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She could hear her own thoughts about sustainability rolling up to mock her even as she thought that.

She did prize ecologically sound practices. It was just...more convenient. And it wasn’t that she didn’t like horses; it was just that she found them to be sweaty and occasionally inconvenient.

Just a little bit more of an endeavor than getting across the ranch sometimes needed. In her opinion. But that meant that she had some serious muscle soreness in places she didn’t want it.

She had baited Levi, it was true, and he had taken that bait. The work had been hard.

She had done it, though. And she would be back tomorrow for more.

“Were you genuinely unaware that most people regard Four Corners with suspicion?”

She was a bit thrown off by the question. He had a way of doing that. Throwing off the conversation, the expected rhythm.

Her equilibrium.

“Yes. I thought that we... I thought that we had really built up a good rapport in the community.”

“Think about everything you have, think about how much better the ranch functions, how much better you will live than most of the other people in the community.”

“It’s okay that some people own ranches and some...”

“Work on them. You have that idea, don’t you? That some people are made to run businesses and other people are made to work at them.”

Quinn frowned. “I don’t really. I mean, when you put it like that, it sounds horrible.”

“It’s been said to me.”

“It has?” she asked.

“Yes. I was told that I wasn’t smart enough to go running a business.”

“I’m sorry, Levi. That wasn’t right. Whoever said that to you... It wasn’t right.”

He paused for a moment. “It was your dad.”

Quinn stopped and turned to face him. “My dad said that to you?”

“You must know that the whole thing with your dad was kind of a big disaster.”

“I know that my dad is a big disaster.”

Levi laughed. “Well. That is one way of putting it.”

He’d said he wouldn’t talk about this, but now he was. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to hear, but not this. Not something so personal. She’d imagined his business dealings with her dad to be dry and, well, business.

She’d thought maybe she had the monopoly on feeling personally wounded, slighted and insulted by her father.

“If it makes you feel any better,” she said softly, “my dad didn’t exactly think that I was worth much, either.”

He stared at her, and she felt like he could see far too much. “How is that possible? You exemplify all the things your dad said that he valued.”

“I’m not sure whether or not that’s a compliment.”

“It’s a statement of fact. You’re smart, and you’re determined. He always told me that those were important things.”

“Well, he doesn’t see them when he looks at me. What he saw was somebody who was flighty and irresponsible. Somebody who was led by their emotions, and created problems because of it. That’s what he saw. So...I wouldn’t necessarily take what he says to heart.”

“Clearly I didn’t, or I would never have started my own business.”