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As the kids had gotten older and they were able to be alone into the wee hours of the morning, he’d taken his women to a motel after meeting them in a bar.

Now, with Camilla out of the house, he supposed he could...

He never did, though. Because it felt weird.

Motels were fine.

But yeah. Actual conversation with women, he wasn’t all that well-versed in. She was...irritating. Compelling.

Once he had started getting her goat a little bit, he had really gone in for it. It was like he hadn’t been able to help himself. But then, she was picking at a scab of his. So it seemed fair.

“Hey, Levi.”

He turned and saw Dave Calhoun, and gave him a half wave.

“Hey, yourself.”

“Granger.”

He gave a half wave to Jaime Lopez as well, and to Jeff Carmichael, Alan Gutierrez and some other men he knew from the Huckleberry County Ranching Association.

“So everybody knows you,” said Quinn.

“Yeah.”

“I guess I take your point about the Four Corners folk. Because I don’t know any of them.”

“Listen, you just keep to your own. Granted, your own is big. You guys are basically half the town.”

“Yes. But does everybody see it as us versus the rest of them?”

“Whether you want to believe it or not, it’s not perspective so much as reality. Anybody in ranching has to compete with y’all. And it isn’t easy. You have collective money that the rest of us don’t have. You have ways of covering each other, helping each other, that we don’t.”

“If we’re using an easement on your property, it seems like we need to maybe offer you a little bit more.”

He frowned. “I have no desire to be absorbed into Four Corners.”

“That isn’t what I mean. I just mean that maybe you’re right. You should get some compensation. After all, land is important. And if we’re using your land...”

“I am aware of how important land is.”

He was land rich before he was anything else. Now. The contracts he’d signed that had kept his fields tied up for all those years had taken these last five years to begin to result in riches for him. He’d hog-tied himself back then, and he wouldn’t do it again.

He’d also been the subject of suspicion for that deal. The factory-farm angle plus the Four Corners connection hadn’t made him popular.

He didn’t relish stepping back into that space.

She had no idea what she was saying when she made statements like that. No idea who she was lecturing.

“I worked hard for you today and I am willing to continue to work hard to show you that I’m genuine, and that I know what I’m talking about. And that even if I’m from Four Corners, our desire to ranch right does extend to our neighbors.”

She looked down. “Does this have something to do with my dad?”

He snorted. “What do you know about all that?”

“Not everything. But you could tell me...”

“No need to discuss it.” He didn’t like talking about it. It still made him feel all the old feelings. The ones he never needed to revisit.