Keeping Christmas

by B. J Daniels

  That thought made him carefully slide out of the bed and leave the bedroom. He found his clothing and dressed before building a fire and jotting Dixie a note. Beauregard bound up the moment the dog saw that they would be going outside. The snow was deep but Chance didn’t take the time to shovel, Beauregard busting a trail ahead of him through a world of cold white.

  He thought about taking the pickup, but decided to hike down the road until he could get cell phone service. The land lay in frozen silence. He stood in the deep snow, breathing in the scent of pine. He needed this time alone on this beautiful Christmas morning.

  Bonner answered on the first ring. “Rebecca?”

  “No,” Chance said, frowning. “It’s Chance.”

  “I thought it would be Rebecca.” He sounded half-asleep. Or half-drunk. “She took my plane to New York or Paris. I don’t know.”

  “The plane you were bringing to Montana today,” Chance guessed, and swore under his breath.

  “Mason has the other one. I don’t know when either of them will be back. I’m trying to line up another plane.”

  “Beau, listen, this can’t wait. Dixie and I found out some things about the man your wife had an affair with before she met you that I think you need to know. If you don’t already.”

  Now it was Bonner’s turn to swear. “I told you I don’t know anything about him and I don’t want to.”

  “You don’t have a choice. I’m pretty sure he’s the person who hired the two men who were trying to kill Dixie before she could unearth his identity.”

  “Are you sure this isn’t just another of Dixie’s—”

  “Two men tried to run us off the road yesterday,” Chance snapped. “The same two men Dixie says abducted her and ransacked her house looking for her research on her mother’s family. The men are dead, but whoever hired them is still out there.”

  “Oh, my God,” Bonner said. “Then it’s true. Someone really is trying to kill her?”

  “What the hell do you think I’ve been trying to tell you? And Dixie’s aunt is dead, as well.”

  “My God. I was so sure—”

  Chance tried to understand how Bonner must feel right now. Given the other tricks Dixie had played on Bonner, Chance could understand why he hadn’t believe it. Mostly Bonner hadn’t wanted to believe it. He’d have to share some of the blame if it were true since he hadn’t been honest with Dixie when she’d come to him with the photographs.

  “You think it’s the man Sarah was involved with before me,” Bonner said. “You have any idea who he is?”

  “No, but from what we found out, he’s someone who knows you. He used your name while he was living up here. Your wife’s name was actually Elizabeth Sarah Worth. She changed it to Sarah when this man took her to Texas. By then, oil had been found on your farm.” Chance hesitated.

  “No,” Bonner said, as if suspecting where Chance was headed with this.

  “She changed her name to Sarah and went after you and your money.”

  “I don’t believe it.” But the tremor in his voice said he did.

  “The man blackmailed her into doing it,” Chance said. “It seems Sarah had a good friend in Idaho who she wrote to every week.” He heard Bonner make a small, sad sound. “I assume you didn’t know about Amelia McCarthy?”

  “No.” His voice was muffled.

  Chance hated that he had to tell Bonner this over the phone. But the sooner Bonner had the information, the sooner maybe they could find the killer.

  “In the last letter that Sarah sent, she said she’d fallen in love with you. She was happy. She said she could no longer live with the lies of her past and planned to tell you the truth.”

  Bonner sounded as if he was crying. “She never told me.”

  “The man had been blackmailing her, threatening to tell you. She was giving him money to keep him quiet. Apparently she was also afraid of him.”

  There was a painful choking sound on the other end of the line. “If you tell me that he—”

  “Sarah’s friend believed that the man killed her to keep you from learning the truth,” Chance finished.

  “My God,” Bonner said.

  “I’m telling you this because I think this man believes that once Dixie is stopped, the truth will never come out. He still has something to lose if you find out who he is. Do you have any idea who he might be?” Silence. “Bonner?”

  Chance swore. Beauregard Bonner had hung up. He tried him back, but the line was busy. He tried again, walking farther up the road. This time it rang and rang.

  Just as Chance was going to hang up and try again, thinking he must have dialed wrong, he saw the footprints in the snow.

  DIXIE WOKE to a chill in the air. She felt in the bed for Chance only to find him gone. She knew he wouldn’t have gone far, but still it filled her with a sense of loss. She didn’t want to waste a second because eventually this would be over and they would go their separate ways. If they lived that long.

  Hadn’t she warned herself not to hope for more than what Chance could give her? She knew he’d been hurt badly in the past. It was no coincidence that his relationships were few and far between and little more than a few dates.

  He liked living out here alone. He needed it. She understood the choice between living alone or being with the wrong person. Roy Bob Jackson had tempted her, made her realize that she wanted someone in her life. But it had never been Roy Bob Jackson—even if she hadn’t found out he worked for her father.

  No, it had always been Chance Walker.

  She smiled as she remembered their lovemaking, regretting nothing. If this was all they ever shared, then she could live with that. At least, she hoped she could.

  Rising, she tiptoed across the cold wood floor to open the bedroom door. Chance had a blaze going in the fireplace. She sniffed the air, hoping for the smell of bacon frying. And French toast, she thought. She always ate hers with brown sugar, honey and butter and had gotten Chance to try it years ago in Texas when she was just a silly kid with a crush.

