Keeping Christmas

by B. J Daniels

  “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”

  “Million and a half,” Dixie said, remembering what Chance had told her about the ransom demand. “He tried to make it look like a kidnapping to cover up the real reason I was going to be killed.”

  She felt Chance look over at her, then back at his driving. “Looks that way.” She watched him glance into her rearview mirror, saw his expression.

  She turned, afraid of what she would see. Her fear ratcheted up another notch as she saw a van that looked exactly like the one she’d seen in the parking garage the night this had all begun.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chance had expected trouble once they left the interstate and got on the two-lane Highway 287 headed north toward Townsend. There had been enough traffic that he hadn’t been able to spot a tail, but he now suspected they’d been followed since Livingston.

  Traffic was horrendous around Bozeman, but once they left there and drove west, it began to thin out.

  Most of the cars had ski racks on top. Some out-of-state plates, people up here for the Christmas vacation. With Big Sky Ski Resort only forty miles to the south and Bridger Bowl about twenty to the north, Bozeman had become a winter destination along with being the home of Montana State University and ten-thousand-plus college students.

  Chance swore under his breath as the van closed the distance between them, but didn’t even attempt to pass even when he slowed down.

  The road narrowed along the Missouri River, dropping away on each side. There was no guardrail on either side and little traffic. This was the stretch of highway where the van driver would make his move.

  Chance sped up. The van sped up, as well, keeping the same distance between them. The road curved as it wound by the slow-moving, dark, ice-rimmed river.

  The van closed some of the distance between them.

  “That’s the two men who attacked me in the parking garage,” Dixie said, looking back.

  He heard the tremor in her voice. “Put the dog on the floor,” he ordered. “And brace yourself.”

  They were almost to the bridge. The van filled the rearview mirror just an instant before the bumper slammed into the back of the pickup.

  Chance swore as he fought to keep the truck under control. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dixie’s face. It was leeched of all color, her blue eyes wide with fear. He met her eyes and saw something flicker in her gaze.

  “Give me your gun,” she said, her voice breaking.

  “What?”

  The van slammed into the back of them again. The pickup fishtailed, one tire going off the edge of the road and kicking up snow that blew over the van’s windshield, forcing the driver to hit his wipers and back off a little.

  Dixie unhooked her seat belt and got on her knees to face the back window. The pickup was made for a camper in the bed so it had a small sliding window that she now unlatched. Cold air rushed in.

  “Get back in your seat!” Chance yelled as the van came at them again. He sped up, but ahead was another tight curve, the drop-off much steeper on each side of the road.

  “Give me your gun,” she said over the roar of the van’s engine as it came at them again.

  The van slammed into the bumper. Chance gripped the wheel, fighting to keep the truck on the road as Dixie held on to the back of the seat with one hand and reached under his coat, unsnapped the holster and withdrew the gun.

  “You don’t even know how to shoot a gun,” he said, swearing as he heard her snap off the safety.

  “Slow down,” she said, sounding almost too calm.

  He shot her a look. She was braced on the back of the seat, the weapon gripped in both hands and pointing out through the small window opening, the cold wind whipping her hair, her eyes narrowed in concentration.

  A sharp turn was just ahead with steep drop-offs on each side of the pavement. The van driver started to make another run at them.

  “Hang on,” Chance said, and hit his brakes.

  The move took the driver of the van by surprise. In his rearview mirror, Chance saw the driver literally stand on his brakes. The van fishtailed wildly just before it struck the back of the pickup with a force that sent the pickup rocketing forward.

  The shot was deafening as it echoed through the cab of the pickup. Chance managed to just barely keep the truck on the pavement, the right back tire dropping dangerously over the edge of the highway before he got it back.

  In his side-view mirror he saw the van’s windshield shatter into a web of white an instant before it blew out, showering the driver and the man next to him with tiny cubes of glass. The driver of the van was also fighting to regain control of his vehicle.

  Chance swore as he saw the passenger level his own weapon at the pickup. At Dixie. “Get down!” he yelled.

  Dixie got off another shot that boomed in the cab. In that same instant, Chance saw the front tire blow on the van, saw the driver fight to get the vehicle under control. It was the next sound that took his breath away.

  A shot fired from the van. It thundered just behind him, metal chips flying from where it had struck the cab and ricocheted.

  Dixie fell over in the seat as Chance took the curve.

  “Dixie!” He reached for her, glancing in the rearview mirror as his hand found her shoulder, fear spiking. “Dixie!”

  “I’m all right,” Dixie said in a small voice.

  “Are you hit?”

  “I’m all right.”

  He stole a look at her and saw the tiny cuts from the flying metal on her face oozing blood, and swore.

  Behind him he watched as the van driver lost control, the blown tire flapping and throwing up chunks of debris. The van skidded sideways, the blown tire rim digging into the asphalt. The van rolled twice before it left the highway and tumbled down the embankment and disappeared.

  Chance hit the brakes, coming to a stop at the edge of the road. He was shaking as he looked over at Dixie. Tears welled in her eyes and she chewed at her lower lip.

  “Who taught you to shoot?” he said.

