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“You look upset.”

Upset really wasn’t the right word. She was stirred up. She was something new. Something different. Something she had never fully experienced before.

But she wasn’t hurt or angry.

He had kissed her. And it had been amazing.

She was attracted to him.

Her chest felt a little bit cracked.

She felt sensitive and fragile, and like she didn’t know whether she wanted to go to her room and cry, or get in the shower and relieve the sexual tension that had built up in her body.

Her older sister looked at her in the glow cast by the porch light, her eyes filled with concern. “Something happened with him, didn’t it?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, first of all, because you didn’t deny it with your first breath.”

“Something’s happened with him every day,” said Quinn. “Something that turns into a fight or ends up with me being thrown into a pond...”

“You care about him, don’t you?”

“No,” she said too quickly. “No. It’s not like that. Isn’t... It’s not. Okay? I don’t have any desire whatsoever to get involved with a man. There is too much to do here on the ranch, and there is too much to do in my life, and there is...”

“You’re lying to me.”

“Fia, why do you think you get to know about my personal life? You won’t even tell anybody what happened between you and Landry King, while the two of you hiss and spit at each other like cats every time you’re in the same room. You have never once confided in me about that.”

Fia’s face went cold. “And I won’t. It isn’t what you think, I’ll tell you that.”

“Why won’t you tell me...?”

“No. What’s between Landry and me is between us. Okay?”

“And what’s between Levi and me is between us.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” said Fia. “I don’t. I don’t trust random men. I just... He’s not one of us. And even though... Our dad was one of us, Quinn, and he still hurt us. And... You just cannot always trust people.”

“I don’t trust him,” she said. Except it was a lie. She did trust him. She trusted him not to hurt her on purpose. She trusted him not to take advantage of her.

She trusted that he was a man of his word.

She trusted a whole lot of things about him that she would’ve said that she didn’t just a little bit before, but she did now. She did.

“Just trust me. I’ve got the easement. The rest of it... It’s my business.”

She walked into the house, past her sister, letting the screen door slam behind her.

And there was Rory, standing at the base of the stairs, her red hair already piled in a bun on her head, her white nightgown more suited to that of a Victorian orphan than a grown woman.

“What was that about?”

“Our sister being overly protective.”

“Do you need protecting?” Rory asked.

“No, Rory. I don’t. I do not need to be protected. Not from him, not from myself. I don’t need to be protected from anyone. Least of all Levi Granger. Or my own self. Because that’s what it comes down to. Fia doesn’t trust me. And she doesn’t have the balls to say that, so she’s acting like she’s worried about him.”