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“No,” she said, turning to look up at him. “I won’t.”

CHAPTER NINE

SHE DIDN’T KNOW what she was doing. Well. She did. She was digging in. She was digging in because he was being impossible. She was digging in because she didn’t think it was fair that he got to make all these declarations. That he got to set the rules. That he got to underestimate her, and then set the bar so low that all she would have to do was step over it, and he would be able to be unimpressed, because it was unimpressive.

And if he was going to make assumptions about her based on her dad, and not even share the details with her, then she was going to dig in and make him see that she wasn’t the same.

“Okay,” he said. “Then let’s keep working. Right through the heat of the day.”

He drove the truck straight past her car, and on back to the field.

“I’m just fine,” she said. “I have no problem putting in a full day’s work, and I will put in a full day every day this week.”

“You’re stubborn, Quinn Sullivan, I’ll give you that.”

That felt like a compliment, whether he meant it to be one or not.

She knew she was stubborn. And she was proud of it. It was literally her whole personality. That she had been stubborn enough to become the person she was, and stubborn enough to persist in helping Sullivan’s Point in the way that she knew it needed.

And when they were done working on the fence for the day, they went to the stalls, and she didn’t even ask him any questions. She found all the tack she needed, and got her own horse, and rode with him through the different pastures to check on the cows.

Her grumpiness did abate when they looked at the cows, who were truly beautiful animals.

Wagyu beef was very particular, and had to be approved as such before you could call it that. The cows had to be raised to obtain a certain marbled content to the meat. It was very high in fat and extremely rich.

And the animals were glossy and thick and glorious.

This was what she loved about ranching. This was what she loved about the magic of working the land. That everything good and glorious that people ate and enjoyed came from it.

She was often thunderstruck by those sorts of realizations. That there had been a human being who had looked at the wheat in the field and said: let’s try it and mill it.

Who had decided that it would pair nicely with yeast that would add air to it, and that they could make fluffy, chewy bread.

Humans who had looked at sheep in the fields and thought, Why not try shearing its wool off, and then spinning that wool into a string, and then taking that string and looping it all different ways using sticks to make a fabric?

The building blocks of life played out in these fields. And not just the things that were necessary for survival. But things that made being human a joy.

Milk and meat and cheese. Sour cream and heavy cream. Fruit and bread.

It all came from ranches. And farms. At least, the very best of it did.

She believed in the family farm. In the family ranch. They lived it; they exemplified it. Fresh and local.

It was her passion. And when she could clear out her anger, frustration, annoyance...when she could set aside all the issues from her childhood, she could just embrace the passion.

Because to her, it was what loving the land required.

She could see that reflected in Levi Granger’s operation, as well.

He did good work. And it was sustainable. His animals were in good condition, and his land was well-kept.

Properly irrigated. It was true there wasn’t a whole lot he could learn from her out here. It was going to have to be the paperwork. The paperwork, and the offer of a percentage of the profits of the farm store. She could see that now. But she was definitely going to have to talk to her sisters about that.

By the end of the day, everything hurt.

She was great at riding horses, but she didn’t do it all that often. Her sister Alaina was a full-on horse girl, and she basically did everything on the back of a horse, but that just wasn’t Quinn.

Quinn preferred to drive her truck around, or even an ATV.