Chapter Nine
SHEDIDN’TKNOWwhat she was doing. Well. She did. She was digging in. She was digging in because he was being impossible. She was digging in because she didn’t think it was fair that he got to make all these declarations. That he got to set the rules. That he got to underestimate her, and then set the bar so low that all she would have to do was step over it, and he would be able to be unimpressed, because it was unimpressive.
And if he was going to make assumptions about her based on her dad, and not even share the details with her, then she was going to dig in and make him see that she wasn’t the same.
“Okay,” he said. “Then let’s keep working. Right through the heat of the day.”
He drove the truck straight past her car, and on back to the field.
“I’m just fine,” she said. “I have no problem putting in a full day’s work, and I will put in a full day every day this week.”
“You’re stubborn, Quinn Sullivan, I’ll give you that.”
That felt like a compliment, whether he meant it to be one or not.
She knew she was stubborn. And she was proud of it. It was literally her whole personality. That she had been stubborn enough to become the person she was, and stubborn enough to persist in helping Sullivan’s Point in the way that she knew it needed.
And when they were done working on the fence for the day, they went to the stalls, and she didn’t even ask him any questions. She found all the tack she needed, and got her own horse, and rode with him through the different pastures to check on the cows.
Her grumpiness did abate when they looked at the cows, who were truly beautiful animals.
Wagyu beef was very particular, and had to be approved as such before you could call it that. The cows had to be raised to obtain a certain marbled content to the meat. It was very high in fat and extremely rich.
And the animals were glossy and thick and glorious.
This was what she loved about ranching. This was what she loved about the magic of working the land. That everything good and glorious that people ate and enjoyed came from it.
She was often thunderstruck by those sorts of realizations. That there had been a human being who had looked at the wheat in the field and said: let’s try it and mill it.
Who had decided that it would pair nicely with yeast that would add air to it, and that they could make fluffy, chewy bread.
Humans who had looked at sheep in the fields and thought, Why not try shearing its wool off, and then spinning that wool into a string, and then taking that string and looping it all different ways using sticks to make a fabric?
The building blocks of life played out in these fields. And not just the things that were necessary for survival. But things that made being human a joy.
Milk and meat and cheese. Sour cream and heavy cream. Fruit and bread.
It all came from ranches. And farms. At least, the very best of it did.
She believed in the family farm. In the family ranch. They lived it; they exemplified it. Fresh and local.
It was her passion. And when she could clear out her anger, frustration, annoyance...when she could set aside all the issues from her childhood, she could just embrace the passion.
Because to her, it was what loving the land required.
She could see that reflected in Levi Granger’s operation, as well.
He did good work. And it was sustainable. His animals were in good condition, and his land was well-kept.
Properly irrigated. It was true there wasn’t a whole lot he could learn from her out here. It was going to have to be the paperwork. The paperwork, and the offer of a percentage of the profits of the farm store. She could see that now. But she was definitely going to have to talk to her sisters about that.
By the end of the day, everything hurt.
She was great at riding horses, but she didn’t do it all that often. Her sister Alaina was a full-on horse girl, and she basically did everything on the back of a horse, but that just wasn’t Quinn.
Quinn preferred to drive her truck around, or even an ATV.
She could hear her own thoughts about sustainability rolling up to mock her even as she thought that.
She did prize ecologically sound practices. It was just...more convenient. And it wasn’t that she didn’t like horses; it was just that she found them to be sweaty and occasionally inconvenient.
Just a little bit more of an endeavor than getting across the ranch sometimes needed. In her opinion. But that meant that she had some serious muscle soreness in places she didn’t want it.
She had baited Levi, it was true, and he had taken that bait. The work had been hard.
She had done it, though. And she would be back tomorrow for more.
“Were you genuinely unaware that most people regard Four Corners with suspicion?”
She was a bit thrown off by the question. He had a way of doing that. Throwing off the conversation, the expected rhythm.
Her equilibrium.
