A Cold Creek Christmas Surprise

She had been cleaning his house. He couldn’t help but feel responsible.

“Take it easy. You’ll be okay.”

She gazed at him for an instant with fright and uncertainty before he saw a tiny spark of recognition there.

“Mr....Bowman.”

“Good. At least you know my name. How about your own?”

She blinked as if the effort to remember was too much. “S-Sarah. Sarah M—er, Whitmore.”

He frowned at the way she stumbled a little over her last name but forgot it instantly when she shifted a little and tried to move. At the effort, she gave a heartbreaking cry of pain.

“Easy. Easy.” He murmured the words as softly as he would to a skittish horse—if he were the sort of rancher to tolerate any skittish horses on the River Bow. “Just stay still.”

“It hurts,” she moaned.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m afraid you broke your arm when you fell. I’ve called an ambulance. They should be here soon. We’ll run you into the clinic in Pine Gulch. Dr. Dalton should be able to fix you up.”

Her pale features grew even more distressed. “I don’t need an ambulance,” she said.

“I hate to argue with a lady, but I would have to disagree with you there. You took a nasty fall. Do you remember what happened?”

She looked up the stairs and her eyes widened. For a minute, he thought she would pass out again. “I was going to talk to you and I...I tripped, I guess. I’m not sure. Everything is fuzzy.”

“You were coming to talk to me about what?”

A couple of high spots of color appeared on her cheeks. “I...can’t remember,” she said, and he was almost positive she was lying. On the other hand, he didn’t know the woman; she had just suffered a terrible fall and was likely in shock.

She shifted again, moving her head experimentally, but then let it back down.

“My head hurts.”

“I’m sure it does. I’m no expert, but I’m guessing you banged it up, too. You’ve probably got a concussion. Have you had one before?”

“Not...that I remember.”

Did that mean she hadn’t had one or that she just couldn’t remember it? He would have to let Doc Dalton sort that one out from her medical records.

She started to moan but caught it, clamping her lips together before it could escape.

“Just hang on. Don’t try to move. I wish I could give you a pillow or some padding or something. I know it’s not comfortable there on the floor but you’re better off staying put until the EMTs come and can assess the situation to make sure nothing else is broken. Can you tell me what hurts?”

“Everything,” she bit out. “It’s probably easier to tell you what doesn’t hurt. I think my left eyelashes might be okay. No, wait. They hurt, too.”

He smiled a little, admiring her courage and grit in the face of what must be considerable pain. He was also aware of more than a little relief. Though she grimaced between each word, he had to think that since she was capable of making a joke, she would probably be okay, all things considered.

“Is there somebody you’d like me to call to meet us at the hospital? Husband? Boyfriend? Family?”

She blinked at him, a distant expression on her face, and didn’t answer him for a long moment.

“Stay with me,” he ordered. Fearing she would lapse into shock, he grabbed a blanket off the sofa and spread it over her. For some reason, the shock first aid acronym of WARRR rang through his head: Warmth, Air, Rest, Reassurance, Raise the legs. But she seemed to collect herself enough to respond.

“No. I don’t have...any of those things. There’s no one in the area for you to call.”

She was all alone? Somehow, he found that even more sad than the idea that she was currently sprawled out in grave pain on the floor at the bottom of his stairs.

His family might drive him crazy sometimes, but at least he knew they always had his back.

“Are you sure? No friends? No family? I should at least call the company you work for and let them know what happened.”

If nothing else, they would have to send someone else to finish the job. With that broken arm, Sarah would have to hang up her broom for a while.

“I don’t—” she started to say, but before she could finish, the front door opened and a second later an EMT raced through it, followed by a couple more.

Somehow he wasn’t surprised that the EMT in the front was his brother Taft, who was not only a paramedic but also the town’s fire chief.

He spotted the woman on the floor, and his forehead furrowed with confusion before he turned to Ridge.

“Geez. I just about had a freaking heart attack! We got a call for a female fall victim at the River Bow. I thought it was Destry!”

“No. This is Sarah Whitmore. She was cleaning the house after the wedding and took a tumble. Sarah, this is my brother Taft, who is not only a certified paramedic, I promise, but also the town’s fire chief.”

