Page 116

“Right. Well. I guess that’s just a me thing, then,” she said.

“What? You’re embarrassed?” he asked.

“No. I’m not embarrassed at all. I’d open the window and shout about it right now if you asked me to. I just...”

He understood. Without her having to finish the sentence. It was theirs. Whatever it was.

It wasn’t for anybody else.

“Yeah. I know,” he said.

He’d had secrets. A lot of them. For a long time. It felt heavy. He wondered if she felt the same way.

But this was different.

And maybe they both deserved that. Something nice. Something fun.

He was just completely shocked that it was with her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?”

“For deciding that you were a certain kind of way based on the fact that you had an education. Based on what your dad did. Every single thing that you said to me I decided was with the worst intent. And all the while I was grumbling about how you make assumptions about me because I hadn’t been to school. While I made just as many about you because you had.”

“Some of them were true,” she said.

“Yeah. Well, some of your assumptions about me were true.”

“You aren’t dumb.”

“I know,” he said.

“Do you?”

“I guess, more than knowing that, I’ve decided it doesn’t matter. I know how to run my ranch. I made the place that I could run. That was probably one reason I was so irritated to have to take any help from you.”

“You didn’t have to take it. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting it.”

“That hasn’t been my experience,” he said, his voice gruff. “Wanting and needing help are just paths that people take to get something from other people, and I...”

“I’m not trying to take advantage of you.”

“I know that. And I trust you. I swear. Whatever else is going on in this whole...ridiculous world, I know you’re not like your dad.”

“Thank you.”

She was just so... She was so hurt. And the way that he had lumped her in with Brian wasn’t fair. Because she was a good woman.

And that was that.

He might not be a good enough man for her, he might not be able to offer her anything, but he could see now that he’d been very wrong about her. And all his anger had been misdirected. She’d been hurt by her father. Because he was that kind of man, the kind that went around hurting people, just because he could.

But Quinn wasn’t like that at all. She was determined, and she was sharp. And sometimes it might come across like she thought she was better than other people, but that wasn’t it. She was just passionate. In a very deep, real way.

“I guess we better get to work,” she said quietly.

“Well, that sounds like a pretty shitty thing to have to do after all that,” he said.