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Four Corners was run as a collective. The other ranches had invested money into the farm store endeavor, because it was what they did. They invested in each other’s ventures. They had done it for the McClouds when they had opened up their equestrian therapy facility, which was proving to be not only extremely helpful, but also successful. They had done it for the Kings when they had wanted to expand their pastureland. They had done it for the Garretts when they’d needed to do the same.

They would bail each other out, always. Because it was what they did.

Fia’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe.”

“Is this about Landry King?”

“No,” said Fia. “Because not everything is about Landry King.”

“But you hate him,” Rory said, tilting her cup back and crunching an ice cube. “You know. In that way a woman hates a hot man, and wishes to be stranded alone in a cabin with him on a mountainside with only one bed to work out all the raw tension.”

Rory was addicted to romance novels. She tended to view things through an overly romantic lens. Quinn also believed Rory to be a virgin. Which meant that everything she said was big talk about nothing that she knew anything about.

That was, of course, another hazard of growing up in a place this small.

You either got into insane entanglements with people that would be in your life ever after—which was what she assumed had happened with Landry and Fia, and definitely what had happened with Alaina and Gus—or there really just wasn’t a whole lot out there.

Which was what Quinn and Rory suffered from.

“Please stop,” said Fia. “I do not want that. But I also don’t think that he would actually... He wouldn’t do anything to hurt the ranch. Okay. But it is going to take a leap for those men to think that this is something worth investing in. They understand what they understand. Meat and horses and masculine grunting.”

“Do you think they don’t respect you because you’re a woman?” Quinn asked.

She had never really gotten that vibe off any of them. But Fia dealt more with the other families. Because they were essentially the founding members of the collective. Fia, Gus, Denver and Sawyer.

“Not intentionally. But look, they’re a pack of alpha males, and I’m an alpha female. We don’t always mesh, we don’t always see eye to eye, and I think that they have an ingrained sensibility that is different from mine. So yeah, sometimes I do feel like I’m in an uphill battle because I see things differently than they do.”

“You should have me go to talk to them sometimes. Now that I’ve had all the schooling...”

Fia looked at her like she was young and naive, and that made Quinn feel a little violent. So she curled her toes in her shoes. “I don’t think that they’re going to put a lot of stock in that. You having something that they don’t have.”

It had never occurred to her that they might think that way. She had an education; that made her qualified to speak on it.

“That would be stupid,” said Quinn. She opened the top of her drink and took out an ice cube, crunching on it the same way that Rory had.

“I hate to be the one to break this to you, Quinn, but sometimes men are stupid,” Fia said. “No matter how nice your binder is.”

“Well, I’m going to prove to you that I can do this. That it was all worth it. Me being away for four years. I’m going to show you that this is going to come together. You can trust me.”

“I do trust you, Quinn. It’s Levi Granger I don’t trust.”

CHAPTER SIX

LEVI WAS BEGINNING to wonder if Quinn Sullivan was actually going to return with the binder as she’d promised she would.

He wondered, too—if that were the case—if he would be able to get rid of Camilla by simply telling her that he had somebody managing the financials and flashing the binder. He actually could hire somebody. But he liked to take his time to mull stuff like this over.

He could ask around, find out who Damien used. Though, Levi would still need to meet whoever Damien suggested personally. He didn’t do business with faceless fat cats. Not anymore.

Damien was his best friend, who had become very successful running a winery, and the guy really was a business savant.

Levi wasn’t a slouch. His Wagyu beef operation had required a whole lot of certifications and other things that he had initially thought would be impossible.

But he would never admit that something felt impossible. He was physically incapable of it. He had known he could do the work—he just wasn’t sure that he could show it in the paperwork. But Damien had been a big help with that and, Damien being Damien, had never made him feel like it was a negative that he had needed his input.

It also made sense, though, because Damien had more experience with certifications and the like.

He never really needed to talk about the actual reasons he needed the assistance.