“Yes. I thought that we... I thought that we had really built up a good rapport in the community.”
“Think about everything you have, think about how much better the ranch functions, how much better you will live than most of the other people in the community.”
“It’s okay that some people own ranches and some...”
“Work on them. You have that idea, don’t you? That some people are made to run businesses and other people are made to work at them.”
Quinn frowned. “I don’t really. I mean, when you put it like that, it sounds horrible.”
“It’s been said to me.”
“It has?” she asked.
“Yes. I was told that I wasn’t smart enough to go running a business.”
“I’m sorry, Levi. That wasn’t right. Whoever said that to you... It wasn’t right.”
He paused for a moment. “It was your dad.”
Quinn stopped and turned to face him. “My dad said that to you?”
“You must know that the whole thing with your dad was kind of a big disaster.”
“I know that my dad is a big disaster.”
Levi laughed. “Well. That is one way of putting it.”
He’d said he wouldn’t talk about this, but now he was. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to hear, but not this. Not something so personal. She’d imagined his business dealings with her dad to be dry and, well, business.
She’d thought maybe she had the monopoly on feeling personally wounded, slighted and insulted by her father.
“If it makes you feel any better,” she said softly, “my dad didn’t exactly think that I was worth much, either.”
He stared at her, and she felt like he could see far too much. “How is that possible? You exemplify all the things your dad said that he valued.”
“I’m not sure whether or not that’s a compliment.”
“It’s a statement of fact. You’re smart, and you’re determined. He always told me that those were important things.”
“Well, he doesn’t see them when he looks at me. What he saw was somebody who was flighty and irresponsible. Somebody who was led by their emotions, and created problems because of it. That’s what he saw. So...I wouldn’t necessarily take what he says to heart.”
“Clearly I didn’t, or I would never have started my own business.”
She laughed. “Well, I didn’t realize that you and I had a common enemy that we were doing things at.”
“Doing things at? What does that mean?”
She shifted, feeling uncomfortable. Because she didn’t talk about this. And she had the feeling in that sense they were on the same ground. Which was very odd.
They were supposed to be working together, though. Being forceful, angry Quinn certainly wasn’t bringing him onto her side. Maybe this...common ground was a better place to start.
“I went to school, I succeeded, I got myself there—I did all that to spite him. Because he acted like I could never take all of my passion and turn it into something that looked like drive in the way that he recognized it. He thought that caring more about himself made him smarter. I know he thought that. He thought I had too much passion in me, for the right thing, not just for the bottom line. But I could never be that person. We were never close to the other families in Four Corners because my dad...”
“Yeah, I know. He opposed them on a lot of things.That’s why he ended up doing the soybean deal with me. Because they wouldn’t allow him to do it on Four Corners land. And I was too young to realize it was because there’s a deep distrust of factory farming, and for good reason. For damned good reason.”
“I know. And it wasn’t something that had ever been done here before, so people didn’t understand. But yes, he went around the Four Corners families, and he used you. And that really was a terrible thing for him to do. And then he made you feel bad, about things that he shouldn’t have. And so now you’ve started a business, to spite him. And that seems fair.”
He chuckled. “Yeah. I guess it is at him. All right,” Levi said, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. “It’s time to knock off.”
“How do you determine that?”
“What?” He looked at her like she was insane.
“I just mean how do you decide when to ‘knock off’?” She did the best she could to pronounce the quotes, which was for sure a little bit rude but she hoped he would miss it. “As far as I can tell, we didn’t really knuckle down and do any one project.”
“Didn’t... Listen, this isn’t a corporation. This is a ranch. I do the vast majority of the work on my own. I have a couple of guys who work for me a few days a week, but more or less this is my responsibility. I move with the seasons. I move with the sun. I’m the boss. I do what works for me.”
She made a musing noise. “Right. Well. It just seems to me like maybe if there was a more clear-cut system...”
“You get on my nerves and you aren’t going to be working with me this week,” he said, his voice hard, uncompromising. A challenge.
