Keeping Christmas

by B. J Daniels

  But if a person wanted to be found…

  He pulled the skillet with the steaks from the burner and turned off the gas. He could hear his potato popping and hissing in the microwave.

  Beauregard was licking his chops and wagging his tail. The dog watched intently as Chance cut up one of the steaks, picked up Beauregard’s dish from the floor and scrapped the steak pieces into it.

  “Gotta give it a minute to cool,” he told the dog as he considered his latest theory.

  He slapped his steak on a plate, quickly grabbed the finger-burning potato from the microwave and lobbed it onto a spot next to his steak on the plate.

  Beauregard barked and raced around the cabin’s small kitchen. Chance checked the dog’s steak. It was cool enough.

  “Merry Christmas,” he said to the pooch as he set the dish on the floor. Beauregard made light work of the steak, then licked the dish clean, sliding it around the kitchen floor until he trapped it in a corner.

  Chance cut a deep slit in his potato and filled it with butter, sour cream and a handful of chopped green onions as he mentally traced Dixie Bonner’s path across Montana and told himself one of them was certifiable.

  He took his plate to the table and ate a bite of the steak and potato, studying the map again.

  Dixie wasn’t trying to hide.

  He’d guess she wanted to be found and she was leaving someone a message.

  He frowned as he ate his dinner, trying to imagine a mind that had come up with zigzagging across the state as a way to send a message.

  Then again, Dixie was a Bonner.

  And unless he missed his guess, she was headed his way. He checked the map, convinced he would be seeing her soon.

  Why though? He doubted she even remembered him. But he might be the only person she knew in Montana and if she was desperate enough… More than likely something else had brought her to Montana. He wondered what. Was the answer on his answering machine at his office? He swore at the thought but realized there was no getting around it. He could speculate all night or go back into town in a damned blizzard and check the machine.

  AS OLIVER LANCASTER hung up the phone, he saw a shadow move along the wall from the hallway. Quietly he stepped to the den doorway and watched his wife tiptoe at a run back up the hall.

  It was comical to see, but he was in no laughing mood. Rebecca eavesdropping? He couldn’t have been more shocked. Not the woman who strove to be the epitome of Southern decorum.

  How much had she overheard?

  He tried to remember what he’d said as he watched her disappear around the corner. Nothing he had to fear. At least, he didn’t think so.

  She would just think it was business. Not that she took an interest in anything he did. He put her out of his mind. It was easy to do. Rebecca looked good and played the role of wife of the successful legal consultant for Bonner Unlimited well, but the woman was a milquetoast and banal. Too much money and too much time on her hands. She bored him to tears.

  He closed the door to the study, wishing he had earlier. She’d probably heard him on the phone and decided not to disturb him. Long ago, he’d told her not to bother him with dinner party seating charts or menus. That was her job. He hardly saw her and that was fine with him. Fine with her, too, apparently.

  Oliver cursed under his breath as he moved to the window to stare out at the darkness. Even though he knew the security system was on, the estate safe from intruders, he felt strangely vulnerable tonight. And it didn’t take much to figure out why.

  He prized this lifestyle, which at the center was his marriage over all else. Without Beauregard Bonner’s good grace—and daughter—Oliver would be nothing but a blue blood with family name only, and he knew it.

  Rebecca had all the money and that damned Beauregard, for all his country-boy, aw-shucks hick behavior, was sharp when it came to hanging on to it. Oliver had been forced to sign a prenuptial agreement. If he ever left the marriage, he’d be lucky to leave with the clothes on his back and his good name.

  That meant he had to keep Rebecca happy at all costs.

  Which had been easy thus far. She seemed as content as he was in their “arrangement.” He left her alone and she did the same. The perfect marriage.

  Nothing had changed, right?

  As he started to turn from the window, he caught his reflection in the glass. He stared at himself, surprised sometimes to realize that he was aging.