“Hi,” she mumbled, sounding more disoriented

“Hi, Sarah.” Taft knelt down to her and immediately went to work assessing vitals. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“I’m...not sure. I fell.”

“Judging by the garbage at the top of the stairs, I think she fell just about the whole way,” Ridge offered. “She was unconscious for maybe two or three minutes and has kind of been in and out since. My unofficial diagnosis is the obvious broken arm and possible concussion.”

“Thank you, Dr. Bowman,” Taft said, his voice dry.

His brother quickly took control of the situation and began giving instructions to the other emergency personnel.

Ridge was always a little taken by surprise whenever he had the chance to watch either of his younger brothers in action. He still tended to think of them as teenage punks getting speeding tickets and toilet papering the mayor’s trees. But after years as a wildlands firefighter, Taft had been the well-regarded fire chief in Pine Gulch for several years, and his twin, Trace, was the police chief. By all reports, both were shockingly good at their jobs.

Ridge gained a little more respect for his brother as he watched his patient competence with Sarah: the way he teased and questioned her, the efficient air of command he portrayed to the other EMTs as they worked together to load her onto the stretcher with a minimum of pain.

As they started to roll the stretcher toward the front door, Ridge followed, grabbing his coat and truck keys on the way.

Taft shifted his attention away from his patient long enough to look at Ridge with surprise. “Where are you going?”

He was annoyed his brother would even have to ask. “I can’t just send her off in an ambulance by herself. I’ll drive in and meet you at the clinic.”

“Why?” Taft asked, clearly confused.

“She doesn’t have any friends or family in the area. Plus she was injured on the River Bow, which makes her my responsibility.”

Taft shook his head but didn’t argue. The stretcher was nearly to the door when Sarah held out a hand. “Wait. Stop.”

She craned her neck and seemed to be looking for him, so Ridge moved closer.

“You’ll be okay.” He did his best to soothe her. “Hang in there. My brother and the other EMTs will take good care of you, I promise, and Doc Dalton at the clinic is excellent. He’ll know just what to do for you.”

She barely seemed to register his words, her brow furrowed. Taft had given her something for pain before they transferred her, and it looked as if she was trying to work through the effects of it to tell him something.

“Can you... There’s a case on the...backseat of my car. Can you bring it inside? I shouldn’t have left it out in the cold...for this long. The keys to the car are...in my coat.”

“Sure. No problem.”

“You have to put it...somewhere safe.” She closed her eyes as soon as the words were out.

Ridge raised an eyebrow at Taft, who shrugged. “It seems important to her,” his brother said. “Better do it.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you at the clinic in a few minutes. I’ll bring her coat along. Maybe I can find a purse or something in the car with her medical insurance information.”

She hadn’t been carrying anything like that when she came to the door, he remembered. Perhaps she found it easier to leave personal items in her vehicle.

He found her coat and located a single key in the pocket, hooked to one of the flexible plastic key rings with a rental car company’s logo on it. He frowned. A rental car? That didn’t make any sense. He headed outside to her vehicle, which was a nondescript silver sedan that did indeed look very much like a rental car.

He found a purse on the passenger seat, a flowered cloth bag. Though he was fiercely curious, he didn’t feel right about digging through it. He would let her find her insurance info on her own.

In the backseat, he quickly found the case she was talking about. It was larger than he expected, a flat portfolio size, perhaps twenty-four inches by thirty or so.

Again, he was curious and wanted to snoop but forced himself not to. As she had requested, he set it in a locked cupboard in his office, then locked the office for good measure before heading to the clinic in town to be with a strange woman with columbine-blue eyes and the prettiest hair he’d ever seen.

As far as weird days went, this one probably just hit the top of the list.

* * *

Sarah hurt everywhere, but this was a muted sort of pain. She felt as if she were floating through a bowl of pudding. Nice, creamy, delicious chocolate pudding—except every once in a while something sharp and mean poked at her.

“All things considered, you got off easy. The concussion appears to be a mild one, and the break is clean.” A man with a stethoscope smiled at her. No white coat, but white teeth. Handsome. He was really handsome. If she didn’t hurt so much, she would tell him so.

“Easy?” she muttered, her mind catching on the word that didn’t make sense.

