A Cold Creek Christmas Surprise

“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.

Gorgeous, yes, okay, but completely unapproachable.

He hadn’t smiled once during their brief interaction—though she couldn’t necessarily blame him for that since he thought she was a tardy cleaning service. She dreaded what he would say when she told him why she had really come to the River Bow ranch.

What would it hurt to help the man clean his house for an hour or two? Afterward, they could have a good laugh about the misunderstanding. Who knows? He might even be more favorable to what she had to say.

Okay, good plan.

She tried to tell herself she was only being nice, not being a total wuss. She unbuttoned her coat and hung it on a rack by the door, grateful her extensive wardrobe debate with herself had resulted in simple jeans and a lovely wool sweater. As much as she loved the sweater, wool always made her itch a little so she wore a plain and practical white long-sleeved T-shirt underneath.

She pulled the sweater over her head, rolled up the sleeves of the T-shirt to just below her elbows and headed into the kitchen for the cleaning supplies.

He was right about the kitchen. The big, well-designed space sparkled. She headed into the area she guessed was the mudroom and found an organized space with shelves, cubbies and a convenient bench for taking off boots. A big pair of men’s lined boots rested in a pile of melting snow and she picked them up and set them aside before quickly drying the puddle.

She easily found the cleaning supplies stored in one of the cubbies in a convenient plastic tote. She picked the whole thing up and carried it back through the house. First things first, the clutter of garbage all around, then she could start wiping down surfaces and work on the bathrooms.

As she walked through the big, comfortable great room picking up party detritus, she wondered about the Bowman family.

She knew a little about the family from her initial research, the quick web search she had done after finding that storage unit that had led her to this place and this moment. She had learned a little more after her arrival in Pine Gulch, Idaho last night, thanks to a casual conversation with the young, flirtatious college student working as desk clerk at the Cold Creek Inn where she had stayed the night before.

She knew, for instance, that the charming inn where she stayed was actually owned, coincidentally, by the wife of Taft, one of the Bowman brothers.

From the clerk, she had discovered there were four Bowman siblings. Ridge, the hard, implacable rancher she had just met, was the oldest. Then came twins Taft and Trace, the fire chief and police chief of Pine Gulch, respectively. And finally the daughter, Caidy, the one who had been married the day before—much to the chagrin of the desk clerk, who she quickly deduced had nurtured an ill-fated secret crush on Caidy Bowman, now Caldwell.

The ranch appeared to be a prosperous one. All the buildings were freshly painted, and the big, comfortable log home could easily have doubled as a small hotel itself. It was large enough to host a wedding reception, for heaven’s sake.

The Christmas tree alone was spectacular, at least eighteen feet tall and decorated to the hilt with ribbons, garland, glittery ornaments. More evergreen garlands twisted their way up the staircase and adorned the raw wood mantel of the huge river-rock fireplace.

This was more than just a showplace. She could tell. This was a home, well maintained and well loved.

As she headed up the stairs to collect a pile of napkins she could see on a console table in an upper hallway, Sarah had to fight down a little niggle of envy. She couldn’t help comparing the splendid River Bow ranch house to the small, cheerless apartments where she had lived with her mother after the divorce.

What child wouldn’t have loved growing up here? Sliding down that banister, riding the horses she had seen running through the snow-covered pastures, gazing up at those wild mountains out the wide expanse of windows?

She frowned as she suddenly remembered the rest. A lump rose in her throat.

Oh. Right.

She knew more about Ridge Bowman than how many siblings he had and the outward prosperity of his ranch. She knew he and his brothers and sister had suffered unimaginable tragedy more than a decade earlier, the violent murder of their parents in a home-invasion robbery.

She could only guess how the tragedy must still haunt them all.

That ever-present anxiety gnawed at her stomach again, as it had since she walked into that storage unit, and she pressed a hand there.

She had to tell him. She couldn’t keep stalling. She had come all the way from Southern California, for heaven’s sake. This was ridiculous.

With fresh determination, she gripped the now-bulging garbage bag and started down the stairs.

She wasn’t quite sure what happened next. Perhaps her heel caught on the edge of a stair or the garbage bag interfered with her usual balance. Either way, she somehow missed the second stop down.

She teetered for a moment and cried out, instinctively dropping the bag as she reached for the banister, but her hand closed around air and she lost what remained of her precarious balance.

Down she tumbled, hitting a hip, an elbow, her head—and finally landing at the bottom with a sickening crunch of bone as her arm twisted beneath her.

Chapter Two

At the first hoarse cry and muffled thud from the distant reaches of the house, Ridge shoved back his chair so hard it slid on the wood floor a few inches. He recognized a sound of pain when he heard it.

What the hell?

He jumped up and raced out of his office. The instant he entered the great room, he found a slight form crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, a bag of garbage spilling out next to her and Tripod anxiously whining and licking her face.

“Go on, Tri. Back up, buddy.”

The little dog reluctantly hopped away, allowing Ridge to crouch down beside the woman. Her eyes were closed, and her arm was twisted beneath her in a way he knew couldn’t be right.

What was her name again? Sarah something. Whitmore. That was it. “Sarah? Ms. Whitmore? Hey. Come on, now. Wake up.”

She moaned but didn’t open her eyes. As he took a closer look at that arm, he swore under his breath. Maybe it was better if she didn’t wake up. When she did, that broken arm would hurt like hell.

He had known a couple of broken arms in his day and had enjoyed none of them.

The woman had appeared fragile and delicate when she showed up at his house, too delicate to properly handle the job of cleaning up the wedding mess by herself. Now she looked positively waiflike, with all color washed from her features and long brown lashes fanning over those high cheekbones. Already, he could see a bruise forming on her cheek and a bump sprouting above her temple.

He looked up the stairs, noticing a few pieces of garbage strewn almost at the very top. Must have been one hell of a fall.