsed.

She had never been the same.

She’d been less hostile to Fia, so in that sense it was good. It was like her dad leaving had let all the air and anger out of the place. But at the same time... She just hadn’t been her. She’d been like a shell of the woman she’d been. It was hard to be both grateful for it and mad about it, but Quinn managed.

Even now that her mom was living in Hawaii, basically in paradise, living her best life, she wasn’t the same person she’d been before.

She would probably say she was happy. Away from the tiny town of Pyrite Falls, away from the grind of ranch life. Living on island time and enjoying dating around and lunching with friends.

Quinn had gone to visit her mother on a couple of different school breaks.

It was beautiful there.

And her mother seemed like a new person surrounded by all the sea. Even though it was good in many ways, Quinn had issues with it.

And Quinn didn’t want to be changed by a man, even if that change took her to Hawaii.

Quinn wanted control.

To be in charge of her own destiny, and to heck with anybody that tried to meddle in it.

Including Levi.

Thinking the guy was hot didn’t give him permission to get under her skin.

Shewasn’t a romantic.

Appreciating him in a visual sense didn’t mean he got to control her emotions.

Maybe that was part of her problem. She had vanquished her anger just a little bit too well. Maybe she needed to call upon it, even if it was just to fuel her through today.

She couldn’t really be mean to him, because he did have a point: she needed him.

But she could be intense. She was very good at that.

Then she rounded the corner in the winding gravel drive, and looked up and saw a massive house. Absolutely huge. With big, brightly lit windows, and what looked like a chandelier inside.

It was gorgeous. Rustic and modern all at once, and she wasn’t quite sure how it managed to be both of those things, but it did.

That asshole.

He had been absolutely playing her.

She had driven up and thought that she could easily identify that he had a need based on how meager his living situation was, but his living situation wasn’t meager at all. In fact, it made the Sullivans’ farmhouse look like a dollhouse.

She got out of the car, clutching her coffee service tightly in her hands, holding it just a bit too tightly, until her knuckles began to ache.

That absolute bastard.

But she did her best to breathe through the rage because being mean to him wasn’t going to win her anything, and she didn’t do uncontrolled rage. Not anymore.

Not even when someone was an uncontrolled, vile jerk...

And then the front door opened and he was standing there, wearing a flannel shirt, a black cowboy hat, blue jeans and...socks. He did not have his work boots on yet.

It disturbed her that even when angry with him, the impact of him, physically, was like getting hit by a truck. A very sexy truck.

“Come on in.”

“I’m on time,” she said, scampering up to the doorway.

“Sure are,” he said, but somehow managed to sound calm and like she was wrong all at once.

“I am,” she said, keeping her voice as smooth and placid as possible.

He looked at her, his expression maddeningly blank. “Yeah.”

“You aren’t ready to go.”

“No. I’m not.”

She squinted. “You said you were always ready to go at six sharp.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“And you aren’t,” she pointed out.

“You’re the one who invited yourself along today, Miss Sullivan. I don’t quite understand why you think it’s up to you to give me a lecture on timekeeping.”

That shut her up effectively. Because he was right. She’d pushed for this. She didn’t feel bad in the sense that he’d made her feel mean. No, he’d made her feel like she’d made a grave tactical error. He was...maybe trying to annoy her? And she was letting him.

There was a big pile of shoes by the door, but his work boots were set next to a bench right there in the expansive entryway.

The kitchen that was behind him was huge, well-appointed with many modern conveniences.

She heard footsteps and startled, looking up at the staircase to the right, to see a little blonde wearing a white T-shirt and short shorts flitting down the stairs.

“Levi,” she said. “I didn’t know that you had company.”

Well, Quinn felt like saying the exact same thing.

She felt...she felt like she’d been dipped in boiling oil. She was hot. And raw.

He was letting her see his morning-after...situation. Oh, she hated men so much.

Because of course he just had some woman in his house that he...

“I can wait outside,” said Quinn.

“No need,” said the blonde, waving her hand. “Are you...coming or going?”

