Page 10

“You don’t have another choice.”

“Can we please...?” She did her best to gather her temper, because she didn’t do explosive fits of temper any more than she did vulnerable these days. “Could we speak outside for a moment?”

“Why?” He leaned back, resting his hand on the woman’s lower back. “There’s no reason you can’t say what you have to say right here.”

“I feel that we may bore the lady.”

The woman looked between the two of them. “I’m not bored,” she said, smiling, and for some reason, Quinn found that she wanted to punch the other woman in the teeth.

“Well, it’s proprietary,” Quinn sniffed.

“Proprietary,” he said, drawing out each syllable. “Now, that is a big word.”

“Levi...”

“Quinn.” He said her name like she was a child.

“Please, come outside.”

He took his time answering, like he actually had to mull the question of going outside. She could not understand it. He either wanted to go outside or he didn’t. Okay, he said that he didn’t. But she did. And so there.

“All right. We’ll go outside. I can turn you down out there just as easily.”

She led the charge just outside the door of Smokey’s, and stood beneath the yellow light, her arms crossed. “I don’t think that you’re giving this full consideration. I told you, there’s a gap.”

“Please,” he said. “Explain it to me. Slowly.”

She could not tell if he was being serious or not. “We would be bringing in extra people,” she said. “People who wouldn’t be going to John’s anyway.” She spoke each syllable of what she had already gone over with Rory slowly and laboriously. “It’s obvious that our way is the best way.”

“It’s not obvious to me,” he said, his expression unreadable.

She could not fathom if he was this obtuse, or if he was playing the part to perfection.

“It should be,” she said. “I respect and understand that you have spent your life working your land, Levi, but I have actually had formal education on this very thing. I am much more qualified to make commentary on whether or not this is a viable—”

“Again,” he said slowly. “Viable for you.”

“No, for everybody,” she said. “You don’t understand because you don’t have the appropriate knowledge to make the decision.”

“Say it,” he said. “Go ahead and say it, Quinn.”

“You’re being stupid,” she said.

The minute the words left her mouth, she felt awful. Mean. She felt that instant regret that had always come when she’d lost her temper and she hated it. He had...pushed her, and he had a way of getting under her skin. He always had.

He asked her to say it, because he was acting like she thought it, and even if she did think it...

“Good. I’m glad that you were able to be honest. And of course you’re right,” he said. “You’re at Four Corners, after all, and I’m just a struggling rancher. What do I know about anything? It must make you so angry, given the fact you are so much smarter than me, that I won.”

“You did not win,” she said, her voice low.

He looked around. “I think I did. They’re not going to approve your permits, Quinn. You’re not going to get access. You’re going to be at a disadvantage, and you’re going to know what it’s like to actually have to struggle to make a living. All that schooling, and still just scraping by. Almost as if ranching is hard fucking work.”

How dare he imply she didn’t know that? “I will figure this out. I will.”

“Good. See that it has nothing to do with me.”

He turned and started to leave, and she reached out and grabbed his forearm. And the minute she wrapped her fingers around him, the minute she made contact with his skin, she wanted to jump back and howl.