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She was aware—so aware—that she was pale and he could probably see it.

She hoped desperately he couldn’t see it.

“Miss Sullivan,” he said. “That is a pretty terrible plan.”

She hadn’t expected that. “Why is it terrible?”

“Well,” he said, picking up another log. “I don’t need anything.” He brought the axe down on it with a crack. “Not even an awl.”

“But everyone needs something.”

He just looked at her. Utterly unreadable.

“Nope.”

“That’s it? You’re just saying no? That’s it?”

He straightened. “I’ve been running this place pretty damn good for the last eighteen years, and I expect I’ll run it just as well in the years to come. Also, I don’t see myself joining up with Four Corners folk. There are some mistakes you make only once.”

She knew he’d done a deal with her dad, and she knew he hadn’t been happy with it, but this had nothing at all to do with that. That was ancient history.

“I’m not my dad,” she said.

He stared at her, far too cutting. “I don’t simply take people at their word. Not these days.”

“I’ll show you,” she said, because she couldn’t bear the idea of just...failing. She didn’t fail. She never failed, especially when she was right, and she was right. They just needed the use of his road for some traffic to be able to get to their store, and in exchange she would help with whatever he needed.

It was reasonable, and it would be good for everyone.

He was being ridiculous and he was wrong and she would make him see that.

“I’ll prove myself if that’s what you need. I’ll be back. With a binder.”

He laughed then, loud and hard, and the sound echoed up through the pines around them, and she hated him just a little bit. “Make sure to include lots of pictures or I might not understand. After all, you’re the one with the degree. I’m just a rancher.”

And then Levi Granger walked away and left her positively awash in outrage and thwarted purpose and some throbbing heat that she just didn’t want to dwell on.

One thing was certain.

Quinn Sullivan would never remain thwarted, not for long.

She had book smarts. And she was going to use them.

LEVI GRANGER HAD better things to think about than the small woman who had invaded his space today. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was a know-it-all. A know-it-all that wasn’t him, anyway.

He knew this land so well, when he closed his eyes at night he could walk himself through it.

He knew this land so well, it was branded onto his soul. And some uppity collegiate with freckles on her nose and hair the color of a cooked carrot didn’t have anything to teach him about it just because she had a certificate that said she understood.

You couldn’t understand this work by reading about it.

You had to have dirt under your nails and calluses on your hands. You had to have blood soaked into the dirt and sweat soaked into every fence post.

He had inherited this place at eighteen. He’d made his mistakes. One rash mistake he’d paid for, for years on end, and he’d learned. You didn’t make deals in haste.

But this... This was a deal he wasn’t going to make. Not with a Four Corners person, and most especially not with a Sullivan.

That road she wanted to have people—strangers—driving on wound around the mountain, and to a quiet spot with a big oak tree. Under that tree, his parents were buried. Well, it was where their ashes were, anyway. And it was where he sat and talked to them, even now.