The doctor smiled. “It could have been much worse, trust me. I’ve seen that staircase inside the River Bow. It has to be twenty feet, at least. It’s amazing you didn’t break more than your arm.”

“Amazing,” she agreed, though she didn’t really know what he was talking about. What was the River Bow?

“And it’s a good thing Ridge didn’t move you right after you fell. I was able to set the arm without surgery, which I probably wouldn’t have been able to do if you had been jostled around everywhere.”

“Thank you,” she said through dry lips, because it seemed to be the thing to say. She just wanted to sleep for three or four years. Why wouldn’t he let her sleep?

“Can I go home?” she asked. Her condo, with its four-poster bed, the light blue duvet, the matching curtains. She wanted to be there.

“Where, exactly, is home?”

She gave the address to her condo unit.

“Is that in Idaho Falls?”

“No!” she exclaimed. “San Diego, of course.”

He blinked a little. “Wow. You traveled a long way to take a cleaning job.”

She frowned. Cleaning job? What cleaning job?

She wanted to rub away the fierce pain in her head even as she had a sudden image of a garbage bag with cups and napkins spilling out of it.

She had been cleaning something. Why? Is that when she fell? Her memories seemed hazy and abstract. She remembered an airplane. An important suitcase. Hand-screen it, please. An inn.

“I’m staying at the Cold Creek Inn,” she said suddenly. Oh, she should have told them pain medication made her woozy. She always took only half. How much had they given her?

And how had she hurt her arm?

“The Cold Creek Inn.” The nice doctor with the white teeth frowned at her.

“Yes. My room has blue curtains. They have flowers on them. They’re pretty.”

He blinked at her. “Good to know. Okay.”

Oh, she was tired. Why wouldn’t he let her sleep?

She closed her eyes but suddenly remembered something important. “Where’s my car? Have you got my car? I have to take it back to the airport by Monday at noon or they’ll charge me a lot.”

“It must still be at the River Bow. I’m sure your car is fine.”

“I have to take it back.”

The car was important, but something else mattered more. Something in the car. But what?

Her head ached again, and one of those hard, ugly pains pierced that lovely haze.

“My head hurts,” she informed him.

“That’s your concussion. Just close your eyes and try to relax. We’ll make sure the rental car goes back, I promise.”

“Monday. Noon.”

She needed something from inside it. She closed her eyes, seeing that special black suitcase again.

Oh.

Ridge Bowman. She had told Ridge Bowman to take it out of the backseat. Too cold. Not safe.

He would take care of it.

She wasn’t sure how she knew, but a feeling of peace trickled over her, washing away the panic, and she let it go.

Chapter Three

“The Cold Creek Inn? Really?” Ridge stared at Jake Dalton, trying to make sense of a situation that seemed to be rapidly spinning out of his control.

“That’s what she said. She was quite firm about it.”

Pine Gulch’s only physician had no reason to make up crazy stories but none of this was making any sense to him. “That’s easy enough for me to verify. I can always give Laura a call.”

Under normal circumstances, Taft’s wife wouldn’t disclose information about her guests, but this certainly classified as an emergency.

“Her car was a rental. I noticed that.”

“Yes, it needs to be returned soon. She was quite emphatic on that score,” Jake said.

“What the hell? She’s staying at the Cold Creek Inn and driving a rental car, and she shows up for a cleaning job? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’m only telling you what she said. That’s not the important part, really. The fact is, if she indeed has no friends or family nearby, as she told you, I can’t let our mystery woman go back to a hotel by herself tonight. She’s suffered a concussion. She’s going to need someone close by to make sure she doesn’t suffer any complications. I can’t say she really needs an overnight stay in the hospital in Idaho Falls, but I don’t feel comfortable sending her back to a hotel to spend the night by herself.”

While Ridge might’ve been baffled about the situation and why a woman paying for a decent hotel room and driving a rental car would take a low-paying cleaning job in the middle of nowhere, he wasn’t at all confused about the right thing to do.

“She’ll stay at the ranch house,” he said firmly. “She can take Caidy’s room, no problem. That way she won’t have to tackle any stairs. Destry and I can keep an eye on her.”