  “I’m from Texas,” she said. “Do you think they’re—”

  The explosion drowned out her words as behind them the sky filled with a ball of fire.

  Chance did a highway patrol turn and drove back toward the smoke and flames, pulling to a stop at the edge of the highway. The van was consumed in flames. In stunned silence they watched it burn, clouds of smoke billowing up into the winter evening.

  There were no footprints in the snow around the van. No bodies. The men hadn’t gotten out.

  Dixie stared at the smoke pouring up from the van, shaking so hard her teeth chattered. She fought tears as she stared at the van, imagining the charred remains of the men inside.

  “Are you all right?” Chance asked as he took the gun from her hands and closed the back window.

  She nodded, telling herself that they would have killed her and Chance, remembering the one who’d kicked her in the head, reliving the night in the parking garage in Houston. But it did little to take away the appalling shock that she’d killed two men just as certainly as if she’d shot them to death.

  “I know how you feel right now, if that helps.”

  She looked over at him and nodded. It did help. She didn’t know what she would have done if he hadn’t been with her.

  “You saved our lives,” he said softly, and brushed his fingers over her cheek.

  She nodded, tears blurring her eyes as he dragged her into his arms. Behind them several cars had pulled up. One of the drivers jumped out and ran up to the side of the pickup.

  Dixie pulled back from Chance’s embrace as the man tapped on the window.

  “Have you already called in the accident?” the man asked, looking from Dixie’s tearful face to Chance’s.

  “Our cell phone isn’t working,” Chance said. “Can you call it in?”

  “Any survivors?” the man asked.

  Dixie watched Chance shake his head. “Saw it happen in th
e rearview mirror.”

  “Looks like the driver lost control and missed the curve,” the man said. “I’ll call it in.”

  “Thanks,” Chance said, and waited until the man got back into his vehicle to place the call before he shifted the pickup into first and pulled away. Up the road he turned around and headed north again.

  Dixie felt numb, everything surreal. She wanted to believe it was over. The men who’d tried to kill her were dead. But whoever had hired them wasn’t.

  Beauregard jumped up on the seat next to her again. She wrapped her arms around the dog’s neck as she buried her face in his soft fur. This was far from over.

  BEAU PICKED UP THE PHONE and held it for a long moment as he thought about how he was going to tell Rebecca.

  Hell, he had no idea. How did you tell a woman like Rebecca that her whole life had been a lie?

  He put down the phone, then picked it up again and hurriedly dialed Rebecca’s number before he lost his nerve.

  Rebecca answered after four rings. He could hear soft music in the background, the soft clink of expensive crystal, hushed voices. A party?

  “Rebecca?”

  Silence.

  “Is this about Dixie?”

  “No. I need to see you.”

  “What’s happened?” She sounded scared.

  “Honey, where are you? Could I come over?”

  “What? Tonight? Now? Can’t it wait?”

  “No. Rebecca. There’s something I should have told you a long time ago. Now that Dixie’s… Well, there’s just things about your mother that…” He stopped himself. “Anyway, I don’t want to do this on the phone.”

  “Something Dixie told you?” Rebecca said. “Daddy, I have company. I’m sure whatever it is can wait until morning. Why don’t I come over to your house in the morning first thing? I hope you don’t take anything Dixie says too seriously. You know how she is.”

  “Yes.” He wished that were the case this time. Beau hated the relief he felt. “In the morning then.” And yet he didn’t want to break the connection. “Rebecca, I love you.” He waited and realized after a moment that she’d already hung up.

  BY THE TIME Chance reached Townsend, it had begun to snow. He drove through town as snowflakes spiraled down. At a stop sign, he watched a young couple pick through the last of the Christmas trees in an empty lot. The falling snow blurred the red-and-green strands of lights strung around the lot. There was something hypnotizing about watching the snowflakes drift down through the lights.

  “Where are we going?” Dixie asked dully.

  “Home.” It was Christmas Eve and the only place he wanted to be was the cabin. He felt a need to go home. He wanted to believe that the death of the two hit men in the van would be the end of it. But whoever had hired them was still alive and if he knew anything about secrets and the people who tried to keep them, that person wouldn’t let it end here. But that was another reason he wanted to go home. Let it end on his turf rather than along some lonesome two-lane.

  As he drove down the main drag, he heard a Christmas carol being piped out from one of the bars. He looked over at Dixie. She appeared shell-shocked. From the night she was attacked in the parking garage, she’d been running on adrenaline and bravado, but clearly she’d run out of both.

  He knew she hadn’t had time to assimilate everything, let alone the impact of what had happened and what she’d learned. She needed some down time.

  “I’m taking you to my cabin.”

  She looked over at him, her gaze softening as she nodded, her smile small. She’d been through so much.

  He pulled into a gas station with a convenience store and filled up while she went inside. He found her sitting in a small plastic booth, her hands wrapped around a foam cup of hot coffee, her eyes hollow.

  He got himself a cup of coffee. They still had a long drive out to the lake and he had no idea what they would find. For all he knew there might be someone out there waiting for them.

  “Have you talked to my father?” she asked.

  His eyes locked with hers. “No.”