Quinn frowned. “I’m... I just got here.”

Did he have a revolving door? And this blonde woman was just used to it? She had the night shift, some other woman had the day shift?

Who in the world had that kind of time? Quinn had never managed to squeeze a love affair into her life, and Levi was juggling multiple women?

“Okay,” said the woman, laughing. “That makes more sense. I didn’t think he had that big of a personality transplant since I was here last year. I’m Camilla. Levi’s sister.”

His sister. For a full ten seconds she was stunned, and she was...

Why had she assumed it was his lover? Even if she wasn’t his sister, she could have been a committed girlfriend. Or even a wife. It wasn’t like she knew everything about Levi.

So why had that been the go-to? And why had it bothered her so much?

Well, the truth was, she didn’t trust men as a species because of her dad. Sad but true. The thing was, if someone you’d known all your life could turn out to be hiding secrets, then anyone could be.

Many Dateline episodes supported that theory.

So maybe her go-to was a bit more judgmental than it should be. But that was how she stayed safe. It wasn’t personal to him. It was just her issues.

That was all.

She really didn’t know enough about him. Well, she did know he had a sister. Sisters, in fact. And a brother. She knew about the Grangers. It was that thing where you talked about people but you didn’t necessarily know all the details because it was from a hundred different sources. But everybody knew each other’s biography in a small town.

Levi Granger had been taking care of this ranch since his parents died when he was a teenager.

He had younger siblings, and they’d been in his care, too.

Many people sighed with sympathy when they talked about him, though in the next breath they often said that he was a difficult asshole.

It was funny, though, that she hadn’t even thought about his siblings when she had come up here. Or really, his biography in general.

Her dad leaving, her mom leaving a few years after, those events had impacted her profoundly. It stood to reason that Levi would be even more affected by his parents dying. Maybe it wasn’t entirely fair of her to judge him.

Well, she could judge him, she supposed; it was just that perhaps his behavior had a fair source.

She would remember that during the day when she was tempted to be irritated at him.

“I’m Quinn Sullivan,” said Quinn. “I work at Four Corners next door.”

“Oh, I remember you. From the meeting.”

Which meant Camilla probably wasn’t her biggest fan.

“So, what are you doing here?” Camilla asked.

Quinn straightened, trying to look official. “I’m consulting.”

Levi cast a disdainful eye over her that seemed to say: we’ll see. Then he looked up at Camilla. “You should go ahead and get packed, Cam. You need to get ready to head back to school.”

“I do?”

“Yes, you do. I already showed you that I’m good.”

“She’s your consultant,” said Camilla, looking shocked.

Quinn looked at him, and then looked at Camilla.

She had no idea where that had come from. Or what it meant.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m his consultant. I have a degree in agribusiness, and experience with admin and business at Sullivan’s Point, and I’ve offered to put in some time here.”

She could feel his rage getting hot and bright, and that made her feel...

Just. Damned. Fine.

She had one on him. His sister was worried about him. He wanted her to leave, and he’d already told a lie to get her to do it, and now Quinn was here.

If he wanted to, he could have said she was lying right away and he hadn’t, which meant what he really wanted was for his sister to leave. And he was willing to do a lot to accomplish it.

“That’s...great,” Camilla said, smiling, even if slowly. “Levi, you really need somebody to help you get everything in order.”

She could have crowed in her victory. “I am helping him with that. I’m getting a good look at the ranch today to kind of see what’s going on, and to give more of a detailed overview.”

“He showed me your binder. It was very comprehensive,” said Camilla.

“Did he?” she asked, turning to look at Levi.

Levi’s expression was frozen, his teeth gritted together. “Yes, I figured I’d show her the plan so she wasn’t so worried.”

“Because you were so enthused about the plan yesterday?”

“The binder itself felt convenient,” he shot back.

Quinn nearly gasped, but didn’t. She nearly bent down and picked up one of the shoes from the pile by the door and lobbed it at his head, but she didn’t. Satisfaction had gone to rage in white-hot record time.