Why did she want to rise to his challenge so much? She had never in all her life looked at a brick wall and wanted to run into it quite so hard.
“And what exactly will you do if I show up without permission?”
He looked at her, like he was seriously considering what he might do, and like she wouldn’t like the answer.
“Listen, if you don’t behave, I will uproot you like the obnoxious little carrot that you are and drop-kick your ass back to Four Corners.”
It was just such an unexpectedly clever thing to say, mean though it was.
She hadn’t had a real clear sense of him, because he was guarded with the things that he said, and he took quite a long time to say them. But when it came to insults, he did seem to have a...flair.
And she couldn’t help herself. She laughed.
She had no idea why she laughed, but once she started, she couldn’t stop. All this sniping the whole day, and she was tired. Of work, of him, of everything, and then he’d said that.
“Is there something funny?” he asked.
She kept on laughing, and hiccuped, just a little. “It was just a very good sentence. Because my hair is red, so carrot was a really great example. And the image of you...uprooting me and drop-kicking me just amused me.”
“The hell?”
“I don’t know.” She wiped the tears that were streaming down her cheeks and hiccuped again. “I thought it was funny. An unexpectedly rich use of language.”
“Little bit of a backhanded compliment,” he said.
“I didn’t mean it to be.”
The breeze kicked up between them, and it was cold on her cheeks because they were wet. Her hair tangled into her face and she shook it free, and he was...
Looking at her. He had been, the whole time, but there was something different about this now. His gaze dropped to her mouth. Just for a second. Then he met her eyes again.
“Get your ass on home before you irritate me any more than you already have.”
“Aren’t you going to drive me back to my car?”
He shook his head. “Lord Almighty, girl, you are a pain in my ass.” She thought for a moment he might seriously leave her there. “Get in the truck.”
She climbed into the passenger seat, and she couldn’t help but notice that now he smelled distinctly of sweat. She also couldn’t help but notice that, for some reason, on him it wasn’t a terribly unpleasant smell. It was earthy. It seemed to have taken on the sun and the soil, the pine trees and the fresh-cut grass. It was like all the work he had done had bled into his body, like it had become part of him. It was captivating. In a way that she hadn’t imagined it could be.
He was still mad at her. But he’d made her laugh, even if he hadn’t meant to. And that shifted something.
“So, you had soybeans on the whole property for...”
“Why the hell does that matter?” he said, spitting the words like nails.
She worked at being moderate in tone again, because apparently laughing at him wasn’t any more appreciated than sniping. “Because. I’m curious about the ranching operation, how long exactly it’s been going and what all it entailed.”
“Why?”
“If you haven’t noticed, I’m interested. I said that I wanted to help, and I do. Your sister has concerns about the organization of the paperwork, and I kind of want to get an idea of what sort of help you might need.”
But apparently the moment for sharing was over. Because he didn’t answer. And she could see she’d hit a full-on brick wall with him.
They got back to the house, and blonde, sunny Camilla was standing outside the front door watering a potted plant. She shaded her face as they drove up. “Hey,” she said. “Did you have a good workday?”
“Just the best,” said Quinn, smiling widely.
“Great. I have to ask you something,” said Camilla. “I hope you won’t take offense, but I’ve never been this close to a Four Corners person, you know, apart from the big barn meeting, and then we had to leave because Levi thought you all might shoot him.”
“We...wouldn’t have shot him.”
“That is reassuring. Are you guys a cult?”
For the second time that day, Quinn found herself laughing unexpectedly.
“No,”said Quinn. “We are not a cult. Is that a prevailing rumor?”
“Well,” said Camilla. “You do kind of all hang out in a commune sort of environment. You and your sisters wear flower dresses. It looks a little Amish.”
Quinn couldn’t help herself. She was bemused, but she had to laugh. “Amish. Believe me when I tell you, we are not Amish. Do you have any idea the kinds of things that have gone on at that ranch in the last couple of years?”
