“Not exactly prepared to give me a fair hearing, are you?”
He frowned. “I’m here. I’m listening. Convince me.”
His features were closed, his eyes shuttered, but he had a point. He was there, and she had this chance to show him what she could do. Chloe was used to having to fight for what she wanted, so today was no different. If she could stand up to her father and go against all of his many plans for her life, then she could certainly handle this.
“Okay, why don’t I show you my ideas, and then we can talk about it.”
He gave her a brief, almost regal, nod. “That’s why I’m here.”
But would he really listen? She’d have to take her chances and be damned convincing.
“Okay, that’s great.” She feigned bright confidence, then motioned for him to come around her desk. Once there, she opened up the file on her computer.
She got a quick thrill when she saw the title, the name of her soon-to-be-camp, Girls Can Do Anything. The man behind her snorted.
Chloe sent him a quick, hard look. Gorgeous or not, she didn’t like the attitude. “Do you disagree with my website design or the theme?”
If anything, his frown deepened. “I just think it’s crazy to have to tell a kid they can do anything.”
“Really? Even today, girls aren’t given the kind of opportunity that boys are.”
He snorted. “Please.”
Irritated, she snapped, “Are girls told they can be ranch hands? Raise and breed horses? Herd cattle?”
With a patient sigh, he asked, “Well...they’re not told they can’t, are they?”
“Some are,” she countered, remembering how her father had shattered her own dream of working a ranch, breeding horses. “And can I just say, you’re not exactly displaying to me how objective you’re going to be.”
He shrugged, but she could see she’d hit her target.
“Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry, but okay.
“Thank you.”
“Okay, show me what you’ve got.”
Chloe took a deep breath and probably shouldn’t have because he smelled really good. Not to mention that standing this close to him was making her body hum and her blood burn. Plus he was so tall. And broad shouldered. And—Keep your mind on business, she warned herself silently. But it wasn’t her mind that was veering out of orbit.
It was her body responding to the man, and there was no way to stop it. Chloe had never experienced anything like this. Attraction? Sure. Lust? Of course. But this bone-deep burning was something new, and she was finding it hard to breathe without shattering—or worse yet, climaxing—just thinking about him touching her. Oh, boy.
“Problem?” he asked, and his voice sounded like a whisper in the darkness.
She swallowed hard. Seriously, Chloe? “Nope. No problem.” She looked up at him and wondered if he’d moved even closer to her. How was she supposed to concentrate?
“Are you doing that on purpose?”
A knowing gleam shone briefly in his eyes. “Doing what?”
“Looming.”
“I don’t loom. I stand.”
“Really closely.”
“Worried?”
“No.”
“Then no problem, right?”
“Right.” All she had to do was get a grip on whatever was happening to her body. Nodding, Chloe turned back to the computer. “As you can see, I made up this website—it’s not live yet, but I wanted to be able to show you exactly what I have in mind and—”
“You did the website?”
She looked at him and clearly saw the surprise in his eyes. “Yes, why?”
Frowning, he shook his head. “Nothing.”
She knew exactly what he was thinking. How could Chloe Hemsworth have done something so complicated? Something that required talent, skills. This was not new. She was used to being dismissed. Her whole life had been spent convincing people that she was more than they thought her to be. Apparently, as gorgeous as he was, Liam Morrow was no different from anyone else she’d ever known.
“Oh, it’s okay,” Chloe said. “I’m used to being underestimated.”
“What?”
“You know how people are,” she said, looking him directly in the eye. “They take one look at me and think, useless daughter of a rich man. They never actually stop to think that maybe when I went to college I learned things. That I earned my degree in business.”
Something flickered in his eyes, and she was pretty sure it was respect. Well, good. Chloe had dreams and aspirations well beyond the next charity luncheon. But why should anyone else believe in her when her own father didn’t? And why did she care what Liam Morrow thought of her anyway? A question she couldn’t answer.
“I’ve come across the same kind of thing,” he said, and his voice was a low rumble that rattled along her nerve endings.
“Really?” Chloe smiled and shook her head. “People think you’re just pretty and empty-headed?”
He grinned briefly, and that quick twist of his mouth sent a flash of heat zipping through her. Oh, probably not good. But in her own defense, she didn’t think any woman would be immune to this man.
“No,” he said with a laugh. “But most people take one look at me and see a simple cowboy.”
She thought about that for a second as she stared up into his cool, blue eyes. “Nothing about you is simple, is it?”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “I wouldn’t say so.”
“Well, same here,” Chloe told him, squaring her shoulders. “People don’t underestimate me for long.”
He gave her a slow, up and down look of approval and finally nodded. “I bet they don’t.”
Why that acknowledgment touched her, Chloe couldn’t have said. She’d known him about ten seconds, right? Why should she care what he thought of her? What he saw when he looked at her? Why did she feel like her entire body was on a slow simmer?
Oh, she didn’t want to think about any of that at the moment.