  She wondered if he still ate his French toast that way as she went through the living room picking up her clothing and putting it on as she moved.

  But Chance wasn’t in the kitchen. Instead she found a note stuck to the coffeemaker.

  “Gone up the road to make a cell phone call. Be right back.”

  Did that mean there wasn’t cell phone service in the cabin? She started the coffee and while it brewed, she found her purse and tried her cell phone which she’d turned off after talking to Amelia’s sister-in-law, Rita McCarthy. The service was unreliable, but she did have a message. She played the message, surprised to hear Rita McCarthy’s voice.

  “After I talked to you, I got to thinking,” Rita said. “I remembered something. Give me a call.”

  Rita had remembered something. About the man? Dixie went to the window and looked out, hoping to see Chance returning. But there was only his tracks and the dog’s in the deep snow of the deck.

  She moved to the bedroom window at the back of the cabin and peered out. She could see where he and the dog had walked up the road.

  A thud toward the front of the house startled her. Maybe Chance and Beauregard had taken a different way back. Padding into the living room, she glanced out the front window again. No sign of anyone.

  She jumped as a large clump of snow came sliding off the metal roof of the cabin to land in a pile just off the deck. Her heart was racing and for a moment, she reconsidered hiking up the road to find Chance. But what if he took another way back and she missed him?

  It wasn’t as if she’d get lost. All she had to do was to follow the road back. On impulse, she scribbled her note on the bottom of Chance’s, that way he’d know where to find her if she did miss him. She was too impatient to wait for him to return. She had to know what Rita had remembered.

  Tucking her cell phone into her pocket, she looked around for her coat and boots. Another thud outside. She glanced toward the window as she pulled on her boot
s and slipped into her coat.

  As she opened the door, she felt the wind and heard the groan of the pines. Snow fell from a pine near the edge of the deck, startling her. Why was she nervous?

  Because she had a feeling that in a few minutes she would know the identity of the man who wanted her dead.

  CHANCE BENT OVER the tracks in the snow. Footprints. Snow had partially filled the tracks, making it hard for him to gauge the size of the boots that had made the prints.

  It appeared someone had walked up the snow-filled road, then dropped down the side of the mountain.

  He glanced back into the direction of his cabin, a good mile back and down another even less-traveled road flanked on each side by pines.

  The tracks in the snow could be from someone going to one of the nearer cabins along the lake. Someone checking to make sure his cabin hadn’t been broken into. This time of year all but his cabin was boarded up for winter.

  “What do you think, old boy?” Chance said to Beauregard.

  The dog’s head came up at the sound of Chance’s voice. There was snow on the mutt’s nose from where he’d been sniffing the tracks.

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Chance said.

  Heart in his throat, he dropped off the road, following the tracks in the new snow as quickly as he could along the steep frozen bank to the edge of the lake.

  The snow was deep, the going slow. He had to wonder why anyone would have come this way. Why not stay on the road where the walking was easier?

  He passed one cabin after another, following the tracks to where they picked up a second set. He stopped, surprised to see that these were older, possibly from last night during the storm.

  The new footprints began to follow the older set.

  Chance frowned. Beauregard was frolicking in the snow, sniffing the tracks and racing around. From here the tracks trailed along the edge of the pines, branching off to the south.

  A blustery wind blew across the frozen lake to whisper in the pines along the side of the mountain. The snow-filled boughs swayed in the gusts as Chance hurried. There was only one other cabin about a half mile down a narrow private road. His.

  He began to run.

  DIXIE STEPPED OUT the front door of the cabin and paused to look off to the right as she remembered the light she’d thought she’d seen the night before.

  Odd. Chance had said his was the only cabin down this road and yet there was something down there in the trees that certainly looked like a cabin.

  She moved to the edge of the deck and peered over the railing through the pines. A boathouse.

  Her heart began to beat a little faster. That’s where she’d seen the light last night. But as she stared at the boathouse, she could see that the outside light wasn’t on.

  Because it hadn’t really been a light. It had been smaller and had gone out, more like a flashlight beam. Her mouth went dry at the thought. Someone had been down there.

  The hair rose on the back of her neck. She swung around, shocked to find no one behind her. She looked into the darkness under the snow-filled pines, positive that she’d felt someone there.

  “You’re just jumping at shadows,” she whispered to herself, wishing Chance would return. It was too quiet. And yet she sensed she was no longer alone.

  Her breath came out in white puffs as she turned to look back down the mountainside through the pines to the boathouse. She was trying to tell herself that she’d just imagined the light at the boathouse last night when she saw something in the snow.

  Her blood ran cold as she saw the single trail of footprints that led up from the boathouse and around the cabin. Chance’s? No, she thought, her mouth going dry, because there was no sign of the dog’s prints with them.

  Behind her, she heard the wood creak as if someone had stepped up onto the decking.

