RaeAnne Thayne - A Cold Creek Christmas Surprise

The housecleaners really had their work cut out for them, he thought as he walked back through the house. He only hoped they could finish the job before midnight.

With Tri waiting eagerly to see what exciting surprise waited on the other side of the door, Ridge opened it.

Instead of the team of efficient-looking workers he expected to find, he found one woman. One small, delicate-looking woman with big blue eyes and a sweep of auburn hair that reminded him of the maple trees down by the creek at the first brush of fall.

She wore jeans and a short black peacoat with a scarf tied in one of those intricate knots women seemed to like.

Overall, he had the impression of fragile loveliness, and he wondered if the scope of the cleanup job would be too much for her. He pushed the thought away. He had to trust that Caidy had hired a reputable company and that she knew what she was doing. He sure as hell didn’t want to clean the mess up himself, especially after he had rebuffed everybody else’s offers to help.

“Mr. Bowman?”

“Yes.”

“Hello. My name is Sarah Whitmore. I’m sorry to...”

He didn’t wait for her apology, he just opened the door wider for her. “You’re here now. That’s the important thing. Come in.”

She gazed at him for a moment, her mouth slightly open and an odd expression on delicately pretty features. After a slight pause, she walked inside.

“I thought you were supposed to be here two hours ago.”

“I...was?”

The cleaning service must have mixed up the time. While he was usually hard-nosed about punctuality, she appeared so befuddled and a little overwhelmed— probably at the mess confronting her inside the house—that he decided not to sweat it.

“As long as you put in an honest day’s work and do what you were hired to do, I don’t see why I need to tell the company about this.”

“The...company.”

With a slight blush staining her cheeks, she gazed around at the muddle of crumbs, discarded napkins, empty champagne bottles. “Wow. What happened here?”

Man, he would have to talk to Caidy about her choice in cleaning services. The woman’s bosses really should have filled her in about the particulars of the situation.

“Wedding reception. My sister’s, actually. It was after two when the party finally broke up, and since I had ranch chores to deal with early this morning, you can probably tell I just left things as they were.”

“It’s certainly a mess,” she agreed.

“Nothing you can’t handle, though, right?”

“Nothing I can’t...”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he assured her quickly. He really didn’t want to clean all this up by himself. “The catering crew took care of the kitchen, so there’s nothing to do in there. Just this space, a few of the bedrooms where guests changed clothes and the guest bathrooms here and on the second floor. You should be done in three, four hours, don’t you think?

She gazed at him, a little furrow between her brow, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth.

Completely out of nowhere—like a sudden heat wave in January—he had a wild urge to be the one nibbling on that delectable lip.

The urge shocked him to his toes. What the hell was wrong with him? He hadn’t responded like this to a woman in a long, long time but something about her soft, lovely features, the soft eyes and that silky spill of auburn hair sent raw heat pooling in his gut.

He set his jaw, shoving away the inappropriate, wholly unexpected reaction.

“Cleaning supplies are in the closet in the mudroom, which is just off the kitchen back there. You should find everything you need. I’ll be in my office or out in the barn if you have any questions,” he said, already heading in that direction in his eagerness to get away from her.

He thought the dog would follow him, but Tri seemed more interested in the new arrival. Not that Ridge could blame the dog for a minute.

“But, sir,” she called after him, a slight note of panic in her voice. “Mr. Bowman. I’m afraid—”

The phone in his office rang at just that moment, much to his relief. He didn’t want to stand here arguing with the woman. She was being paid to do a job, and he wasn’t the sort of boss who stood around like a hall monitor, making sure his people did what was expected of them. She could ask any of his ranch workers and they would tell her the same thing.

The phone rang again. “I’ve got to take this,” he said, which wasn’t really a lie, as it was probably the hay supplier he’d been trying to reach. “Thank you for doing this. You have no idea what a godsend you are. Let me know if you need anything.”

He left her with her mouth slightly ajar and that look of dismay still on her features.

Okay, so he had run away like he was twelve years old at a school dance and the girl he liked had just asked him to take a spin around the floor with her. It was strictly self-preservation.

The last time he had been so instantly tangled up by a woman, he had ended up married to her—and look how delightfully that had turned out.

All he could think was that it was a good thing she would only be there for a few hours.

* * *

Sarah now understood the definition of the word dumbfounded.

After Ridge Bowman—at least she assumed it was Ridge Bowman—hurriedly left her alone with a funny-looking little three-legged dog, Sarah stood motionless in the big, soaring great room of the River Bow ranch house trying to catch her breath and figure out what had just happened.

Okay, this did not go the way she had anticipated.

She wasn’t sure what she expected, but she certainly had never guessed the man would mistake her for someone else entirely.

She stood with her hands in her pockets, gazing down at the little dog, who was watching her curiously, as if trying to figure out what move she would make next.

“I would love to know the answer to that myself,” she said aloud, to which the dog cocked his head and studied her closer.

The cold knot that had lodged under her breastbone a week ago as she stood inside that storage unit seemed to tighten.

She ought to chase after the man and explain he had made a mistake. She wasn’t from a cleaning crew. She had flown out from California expressly to talk to him and his siblings, though she would rather have been anywhere else on earth.

She drew in a breath, her nails digging into her palms. Do it. Move. Tell him.

The annoying voice of her conscience urged her forward in the direction the ruggedly handsome rancher had gone, but she stood frozen, her attention suddenly fixed on a wall of framed family pictures, dominated by a smiling older couple with their arms around each other.

Sarah screwed her eyes closed. When she opened them, she looked away from the pictures at the great room, with its trio of oversize sofas and entwined antler light fixtures.

He really did need help. The house was a disaster. The wedding of Caidy Bowman must have been quite a party, at least judging by the disarray left behind.

Why couldn’t she help him?

The thought sidled through her. In that brief interaction, she had gained the impression of a hard, uncompromising man. She couldn’t have said how she was so certain. If she helped him tame some of the chaos in his house, he might be more amenable to listening to her with an open mind.

As a first-grade teacher used to twenty-five six-and seven-year-old children, she was certainly used to cleaning up messes. This wasn’t really all that unmanageable.

Besides that, she wasn’t in a particular hurry to chase after him. If she had her way, she would put off telling him what she had found in that storage locker as long as humanly possible.

The truth was, the man terrified her. She hated to admit it, but it was true. He was just so big, a solid six feet two inches of ranch-hardened muscle, and his features looked etched in granite.