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 confrontational. 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