After so many years of the families being separate...they’d started hooking up. Elsie Garrett with Hunter McCloud, Alaina with Gus McCloud. Then there was Sawyer and his mail-order bride. Plus all the babies.
“No,” said Camilla.
“Well...it’s a lot of sex,” said Quinn.
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t a cult,” said Camilla. “It’s my understanding that the best cults are sex cults.”
“Please. Stop,” said Levi, pushing past both of them and heading toward the house. “Talk about sex cults on your own time, please. I can’t bear it. I am going to go take a shower. See you at dinner,” he said, directing that at Camilla. Then he stormed inside and slammed the door shut, and Quinn spent a full thirty seconds standing there trying not to imagine him in the shower. With water sluicing over all that bronze skin and...
What was wrong with her?
He was mean. He didn’t like her. He was in no way being kind to her in any way, shape or form, and she was ready to melt into a puddle at his feet.
She was imagining him in the shower. Imagining joining him in the shower.
His hands were so big and he worked the land all the time, so they were probably rough, and oh, good Lord, what was wrong with her? Seriously.
She’d never even been kissed.
But this was well-worn territory—that was the problem. More understandable, though, when he was merely a fantasy object. Much less so when he was calling her a carrot.
She tamped it down.
“So, not a cult. Sex or otherwise?” Camilla asked.
“No. Not.”
“Too bad. I’d be tempted to throw my hat in to be a sister wife. Because some of the men over there are hot.”
Quinn laughed, in spite of her discomfort. There was a reason she’d never dated any of the men there. Well, they’d also never dated her because she annoyed them. But even still. “Well. Yes, that is true. Though, I think of them as...well, not brothers. We’re not exactly all super close, but kind of like distant cousins. I can’t say that I’m really all that interested in any of them. Or in the whole cowboy shtick.” She said that just to get back at her imagination, which had momentarily betrayed her.
“Me, either,” said Camilla. “I’m going to meet some guy from the city and have him take me away from here.”
“If you’re going to dream about going away, take yourself away, Camilla. Don’t count on a man.”
Camilla smiled. “You sound like Levi.”
She frowned. “Do I?”
“Yes. He has never been super keen on my romantic daydreams. But someday...someday I’ll move somewhere different.”
“Except you don’t even want to go back to school,” said Quinn. She felt old standing next to this bright, sunny twenty-year-old. She wasn’t old—she knew that. It was just she had already gone through college, had already made decisions about where she was going to settle. She didn’t entertain those kinds of fantasies. Those flights of fancy.
“I... You’re going to help him, right?” Camilla asked. “I really do worry about him. He is such a stubborn asshole. I love him. He’s my brother. But he can be a ridiculous pill, and he is... He really doesn’t have it all together. I know he thinks that he can control it all, and he can just will everything to go his way, but he can’t.”
Her heart contracted. For Camilla, and not for Levi.
It had probably been hard growing up with him. She’d said he didn’t like her romantic daydreams and that wasn’t fair.
Someoneshould be interested in a girl’s romantic daydreams. No, her parents hadn’t been, but she’d had her sisters.
Quinn knew so well what it was like to feel alone. She might not have romantic daydreams, but she’d had dreams. And not really anyone to listen to them.
Who had Camilla had? And now she was all worried about him, and he wasn’t being reasonable. Reasonable would be actually taking Quinn’s help instead of opposing her.
Reasonable would not be calling her a carrot.
Reasonable would have been standing here with her and Camilla for a moment instead of going off to shower.
Naked and wet and...
“It isn’t your job to keep everything together,” Quinn said quickly.
And that at least jolted her mind away from Levi and the shower. She might as well have been talking to her younger self, or maybe even her current self, she knew.
Because she had always kept it together, and she had always tried to keep the people around her together. And sometimes it was enough, but sometimes it just damn well wasn’t.
“Thanks. That’s really... It’s nice of you. What exactly...? Why are you helping Levi? Did he hire you?”