“Okay,” she said briskly, once again turning back to the computer screen. “Back to my point. The idea is to introduce young girls—I’m thinking maybe eight to sixteen years old—to ranch life.”
He frowned. “Eight’s really young.”
“Not too young to dream,” she countered quickly. She had been eight when she’d first planned a future working on a ranch. “Every little girl I’ve ever known has dreamed of owning a horse. There’s a connection there that should be nurtured.”
“A ranch can be a dangerous place,” he warned, and the frown etched into the space between his eyebrows deepened.
“I know that, I do,” she insisted. “You can’t grow up in Texas and not know that ranch life isn’t easy. But accidents can happen anywhere. You can step off a curb in Houston and get run down by a bus.”
“True, but you don’t often stroll into a herd of buses.”
“Well, I promise I won’t let any of the girls take a walk in the middle of a herd. The fact that it might be dangerous doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go for what you want,” she insisted. “As for the kids, there would be adults to supervise.
“I’m planning to have camp ‘counselors’ for lack of a better word. College kids maybe.” She paused, then went on faster, her words tumbling over each other in a fight to be said before she lost his attention. “Anyway, I was thinking we could have a few horses—of your choice—that are gentle with kids and we can show the girls how to ride. How to care for the animals and clean up after them. Taking care of animals teaches us empathy and patience and—”
“I get it,” he said, nodding.
“Okay, well, the girls can do ranch work during the days and have cookouts and campfires at night.” She clicked to the next page on her website. “This can give them the satisfaction of working, completing a task, and the opportunit
y to build friendships with people they might not have met otherwise. They’ll learn how to do new things, get along with others and to appreciate everything they can accomplish.”
“Uh-huh.” He looked at the pictures of the Perry Ranch as if he were imagining a herd of girls running wild. He didn’t look happy, so Chloe started talking again. Fast.
“Like I said, there would be plenty of supervision of course—”
Liam cut her off. “And some of that supervision would have to be done by the ranch hands who already have plenty of work to do.” He shot her a wry look as if challenging her to dispute that.
Chloe took a breath and blew it out. Couldn’t he see what she was trying to do? Of course it wasn’t easy. Or simple. But how many great things were? “All right, yes, you’re right. We would need some help from the ranch hands. But surely there are a few guys there who could trade off showing the girls what ranch life is like without sending the whole outfit into bankruptcy.”
Outside, the wind was kicking up and spatters of rain began to pelt the windows, like dozens of fingers tapping, tapping, demanding to be let in. Inside, the room darkened, and Chloe leaned over to turn the desk lamp on.
Both of his eyebrows lifted at the sarcasm. “There’s a lot of liability involved here, too.”
“I realize that.” And now, her own temper was beginning to spike, and it threatened to burn as hot as her blood. He was deliberately trying to squash her before she’d even had a chance to convince him. “But parents would sign legal release documents before the camp, and the ranch would be completely covered.”
“I don’t know about that.” He shook his head, and folded his arms across his really impressive chest. If it hadn’t been a sure sign that he was closing down, shutting her out, she might have allowed herself an inner sigh of appreciation. “In my experience, you bring lawyers into anything, and it all goes to hell in a flash.”
Chloe sensed she was losing, and she couldn’t let that happen. The Perry ranch was the best place for her to try her experiment. Mostly because Sterling had been willing to let her use his land. Most ranchers weren’t open to anything that might interfere with the business. But also because she knew that ranch well, and there were a couple of female ranch hands working there too. If everything worked out there, she could start raising money to buy her own land. Of course, she’d come into her inheritance from her grandmother in five years when she turned thirty—but she didn’t want to wait. She’d already waited long enough.
“This isn’t about lawyers or liability,” she said, meeting his gaze and silently daring him to argue. “That could all be handled. It’s logistics. This is about the fact that you are simply determined to not like the idea.”
“I’m determined to see the reality while you’re looking at it all like a child’s fantasy.”
Hard to disagree, since he’d hit on the very reason she’d come up with this idea in the first place. All of her life, Chloe had been told what she couldn’t do. And she wasn’t standing for it anymore. Not from her family. Not from the hottest cowboy she’d ever seen.
“That’s because it was my fantasy as a child,” she admitted, staring at the images on the computer screen, letting herself imagine what might have been. “When I was ten years old, my father bought a ranch outside Galveston. He drove us all out there to look around, get a feel for the place.” She turned her face up to his. “I fell in love instantly. The foreman showed me the horses, let me feed them, then helped me ride for the first time in my life.” Her voice dropped, became a little dreamy, but there was nothing she could do about that. “I wanted to be a cowboy so badly. I had visions of growing up on that ranch, of having my own horse, of helping the cowboys...”
Silence followed when her voice trailed off until he quietly asked, “I’m guessing that didn’t work out for you?”