He’d been using her binder to placate Camilla, and he hadn’t been planning on using her expertise at all. He was just using her.

That dirty rat bastard.

Oh, she was mad now. And in work boots. She should go step on his foot while he was only wearing socks.

She wouldn’t, though, because she didn’t do that anymore.

She was Zen.

She was calm.

She was the sea.

Filled with monsters. That wanted to eat his head off.

The intensity of what she felt around Levi was too much. Much too much. Always too much.

“As you can see,” said Levi, “everything is under control.” He went over to the bench and started to put his boots on, easy as you please, and not acting at all like he had been caught being a duplicitous son of a bitch.

“I worry about Levi,” said Camilla. “I was thinking about dropping out so that I could come back and help manage the ranch.”

Quinn didn’t really hear all of it. What she heard was “dropping out.”

“Don’t drop out,” said Quinn. “Your education is the most important thing. I graduated a couple of years ago, and I’ve never regretted it. You have to finish college. It’s one thing that no one can ever take away from you. The things that you learn.”

“I tried to tell her that,” said Levi.

She stared at him, and this time it was her turn to be slow to speak.

“You tried to tell her that?” Quinn asked.

“Yeah,” said Levi, putting his boot down heavily. “I did.”

“It just doesn’t seem like you...”

“Doesn’t seem like what?” He looked at her with baiting eyes. She was smart enough to know there was a hook in there, and she didn’t want to bite down on it.

But that didn’t mean she had an easy time looking away.

She hadn’t noticed that his eyes were blue. But they were. Dark like sapphires, but they weren’t cool. Not really. Not when you looked deep enough. There was a spark there, and it looked dangerous.

He wasn’t simple, either.

There was a constellation there. Emotion and thought and so many other things she’d never simply looked at another person and seen.

She felt rocked. Thrown off her axis.

Why did he do this to her?

Better still, why did it matter?

She felt like she was being pulled toward him, and that was enough to alarm her.

She took a step back.

“Nothing,” she said. “Anyway. Don’t we have work to do?”

“Just let me know what you need to get on your way, Cam,” said Levi. “I’m just going to be out on the property. So, call me.”

“Okay,” said Camilla, looking between them. “If you insist.”

“I do.”

He grunted and jerked his head toward the door. “Okay, Dr. Quinn, let’s go.”

“I don’t actually have a doctorate,” she said.

“Yeah. But you’re acting snotty, and have higher education, and it was a TV show.”

She sniffed. “I don’t remember it.”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-five.”

He shook his head. “Lord Almighty.”

“What?”

“Just get in my truck.”

She climbed in the passenger side, nearly straining a muscle getting in. And she bit back a comment about the size of his truck and whether or not it was relative to egotistical damage as she did so. It was a nice truck. More evidence of the fact that he actually did quite well, obviously.

“What exactly are you not saying to me, ferret?” he asked.

“Are you just going to keep calling me names?”

“I was thinking about it. Because it’s funny.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t find it funny. Nor do I find it funny that you actually do need me, because clearly your sister was thinking about dropping out of college, and you were going to use my binder to try and convince her you had help when you didn’t.”

“Guilty as charged. What gave that away?”

“Your total lack of being receptive to me at all this morning coupled with Camilla’s certainty that you’d hired someone as a done deal.”

“I’m not going to apologize. You’re the one who rocked up here like the sharp end of a stick, poking around in everything and inserting yourself where you had no business.”

“I do have business. You came down to the meeting and you put us in an impossible position. I’m going to defend my ranch and my livelihood. That’s...obvious.” She gave him a sideways look. “And funny thing, you actually seem to care about college.”

“Wrong. What I care about is that Camilla doesn’t take options from herself because she feels like she owes me in some way. I don’t give a shit what she does. She could work at the Wendy’s a couple hours away or be a rocket scientist—wouldn’t change the way I feel about her. What I do care about is whether or not she misses out on her own dreams because of guilt. Especially out of guilt over me. That isn’t what I want, and it sure as hell wasn’t the point in getting those assholes raised.”

