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Usually at his parents’ graves, he felt some kind of connection. To them, to the land. Right now he felt weirdly alone, and that wasn’t the kind of thing he liked to indulge in.

So instead, he put his hat back in place and wandered back to the truck.

He would be seeing Quinn tomorrow whether he wanted to or not. And then he would have to make a decision about what he was going to do. With her. With the ranch.

He hadn’t felt uncertain in a long time.

He resented that she had the power to do that. Right now, the impulse to hold on to that resentment was pretty strong. Because it seemed easier than a whole hell of a lot else.

So maybe he would just do that.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE NEXT DAY she wore overalls. She was an absurd little varmint. And none of the behavior should be cute in any way.

Yet he found it was.

He wanted her to leave and not come back. He wanted her to show up every day when she said she would. He wanted her to keep her damned mouth shut. And he wanted her to chatter like the ridiculous little squirrel that she was. He wanted to pull the girl’s pigtails. That was the problem. He couldn’t recall the last time he had felt an impulse like that. Not even in school. She made him feel that way. She made him feel some kind of riled up that he didn’t quite understand. And that was another thing. He didn’t like not understanding. He had put himself in a position in life where he never felt stupid. Except for the rare moments when he had to disappear into paperwork in his office, he didn’t do things that made him struggle.

He’d overcome. In a very specific way. He had made it so that he never had to feel that way again.

She made him feel that way. On so many levels. In so many ways. Not the least of which was that he didn’t understand this pull.

He didn’t do complicated attraction. He never had. Because complicated would necessitate a relationship of some kind, and he didn’t do those, either.

Shit. You’d think with that kind of thinking he’d be a total manwhore, but he wasn’t. It wasn’t about that. It was...

Love hurt so damned much. And his desire, his ability to feel any more, had been killed hard the day his father had gone back to the earth.

Knowing what he did, seeing what he’d seen, he’d have to be dumb to want to indulge attraction like this.

Quinn Sullivan made him feel dumb.

Overalls.

Pigtails.

Dammit.

“Ready?” she said, grinning up at him.

“Sure.”

The freckles on her face had intensified since they had begun working together. And her nose was a bit pink from the prolonged exposure to the sun in the afternoon heat.

“I thought you put sunblock on.”

She frowned. “I did.”

“Are you reapplying every two to four hours? Because you’re supposed to.”

Her mouth opened. “I... Yes. Maybe.”

“You look a little sun-kissed there, honey.”

Her eyebrows shot up, and she blinked rapidly. She pursed her lips and frowned. “Honey?”

“What’s weird about that?”