She laughed shortly and shook her head. “No. We went back home, and my father hired a construction crew to renovate the house. I was still dreaming, planning my room, naming my imaginary horse. Then he told us that once the renovations were done, he was selling the ranch at a ‘tidy profit.’”
She could still remember the disappointment, the crushing letdown she’d felt when she had learned that her father had never intended to move his family to that beautiful ranch. She’d felt betrayed, as if he’d allowed her to dream just to crush her.
“A few months later, he did sell it,” she said. “I never went back to the ranch.”
“So,” he said, “you’re trying to redo your own childhood? Is that it?”
“No,” she said softly. She wasn’t that foolish. But she was rewriting her adulthood far away from the plans of her father. “It’s just important to me to foster other little girls’ dreams. I want them to know that they can be and do anything. I know the Perry Ranch has several women working the herds—seeing that in reality would go a long way to showing the girls that anything’s possible. Why is it wrong for me to want to show young girls that their dreams can come true?”
“It’s that important to you.”
It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway. “Yes. It is.” Her dreams had been systematically flattened by her father, who instead wanted her to marry well, have children and run the various charities he approved of. Not that she didn’t someday want a husband and kids—but on her terms. And no matter what happened here with Liam Morrow, she was never going to surrender control of her life to anyone else.
Chloe took another breath and confessed, “This would be a test case, sort of. If it took off here, the idea could spread to other ranches, heck, other states.”
“Big plans,” he mused.
“You bet,” she agreed, flashing him a quick look and a smile. “At some point, I want to buy land myself. Set up a permanent camp. Buy horses, cattle, hire wranglers, and have a place where girls can go to dream.”
She watched him take her measure and saw that he wasn’t amused by her dreams, her plans. That was a step in the right direction.
“I can see how important this is to you,” he said. “But I’m not convinced yet.” He shifted his focus from her to the computer screen, then scrolled down the images she had posted.
“I haven’t finished my pitch yet,” she reminded him. And he hadn’t walked out yet, either. Good sign? “If you’ll check the map I posted, you’ll see where I want to set up the tents.”
“Tents,” he repeated. “And with all these girls there, what were you thinking of using for bathroom facilities?”
Chloe winced. This was one of the sticking points she was still working out. “I thought they could use the bunkhouse—”
“I don’t think the ranch hands living there would go for that.”
“It wouldn’t be easy, true.” Actually, she hated the idea of the girls using the bunkhouse bathroom. Because it would be awkward along with a host of other possible problems. “But if that doesn’t work, then maybe Sterling would let them use the bathroom off the kitchen.”
“Know about that, do you?” His gaze shifted to hers.
She smiled. “I’ve been to the Perry Ranch many times.”
“Yeah. For parties.”
“You say that like an insult.”
“I don’t have a lot of time for parties.”
“Well, maybe you should make time,” Chloe countered. “It might help you lighten up a little.”
“I don’t do light.”
She sighed. Seriously, the man was sex on a stick, but his personality was so prickly, she wondered if anyone ever got close enough to find out if he was as good in bed as she thought he was.
“All right then,” she offered. “We could bring in Porta Potties for the week.”
He snorted. “And portable showers?”
“These are just tiny details that I can figure out later,” she said, exasperation setting in. “You’re being deliberately confront
ational. I wonder why.”
He unfolded his arms and tucked his hands into the back pockets of his faded jeans. “Because it’s my job to look out for the ranch.”
“It’s not like a handful of girls would be there to destroy anything.”
One eyebrow winged up. “Just the working routine for the ranch hands.”
“Briefly,” she reminded him. “I’m thinking camp would be a week long. And I’m sure we could work out the bathroom issue,” she insisted, and made a mental note to talk to the housekeeper at the Perry Ranch. Chloe was pretty sure the woman would allow a few girls to use her shower for a week.
“Look, this would be a test case. To see if there are enough girls interested.”
“And if there aren’t?”
“Then I drop it,” Chloe said, then added quickly, “but there will be. If Sterling goes along with this, we could hold one camp week a month. I could even pay to have a bunkhouse with bathrooms built on the land.” Inwardly she winced at the idea of taking money out of her savings to do it, but it would be worthwhile.
“So when you eventually move your camp somewhere else—”
Chloe shrugged. “Sterling will have a new bunkhouse he didn’t have to build.”
Outside, the world darkened and the wide front window rattled with a gust of wind. The rain against the glass was heavier now, a continuous assault, and pedestrians hurried along the sidewalk, looking for cover.
Liam straightened up, looked down at her and Chloe felt a rush of heat. Amazing that a man who irritated her so much could cause such a reaction.
“You said at some point you’ll be looking for a permanent place?”
“Well,” she said, amazed that he would ask, “yes. This isn’t a one-off thing. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and I really believe that girls will love it.”
“Uh-huh,” he answered wryly. “And you think Sterling will be willing to just donate you a piece of his ranch to have children running loose?”
Wild Ride Rancher Page 3