“Are you sure about that?” Jake asked in surprise. “You don’t even know the woman.”

True enough. All he knew was that she was lovely, that she smelled like vanilla and June-blooming lavender and that she brought out all his protective instincts.

He didn’t think Jake Dalton needed those particular observations. “She was hurt in my house while technically working for me. That makes her my responsibility. If she had been hurt at the Cold Creek Ranch, you know any of you Daltons would jump up to take care of her. Wade and Seth would probably come to blows over who would help her, unless their wives stepped in first.”

“You’ve got me there. The fact is, if my wife were home, Ms. Whitmore could come stay at our place. But Maggie and her mother took an overnight trip to Jackson to do some Christmas shopping. I’m on my own with the kids and have my hands more than full.”

The doctor grinned at him. “On second thought, sure you wouldn’t like to trade? How about I come out to the quiet River Bow and keep an eye on our concussed woman of mystery and you can head over to my place and entertain three crazy kids hopped up on sugar and Christmas?”

He laughed. Jake and Maggie Dalton had three of the most adorable kids around, but they did have a lot of energy. “Well, that is a kind offer, I’m sure, but I would hate to deprive you of all that father–kid bonding time.”

“Well, you’ve got my cell number. Call me if you have any concerns, particularly if you find any altered mental status or confusion.” He paused and gave a little laugh. “I should probably warn you, though, she’s a little, er, dopey from the pain meds. This doesn’t count.”

Jake’s cautionary words made him more than a little curious. Sarah had seemed so contained back at his house. Even when her arm had to be screaming pain at her, she had fought tears and tried to be tough through it.

He walked into the treatment room, not quite sure what to expect.

Dopey was an understatement. Sarah Whitmore was higher than a weather balloon in a windstorm.

As soon as he walked into the room, she beamed at him like he had just rescued a basketful of kittens from a rampaging grizzly.

“Hi. Hi there. I know you, right?”

He glanced over at the doc, who just barely managed to hide a grin. “Er, yes. I’m Ridge Bowman. You fell down my stairs a couple of hours ago.”

“Oh. Riiiight.” She beamed brightly at him. “Wow, you are one good-looking cowboy. Has anybody ever told you that?”

Jake made a sound halfway between a cough and a laugh. Ridge glared at him before he turned back to Sarah. “Er, not lately. No.”

“Well, you are. Take it from me. Of course, what do I know? I don’t know many good-looking cowboys. Or that many good-looking noncowboys, for that matter.” She frowned, her features solemn. “I really need to get out more.”

Jake laughed out loud, and Ridge gave him a quelling look. “Geez, how much did you give her?”

“Sorry,” the physician said. “The dose was absolutely appropriate, but I’m thinking she must be one of those people who are hypersensitive to certain narcotics. Sometimes you have to titrate to an individual’s particular sensitivities.”

“Apparently. Okay, Sarah. Let’s get you back to the ranch.”

She started to stand up, but Jake laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Easy there. We’ll bring in a wheelchair to get you out to the car.”

“I can walk. I broke my arm, not my legs.” She didn’t precisely call Jake stupid, but her tone conveyed the same message.

“It’s a clinic rule. Sorry, Sarah.”

“Well, it’s a dumb rule.”

He chuckled. “I’ll take it up with the clinic director when she gets back from shopping with her mother in Jackson. Joan, can you bring a wheelchair?” he called out into the hall.

A moment later, one of the clinic nurses pushed in a chair. Jake and Ridge helped her transfer into it, with much grumbling on Sarah’s part.

While Jake and the nurse pushed her toward the front of the clinic, Ridge went out to pull his truck up to the doors. Wishing he had brought the ranch SUV, which had a lower suspension and was easier to climb into, he tried to help her up into the cab. In the long run, he settled on lifting her up when she couldn’t quite manage to navigate the running boards.

When she was settled, he shut the door to keep in all the heat and turned back to Jake.

“What else do I need to know?”

“You’re going to want to make sure she drinks plenty of fluids tonight and keeps on a regular cycle of the pain meds, though you might want to dial that down a little. She’ll probably sleep off most of what we gave her here. You’ll want to check on her every couple of hours, make sure she’s still lucid. Any problems, again, call my cell number. I should be home all night and can run to your place in a minute, though I might be dragging three kids along with me.”

