Page 20 of The Rival

There was no way in hell he was allowing an influx of people onto that road, no matter how fast Quinn Sullivan tried to talk her way into it.

But she wasn’t his problem. Not now.

He had much bigger issues, like what Camilla had told him over pizza the other night. It was unexpected, and he was unhappy about it. She hadn’t worked so hard to get into school just to come back because she was worried about him. He had thought that maybe it wasn’t the best idea for her to come for spring break, and he’d been right about that. Because she had taken a look at the state of the house and him, and decided that he wasn’t coping with an empty nest.

And no amount of him telling her he had been waiting for an empty nest for the past fifteen years had done any good.

His sister was the baby. And she meant well.

They all meant well.

Jessie meant well...and she was off with Damien now, his best friend turned brother-in-law, and that had been up there on the most shocking things that had happened to him in his life.

Dylan had joined the military—Lord Almighty, Levi would never be okay with that—and was deployed again.

Camilla shouldn’t be considering coming home. Not when she had a whole life, a whole future out there for herself.

But it was the strangest thing. The way that you could take care of three people for that many years, and somehow, the minute they get grown they think they have to take care of you.

Levi never wanted to have kids. He had raised plenty enough of them already. And anyway, he figured he didn’t need to have any, because this was what it was like. You finally got them out of your house, and they came back, and they acted like they knew more than you.

That did remind him of Quinn Sullivan. Making suggestions on how he might cut a log. The girl didn’t look like she was strong enough to lift an axe. She had looked petite and fragile today. Wearing a floral dress with her strawberry-colored hair blowing in the breeze. He would’ve laughed at her if he weren’t so nice.

Okay, he had laughed at her, but just the once.

But she was ridiculous.

And he wasn’t all that nice.

He walked up the side of the mountain, the most direct path to the main house. He could have driven, and he could’ve taken a path, but Levi liked to do things direct.

The new house had been finished just a few years ago. The final stage in his parents’ dream that they hadn’t been able to see come to fruition. When they’d died, they’d all been living in that cabin down by the highway, because there had been a bigger house under construction for them. It had taken years for it to get finished without them. Insurance money had helped see it through—that and the deal he’d struck at eighteen that had been...well, it hadn’t been the best decision, but it had gotten them through and it was up now anyway. Well, all that and dogged determination on Levi’s part. But that house had never been intended to be the final one. They’d had another set of plans, and really just out of a desire to see their dreams finished, Levi had gone and built that next one. Even though he lived in it mostly alone now.

And the house wasn’t the only thing that needed finishing. Because Camilla needed to go out and get on with her life. Then things would feel finished.

Finally.

When he pushed the door open, his sister was literally on her hands and knees in the entryway scrubbing at a muddy boot print.

“What are you doing?”

“This place is a mess. Levi, you don’t do well when you don’t have people that you’re responsible for.”

“Excuse me. I don’t think you get to tell me what I’m doing well.”

“I call it like I see it.” She pushed a mop of blond hair out of her face and looked at him with furious blue eyes that reminded him far too much of his own. She was stubborn. And he knew he couldn’t come at her from the front. That was the thing with them. They proved that there was a fair amount of nature inherent in a person’s behavior. Because the Grangers were stubborn. All of them. Down to their cores.

“Well, did you see fit to call that I might need some lunch?”

“You have food in the fridge.”

“So you’re only taking care of me to the degree that you want to.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Have mercy. Child, you have to go back to school.”

“Levi...”

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