  He always thought of himself as he had been in his twenties. Blond, blue-eyed, handsome by any standard. A catch. Wasn’t that how Rebecca had seen him? He didn’t kid himself why she’d dumped Chance Walker to marry him.

  Now he studied himself in the glass, frowning, noticing the fine lines around his eyes, the first strands of gray mixed in with the blond, the slightly rounded line of his jaw.

  He turned away from the glass and swore. So he was aging. And yet that, too, made him feel vulnerable tonight.

  He glanced around the expensively furnished room almost angrily. He wasn’t giving up any of this. He’d come too far and had paid too high a price. He wouldn’t go down without a fight. Especially because of Rebecca’s damned dysfunctional family. Or some cowboy in Montana.

  Weary at the thought, he headed upstairs hoping Rebecca was already asleep. Or at least pretending to be like she was normally. He couldn’t play the loving husband. Not tonight.

  THE BLIZZARD was a total whiteout by the time Chance drove back into town to his office. He’d been forced to creep along in the truck, often unable to tell where the shoulder and center line was on the highway, the falling and blowing snow obliterating everything in a blur of dense suffocating white.

  His office building, when he finally reached the nearly deserted town of Townsend, Montana, was dark, all the shops closed.

  He let himself in, surprised when Beauregard took off running down the hall to bark anxiously at the door to the detective agency.

  Chance thought about going back to his pickup for the shotgun he carried. He hadn’t carried his pistol since the last time he’d used it to kill a man, but he was almost wishing he had it as he headed down the hall.

  He reminded himself that Beauregard wasn’t very discriminating when it came to being protective. There could be another mouse in the office, something that had gotten the old dog worked up on more than one occasion.

  Moving quickly down the hall, Chance quieted the dog and listened at the door before he unlocked his office.

  Beauregard pushed open the door and streaked in the moment he heard the lock click. As Chance flipped on the light, he tensed. Beauregard Bonner’s visit had him anxious. So did the dog’s behavior.

  He could hear the dog snuffling around his desk.

  Edging into the room, Chance scanned the desktop. He could see at a glance that the papers he’d left there had been gone through.

  Dixie Bonner. Was it possible she was already in town? But what could she have been looking for on his desk?

  It made no sense.

  Then again, little about the Bonners ever had.

  Unfortunately there was no doubt that someone had been here. Just the thought made him angry.

  He stepped behind the desk and checked the drawers. He didn’t keep anything worth stealing, which could have been why nothing appeared to be missing.

  He had a safe but it was empty. He checked to see if the intruder had found it hidden behind the print of the lower falls of the Yellowstone River he kept on the wall—the only art in the office. Moving the framed print aside, he tried to remember the safe’s combination. It had been a while.

  His birthday. He had to think for a moment, then turned the dial and opened the safe. Empty and untouched as far as he could tell.

  Turning, he looked around the office, trying to understand why anyone would care enough to break in. He had no ongoing cases, had nothing to steal and kept any old files on CD hidden at the cabin. He didn’t even leave a computer in the office, but brought his laptop back and forth from the
cabin.

  And maybe more to the point, anyone who knew him, knew all of this.

  But Dixie Bonner didn’t know him.

  That’s when Chance noticed the dog. Beauregard stood next to the desk, the hair standing up on the back of his neck and a low growl emitting from his throat.

  Chance moved around the desk to see why the dog was acting so strangely. The desk was old. He’d picked it up at a garage sale for cheap. Because of that one of the legs was splintered. He’d had to drill a couple of screws into the oak. One screw had hit a knot and refused to go all the way in.

  He stared at the head of the screw that stood out a good inch. A scrap of dark cloth clung to the screw head—a scrap of clothing that hadn’t been there earlier. Just like the blood hadn’t been there.

  Chance took perverse satisfaction in the fact that his old desk had gotten a little bit of the intruder since, with a curse, he realized what was missing.

  The light on the antiquated answering machine was no longer flashing and he could tell even before he opened it that the tape would be gone.

  It was.