Ridge reached out to shake his hand, grateful for the other man. Jake Dalton had been good for Pine Gulch. He had the skills and the bedside manner that could probably have built a lucrative family medicine practice anywhere. Instead, he had chosen to come back to his own small hometown. In the years since, he and his wife, Magdalena Cruz, had really thrown their hearts into helping the community, sponsoring free clinics out of their own pockets and taking anybody who needed health care.

“I’m not worried. We should be fine.”

“Are you sure? Maybe Becca or Laura can help,” Jake suggested, referring to Ridge’s sisters-in-law.

“I’ll keep trying the cleaning company in Jackson. They might have an emergency contact number on her employment records.”

“Good thinking. Drive safe. I think the storm is going to be here earlier than the weather forecasters said. No question about Pine Gulch having a white Christmas this year, I guess.”

“Is there ever?” he said drily as he climbed into the pickup truck.

After making sure his guest was safely buckled in, he waved to Jake and backed out of the parking lot then headed toward the River Bow, a few miles out of town, through a lightly falling snow.

“Your truck smells like Christmas,” she said, rather sleepily.

He pointed to the little air freshener shaped like an evergreen tree that hung from the rearview mirror. “You can give my daughter credit for that. She complains that it usually smells like shi—er, manure.”

“You have a daughter?”

He nodded. “Yep. Destry’s her name. She’ll be twelve in a couple of months.”

“Like the movie with James Stewart.”

“Something like that.” His late ex-wife had been fascinated with the old western Destry Rides Again, probably because she fancied herself a Marlene Dietrich wannabe. She had loved the name, and at that point, he would have done anything to try saving his marriage.

“Where is she?”

“Er, who?”

“Your daughter. Destry.”

Ah. That was easy. Explaining that his ex-wife took off a few months after their daughter was born would have been tougher.

“She stayed at her cousin’s house last night, but she’s supposed to come home later tonight.”

“Oh, that’s nice. I have twenty-four kids.”

He jerked his gaze from the road just long enough to gape at her. “Twenty-four?”

“Yes. Last year it was only twenty-two. The year before that, I had twenty-five. I had the biggest class in the first grade.”

“You’re a teacher?”

She nodded, though her head barely moved on the headrest and her eyes began to drift closed. “Yes,” she mumbled. “I teach first grade at Sunny View Elementary School. I’m a great teacher.”

“I’m sure you are. But I thought you worked for the cleaning service.”

She frowned a little, opening her eyes in confusion before they slid shut again. “I’m soooo tired. My head hurts.”

Just like that, she was asleep.

“Sarah? Ms. Whitmore?”

She snorted and shifted in her sleep. The mystery deepened. The woman was staying at the inn, drove a rental car and apparently taught first grade.

He knew teachers weren’t paid nearly enough. Maybe she had picked up extra work during the school break, but that didn’t explain the inn or the rental car.

His cell phone rang just as he pulled into the long, winding lane that led from the main road to the ranch house. “Ridge Bowman,” he answered.

“Oh, Mr. Bowman,” the flustered voice on the other end of the line exclaimed. “This is Terri McCall from Happy House Cleaners in Jackson. There’s been a terrible mix-up. I’m so sorry! You would not believe the day we’ve had here.”

He glanced at the woman sleeping on the bench seat beside him. “Mine hasn’t been exactly a walk in the park, either.”

“It’s been chaos from the moment I walked in this morning. Our power was knocked out in the night and we’re only just getting back up. Meantime, all the computers were down. I just saw your name on my caller ID and realized we had your dates wrong, so I’ve been scrambling to find someone else. I had you down for party cleanup tomorrow. I’m so sorry. I’m sending someone right now. She should be there within the hour, I promise, and we’ll have you sorted out.”

He gazed at the woman sleeping beside him. “Wait a minute. What about Sarah?”

He was met with a little awkward pause. “The woman I’m sending is Kelli Parker. She’ll do a fine job. I’m afraid I don’t know a Sarah.”

“Sarah. Sarah Whitmore. I left you a message about her. We’re just coming from the doctor. She broke her arm and had a concussion in the fall.”