She sighed. She wasn’t going to lie to Camilla. “Not exactly.”
“You two were...not on the same team at the meeting.”
“No. What do you think? Do you think we’re hurting the town with the road changes?”
Camilla shrugged. “I don’t think anyone really knows what will happen until it happens. I can see not wanting the road to bypass the town, but...it’s your land.”
“I’m hoping Levi will let me use the road through here. The customers won’t bypass town then, but it’s still better than eight miles on our dirt road. I’m trying to show him I can...help. With the ranch. In exchange for that.”
“That seems reasonable,” Camilla said, sounding slightly surprised.
“I know, right? I mean, I thought it was reasonable, but he’s still... I don’t know. But I’ll convince him.”
“Well, good luck. He is a hardheaded fool sometimes. But he had to be. That’s the thing. He had to be hard. And he had to make decisions. He had to be the adult when he wasn’t yet. I was just two when our parents died. Our mom died right after I was born. She had cancer. When she was pregnant with me.” That part came out hushed. “I don’t even remember them. I remember Levi. He’s basically... He’s basically my father. And I would do anything for him.”
“I think the thing that you can do best for him is going on living a life that pleases you. But maybe don’t join a sex cult?”
Camilla laughed. “Yeah. Maybe not. I appreciate it. Thanks.”
And then Quinn turned and left the younger woman standing there. She got into her car and headed back toward Sullivan’s Point. When she got to the farmhouse, she was delighted to find that all of her sisters were there, including Alaina and baby Cameron.
She smiled and stretched her hands out, taking hold of her nephew and holding him close, smelling his little baby head.
And just for a minute, she ached.
No.
That wasn’t what she wanted. She was so glad that Alaina was happy that way. So glad that she had found Gus. That Gus loved her, and loved the baby, and was raising him as his own. Gus was one of those good men. Rare in Quinn’s estimation and in her observation. It must be nice, to be taken care of like that. But Quinn had accepted that she didn’t want to take that risk. Not ever.
“Any more progress?” Fia asked.
Quinn kissed Cameron on the head. “No. Well. I agreed to work with him for the rest of the week. So we’ll see.”
“And after you work with him he’ll reconsider?”
Yeah. He’d said that. That was the agreement, she was pretty sure. Though, it was difficult to remember what he’d actually said.
Except when he’d called her a carrot.
“Yeah. I think he’s just... I talked to his sister a bit today. He just had a lot of responsibility put on his shoulders and I think he takes everything really seriously. He had those soybeans in the fields for ten years, and it occupied all of his ranch land, and the more I think about it, the more I think he probably feels reluctant to commit to anything because he’s done it before.”
“You’re psychoanalyzing him now?” Fia asked.
She didn’t know why that made her feel defensive. “I mean, you kind of have to, right? It’s a tactical move.”
“If you say so.”
“We have to make preserves on Friday,” said Rory, cutting another slice of bread off the thick boule at the center of the table.
“I’m going to be busy,” said Quinn. “Doing ranch work.”
“Well, Alaina?” Rory turned to look at their youngest sister. “You able to get on that and be of some help?”
“Yes,” Alaina said, sounding long-suffering. “I can help.”
“Thank you,” Quinn said. “It’s for the greater good. I’m going to make sure that I prove to Levi Granger that he needs me.”
Except when she thought of the strong, angry man that she’d dealt with for most of the day today, she couldn’t imagine him ever admitting he needed anybody. But she wasn’t going to admit defeat. Not now. Not ever.
She was going to be back tomorrow bright and early, and she was going to gain access to his house so that she could begin to look over his paperwork.
Because she had a feeling that as much as it might help for him to see that she could manage labor, what he really needed was for her to get in there and handle something he didn’t want to. She was certain that what he really didn’t want to handle involved sitting still.
And while Quinn herself didn’t love sitting still, she did love to solve the problem.
Levi, for all that he was a massive pain, was becoming the most interesting problem she’d had in a good long while.