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She reached across the table and put her hand over his. “Of course. Whatever you need. I’m here. Whatever you need to say, whatever you need... Whatever you need, Levi.”

“Thank you.”

She didn’t know why she was the one that he confided in. Why they were the ones that seemed to fit each other. Or maybe her instincts had been better at fourteen than she’d realized. That was pretty funny. The idea that maybe... Just maybe her dad had been so wrong about her, even then. It almost made her want to laugh.

Instead, she helped Levi clean the kitchen up, and then they went up to bed. And when he made love to her, fierce and hot, it took everything in her to not say what was burning in her chest.

I love you.

She really did love him.

And she had tried so hard not to.

But maybe that was the lesson.

You couldn’t live life protected.

You had to let yourself be broken open. Or you could never be everything that you could be.

Tomorrow, the farm store would open, and she and Levi weren’t talking anymore about the inevitability of the end of all this.

Maybe it wouldn’t end. But maybe it would.

Or maybe she was going to have to figure out how to fight, not just sharp and pointy, but soft.

And with everything that she had. With everything she was.

Everything he had shown her she could be.

Because she was Quinn Sullivan, every part of her. Not just controlled, motivated and perfectly held together.

She was Quinn Sullivan. Brave and afraid, determined. Confident but willing to listen. She was Quinn Sullivan. Every single part of her. And it made her feel both stronger and weaker than ever before.

And that, she figured, was just how she knew she was on the right path.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

SHE WORE A white dress to the farm store opening, because Levi had made his love of it perfectly clear that morning when he had pushed it up around her hips and licked her until she unraveled, and now she was wearing it, standing next to her sisters, feeling every inch like the innocent white was a lie, and enjoying that down to her socks.

Which Levi had also managed to make sexual.

Everyone had come out for the grand opening. Some of the ranch hands from Four Corners who played in a band were there doing live music. The Kings had even shown up, as had the McClouds and the Garretts, all of their respective partners and much of their extended families.

The town of Pyrite Falls had come out for them. In spite of everything.

They had worked so hard to patch everything up, and she was beginning to think that they might’ve actually done so. They had built bridges because of Levi. Because he had shown them their blind spots so effectively.

She really appreciated that about him. He was intense, and uncompromising, but there were reasons for it. His own experiences had made him a staunch defender of everyone who might need defending, in spite of what he said about wanting to be done taking care of people. The way he’d advocated for the smaller ranches at the town hall meeting was evidence that he was a caregiver through and through. His care for others didn’t hold him back, either. It was the fuel for all of his intensity. And it had helped them accomplish a hell of a lot.

“This is it,” said Fia. “We’re doing it. Opening the store.”

“We are,” she said. “It’s amazing.”

And then the band started playing, and Fia, who had not wanted to give a speech of any kind, grandly opened the doors.

The crowd that flooded in was enthusiastic, and pretty soon they had a line to the register that wrapped through the store and outside.

It wouldn’t be like this every day, she knew that, but it was a wonderful embrace. A welcome that was beyond any of their expectations.