  Chapter Three

  Chance woke to Christmas music on the radio and sunshine. Through the window, he could see that it was one of those incredible Montana winter days when the sky is so blue it’s blinding.

  He could also see that it had snowed most of the night, leaving a good foot on the level. He dug out early, knowing it was going to be a long day as he cleared off the deck, then started shoveling his way to his pickup.

  The moment Chance had opened the door, Beauregard bounded outside to race around in the powder. Half the time the dog had his head stuck down in it, coming up covered with snow, making Chance smile. All he could think as he shoveled was that his daughter would have loved this.

  Once he had a path to the pickup, he loaded Beauregard in the front seat—against his better judgment. Sure enough, the first thing the darned dog did was shake. Snow and chunks of ice and water droplets flew everywhere.

  Chance swore, brushed off his seat and climbed in after the dog. The pickup already smelled like wet dog and he knew it wasn’t going to get better as he started the engine, shifted into four-wheel drive for the ride out and turned on the heater.

  Beauregard, worn out by all the fun he’d been having, curled up in the corner of the seat and fell asleep instantly.

  Chance turned his attention to navigating the road out of the cabin—and thinking about Dixie Bonner. Last night, after finding his office had been broken into, he’d checked his Caller ID. He recognized all but one of the calls that had come in—a long-distance number with an area code he didn’t recognize. There had been eight calls from that number.

  Dixie?

  When he checked with the operator, she informed him that the area code was from a cell phone out of Texas. He was betting it was Dixie Bonner. But if she had a cell phone number, why hadn’t her father given it to him?

  He’d tried the number and got an automated voice mail. He hadn’t left a message.

  This morning he drove up the road far enough away from the shadow of the mountain that he figured he might be able to get cell phone service and tried the number again. Same automated voice mail.

  He hung up without leaving a message and drove on up the lake to his favorite place to eat breakfast. Lake Café was at the crossroads. Anyone headed his way would have to stop at the four-way.

  According to Beauregard Bonner, Dixie Bonner drove a bright red Mustang with Texas plates. Add to that a Southern accent and, no doubt, the Bonner family arrogant genes. All total, Dixie would be a woman who would stand out in a crowd. Especially a Montana one.

  Chance took a booth by the window, figuring he wouldn’t miss a red Mustang with Texas plates when it came by this way because he was betting he would see her before the day was out.

  A radio was playing back in the kitchen. Country and western Christmas music. Another reminder that he should be at home in front of the fire, feet up, dozing on a day like this with Beauregard sprawled at his feet.

  Instead he was chasing a damned Bonner.

  To lighten his mood, he thought about what he would do when he had her. Christmas or no Christmas, he wasn’t in a joyous let alone forgiving frame of mind. If Bonner was right about this kidnapping being bogus, then it was high time someone taught Dixie Bonner a lesson she wouldn’t soon forget.

  And this morning, Chance Walker felt like the man who could do it.

  OLIVER WAS NOWHERE around the next morning when Rebecca woke up. She just assumed he’d gone to work already but as she came down the stairs she saw her uncle Carl heading down the hallway toward Oliver’s den.

  “Good morning, Rebecca.” Carl was older than his brother Beauregard, about the same size but nothing like her father in nature. Carl was quiet and less driven. A whole lot less driven.

  “Is Daddy here?” She couldn’t help being confused. It wasn’t like Carl to stop by unless there was a family dinner of some kind going on.

  “I just stopped in to see Oliver,” Carl said as she descended the stairs.

  “Oh.” Rebecca couldn’t imagine what Carl would want to see her husband about. Both were employed by Bonner Unlimited, but it was no secret that neither had anything to do there.

  And she knew that Carl had never approved of Oliver. She remembered when she’d announced her engagement to Oliver. Carl had taken her aside and asked her if she was sure this was what she wanted.

  She’d been angry with her uncle that day and had brought up the fact that he wasn’t one to give advice on relationships given that he’d never married.

