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And then he could get her out of his hair.

That did not mean he was agreeing to the easement, though.

He’d already lost some of the land’s integrity because of a hasty choice he’d made at eighteen to trust the wrong person. He wasn’t making the same mistake again.

CHAPTER FIVE

“I WOULD LIKE to vote to increase the budget for the easement endeavor.”

Her sister Fia looked up at her, as did Rory.

“You need a budget increase to get Levi Granger to agree to an easement?” Fia asked, tilting her head, her red hair sliding over her shoulder in a shimmering wave. “I mean, it’s better than you needing heavy artillery, I guess.”

“Negotiations are young, Fia. Who’s to say where it will end up?” Quinn said. “But for now, I need a laminator. I need to go buy one.”

Fia frowned. “How much is a laminator?”

“Around thirty dollars.”

“You don’t need to request thirty dollars,” Fia said.

“Yes, I do. Because we need to make sure that our business expenses all come out of the correct account and are accounted for.”

“You’re exhausting,” said Rory.

“Thank you. At this point it’s better than being exhausted, because we have work to do.” And what she did not say was that Rory and her featherheaded approach to everything was equally exhausting to Quinn.

A person needed to be exacting; at least, in her experience that was the case. Rory was too much of a romantic to deal with budgets and receipts. Fia was a little bit more like Quinn was. Practical, measured.

Though, in Quinn’s opinion, Fia could also be a little bit too head-in-the-clouds when it came to an idea she really, really wanted to make work—practically be damned.

It wasn’t common, but though she knew her sister would deny it, Fia was a dreamer, fundamentally.

Quinn didn’t dream. She’d learned not to a long time ago. She’d once been dreamy. She’d fantasized about life when she was a grown-up, when she’d be old enough to kiss Levi Granger and show him she was a woman. Then maybe she’d leave for a while and become successful. She’d go to cities and live in an apartment for a while.

Levi would come for her eventually, of course.

But that was all before. Before her dad had left and her family ranch had begun to crumble, and she’d realized dreams could only ever be dreams because you couldn’t see the future.

Fantasies got you nowhere.

Planning, on the other hand...

She had her boots on the ground, and she had enthusiasm, which she knew that sometimes people mistook for optimism, or for some kind of unrealistic viewpoint, but that wasn’t it at all.

Quinn was researched, and that allowed her to be enthusiastic. Quinn knew what she was about; she had the education, she had the understanding.

It was how she had gotten to college in the first place. She had been older when she’d gone. She had assembled the appropriate documentation, she had gotten a collection of scholarships, had gotten recommendation letters, had done prerequisites and online classes. She had known the path to get herself there. She hadn’t simply sat around dreaming about it.

When Quinn was sixteen, she had realized that her anger was going to kill her.

She had gotten into a fistfight with a boy at the one-room schoolhouse. And perhaps he could be faulted for hitting a lady. But the lady had hit him first.

She had just been so angry when their dad left.

She had been driven by it.

As if it was a motor propelling her around the ranch. Like a little Tasmanian devil. But in the end, it wasn’t sustainable, and it hadn’t gotten her anything.