A Cold Creek Christmas Surprise. RaeAnne Thayne

yawn. The obligations of running a ranch didn’t mix very well with wedding receptions and dances that ran into the early hours of the morning.

      “Is it still a disaster out there, Tri?”

      The little dog, curled up in a patch of morning sunlight trickling in from the window, lifted his head and flapped his tail on the kitchen tile, then went back to sleep, oblivious.

      Ridge knew from his walk down the stairs that morning that the kitchen was just about the only clean part of the house right now. Jenna’s catering crew had done a good job in here and had wanted to go to work on the rest of the house, but he hadn’t let them. He had also had to shove his sisters-in-law out the door at 2:00 a.m. when they started wandering around with garbage bags. He loved Becca and Laura dearly, but by then he just wanted everybody to go before he fell over, knowing he had to get up in three hours to start his day.

      Given the choice between sleep and a pristine house, he had opted for the former, especially since he knew damn well that Caidy, ever efficient, had made arrangements for a cleaning crew to come in today to mop up after the big party.

      He grabbed his improvised breakfast and whistled to Tri, then headed through the party carnage into his office, doing his best to ignore the mess as the dog hopped along behind him.

      Though it was Saturday, Ridge had plenty of work to catch up on, especially since the past few weeks leading up to his sister’s wedding had been so chaotic. He had several emails to deal with, a phone call to a cattle broker he worked with, ranch accounts to reconcile. Finishing off the last bite-sized ham sandwich on his plate sometime later, he glanced up at the clock and was shocked to realize two hours had passed.

      He frowned. Where was the cleanup crew? He was positive Caidy had said they would be here at ten, but it was nearly noon.

      As if on cue, the doorbell suddenly rang, and Tri jumped up, gave one little well-mannered bark and raced to the front door as fast as his little hoppy, butt-bouncing gait would take him.

      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