Keeping Christmas

by B. J Daniels

  “Sit down.” He hadn’t raised his voice, fortunately. But she knew by his tone that he could at any moment. He had no compunction against making scenes. In fact, he seemed to enjoy them as if he never wanted to forget his poor white-trash roots. As he was fond of saying, “If Houston society don’t like it, they can kiss my cherry-red ass.”

  She sat back down.

  “I think she might have been kidnapped,” he said quietly, and picked up her water glass and downed it. “How do you get a drink in this place?”

  Rebecca caught the waiter’s eye and mouthed Scotch neat. She didn’t have to tell the waiter to make it the best they carried. That was a given.

  “What makes you think she’s been kidnapped?” she asked carefully. Bringing up Dixie’s other shenanigans would only set her father off, although she would have loved to have listed them chapter and verse.

  “I got a call.” The waiter set down the drink and Beauregard snatched it up, downing it in two gulps before motioning for the waiter to bring him another. “You don’t seem all that upset about it,” he said a little too loudly.

  “Because I don’t believe it,” she said, keeping her voice low by example. She could always depend on her father to embarrass her. Oh, why couldn’t she have come from old money like Pookie and her other friends?

  “The ransom demand is a million dollars.”

  She stared at him. “You can’t be serious?”

  He gave her a deadpan look.

  “How silly of me. It’s Dixie. It is only a matter of time before she’ll want it all for some foolish cause of hers.” And Daddy will give it to her, Rebecca thought angrily. Oliver had warned her that Dixie would get everything in the end, hadn’t he? “So you paid it. What’s the problem?”

  “Hell no, I didn’t pay it.”

  The waiter set down another drink and looked nervously at Beauregard as if, like Rebecca, afraid he might be a problem.

  Rebecca watched her father take one gulp. “You haven’t paid it yet?” This did surprise her.

  “I’m not paying it.”

  He would. Eventually. He always caved when it came to Dixie. “So what are you doing?”

  “Obviously trying to find her.”

  Rebecca glanced around the restaurant. “If you’d called, I could have told you she wasn’t here, Daddy.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why do you have to be such a bitch?”

  His words stung more than she thought they would. She knew he was only striking out because he was worried about his other daughter. “Why do you have to be such an ass?” she hissed back at him.

  He gripped his glass, anger in every movement as he downed the last of it, and carefully put it down.

  She knew she’d gone too far. But she was sick of being the other daughter. The one her father never gave a concern to. “I heard you went to Montana.” She waited, hoping he would deny it.

  “Who told you I went to Montana?”

  She stared at her father. “You really did go?” She hadn’t meant to sound so shocked. But she was. So she’d been right about the “son of a bitch” Oliver had been referring to.

  “Isn’t that what you just— Never mind,” he said, and motioned to the waiter for another drink. “That’s where I guess she is.”

  This was all too surreal, especially on top of the two strawberry daiquiris she’d consumed—and what little she’d gleaned from Oliver’s phone conversation she’d overhead last night.

  “I hired your old boyfriend to find her.”

  There it was. She hadn’t been mistaken. She felt light-headed. For an instant she thought about pretending ignorance and saying, “What boyfriend would that be, Daddy?”

  Instead she said, “You hired Chance Walker to find Dixie?” saying his name carefully as if the words were expensive crystal that were so fragile they might break otherwise.

  “He’s a private detective. Damned good.”

  Was that supposed to make her feel better?

  Daddy was looking at her, studying her, his eyes glazed from the alcohol, but he wasn’t drunk. Nor was he stupid. “You were a fool not to marry him.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He picked up the fresh drink the waiter left on the table and stared down into it as if it were more fascinating than her by far.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said again, leaning toward him over the table, working to keep her voice down. After all, she was part of this family and no stranger to loud, ugly scenes. Just not in public.

  “You, of all people, know why I married Oliver,” she said, her voice low and crackling with fury. “To give this family respectability because even with all your money, Daddy, you couldn’t buy it, could you?”

