Another sharp pain stabbed at her. Another loss, she thought. She hated the idea of the ranch closing down. She’d witnessed the improvements children had made during their visits there. What a rotten time to get the news. Any other time and she could write a check without blinking.

Miserable and hating the overwhelming feeling of helplessness, she sighed.

“Miss Granger, this is important. Are you listening to me?” Jackson James demanded.

Blinking, she met his hard gaze and moved her head in a circle. “Yes,” she said with a shrug. “And no.” She fought a flurry of nerves in her belly at the dark expression on his face. “I just received some bad news. An old friend has passed away.”

His eyes gentled a fraction. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. And now Virginia is going to have to sell the ranch. I have to do something.”

“What do you mean you have to do something?”

“I mean I can’t let this happen.” She waved the piece of paper. “I can’t let Virginia lose the ranch because Skip died. I have to do something.”

Jackson James set down his pen and looked at her as if she were a couple cookies short of a dozen. It wasn’t the first time he’d looked at her that way. “Who are Virginia and Skip? And why do you have to do anything with this ranch?”

Restless, Lori stood. “ Virginia and Skip run-well, they ran,” she corrected herself and frowned. “They ran a combination working/therapeutic ranch where handicapped children came and rode horses. It was a wonderful place, the employees, the horses, the children. It would be a crime to let it fail. I can’t do it.”

“What do you have to do with this ranch?”

“I worked there for two summers during college break. I need you to help me find a way to help them.”

Jackson shook his head before she finished her request. “No can do. Between the teddy bears, the preschool visits to the opera, and everything else, you have to help yourself now.” His mouth settled into a firm, unyielding line. “I have to help you help yourself.”

Lori began to pace. “You really don’t understand. You can take away my shopping trips. I’ll wash Kenny myself, although someone else will have to trim his nails, because I refuse to hurt him. I can’t let this fail. It would be wrong.”

Jackson looked at her for a long moment and sighed. “This must be like an addiction or something to you. You find some needy cause and you have to shell out the bucks to-”

“This is not an addiction!” she shouted, rounding on him. Her heart raced with anger, fury pounded in her head. She felt her left eye begin to twitch. She glanced at the Waterford crystal vase of flowers and itched to throw it at him. She couldn’t remember when she had felt so strongly about something. Not since her father died. Maybe not even since her accident.

She could look at Jackson James and see that he didn’t respect her. She couldn’t really blame him. She wasn’t sure she even respected herself. But this was different. She really didn’t want to let Miracles in Motion go under.

She took a deep breath. “This is different. This was a very special place. They liked me and valued me, not just because of who my father was.”

“If they’re asking you for money now, how can you be sure of that?” he asked, reeking cynicism and disbelief.

At that moment, Lori really hated the man, and she couldn’t remember ever hating anyone. “It must be sad to be you, to never be able to see the good in people, or just the possibility of good in people.”

A sliver of surprise came and went in his eyes, and his jaw hardened. “This isn’t about my personal abilities. This is about your financial situation.”

“You’re right. You’re exactly right. Thank you for reminding me. And your job is to help me accomplish what I believe is important. And this is important.”

“Are you willing to fire your assistant and other members of your staff to accomplish it?”

Lori blinked. She hadn’t even considered that. “I-don’t see how. Merilee has a son in college, and Dena’s husband hurt his back, so he can’t work. She’s the sole support of their family.”

“Then where do you propose to get the money?” he asked.

Lori drew a blank. The truth hurt, but the truth was she knew much more about spending money than making it. “That’s part of your job, isn’t it?”

He raked his hand through his hair. “I’m gonna have to think on this. The general rule is you don’t expand expenditures when you’re short of cash.”

“There’s got to be a way. Maybe a loan.”

He shook his head. “Yeah, you need that like you need a root canal. There’s always the alternative condition your father left…”

Lori felt bitter disgust back up in her throat. “You mean that archaic, chauvinistic, insulting clause that if I get married and remain married until I’m thirty, then my husband and I can have more access to my inheritance, but my husband will have to approve major purchases.” She gritted her teeth. “I still think Daddy must have been mentally half-gone when he put in that provision.”

Not only was it insulting, it was also embarrassing. The ultimate no-confidence vote. Her father had loved her with all his heart, but he obviously hadn’t believed she was capable of looking after herself. The terrible question whispered in her brain like a hissing poisonous snake.

What if she wasn’t?

Before Lori Jean Granger drove him completely out of his mind, Jackson decided to drive his Chevy Blazer to a barren area past the outskirts of Dallas. This was where he came when he felt the corporate demands sliding around his neck to choke the life out of him. With his jacket already ditched, he tugged his tie loose and undid the top button of his shirt. It was still hot as hell outside, and even though he’d been wearing suits since he graduated from college, he’d never grown accustomed to it. No matter what brand he wore, he always felt as if he was wearing a straitjacket and a silk noose.

He got out of his truck and watched the sun ease down the horizon. Two hundred acres of scrubby land. The only good thing about the acreage was the accessibility to the highway. Anyone else looking at the expanse of barren land would see an ugly, useless plot of real estate.

But not Jackson. Jackson saw well-manicured lawns with houses that oozed comfort. He saw paved driveways and neighborhood streets with lights. He saw a playground for children and a community clubhouse and swimming pool. He saw everything he had wanted as a child and didn’t have.

An image of the shack he’d grown up in flashed through his mind. He heard his father’s anger and his mother’s tears. He smelled the alcohol on his father’s breath and felt his rough slap across his cheek as if it were yesterday. He saw the bruises on his mother’s face and felt the horrible helplessness.

Something inside him hardened like granite.

He would never be helpless again. He would make his own way.

The rest of the firm would fall out of their chairs if they knew that Jackson James had every intention of becoming the next real-estate tycoon of Texas. The partners and everyone else thought he was a heartless sonovabitch determined to make his living through accounting, but Jackson had always known accounting was just a means to an end. The kind of success he wanted required a vision and heart his peers thought he didn’t possess. It also, however, required financial backing, and that would take some time. He sucked in a draft of hot summer air and narrowed his eyes. It may look like a piece of crap now, but this was going to be one building block of his fortune. Jackson owned a couple of houses in town that he rented and added the monthly payments to the special account for Jackson Place.

“ Jackson Place,” he echoed, and his lips twitched with self-derision. It was egotistical as hell to name a real-estate development after himself, but he didn’t want anyone mistaking who founded this successful venture.