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He had learned to play to his own strengths, so it wasn’t that he had grown entirely insular.

It was the control stuff...

Well, hell. Whatever.

He didn’t like all the navel-gazing that Quinn was forcing him to do. Not in the least. It was boring.

By the time they were finished, they were both sweaty, and hungry, but it wasn’t time to stop for lunch yet, not when they needed to get the cows moved from the upper pasture.

“It’s hot,” Quinn groused as they rode the horses up the side of the hill that led to the upper pasture.

“I know,” he said.

“Yeah, but I’m really hot.”

“I didn’t make you come today.”

“I know,” she said fiercely.

“We gotta get the cows from here down to the lower pasture, because the water dries up this way this time of year. It’s better for them to be down there where there’s a year-round pond. I move the grazing about seasonally.”

“Smart,” she said.

“Smart? I thought that was a word that wasn’t reserved for me.”

“Oh, don’t,” said Quinn. “You make so many assumptions about what I think, and it’s not fair. I never said that you weren’t smart.”

“You just think it.”

He could feel her fuming.

The herd was small, and it was easy for the two of them to get them corralled where they needed them to go, and when it was time to get them to move quick, he urged his horse into a trot, then a gallop, and Quinn followed suit.

The cows thundered down right where he wanted them to go.

And for a moment, he shut everything out but this. Because this was where things had always made sense. This was where he had always been able to find some kind of bliss.

This was where no man stood taller than him, and no one had more power.

This was his land. His.

No one and nothing could take that from him, and it was everything.

It was just damn well everything. By the time they got the cows down to the lower pasture, near the pond, he was drenched in sweat.

“Let’s stop for a second,” he said.

He stripped his shirt off and made his way over to the pond, dipping it down into the water, because that would feel better than wearing a shirt soaked in his own sweat.

He turned to look at Quinn, who was furiously looking down at her phone, and not looking at him, with what seemed to be great determination.

So.

She had to make an effort to not look when he took his clothes off.

Nice to know. But it shouldn’t be.

“The Christmas trees,” she said suddenly, very loudly.