Mike, already comfortable in his new role as “almost foreman,” climbed the corral fence to lend the cowboy a hand. Liam watched the show, but his mind wasn’t on the horse or the men in front of him. Instead, he thought about his own place, and how damned eager he was to be there.
Liam threw a long glance over his shoulder at the big house that Sterling had inherited from his late wife. Sterling Perry might not be much of a rancher himself, but the man had always loved this place and he knew how to put on a show. The house was big enough for four families to live in. It gleamed such a bright white when the sun hit it, a man could be blinded. Not to mention the hot Texas sun glancing off the million or so windows on the place. It was showy and fancy and suited Sterling down to the ground.
On Liam’s own place though, the house he’d had built was a two-story log house with wide porches that wrapped around both the upper and lower floors. It was big enough for the family he might decide one day to have, but not so damn big a kid could get lost in it.
A flicker of shame slapped him as he told himself he shouldn’t be thinking badly of Sterling Perry. The man had his problems, but he’d given Liam a chance when he’d needed it. For that, he’d always owe the older man.
A distant rumble caught his ear, and Liam turned his head to the southwest. Thunderheads were gathering on the horizon, big and black and threatening. As if proving itself to him, the coming storm sent a gust of wind to slap at him. The scent of rain was on that wind, and everything inside him told Liam they were in for a hell of a storm. No surprise, he thought, the weathermen hadn’t forecasted it at all.
Shaking his head, he called out, “Hey, Mike!”
His replacement turned toward him. “Yeah?”
“I’m heading into Houston for that meeting. Going to try to beat that storm back home. If I don’t, you make sure the yearlings are locked down, you hear?”
He waved. “Don’t worry about it, Liam. I’ve got it.”
Nodding, Liam briefly lifted one hand and then headed for his black truck. Mike had already proved to him that he knew what he was doing, and that he’d be a good foreman once Liam’s time here was done. And if Mike needed help in the short time Liam would be gone, then the other cowboys could step in.
Soon, he told himself, this ranch wouldn’t be his problem. Soon, he’d be working at his own spread instead of simply checking in with his own foreman every couple days. He steered the truck down the oh so familiar drive and wondered how many thousands of times he’d driven this route over the years. Then he figured it didn’t matter. He hit the Bluetooth speed dial, listened to the ring and when the foreman at his own ranch answered, Liam started talking. “Joe, you get everything tied down over there? Looks like a beast of a storm headed in.”
“Just saw that, boss.”
Liam smiled to himself. If there was one thing you could count on with a man who worked the land, it was that he always kept a sharp eye on the skies. Hell, weather was the one thing a rancher—or a farmer—couldn’t control. So when there was a potential enemy always ready to rain down misery on you, well, that kept a man permanently on his guard.
“The boys are bringing in the mares now,” Joe said. “Looks like we’ve got some time yet. Heck, storm might pass us altogether. But if it doesn’t, we’ll have everything set before it hits. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not,” Liam lied. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his foreman or the other men working for him, it was only that he’d feel a hell of a lot better if he was there, taking care of things himself.
He’d worked most of his life toward getting a ranch of his own where he would call the shots. He’d made sharp investments years ago, patented a couple of ideas he and his friends had come up with while he was at MIT and now had enough money to do what his heart had always demanded.
Funny how that had worked out. Liam’s father had been the Perry ranch foreman for years, and when he died, Sterling had offered to put Liam through college with the understanding that once he graduated, Liam would come back to the ranch and work off the debt as foreman. With no other options, since his father had left more debts than money, Liam had gratefully accepted the deal.
And it was that college education and what it had enabled him to do that was allowing Liam to finally strike out on his own. He’d come out of MIT with a degree in genetics, and enough money to do what he wanted. Now he was set to undertake the breeding program he’d always dreamed of. By the time he was finished, people would be clamoring to buy mares from his herd.
There were four prize mares in foal on his ranch right now, the beginnings of that remuda he’d been working toward, and he sure as hell didn’t want some storm coming in and wiping it all away before he had a shot to enjoy it. “I’ll come by once the storm blows over,” he told Joe.
He hung up and noticed the wild oaks lining the Perry Ranch drive were beginning to do a dip and sway in the rising wind. Scowling some, he cursed Chloe Hemsworth for dragging him away from what was important for a meeting about some camp.
Liam had never met Chloe, but he knew her type of woman. Money. Pedigree. Always moving from some charity dinner to a luncheon at the “right” place with the “right” people. She’d run with high society until she’d up and decided to open a business in Houston. According to Sterling, Chloe was running her own event planning business out of the city now.
“Figures,” he muttered, steering his truck onto the road that would take him into the city. “The woman’s been doing nothing but partying most of her life. Who better to throw the damn things?”
He didn’t know much about her. Only that she’d been calling the Perry Ranch almost daily for weeks to pitch her idea for a cowgirl camp.
Liam had no problem with women as working ranch hands. Hell, he had a couple women working for him at the Perry place. What he didn’t like was the idea of a bunch of young kids running around a ranch where they would disrupt the workdays and, worse yet, get hurt. But Sterling had ordered him to take the meeting with Chloe and hear her out. If Liam approved her ideas, Sterling would go along with it.
