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“We’ve gotten to know each other, and now I just kind of want to. What you did for your siblings is a big deal. I want your sister to go finish college. I don’t want her to just stay here.”

“Like me, you mean?”

He waited a beat, and saw as shame flooded her cheeks. “That isn’t what I meant. It’s not.”

“It’s okay. You can say it. You think an education is necessary for someone to be qualified.”

“No, that’s not it. I am afraid to have...nothing to fall back on. No credentials. My dad left and my mom fell apart. I wanted to make sure that I was more than that. More than a marriage or a vague connection to something. That I had something I could take with me wherever I went. And I didn’t know how else to make sure of it. I wanted to make sure that I was more than what I became when my dad left. Specifically.”

“And what was that?” Maybe he shouldn’t be curious about that, but he was.

Curious about what Brian had done to her.

“Angry. So angry that I thought I was going to implode from it. So angry that I thought I’d explode. And I nearly did, quite a few times. I was just running around venting all of it on other people, and it wasn’t fair. I was so mean. Just so toxic, all because of him. And I needed there to be more to me than that. I needed something that made me...that proved to me that I was qualified, I guess. Because why? When you lose the foundation of that, you do question everything.”

He nodded slowly. “You know, I lost my parents, too, but in a way that made me feel more certain that this was where I needed to be. They died working this land. And I know that I want to do the same.”

“Maybe the difference is the way they left it. Like you said, your dad died of a broken heart. That was how much he didn’t want to lose what he had. My dad ran from his life. He chose to leave it. To leave us. All I could see were broken dreams, and I never wanted to be in that space. Where everything that I worked for didn’t matter anymore because of the decisions of somebody else. I wanted to know why I did what I did. Why I lived the life I lived. I wanted to know why I chose the life I chose.

“It was really important to me. To know that. And I do now. I went and I learned all about ranching, and I made my choice, not my birthright. And that changed things for me. It did. I’m not sure if it makes any sense to you. But I promise you it isn’t about looking down on you still being here. It’s about understanding why sometimes you need to make sure that you know why you ended up where you did. So that a life doesn’t choose you, but you choose it.”

They were such strange words to him, because he’d never had that opportunity. He’d never even really thought about it. His life was his birthright. And that was it.

And really, in many ways it was a good thing, because what the hell would he have had if not for this land? If not for this land, Quinn would probably be working in a high-rise office building somewhere. She would probably be a city girl. Or not. But she had an array of options in front of her. Because she had gone to school, and she had gotten a degree. She had done well for herself. He was just a guy who could barely read. He would probably be doing work that was twice as hard for half the pay if he didn’t have this land.

Things had to be rough for him. That was just the honest truth.

He didn’t feel burdened by this land. It was a gift to him.

But he wondered, if the land wasn’t there for Quinn, how different her life would be.

“Come on upstairs.” They started up the stairs, and he led her down the hardwood-floor hallway, to the office door. And he felt a little ashamed, actually. The idea of showing her this place where he worked, which was an absolute disaster and was probably much worse off than she could ever imagine, made him hesitate.

It reminded him of school, quite frankly. He didn’t like it.

But he opened up the door anyway.

“Come on in.”

There were papers everywhere, and he quickly moved to the computer, leaned over and turned off the accessibility feature that he always used. He didn’t want to start talking to her.

There was admitting that he was messing with her, and kind of exposing the way that he felt about her degree snobbery, and then there was letting her in on the extent of his own issues, and he didn’t let anybody in on that.

“Okay, Quinn. Here it is.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

QUINN WAS STILL feeling rattled by everything that had happened in the last few hours, and now she was looking at his desk, which was...a mess.

“What’s the most pressing issue?”

“Just look at the budget files and the taxes on the computer. Nothing else.”

“I’m sure that I can figure it out. You can leave me to it. You can go back to your work.”

“Okay, then.” He turned, and she had a feeling that leaving her here was costing him, but she also had a feeling that he wanted to be here even less.

“It’ll be fine,” she said.