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“No, you can’t,” he said.
That wasn’t exactly the conversation he’d been trying to walk her into, but it was a life lesson that she needed. She might rub him the wrong way, but he didn’t want her to get hurt, and the truth was, that kind of bravado she carried around with her was liable to get her ass handed to her one of these days.
They drove out to the field, and he was feeling a little overheated from sitting in her presence for all this time.
He needed a new system. A new system for getting laid. If he went out, he could get it done. Women liked him. Well, women didn’t like him. They liked his body. Women didn’t know him well enough to like him or dislike him, and it didn’t matter to him at all what they thought of him as a human being. It just mattered whether they wanted to take a ride or not. Mostly they did.
But he had never really gotten in the pattern of going out, and he would have to go out by himself, which, again, was fine, most especially when he was in the mood to get laid. He had old-man patterns and old-man habits. That was the truth of it. He just didn’t especially know the social scene, not that the town really had one anyway, but couple that with the fact that he was an empty nester and thirty-six... Well. It was what it was. But that was why Quinn was getting to him.
Because she was just a skinny little redhead—with some decent curves, sure, but lots of women had curves. She wasn’t anything special. And in fact, she was infuriating. So there was really no reason in all the damned world for the woman to be under his skin quite like this. The relative dry spell was to blame, he was sure. He wasn’t entirely certain when the last time he’d had sex was. But it had been a little bit.
He didn’t think of it that way, normally. Hazard of going without for long periods of time while single parenting.
If not for Hannah, that girl from class who’d paid him a visit that night, he’d have ended up the world’s oldest living virgin. God bless her. She’d given him just the right way to experience sex for the first time. A pattern he’d kept forever on after.
He didn’t want connections. He didn’t want to know anyone. He didn’t want them to know him.
Maybe that was why Quinn’s sharing moments irked him so much. She made him almost wish...
It didn’t matter.
They worked until it was time to gather the calves, which Quinn did with almost amusing determination. She was amped up, and she may not love riding horses, but she was pretty damn good at it. She helped him corral the little calves, and got them ready for Charity’s arrival.
The sweet-natured veterinarian had always been well-known in the community. Her father had been the veterinarian before her.
She had always been tied in with the McCloud family, best friends with Lachlan, and even though Levi couldn’t say he really knew the McClouds at all, he had always known Charity to be exceptionally good people. He had been pretty damn surprised when she had married Lachlan.
One thing he did know about Lachlan McCloud was that, prior to his marriage, the man had a reputation for being a huge player about town. Hooking up with a different woman pretty much every night. And then there was Charity...
Well, Charity seemed happy, so all must be well.
Quinn seemed delighted to see her, and it was clear to him that the two of them knew each other.
“I’m excited to get to watch you work,” said Quinn, planting her hands on her knees and bending over in the ridiculous overalls. He did not know why she was the way that she was.
“Yeah, you normally aren’t around for the animal stuff,” said Charity, getting the vaccines out and lining them up.
“No. Though, I’ve been getting to do quite a bit of it with Levi this last week. It’s great.”
He studied her face, trying to see if she was lying. She seemed like she was telling the truth.
Which was weird. He wasn’t sure what she would’ve thought of their time together, but enjoyment was not really what he’d been expecting.
“What are you working on here?”
“Remains to be seen,” said Levi.
Charity looked at him speculatively.
Well. He had probably deserved that. Because yeah. He could see that an answer like that left things open to interpretation. And he decided he wasn’t going to overcorrect or disabuse her of the notion.
Quinn, for her part, seemed oblivious to what Charity had been musing on.
Fine with him.
It was hot, sweaty work, but done fairly quickly, because Charity was a professional, and that was one reason he had her out to do it.
He probably could’ve bought a supply and done it himself, but it didn’t appeal. He knew that there was some truth in that to be examined. Because he had learned to hire out when need be. He had learned to hire out for work that he didn’t enjoy doing, or that took longer for him to do than something else might.