“Just another good reason to stop being anybody’s foreman,” he muttered.
His tires whined along the asphalt, and in his rearview mirror, those clouds looked darker and bigger. “This is going to be the shortest damn meeting on record.”
By the time he hit Houston, Liam was on edge. The hairs at the back of his neck were standing up as the air felt electrified by the coming storm. Or maybe, he told himself, it was just this meeting that was riding him.
He didn’t much care for rich, useless women trying to carve out a name for themselves. This Chloe had probably never worked a real job in her life, and was no doubt setting up shop in some fancy office where she could pretend to be the boss while she ordered a bunch of minions around. Hell, Sterling should have taken the meeting himself.
He steered around slower traffic, mumbling to himself. “Just get in, hear her out, say no and get back to the ranch. That’s all you have to do.”
And it was more than enough. Liam was no stranger to rich women. Hell, before he’d had money of his own, he’d come across quite a few. In Texas, you couldn’t take a step without stumbling across an oil or cattle princess. He’d even hooked up with one for a while when he was in college. Liam had believed she was different. Had thought there was a future for them somewhere down the line. Until he’d had the rug pulled out from under him. After that knock on the head and heart, Liam had learned his lesson. Wealthy, self-involved females were like Christmas ornaments. Shiny, but empty inside.
He drove into the downtown, cursing every roll of the wheel. Cities were all right for some people, but give him the empty roads of the country any day.
“Too many damn people,” he muttered, and spotted the building that would be the new Houston home of the Texas Cattleman’s Club.
They were spreading out from the
original site in Royal, and there was already a driving fight for leadership of the new club. As a wealthy ranch owner himself, he’d be joining as soon as the club was up and running, but Liam wasn’t interested in being in charge of the thing. Let the old lions of Texas fight over the club like it was fresh meat.
“Nice place, though.” Even if it was in the city. He’d been to the TCC in Royal, and it was a low-slung building filled with history.
This new TCC was once a three-story boutique hotel now being rehabbed by Perry Construction. Liam had a key to the place, since as Sterling Perry’s foreman he often had to come into the city with instructions for the construction crew.
When it was finished, it’d be impressive. The third floor was bedrooms for the club president and the chairman of the board. The second floor was going to be conference rooms and offices for the TCC officers. There was still a lot of work to do on the place, but Liam knew that at least one of the suites on the top floor was finished, because Sterling had insisted on having a place for either him or other board members to stay if they had to. Sterling’s insistence on his and his friends’ comfort was no surprise.
Still, he turned his head from the club to the old, brick office building across the street. Liam checked the GPS just to make sure, but yeah. That was Chloe Hemsworth’s address. Surprised, Liam studied the building. It had a lot of years on it, but looked sturdy enough. It wasn’t what he’d pictured. He’d imagined a rich girl would want some plush, sleek, penthouse office in a modern building.
But wherever the hell she was, he had to take this meeting. Frowning, he climbed out of his truck, and tugged his hat brim down low over his eyes. The wind was still kicking, and the sudden gusts were enough to snatch a man’s hat and send it to Albuquerque. Stepping around the people hurrying along the sidewalk, Liam headed for the office where the words It’s a Party were scrawled across a wide front window in bright pink paint. Shaking his head, he opened the glass door, stepped inside and stopped dead.
This he hadn’t been prepared for.
A woman—Chloe?—was bent over, picking something up off the floor. His gaze locked on that luscious curve of behind, showcased in a short, black skirt. She glanced at him over her shoulder, sent him a bright smile and said, “Hi! Can I help you?”
Slowly, she straightened up and the view only got better. She wore a dark blue, off the shoulder blouse, and her long, light brown hair lay in loose waves that kissed those bare shoulders. She wore sky-high black heels, and her gorgeous legs were tanned. Her amber eyes were wide, her mouth still curved in a welcoming smile, and all Liam could feel was the heat swamping his body.
He’d seen pictures of her of course. Like every other wealthy woman, Chloe’s face was in the society sections of the Houston newspapers, and splashed all across the news website he checked every day. But she was even more gorgeous in person. Every inch of him felt tight and hot, and when she talked, he realized he hadn’t heard a word.
“Sorry. What?”
She stared at him, and Liam saw a flicker of the heat that still had his body at a slow burn.
“I’m Chloe Hemsworth,” she said just a little breathlessly.
That voice conjured up all sorts of interesting images in his mind, and his body responded to them instantly. She was exactly the kind of woman he avoided—and he wanted her. Bad.
Liam knew he was in deep trouble.
Two
“What happened?”
I couldn’t believe it had gone so wrong so quickly. Pacing this stupid room wasn’t helping, but I felt like a caged lion or something. Nothing I could do to change anything and besides, if you thought about it, it really wasn’t my fault at all.
The Texas Cattleman’s Club was visible from here and I couldn’t keep staring at it. The rain started and I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened. He was all alone in there. Did he still care? Should I have cared? No. I should have left. But I didn’t.
This all started years ago, and what happened today was just a part of it all. So really, they set it all in motion way back when. Today was just another link in a long, ugly chain.