  “The woman I wanted was in love with someone else,” was all he’d said. “I couldn’t bring myself to settle for anyone else.”

  “Oliver is the man I want,” she’d snapped.

  “I just want you to be happy.” He’d kissed her on the cheek and left her feeling terrible because she’d been unkind to her favorite uncle. But also, she realized now, because he’d been right to question her choice.

  “Rebecca?”

  She blinked.

  Carl had stopped in the hallway and was studying her. “Is everything all right?”

  She forced herself to smile. “Fine.”

  He nodded. “You have a good day, okay?” he said pleasantly as he smiled, then continued down the hall to the den.

  She watched him open the den door without knocking and step in, closing it behind him. He wasn’t smiling, she noticed, when he closed the door. Did this have something to do with Daddy going to Montana? Was Uncle Carl who her husband had been talking to last night on the phone?

  No, she thought. More than likely he’d been on the phone with the one person who resented Daddy even more than Oliver—her father’s cousin, Ace Bonner. Ace, who was Daddy’s age, had recently gotten out of prison.

  Daddy being Daddy, he had given Ace a job at Bonner Unlimited. She got so sick of her father feeling guilty for having so much money. He wore it like a chip on his shoulder. No matter how arrogant he came off, Beauregard Bonner didn’t feel he measured up, and she hated that about him.

  As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard raised voices, startling her. Carl never raised his voice. What had Oliver done now? Something that Carl was upset about. Let it have something to do with Bonner Unlimited, she thought. Just like Dixie being in Montana. Just don’t let it have anything to do with me.

  Rebecca had enough problems. But as she headed for the kitchen, desperately needing coffee, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her world was on the verge of crumbling around her.

  She found the nanny in the kitchen with the children. Amy was pounding on the high-chair tray, splashing milk everywhere. Tanya was yelling for the nanny, Ingrid, to do something about Amy. And Linsey was on her cell phone talking to her best friend Miranda.

  “I’m going out,” Rebecca called to Ingrid, trying to escape before the nanny took the spoon away from Amy. As Rebecca hustled back upstairs, she shut off Amy’s shrie
ks only after reaching her bedroom and closing the door. When the house was built, she’d had extra insulation put around their bedroom for privacy. At least that’s what she told the builders.

  She hadn’t wanted her sleep disturbed by the children waking up in the middle of the night. That’s what she had a nanny for. A light sleeper, she had to have the room a certain temperature and complete darkness. And she had the money to get exactly what she wanted.

  As she climbed into the shower, she thought about her lunch date with her best friend Samantha “Pookie” Westbrook. Pookie was everything Rebecca had always wanted to be. The daughter of a well-known Houston old-money family with an impeccable reputation and the grace and charm of Texas royalty.

  Imagining as she often did what her life would have been like if she’d been the Westbrook’s daughter instead of Pookie, kept Rebecca from worrying about what Oliver and Uncle Carl had been arguing about in the den.

  AFTER ORDERING his breakfast, Chance stepped outside to see if he could get cell phone service. It was always iffy in the mountains. He’d never been able to get a signal at the cabin, which was just fine with him.

  He dug his cell out, cursing the damned thing, and on impulse, first tried the cell phone number again that had been on the Caller ID at his office. He got voice mail again and again didn’t leave a message. Then he dialed the number Bonner had left for him.

  “Hello?” Beauregard Bonner boomed.

  “It’s Chance. Any word from Dixie?” He’d been holding his breath, hoping Dixie had found her way home. Or at least there’d been some contact.

  “Nothing,” Bonner said. “I just flew into Houston and was going to find my other daughter.”

  Chance thought about telling Bonner to say hello to Rebecca, but instantly came to his senses. “Do you have a cell phone number for Dixie?”

  “No. I’m sure she has one. I tried to get the number, but couldn’t.”

  Chance smiled to himself, hearing the frustration in Bonner’s voice. Even Beauregard Bonner didn’t get everything he wanted.