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“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 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.”