“Oh, I...” Quinn’s parents hadn’t seemed to care at all. She didn’t quite know what to do with this very certain...fire from him about wanting the people he’d helped raise to be happy.

“My brother didn’t go to college, and I’m proud as hell of him.”

“What does he do?” she asked.

“He’s in the army.” He laughed. “Not my first choice. We’ve lost enough. We don’t need to go losing any more, and the military is dangerous, but I’m proud of him.”

“Right. I get that.” She felt a little bit...bad. Because now he had mentioned his losses, and his role in taking care of his siblings. Because now suddenly he wasn’t just a scowling caricature. Now he seemed more like a real human being. “But either way, you were going to use my research, my binder, to get your sister to do what you wanted.”

“She’s worried, and it’s silly. She’s twenty. She needs to finish school. She doesn’t know what the hell she’s even talking about. She’s nearly done with her second year and she just needs to finish it out and stop being dramatic about it. I think she misses being home. I think it hasn’t been the easiest change for her. But she’s just got to finish. She’s got to get through. She’ll be glad she did when she does.” He paused for a long moment. “Like you said. Nobody will be able to take it from her. And there’s plenty of things that life can take from you, so you’ve got to hold on to what you can.”

That resonated in her soul, and she hadn’t expected that. For him to say something that felt...wise.

She shifted. “Don’t you have another sister?”

“Yeah. Jessie. She doesn’t live here anymore. She’s out a couple hours away with her boyfriend. My best friend. The tool.”

“Oh,” said Quinn. “That must have been dramatic.”

“Not really so much. He’s a good guy. And he’ll take good care of her.”

Well, there, that was sort of an annoying, male thing to say. It made her feel a little more balanced to be irritated at him again. “Does she need to be taken care of?”

“No. Jessie can take care of herself. But I think every older brother wants his sister with a man who will take care of her instead of a man who might cause her harm.”

She wasn’t sure that man existed. “Good point. But I don’t believe that you can count on other people to take care of you.”

“Really?”

“No. You can’t. Life is too uncertain. You can’t pin anything on other people. You can’t hold out hope that they are going to give you what you need. You have to be prepared to manage all your own stuff. It’s the only way to go. The only way to be.”

“Well, that’s quite a perspective.”

“One you don’t agree with?”

He shook his head. “No. I agree to a point. Though, I have to say, my siblings became more important to me after my parents died. But the buck stops with someone. Someone was in charge. When you’re the one in charge...you aren’t really leanin’ on anyone but yourself.”

That made her unexpectedly uncomfortable, because in their family, Fia was the oldest. Quinn had gone and gotten the education stuff taken care of all on her own. They hadn’t been able to count on their parents to help them, and yes, they did have each other for emotional support, and Quinn had done a lot to keep Sullivan’s Point going, but it was different from taking care of your younger siblings.

“My sisters are important to me,” said Quinn. “Don’t get me wrong.”

“But when push comes to shove, and you had to fight, you would expect to do it on your own.”

She nodded. “Yes. In the end, that’s what you have. You have to expect that. Nobody else can fight all your battles for you.”

“And yet you need to have an agreement with me. So in that sense, you can’t fight this battle on your own. You’d just be boxing in a corner.”

Irritation ignited and she did her best to tamp it down.

“Also different,” she said. “You’ve necessitated this...this thing. But I aim to make it a fair trade so we don’t owe each other. I’m not trying to hustle you. I’m not asking for a favor.”

“We’ll see, Quinn Sullivan. We will see.”

They drove on, until they reached the edge of the field. And she found herself looking at how large and firm his hands looked on the wheel, then let her gaze drift to his jawline, square and rough, like maybe he hadn’t shaved that morning.

“This is the field where we had a cover crop until recently. I’m reinforcing the fence line along here so we can expand some of the pastureland for the cows.”

“I think you should plant hemp,” she said.

He turned to her, his eyebrows lifted. “Do I look like a fucking hippie to you?”

