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“I suppose there are.” He smiled. “For horses, anyway. Then we came up with a couple of other little things.”
“You’re a man of many talents, aren’t you?”
“Well now,” he said in a soft drawl, “you’re in a better position to know that than I am.”
She smiled and her body tingled. “Good point.”
“Anyway,” he said, “after graduation, I came back here and took the foreman’s job for Sterling. In a month, I’m done, though.”
A jolt of something that felt an awful lot like regret whipped through her like one of the bolts of lightning streaking across the sky. “You’re leaving?”
He shook his head. “No. Just moving on. I’ve got my own place now, and in a month that’s where I’ll be.”
“Your own ranch?” Her voice sounded wistful even to herself. “The envy continues.”
He smiled easily. “Can’t blame you. The land I picked up is beautiful. A few thousand acres of grassland and hills. It’s perfect. Got the house built last year, and the first of the herds I’m going to build are already in place.”
It sounded wonderful to Chloe. All of it. The fact that he’d gone away to college, proved himself and now was building the dream he’d wanted for years. She’d joked about being envious, but the truth was, that’s exactly how she felt. Liam Morrow was building the life he wanted while Chloe was living a second choice dream. Yes, she enjoyed the party planning, but her heart was still in ranching. Being a part of the earth, raising horses, working with them. And that’s really what had inspired her girls’ camp idea. She did want them to dream and reach for those dreams, but it was also a way for her to live out what she’d been denied.
He was still talking, describing the ranch he was building, and Chloe could see it all in her mind. It sounded wonderful and she’d love to see it in person. She wondered if this encounter with Liam would go on or if it would end with the storm.
“One thing I don’t get to this day,” Liam mused.
“What’s that?”
“Well, all the time I’ve been on the Perry Ranch, I’ve never seen Sterling take even the smallest interest in it.” Liam frowned into his wine. “He likes the house all right, likes the power of being one of the biggest ranchers in Texas, but he couldn’t give one single damn about the operating of it. I guess it’s that he has a love-hate sort of thing for the ranch. Just can’t figure out why.”
“You don’t know?” Chloe gave a short laugh of surprise.
“Know what?”
The firelight danced and flickered around the darkening room. Lightning flashed in the sky and the rumble of thunder was like a constant drumbeat.
“Oh, Cowboy, you have to get off the ranch once in a while,” Chloe said with a shake of her head. “How else will you keep up with the gossip?”
“Not interested in the local grapevine, thanks.”
“But that’s where all the information you want is,” Chloe teased, and when she didn’t get any reaction at all, she sighed a little and said, “Men clearly have no appreciation for the little things. Sterling Perry loves that ranch but you’re right, he hates it too.”
“That’s not telling me anything I don’t already know.”
She took a sip of wine. “I’m just getting started. Sterling’s still furious over his late wife, Tamara, and the red-hot ranch hand she had an affair with.”
“What?”
Grinning now, Chloe got into storytelling mode. Fine. Gossiping wasn’t nice, but she wasn’t too proud to admit that she liked keeping up-to-date on what was happening—and didn’t mind sharing with the pitifully ignorant. “Sterling was actually the foreman on what was then the York Ranch. Then he married the owner’s daughter, Tamara. The rumor is that Tamara apparently had a passionate affair with one of their ranch hands. Ryder Currin.”
“Currin?” Liam blinked. “The oil baron?”
“The very one,” Chloe said, and held her glass out for Liam to refill it. Once he had, she leaned back against the chair behind her and settled into talking. “Tamara was ten years older than Ryder at the time, but apparently that didn’t stop anything. They say the affair kept going on even when Ryder was married. It was the talk of the town back then. I know because my mother and her friends aren’t exactly known for their whispering talents.”