  He didn’t look at her, but what she saw on his face shocked her. Shame.

  She felt sick. He’d known what she’d done and why. He’d never believed that she married Oliver for love. He’d known that she had sacrificed her own happiness for the family and he hadn’t even tried to stop her.

  She rose from the table, picking up her purse, glaring down at him. “As I said, I have things to do.” She turned on her heel.

  Just as he hadn’t stopped her from marrying Oliver, he didn’t stop her from leaving the restaurant.

  CHANCE DROVE DOWN the road to where a wide spot had been plowed at the edge of the lake and pulled over. He tried to calm down before he called Bonner again.

  “Hello?” Bonner sounded asleep. Or half-drunk. Because of the hour and the bar sounds in the background, Chance surmised it was the latter.

  “What the hell are you trying to pull?” He’d planned to be calm, not to tell Bonner what he thought of him. But just the sound of the oilman’s voice set Chance off.

  “Chance?”

  “I just met the private eye you hired from Texas. J. B. Jamison. Want to tell me what the hell that was about?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “A Texas private investigator named J. B. Jamison.”

  “He said I hired him? Well, he’s mistaken. You’re the only private investigator I hired.”

  Chance swore. “Mistaken? How could he mistake that?”

  “Maybe someone hired him using my name, but it wasn’t me,” Bonner snapped. “I give you my word.”

  For what that was worth. It was all he could do not to tell Bonner what he thought of that. Instead, Chance thought of his own daughter.

  “Someone broke into my office last night,” Chance said. “From what I can tell, it wasn’t Jamison. That means there is someone else looking for Dixie.”

  “Well, I didn’t hire them,” Bonner said, sounding angry. “How many times do I have to say it?”

  Chance shook his head, fighting to rein in his temper. If not Jamison, then who had broken into the office and taken the answering machine tape?

  “Let’s be clear on this,” Chance said. “I’ll find your daughter. That’s what you’re paying me to do. I’ll even give her a ride to the airport so she can return to Houston, if that’s what she wants. But I won’t let anyone use the kinds of methods Jamison does and hog-tie her and haul her across state lines all the way back to Texas. That’s kidnapping and I won’t be a part of it no matter what’s going on between you and Dixie.”

  He heard Bonner take a long drink. Glasses tinkled in the background, the clatter of dishes, the murmur of people talking. The bastard was having lunch.

  “Just find my daughter as quickly as possible. I got another ransom demand. A million and a half. There was also a package waiting for me at the airport when I landed. Dixie’s locket was inside it. It’s the one I gave her on her sixteenth birthday. She wore it all the time.”

  Chance groaned. “Damn it, Beauregard. Call the FBI. They can start tracing the calls.”

  Beauregard the dog lifted his head, coming awake at the sound of his name—and Chance’s angry tone.

  “We’ve already had this discussion,” Bonner said, sounding tired. “She used her credit card again. S
ome place called Neihart, Montana? Call me the minute you have her. But I warn you, finding her and hanging on to her are two entirely different things. By the time you’re done, you’ll understand why this Jamison uses the methods he does.” Bonner hung up.

  Chance snapped off the phone with a curse. What the hell? Bonner sounded as if he still didn’t believe his daughter had been kidnapped. But he was worried about her. What was going on?

  Beauregard the dog barked, letting him know he didn’t appreciate being awakened by Chance’s raised voice when he’d done nothing wrong.

  “Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you for lunch.” Chance patted the dog’s big head and Beauregard curled back up, dropping off to sleep again instantly. Dogs. They really did have the life.

  Every instinct told Chance to call the oilman back and quit the case. Unfortunately it had gone beyond the money. Chance couldn’t let Jamison find Dixie first. No matter what a hellion the woman was. Someone had damned sure hired Jamison to haul her back to Texas. But why?

  Bonner wasn’t going to the feds because whatever was really going on, he didn’t want them involved. What the hell had Dixie done? Whatever it was, Bonner just wanted her quietly returned to the longhorn state. Illegally returned, since Dixie was twenty-nine.