“It’s a very popular crop,” she said, keeping her tone measured. “I’m not suggesting that you grow THC. In fact, that’s oversaturated at this point. When it was legalized, the emerald gold rush was...”

“You know I live here, right? I saw it all happen the same as you.”

She realized then she was paraphrasing a class she’d taken, and she felt slightly embarrassed. “I like to talk about this stuff. Sorry. Sometimes it turns into a monologue. I’m not suggesting you grow plants with THC. I’m suggesting hemp because worldwide there’s a demand for items made from hemp fiber. There is high value in it.”

“No. Thank you.”

“What, like on principle?” she asked.

She hadn’t taken him for being like that, but maybe she should have. He was stubborn and unteachable. His opinions on marijuana as a crop were firmly set in stereotypes and not in the modern era.

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” he said.

And she knew there were some battles she could wage and win, but she had to start from a better vantage point than this.

She held back a sigh. It hurt her to admit to herself that it actually did matter whether or not he was on board with what he was growing. He had to care or it wouldn’t be sustainable. And genuinely it wouldn’t do her or her sisters any favors if he was grudgingly offering them the use of the road, because it could cause issues later. “It is important that it make sense to you. It is your land, after all.”

“That’s the first thing you’ve said that we can agree on,” he said.

“I’m actually not here to be an antagonist, Levi, whatever you seem to think.”

“I don’t think anything about your behavior, Miss Sullivan. You asked to be up here today, and while you’re here, you’re giving your opinions. You might recollect I didn’t ask for them.”

“Maybe not, but you told your sister I was consulting. So you might not want my opinions, but you kind of want me.”

Silence bottomed out the conversation and she shifted, trying to ease her discomfort. She cleared her throat. “You’re treating me like I’m trying to hurt you in some way, or like I’m a villain, and I’m not. I just want to come up with something that works for both of us.”

He crossed his arms. “Come up with another suggestion for me, then.”

“Well, I would approach this from a few different ways. I think because of the diet you have the cows on, you can use the manure as fertilizer. If you have excess, you can sell it. There’s value there. Additionally to that, which is sustainable, you can plant... Christmas trees are an option. They are a very popular export in the state. Hazelnuts are one of the things that we grow at Sullivan’s, but we don’t have a plot as large as this field.”

“That will take time,” he said.

She nodded. “It will. But if you have time to invest, I would try something like that. They’re easy crops. They are very agreeable to the region. Or you get llamas. Llamas also fare really well here.”

“I don’t want fucking llamas.”

She looked at him, and she did not kick him. She felt like that was a win.

“Then Christmas trees,” she said. “How about Christmas trees?”

“That sounds like some made-for-TV movie bullshit.”

He just wasn’t going to make this easy. And maybe she had no right to expect him to. Just maybe. But she wasn’t an enemy and he was acting like she was. She really did just want to help. Or she wanted something mutually beneficial, and what she couldn’t figure out was why he was being such a jerk about it.

He’d done that deal with her dad and that huge factory farm for all the fields and he couldn’t do this with her? She knew it had soured a bit—her dad leaving had messed a lot of things up—but she wanted a road, not every inch of his land.

She was local. And she wouldn’t be leaving. She’d be accountable.

“There are big companies that you can pay to have come harvest them,” she said.

“I’m skeptical of making agreements with anything corporate.”

“You can hire your own laborers, then. You can export them across the state, and even the country. You have to get a cycle going. Different sizes, different years, and yes, it is going to take time, but it’s renewable, and an investment. In the future of the land.”

He paused for a moment. “I like the idea of growing something native.”

The rush of relief she felt over that little bit of near-relenting was disproportionate, she was certain. She felt it all the same. “I thought it might appeal to you. Well, I guess I didn’t think that, but I hoped.”

“This land has been in my family for generations, Ms. Sullivan. That means something to me. This place means something to me.”

“I do understand that.”

“All right. Let’s get to fence fixing.”

She was jarred by the abrupt change of subject. But she was ready.

“Okay. Let’s fix the fence.”