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father proud, something she’d strived for all her life. She couldn’t let Rafe interfere because he was too stubborn to realize that change was good.
    “I suppose you’re so simpleminded that you’d return to the way the town was a hundred years ago. Forget the cars and electric appliances, let’s all drive wagons and wash our clothes by beating them on the rocks!”
    “Simpleminded? You think ranching is simpleminded work?”
    He stepped forward, planting the hard wall of his chest against her. Fury blazed in his eyes as he pinned her still. “Just who do you think you are? Do you even have a job or do you let Daddy pay your bills?”
    Suzanne’s breath wheezed out, but she didn’t back down. “My father does not support me, Mr. McAllister. I work…in an office and raise money for charities.” Not exactly a lie. She did help her father host several charity parties.
    “You have no idea how beautiful the mountains are around here, do you?” His gruff voice skated over her nerve endings, his words evoking images of him and mountain peaks, riding off into a sunset, bareback and bare chested.
    Good Lord, what in the world was wrong with her?
    “The mayor has given everyone a week to think about this. Did you know it’s my property that developer wants to destroy?”
    “Really?” Suzanne played dumb.
    “Really.” Rafe’s fingers were still wound tight around her arm. “I dare you to come out and see my spread, ride across the land, smell the air and the mountains and then advocate turning my ranch into a damn shopping mall.”
    “All right, I will.” Suzanne aimed her seductive smile at him. The dare would be a piece of cake. While she was riding the land, she’d be able to point out all the advantages to selling. And before the week ended she’d have him eating out of the palm of her hand.
    There was no way she’d lose a dare to this infuriating man. Or anything else.
    No matter how sexy he was….
    Chapter Four
    Rafe stared at the puffy white clouds billowing in the velvety blue sky of North Georgia, breathing in the smell of the grass as his hand tightened around the wooden sign he’d just finished carving. After he and his ranch hands had finished their morning rounds, Bud had suggested boarding horses and offering riding lessons as a way to increase the cash flow. Although Rafe agreed it was a decent idea, the thought of teaching irked him. As a teen, he had spent endless grueling hours working on a dude ranch, aiding the snobby, rich girls who’d wanted to learn to ride but who had balked at the smell of a horse and the feel of his hands on them after hours. And asking them to muck out a stall had been the kiss of death.
    That was what the hired hands were supposed to do. His hands.
    Except for one blonde, Cecilia. She had a way of making a man want to do the dirty work for her. Cecilia hadn’t minded his hands on her at all. In fact, she’d liked playing with fire, and had danced the flame right underneath her father’s patrician nose, teasing her father and him with her bold defiance. But her walk on the wild side had burned Rafe. Bad.
    He’d been weary of that type of woman ever since.
    The noonday sun beat down on him as he grabbed a hammer and strode down his long driveway to the mailbox beside the road. He drove the post into the ground and angled it so anyone driving by could read it. The newspaper ad started today, as well.
    Filling his lungs with fresh, clean air, he gazed out over the two hundred acres of green pastures. The scents of hay and horses and grass filled his nostrils like an aphrodisiac. The only thing that smelled sweeter was a woman.
    Suzanne Hartwell.
    He hadn’t slept for thinking about her all night. And that damn expensive perfume.
    A perfume that would make a rational man senseless. He slammed the hammer against the post to dig it in more securely. Why the hell had she stuck her nose in where it didn’t belong?
    Would she take him up on his dare?
    He hoped not.