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 opportunity 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