I did what I had to. Now, I wanted my stomach to stop spinning and my brain to stop racing. Nothing could change it, and I’m not sure I would change it even if I could. I came this far, there was no going back, and really...didn’t they have it coming after all I’d suffered?
Was it fair that only I was affected by those decisions made so long ago? Was it fair that I’d been forgotten and my pain buried? None of this was my fault.
None of it.
* * *
The cowboy was tall and broad shouldered, and had sun-streaked brown hair that lay just over his collar. His blue eyes were as clear as a Texas lake, and filled with the same mystery of what lay beneath the surface. He was staring at her with a steady fascination that kindled awareness and something more inside her.
He wore the Texas cowboy uniform of faded jeans, scuffed brown boots and a long-sleeved white shirt, rolled back to the elbows, displaying deeply tanned, strong forearms. He had a tight grip on his dust-colored Stetson, and just standing there, he seemed to take up all the room in her small office.
Breathing was harder than it should have been, and Chloe made a deliberate effort to drag air into her lungs. Instant attraction roared to life inside her, but Chloe dialed it down. He was probably there to arrange a party for his girlfriend. Or wife. Still, there was something about him that was almost overwhelming. She had been born and raised in Texas, so she was no stranger to the “western man.” But this one had such a compelling aura it was hard to be unaffected.
Silently, sternly, she told herself to dial it down.
“You’re Chloe, right?” His gaze swept her up and down before settling on her eyes. “I’m Liam Morrow. Sterling Perry sent me.”
Stunned, Chloe stared at him for only a moment longer. She’d been expecting some gruff, older guy, with a comfortable belly. She’d never considered that the foreman of a ranch the size of the Perry place could be so young and...hot.
“Oh, well, hi. Thanks for coming,” she said, recognizing that she was starting to burble. She took a breath. Okay, he wasn’t there to book a party, but that didn’t mean he was single. “You want some coffee? Water? That’s about it on the refreshment front, I’m afraid. But there’s a diner just down the street. We could go there and—”
He held up one hand and, as if she’d been trained, she closed her mouth and stopped talking. Well, that was irritating.
“I’m not here for snacks,” he said. “Sterling wants me to hear you out. So if you want to tell me your ideas, show me your plans, we can get through this meeting and I can get back to the ranch.”
Okay, hot didn’t excuse rude. “Wow,” she said. “Thank you for your complete attention.”
His beautiful blue eyes rolled. “Fine. Sorry. I’m here to listen, and that’s what I’m going to do. When we’re finished, I’ll let Sterling know if I think it’ll work on the ranch or not.”
“Okay.” Chloe could tell from his body language and his expression that he’d already made up his mind to say no. So it would be up to her to convince him. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time Chloe had had to fight for what she wanted.
She walked to her desk, one she’d taken from her old room at her parents’ house, and picked up a file folder. “Sterling actually told me that the decision would be yours because you know the ranch so well. I’m just hoping you’ll actually give me a chance and not dismiss the idea out of hand.”
He sighed, set his hat, crown down, on a tabletop, then folded his arms across his chest. He stood, feet braced apart as if ready for a fight and the move was so inherently sexy, she felt a fire kindle deep inside. Why she was reacting like this, Chloe had no idea. Maybe she just hadn’t been dating enough. Maybe this out of the blue wild attraction signaled that she should be getting out more and sp
ending less time on her business.
But her burgeoning company was really all she was interested in these days. Chloe had worked really hard for a long time to break away from her parents’ expectations and plans for her life. She’d had other dreams that had dissolved under their scrutiny, but she was fighting for this one.
“I gave my word to hear you out. That’s why I’m here.”
The expression on his face told Chloe that he meant what he said, and that was good enough for her. He looked resigned, but she’d take it. If he was fair, then he would realize what a good idea she was proposing. And with his support, Sterling Perry would agree to give her the land she needed on his ranch to make this particular dream come true.
“That’s great.” She waved him to a chair, and he looked at it skeptically. It was a delicate, cane-backed chair with a small seat and narrow, hand-turned legs.
“Maybe I’ll stand,” he mused.
“The chairs are stronger than they look,” she assured him. Then, as if to prove it, she said, “When I was a kid, my friends and I used to stand on them to get out onto the roof so we could climb down the oak outside the house.”
Both eyebrows went up. Admiration? Disbelief? Who could tell?
“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head, “what were you, twelve? It’s not going to hold me, so I’ll stand.”
She shrugged, because really, what else could she do? Once her business started bringing in steady cash, she’d buy more furniture. Right now, that wasn’t high on her list of priorities. “Your choice. Now, what I wanted to talk to you about was—”
“A little girls’ camp set up on the Perry Ranch.”
Chloe stopped, tipped her head to one side and studied him briefly. “So Sterling told you about it.”
“Enough to know it’s a bad idea,” he said.
Chloe took a deep breath and bit back her first, instinctive response. She’d hoped that he would come into this with an open mind, but that hope was now crushed. Arguing with the man wouldn’t get her what she wanted. What she had to do was show him her plans and convince him that he was wrong. So she smiled, though it cost her.
Wild Ride Rancher Page 2
