Chapter Twenty-Three
WHENALLTHESullivan sisters had shown up at his property, he hadn’t quite known what to do with it. It was a whole lot of feminine fluttering, red hair and floral dresses.
And they all knew that he was sleeping with their sister, so they’d been giving him shiny, evil eyes every chance they got.
But it had all gone smoothly enough, and now he was invited to the store.
When they got into the truck, Levi reached across the space and took her hand in his. He was not quite sure what had led to that compulsion, and yet he felt it.
To just be closer to her.
He led the way down the dirt road that took them to the edge of his property.
Even though there was no road dug between the two properties now, it was drivable, across the flat field.
He could see the building that would house the farm store in the distance, and took them straight there. It was a quick and easy drive, much more so than if they were to go through the center of their land.
He could definitely see why they wanted to use it.
The building had been painted a slate gray with stark white accents. It looked like something his sisters would want to stop at and spend the afternoon poring through the different items on the shelves.
He could clearly see what sort of person would be coming to this place, and he had to give them that it was pretty darn smart.
“It’s looking great,” he said.
“It is,” said Quinn. “I’ve been so consumed with trying to convince you to let us use the road that I haven’t actually been out here for the last couple of weeks. They made a lot more progress. Gus has put in a lot of hours on the place. Honestly, my sister marrying into the McCloud family has been one of the more helpful things. We suddenly have access to a lot more labor that’s just a favor and not an official thing that’s going to cost us.”
“Yeah. I imagine that is nice.”
“Thank you. Thank you for being so good.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know that I’m actually all that good.”
He had to be. For all these years. And somehow, he never quite knew if it was him, or just something he had to do. Maybe that wouldn’t make sense to a lot of people, but he felt it all the same.
He’d wanted to go out and be a rodeo-riding ne’er-do-well who drank in corrals and lived kind of a hard life.
He had.
He’d fallen into a domestic life. He hadn’t really had a choice. He didn’t know what the hell that said about him.
“I told you,” he said. “I’m done taking care of people.”
“But here you are, taking care of us.”
He huffed. “Not really.”
He let go of her hand and turned the wheel on the truck sharply, pulling in front of the building.
They got out and walked inside.
It was clean and bright with different tables set up for displays. There was a stack of little signs in the corner, and the one on the top said Veggies.
So he imagined these were going to be placed all around when they got the displays up.
“We’re going to be able to open next week,” said Fia. “I mean, I don’t want to put that much pressure on you to get the road done.”
“It’ll take me two days,” he said. “I can start tomorrow if you want.”
“Yes,” said Fia. “That would be great. I’ll start advertising for our soft open in two weeks, and then in three weeks we’ll have a big party. We’ll invite the whole town. And we will give everyone in town a chance to have items featured in the store.”
“We really do care about the town,” said Quinn. “We care about whether or not the town is thriving. If they aren’t, then our own success doesn’t mean as much. This is our home.”
And he felt really humbled by that, in this moment, because he could see it to be true.
Because actually every step of the way, even if she hadn’t done it with all diplomacy all the time, Quinn had only ever been trying to do the best thing for everybody. She had never behaved in a selfish way. Not even once. And he had been so lost in his own shit, and so determined to compare her to her father, that he just hadn’t fully given her the credit that she deserved.
And that was on him.
He might have to wonder whether or not he was naturally a decent human being. The truth was, his father had been that man. Steady and good and wonderful, loving his wife so much that it had put him into the ground to lose her.
Levi had just been living in the aftermath of it. Trying to fill his shoes.
Quinn had been raised by a man who didn’t seem to care about anybody but himself. A man who had abandoned his family, his ranch. A man who was alive and well, but never seemed to speak to his children.
Yet here these women were, in their community, doing good work, trying to keep their ranch going, trying to pull their weight.
Quinn had even taken the time to make sure that she offered him something in exchange for the use of his land. She hadn’t just been fair, she’d been kind.
And he hadn’t recognized it because he had associated her with her dad. He had associated her enthusiasm with him.
And he stopped right then and there in the store and turned to her. “I’m sorry, Quinn. I really am. For assuming the worst about you like I did. All of you, actually. Because you’ve never done anything, personally, to indicate that you didn’t care about the community. I was hanging on to some old resentment, and I let that cloud how I approached this.”
“It’s okay. I think that your concerns about whether or not we bypass the town were valid,” said Quinn. “But I am glad that we were able to come up with this as a solution. I get shortsighted, Levi. I’m not perfect. I get very entrenched in what I want, and I don’t always consider all of the consequences.”
“But you’re coming from a good place. And I see that now.”
She smiled, and it made his chest feel like it was expanding.
“Do you need any help getting the store set up?”
“I think we’ve got that covered,” said Fia. “But if you can do the road, then the rest should take care of itself.”
“I can do that,” he said.