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He hooked up. But he had never been one to have a relationship. It just wasn’t possible. Not with his life. He had to either be ready to get himself a ranch wife, or he just had to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. He had never seen a way to have anything in between. Not while working the land and taking care of his siblings. And it had definitely crossed his mind that there would be something to getting himself a wife.

But then he just...couldn’t. He could never get himself past that initial thought.

He just couldn’t see depending on anyone. It was better, way better, to handle it all himself.

It just made more sense.

Because you couldn’t depend on people. In that, he agreed with Quinn, but it was perhaps not exactly the same bent.

Things happened that were beyond people’s control. Those structures that people counted on, that nuclear family, their parents...

For him, it had disintegrated. Not because his parents weren’t good people. They had been.

His dad had been a great man. He had loved deeply. Too deeply.

When his wife had died, his heart had given out.

Levi would never be able to believe that the two things weren’t connected. Broken-heart syndrome, he was sure of it.

The fact that he had a heart attack less than a year after his wife had passed...

It was a thing. He knew it was. Levi had watched his dad fade. Turn gray, his weight going down, every bit of responsibility he carried clearly costing him more.

Levi had started picking up more and more in that year. Trying to do some of the work his dad struggled to do. Wishing he could do something with the business end but being utterly baffled by it all. Knowing the finances were slipping and not knowing how to fix it.

One thing Levi had known was that he could never do that to himself.

It wasn’t an issue for him at this point. He couldn’t fathom having the time, energy or trust to begin to fall in love, and even if he could... Well, Levi wasn’t here to die of a broken heart.

Better to never let your heart get that involved.

The truth was, he already had too many liabilities in his life. His brother joining the military...

That killed him. He never wanted him to know that he spent his waking hours in a state of anxiety when his brother was deployed, but it was the truth.

When Camilla had gone off to college, it had been the strangest thing. He’d been glad. It had been the moment he’d been waiting for.

When she’d gone, he’d felt a lot like he’d lost a limb.

And Jessie, who had been there all along, when she had moved away with Damien, even that had been difficult. And he wanted her to have it. But that didn’t make it easy.

He was, in many ways, a parent. It was all a bit much. He didn’t need any more. And so, he had decided to forgo the ranch-wife route.

He’d raised his kids anyway, so to speak. He didn’t want to do all that again, either.

He didn’t want to create more people to love. More people he could lose.

He was great with chatting up women in a certain way. He didn’t do it all that often. He was busy. He was a rancher, and he had to get up early. Plus, he had various siblings in and out of the house, and he had never believed in bringing women back where they could see.

Except the first time. A girl he knew from school had come by to visit and bring cookies, and she’d given him sympathy and a kiss, and one thing had led to another. It had been a godsend in some ways. Because right then it had felt like time was slipping through his fingers because God knew who might drop dead next.

He’d been filled with the need to go quickly then.

Sign a contract quickly with a factory farm.

Take the pity sex on offer when it turned up.

He didn’t regret that. Because in the years after, sex had been scarce.