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“All right. You gotta do a little bit of work on that.”
“Maybe Levi will help,” said Quinn. “Because, you know, he likes me now.”
“Well, that is a great reason to sleep with him.”
Quinn rolled her eyes. “I did not whore myself out for a backhoe and access to his road.”
“That would make you kind of a backhoe,” said Alaina.
“Rude. Anyway. I will talk to Levi about maybe excavating that little bit that we need to finish up the road to the place.”
“Perfect. Let’s all go over now.”
“Let me give him a warning,” said Quinn.
“You must really like him,” said Fia. “Because since when are you ever interested in giving somebody a warning?”
Well, Quinn couldn’t really say. But she did know that she didn’t want Levi to be wholly ambushed by her sisters. And so, she did send a cautionary text.
When they all showed up, she could feel her sisters giving him a much more thorough examination than was appropriate.
“Good to see you,” said Fia.
“You, too,” said Levi.
“We were actually wondering if we could pay you to finish digging out the road to the farm store. We can hire somebody to do it, but that will mean bringing somebody else onto your land,” Quinn said, looking at both Levi and Fia as she spoke.
“That’s kind of the whole point of the road, isn’t it?” Levi asked.
“Yes, it is. But I do have maybe a suggestion. That you might route the road slightly differently around certain spots.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” he said.
She was so careful to not overshare his story. He’d told her things that he simply didn’t talk about with other people, and she didn’t want to go blabbing it to all the land. Even if all the land was just her sisters.
“My parents’ graves are out there,” he said, and that broke the seal on some of what she’d been holding back. “So yes, it might be nice to split the road at some point and build up a wall or a hedge around that so that my family is still able to use that part privately.”
“We will pay for that,” said Fia.
“It isn’t going to cost me anything. I have the equipment to do it.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s your labor, and you should be compensated. We have the budget.”
“I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you wait and give me a little bit out of the profits? It’s my understanding that you’ve been having to dip into the community funds for this project, and that there’s a little bit of tension because of that.”
Fia looked at Quinn, and then at Levi. “That would actually be wonderful, but you don’t have to do that.”
“It’s a time expense, not an up-front expense, and I can definitely shoulder that. I appreciate you wanting to be fair. But I am satisfied that this is fair.”
“Thank you, Levi,” said Fia.
And Quinn knew that, whatever else happened, Fia at least could see in that moment what Quinn saw. That Levi was solid and steady and good. That he was the kind of man who looked out for his own.
And right now, he was treating Quinn like she was his own.
That thought made something hot and needy bloom in her stomach. She hadn’t belonged to anybody in a long time.
And maybe she never really had. Not in that glorious, unconditional way that your parents should feel like you belonged to them.
