Page 52

But this was well-worn territory—that was the problem. More understandable, though, when he was merely a fantasy object. Much less so when he was calling her a carrot.

She tamped it down.

“So, not a cult. Sex or otherwise?” Camilla asked.

“No. Not.”

“Too bad. I’d be tempted to throw my hat in to be a sister wife. Because some of the men over there are hot.”

Quinn laughed, in spite of her discomfort. There was a reason she’d never dated any of the men there. Well, they’d also never dated her because she annoyed them. But even still. “Well. Yes, that is true. Though, I think of them as...well, not brothers. We’re not exactly all super close, but kind of like distant cousins. I can’t say that I’m really all that interested in any of them. Or in the whole cowboy shtick.” She said that just to get back at her imagination, which had momentarily betrayed her.

“Me, either,” said Camilla. “I’m going to meet some guy from the city and have him take me away from here.”

“If you’re going to dream about going away, take yourself away, Camilla. Don’t count on a man.”

Camilla smiled. “You sound like Levi.”

She frowned. “Do I?”

“Yes. He has never been super keen on my romantic daydreams. But someday...someday I’ll move somewhere different.”

“Except you don’t even want to go back to school,” said Quinn. She felt old standing next to this bright, sunny twenty-year-old. She wasn’t old—she knew that. It was just she had already gone through college, had already made decisions about where she was going to settle. She didn’t entertain those kinds of fantasies. Those flights of fancy.

“I... You’re going to help him, right?” Camilla asked. “I really do worry about him. He is such a stubborn asshole. I love him. He’s my brother. But he can be a ridiculous pill, and he is... He really doesn’t have it all together. I know he thinks that he can control it all, and he can just will everything to go his way, but he can’t.”

Her heart contracted. For Camilla, and not for Levi.

It had probably been hard growing up with him. She’d said he didn’t like her romantic daydreams and that wasn’t fair.

Someone should be interested in a girl’s romantic daydreams. No, her parents hadn’t been, but she’d had her sisters.

Quinn knew so well what it was like to feel alone. She might not have romantic daydreams, but she’d had dreams. And not really anyone to listen to them.

Who had Camilla had? And now she was all worried about him, and he wasn’t being reasonable. Reasonable would be actually taking Quinn’s help instead of opposing her.

Reasonable would not be calling her a carrot.

Reasonable would have been standing here with her and Camilla for a moment instead of going off to shower.

Naked and wet and...

“It isn’t your job to keep everything together,” Quinn said quickly.

And that at least jolted her mind away from Levi and the shower. She might as well have been talking to her younger self, or maybe even her current self, she knew.

Because she had always kept it together, and she had always tried to keep the people around her together. And sometimes it was enough, but sometimes it just damn well wasn’t.

“Thanks. That’s really... It’s nice of you. What exactly...? Why are you helping Levi? Did he hire you?”

She sighed. She wasn’t going to lie to Camilla. “Not exactly.”

“You two were...not on the same team at the meeting.”

“No. What do you think? Do you think we’re hurting the town with the road changes?”

Camilla shrugged. “I don’t think anyone really knows what will happen until it happens. I can see not wanting the road to bypass the town, but...it’s your land.”

“I’m hoping Levi will let me use the road through here. The customers won’t bypass town then, but it’s still better than eight miles on our dirt road. I’m trying to show him I can...help. With the ranch. In exchange for that.”