forever.
Creed looked from one to the other. How could he have ever been attracted to someone like April? It was Sage, with her dark hair, chocolate-colored eyes, and long legs that threw extra beats into his chest.
“Have you met Creed Riley?” Sage asked.
April removed her stocking hat and shook out her blond hair. “No, I haven’t, but Daddy says that Grand said good things about him when he took her to the airport.”
“Well then, Creed meet April Pierce. And April, meet Creed. Since you are here, you can carry a box of decorations to the house and have dinner with us,” Sage said.
“I’ll help carry, but then I have to go back home. Hilda is bakin’ a ham and she’ll skin me alive if I’m not there for dinner. I was going stir-crazy in the house with all this snow and no electricity. Daddy called the power company. They said they’d have ours up and going by Monday or Tuesday. Lord, I didn’t realize how much I depended on a hair dryer and a curling iron until they weren’t available. How y’all been handling it over here?”
Sage handed April a box and led the way outside. “Not too bad, but we need to do laundry, so we’ll be glad to have the electricity back. It’s been early bedtimes with nothing but lamps.”
April giggled.
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Sage whispered.
“With that hunky cowboy, there’s not a chance of that happening,” April whispered back.
Even though they were whispered, Creed heard every word. He wouldn’t have minded a trip to the gutter that morning. No, ma’am, not one bit!
Chapter 9
Sage and April set their boxes on the kitchen table. Noel didn’t growl, but her tail didn’t wag in acceptance of the new human either.
April pointed. “What is that?”
“That’s my new dog. Her name is Noel and she’s going to have puppies.”
“I don’t believe it,” April whispered. “You got a dog and a pregnant one at that. That is even more amazing that Grand selling the ranch. And it’s ugly, Sage. Grand would have bought you any kind of dog out there on the market and you buy that thing?”
Creed kicked the door shut with his boot. “She didn’t get the dog. The dog got her. Someone must have dumped her and the cat on the road just before the blizzard. They found their way here.”
He put the box he’d carried in on the table, hung his coat on the back of a chair, and went straight to the pantry for a mop and bucket. “I’ll get the water mopped up before it gets into Angel’s basket and she moves the kittens.”
April peeled out of her heavy coat and hung it on the coatrack before she slouched down into a chair. “You’re kidding me.”
Sage removed her work coveralls, set a pot of coffee to perking on a back burner, and joined Angel at the table. “No, Angel is the cat. We think she got tossed out at the same time Noel did. We found her and the newborn kittens in the barn the next morning and it was evident that Noel knew her. I’ll make a small pot of coffee. You can take time for a warm-up before you go back home. It’s not dinnertime yet.”
“A dog. A cat. A hunky cowboy that mops the floor. What happened over here?” April whispered.
“Crazy, ain’t it?”
Creed finished mopping up and emptied the water into the sink, used some dish soap to wash out the bucket and the mop, and carried them back to the pantry. “I’m going out after those next two boxes. Be back in a minute.”
“And he has the sense to get out and let us talk,” April said. “If you don’t want him, kick him over the fence onto the Canyon Rose. I won’t let him get away.”
“I’m mixed up about this whole thing. He’s a good man but…”
“Ain’t no buts involved except the way he fills out those jeans. I can see where you’d be in a tizzy though, girl. It would break my heart if Daddy sold the Canyon Rose even if he did hand me a cowboy like that one on a silver platter,” April said. “Is he good in bed?”
“April!”
“Well, that ought to have some bearing. And I can see the way he looks at you and he mops, for God’s sake, Sage.”
Sage pushed her chair back, poured two mugs full, set one in front of April, and shoved the sugar bowl across to her.
“Well, we aren’t