  Why wasn’t Bonner worried that his daughter would press charges against him once he got her back to Texas?

  Another good question.

  He dragged out his map again. If he was reading her traveling pattern right, she was headed for White Sulphur Springs.

  He couldn’t wait any longer. It was time to cut her off at the pass.

  ACE BONNER was leaning against Oliver’s Porsche, grinning as Oliver came out of the Bonner Unlimited building. Ace was a big fifty-something man with thick gray hair. He’d probably been fairly good-looking, like most of the Bonners, when he was younger. But prison and an indulgent lifestyle since hadn’t done much for him.

  “What are you doing here?” Oliver snapped as he glanced back at the Bonner Unlimited building, afraid Carl or Mason might be watching them from the window.

  “Cool your jets,” Ace said, putting his arm around Oliver’s shoulder. “Hell, we’re family. Nothing wrong with the two of us being seen together.”

  “There is when we have a deal going down,” Oliver said under his breath as he shrugged off Ace’s arm and walked around to the driver’s side, hoping to make a fast exit. “And stay off my car.”

  “We need to talk,” Ace said, the grin gone.

  Oliver looked at him. “What? Something to do with the deal?”

  “I need to grease another wheel.” He raised his hands before Oliver could protest. “It’s almost a done deal. Just this one guy who could hold things up. No reason to get cheap now.”

  “Except that I don’t have it,” Oliver snapped.

  Ace cocked his head at him. “Don’t give me that crap, Lancaster.” His gaze went to the car. “What’s another twenty-five grand to you?”

  “Twenty-five grand.” He choked on the words.

  “I promise that will be the last of it. Hell, we’re in a position to make six mil. You’re going to bitch about twenty-five lousy grand?”

  Oliver glared at Ace, too angry to speak. “If this deal doesn’t go through and I find out that it was all a scam—”

  “Please. I’m going to blow three million dollars for the measly hundred grand you’ve given me for the deal?”

  “Two.”

  “Two what?”

  “Two hundred thousand dollars,” Oliver said, elongating each word.

  “You want me to swing by your house and pick up the money?” Ace asked.

  “No.” He hadn’t meant the word to come out so sharply. “I’ll contact you when I get it.”

  “Right,” Ace said, grinning, but there was a sour look in his eyes that Oliver didn’t like. Once this deal went through Oliver was going to put as much distance as he could between himself and Ace Bonner.

  AS CHANCE DROVE into White Sulphur Springs, he watched for Dixie’s red Mustang. He couldn’t imagine the kidnapper driving it. Or Dixie, for that matter. If she didn’t want to be found, she would have ditched it for something less noticeable. Even if the kidnapping was bogus, by now she had to have realized that people were looking for her.

  Chance told himself that this could be nothing more sinister than a power struggle between father and daughter. Bonner was definitely stubborn enough. And probably Dixie, too, from the sounds of it. Maybe Chance was overreacting. Maybe she wasn’t in any kind of trouble. Her father, either.

  But still, Chance couldn’t shake the feeling that Bonner sincerely was afraid for his daughter. And with good reason.

  Chance drove down the main drag, then started down side streets, wondering if he wasn’t nuts. This felt like a wild-goose chase. Maybe there was no rhyme or reason for Dixie to zigzag across the state. No message. No game plan.

  But as he was driving past a house known in these parts as the Castle, he saw something that made him pull up short.

  When the Castle had been built in 1892, it was a stone mansion constructed out of local carved granite. The story was that the house had been built for the owner’s soon-to-be wife, with no expense spared, including a bathtub.

  As Chance remembered the story, the marriage didn’t work out, bathtub and all. The Castle was now a museum. The story of past disappointments seemed to fit given that parked behind it was a bright red Mustang with Texas plates.

  Chance pulled his pickup over across the street from the Castle and stared at the woman standing out front. No one else was around, the museum apparently closed.