  She nodded and put down her cup. Not even caffeine could keep her system revved up anymore. “I’m so tired,” she said in a voice he’d never heard before. She met his gaze, hers filling with tears. “I’m tired of running. Tired of being scared. I’m just…tired.”

  He nodded, smiling his sympathy as he reached across the table and touched her fingers. They were ice-cold. “It’s going to be over soon.” That he did believe. The outcome he couldn’t promise, though. “I will protect you to my last dying breath.”

  She smiled, a tired teary smile. “I knew you would.”

  “Come on, Dix,” he said, rising to pull her to her feet. He scooped up the box of groceries he’d bought and, with his free arm around her, walked her to the pickup. She cuddled next to Beauregard and was asleep before Chance even had the engine started.

  AS CHANCE TURNED onto the road into the cabin, he stopped to study the tracks. The new snow had filled the only tracks in or out—his tracks from over thirty-six hours before.

  No one else had been down the road. He shifted into four-wheel drive, the pickup bucking the deep snow, headlights bobbing through snowcapped pines. The only sound was the roar of the engine as he drove, his headlights finally flashing on the cabin ahead, filling him with such a sense of relief that it made him weak.

  He pulled up beside the house. Beauregard lifted his head and began to wag his tail. Chance wasn’t the only one glad to finally be home.

  He opened his door and Beauregard bounded over the top of him and out into the snow.

  Dixie had awakened and was looking out through the snowy darkness at the cabin. Some of her color had returned and she looked less beaten down. It buoyed his spirits to see her strength.

  “Home,” he said, feeling almost shy.

  “You built it,” she said.

  He nodded, studying her. In some ways, she was so like her father. Stubborn. Self-confident. Determined. And at the top of the list: inquisitive to a fault.

  “Is there anything you don’t know about me?” he asked, only half joking.

  She turned then to look at him. The falling snow cast a silky light into the cab of the pickup. “No, I don’t think so. But if there is time, I wouldn’t mind learning more.”

  He laughed. “Nice to have you back, Dixie,” he said, and got out.

  As Dixie stepped into the cabin, he tried to see his home through her eyes. He’d always been proud of the place since he’d built it himself. But now it seemed too functional. It lacked warmth, what some might have called a woman’s touch. Strange that he’d never noticed that before.

  “It’s not much, but it’s home,” he said.

  She said nothing as she seemed to take it all in. Finally she turned to look at him. “It’s wonderful. I love it.” She smiled and her smile alone warmed the whole place and made it seem better instantly.

  He smiled his thanks and let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “I’ll get a fire going. You must be freezing.” As he made the fire, he watched her out of the corner of his eye. She moved through the place touching the stones he’d laid, running her fingers along the logs he’d peeled by hand, stopping to study a photograph he’d taken of the lake one summer evening at sunset.

  That life seemed a million years ago now. He felt as if he could barely remember it. That’s what only a couple of days with Dixie Bonner did to a man. When she left, the cabin would seem vacuous and empty. He found himself dreading that inevitable day.

  As he got the logs crackling in the firebox, she came to stand next to it, her eyes shiny as she looked into the flames. He knew she was thinking about the two men who’d lost their lives today. He knew what it was like to take another life. To look into a person’s eyes that instant before he pulled the trigger and saw them die.

  He hoped never to have to pull that trigger again. But unless he quit the P.I. business and took up a job as a ranch hand again
….

  “What is today?” Dixie asked.

  “Christmas Eve.”

  She nodded and held her hands out to the fire.

  He glanced past her at the cabin. There was no sign anywhere that it was Christmas. Not that he would have decorated even if he hadn’t taken this latest job. He didn’t do Christmas. Hadn’t since his daughter’s last one three years ago.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  To his surprise, Dixie shook her head.

  In the kitchen, he put away the groceries and saw that Dixie had moved to the front window.

  Through the falling snow, the lake appeared endless. Nothing but white into the darkness. The snow blanketed the cabin and lake in cold silence.

  “Can I help?” she asked, as if sensing him watching her.

  “You cook?” He hadn’t meant to sound so skeptical.

  She cocked her head at him, a warning look in her eye.

  He raised his hands in surrender and laughed. “Go ahead, tell me you’re a gourmet cook, you’ve won prizes and that I’m the worst chauvinist you’ve ever met.”

  She shook her head, started to say something, but seemed to lose the words. She turned away but not before he’d seen her face crumple.

  He dropped the groceries on the counter and rushed to her. “Dixie?” He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to him. She was crying, huge shuddering sobs. He thumbed away her tears, cupping her face in both hands. “Dixie.” Her name was a whisper on his lips as he pulled her into his arms. “Oh, Dixie.”

  He let her cry as he held her and stroked her hair, her back, all the time trying to soothe her with soft words and gentle caresses.

  The sobs subsided, her trembling body stilled, softening as it fit to his. She felt so right in his arms. He had the thought that he never wanted to let her go.

  He pulled back, realizing the foolishness of that. Her lower lip trembled as she looked up at him.

  He bent toward her as if he didn’t have a mind of his own. His lips brushed over hers, her mouth sweet and supple with just the hint of salty tears.