  He’d thought he wouldn’t recognize her. Not after this many years. Dixie had looked nothing like her sister Rebecca. Rebecca had been petite and dainty, her blond hair a sleek cap that framed her perfect face.

  This woman standing in front of the museum was as long-legged as a colt, and she was wearing a pair of form-fitting jeans that hugged her derriere. She had a slim waist that tapered up to nice broad shoulders that were only partially hidden by a wild dark mane of long curly hair.

  The last time he’d seen Dixie Bonner she’d been twelve. Not even filled out. But she’d been tall for her age, slim and had this wild, dark, curly long hair…

  He opened his pickup door and stepped out. She didn’t turn as he started across the street, but he had the distinct impression that she knew he was here although she still seemed intent on studying the museum hours. Definitely not acting like a woman who’d been kidnapped or who feared for her life. More like a woman who had nothing more on her mind than a vacation.

  The squeal of tires and the growl of an engine startled him. He turned in time to see a large black sedan come roaring up the street. For an instant he thought it might be teenagers acting up. But teens in these parts drove old pickups or clunker cars with primer paint and missing fenders—not what looked a whole lot like a full-size rental car.

  The car came to a skidding stop in front of the museum between him and Dixie. The passenger side door flew open and a large man launched himself at Dixie.

  No doubt she’d heard the car approach. She swung around almost as if she’d been expecting them. She caught the big man in the face with her shoulder bag and then kneed him in the groin. He dropped like a sack of Idaho potatoes, fell off the museum steps and into the snowbank where he floundered in pain.

  The driver started to get out, but saw Chance come running across the street, gun drawn.

  Horn blaring, the driver hit the gas, almost leaving his passenger who, covered with snow, limped hurriedly after the car. The big man barely managed to get in before the driver gunned the engine, the tires squealing as the car took the first corner and disappeared.

  “Are you all right?” Chance asked, running up to her. If he’d doubted before that she was Dixie Bonner, he didn’t now. Only a Bonner attracted trouble the way magnets attract tacks.

  She glanced at his gun but other than that had no reaction, as if th
is was a daily occurrence, men trying to grab her off the street and others running up with loaded guns in their hands.

  Her gaze skimmed over him. He saw he’d been wrong about her best feature. From her high school senior portrait he’d thought it was her high cheekbones. Now he couldn’t decide if it was her big blue eyes fringed in dark lashes or her mouth, the full lips turned up at the corners in a perfect bow.

  He was about to go with the mouth when she drawled, “You certainly took your sweet time getting here, Chance Walker.”

  Chapter Five

  “Excuse me?”

  Dixie took Chance Walker in as if he were a cool drink of water. What she’d loved about him when she was twelve were the same things that Rebecca had tried to change about him. Chance had always been rough around edges.

  Montana, it seemed, had made him more so. She saw that he’d aged, but wonderfully, like a good leather couch. There were fine lines around his eyes, but his brown eyes were softer somehow as if life had humbled him over the years and yet at the same time made him stronger.

  “Excuse me?” he repeated with a shake of his head. “I believe ‘thank you’ would be the appropriate response since I just saved your scrawny behind.”

  “My behind is definitely not scrawny,” she said. “And it’s debatable just how much help you were.”

  His grin brought it all back. Chance Walker was just as Dixie had remembered him. Obstinate, arrogant and positively the best-looking man she’d ever seen at the age of twelve.

  She’d had the worst crush on him and could still recall the horrible ache she’d felt whenever he was around. He’d treated her like the kid she was at the time. That hadn’t made it hurt any less.

  “Right. That was genius the way you waited in front of a castle for them,” he snapped.

  She wanted to tell him how good it was to see him. Because it was. She wanted to throw herself into his arms. But at the same time she didn’t want him to see how scared she was and had been for days.

  She flashed him a grin that was more cocky than she felt. “I was waitin’ on you. Nice you finally got one of my messages and figured out where I would be.”