  This time when she turned, she knew the person who’d made those tracks would be standing right behind her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chance ran through the deep snow, breathing hard, his mind racing. Beauregard, thinking they were playing, had run ahead into the dense pines. He heard the dog let out a startled bark, then a yelp.

  Furious with himself for not thinking to bring his gun, Chance shoved through the pine boughs, snow showering over him, and was struck hard. The blow glanced off the back of his head.

  He could see his dog crouched down, hair standing up on his neck, a low growl emitting from his throat. Beauregard was staring at something behind Chance.

  Bracing himself for whatever had been hiding in the trees, Chance swung around, ready to defend himself, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.

  DIXIE COULDN’T MOVE. She couldn’t turn around. The deck creaked behind her again, this time the sound so close she thought she saw a puff of frosty breath breeze past her on the wind. Fear paralyzed her because she knew what was behind her and she had no weapon. No hope.

  “Dixie?”

  She spun around at the sound of the voice, frowning in surprise, then smiling as she recognized the face. Her knees went weak with relief.

  “Mason.” She put her hand to her heart. It was beating a million beats a second. Of course her father would send Mason to get her. Mason, who always solved all her father’s problems for him. “You scared me half to death. How did you find me?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “I knew Beau had hired Chance Walker, so that made it somewhat easier.” He glanced toward the cabin. “Tell me it’s warm in that cabin. I hiked in last night, got turned around and ended up staying in someone’s boathouse.”

  She realized that he was shivering even though he was wearing snow boots and a heavy, hooded coat and gloves. “Not exactly Texas weather, huh.” She led him into the cabin, taking off her coat to toss more wood on the fire.

  “Chance should be back soon,” she said. “He’s just gone up the road.”

  Mason stood by the door, looking cold, his hands buried in his coat. He was glancing around the cabin, silent, as if trying to figure out what to say to her.

  “So my father sent you to take me back to Texas,” she said.

  “Actually…” Mason’s gaze settled on her. “He doesn’t know I’m here. I told him I had to go away for a few days on a business trip.” He hadn’t moved from near the door. He still had his hands deep in his coat pockets and he appeared to be watching for Chance.

  She felt her first stirring of doubt. “Then why—”

  “I thought if I came up here that we could discuss this little problem,” he said, “and come to a satisfactory conciliation.”

  Her fear notched up a level as she looked into his eyes. She’d known Mason Roberts her whole life. He’d been at every birthday party, every family event.

  He stood with the hood of his coat up, his face in shadow. It was the way he was standing. Her heart leaped to her throat as she remembered the photograph of her mother and the man. The man had put his head down, avoiding the camera, his weight on one leg, shoulders angled away. He hadn’t liked having his photo taken.

  Just like Mason. She thought of what few photographs she’d taken as a kid at Bonner barbecues. Mason had always managed to be in shadow or partially hidden from view by the person next to him. Mason, a man who liked to work behind the scenes, not wanting to take credit, the problem-solver and Beauregard Bonner’s closest friend and associate.

  Mason was studying her, a half smile on his face, eyes wary. “Come on, Dixie. You and I have always been straight with each other. Let’s not play games now. You know why I’m here, don’t you?”

  She stared at her mother’s former lover. Rebecca’s father. “You bastard.”

  “REBECCA?” Chance gaped at the woman standing in the pines, a piece of tree limb in her gloved hands. He shook his head, thinking the blow to his head must have messed up his brain. “Rebecca?”

  “Chance,” she said in that breathless Southern accent of hers. “I didn’t know it was you. I heard someone coming… Then I sa
w that big ol’ dog.”

  All he could do was stare. It had been years and yet she seemed just the same. She was dressed in a suede coat with white fur, the same fur that was on her knee-high leather boots and her hat. She carried a large suede shoulder bag in the same color. Her blond hair curved around her perfectly made-up face as if she were going to breakfast at some fancy ski resort.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, wanting to laugh. She was so Rebecca. So wrong for him. So not like her sister Dixie, who was so right for him.

  “Daddy told me about Dixie,” Rebecca said. “I was headed for New York to do some last-minute Christmas shopping and I decided to fly to Montana instead to try to get her home for Christmas.”

  He didn’t know what to say. This was definitely the Rebecca Bonner he remembered. Jet-setter. Fashion plate. Privileged beyond belief.

  “I tried to call,” she said, and glanced at the dog who was still growling. “He isn’t going to bite me, is he?”

  “Put down the stick,” Chance told her. Beauregard quit growling. “You just scared him.”

  “Not as much as the two of you scared me. I’m so sorry I hit you. But when I heard something coming, I thought it might be a bear.” She smiled at him just like she used to so many years ago. The years had been good to her. He figured her money and the latest antiaging techniques and supplies hadn’t hurt, either.

  “Bears hibernate in the winter,” he said, and rubbed the lump on his head, feeling a little dazed. “Why didn’t you just follow the road?”

  “I saw tracks coming down this way,” she said. “So I followed them.”

  The second tracks. He glanced past her and saw that the footprints continued on down the shoreline— straight to his boathouse.

  “Come on, we need to get up to the cabin,” he said. “It’s right up here.”

  Rebecca nodded and shielded her eyes to look up the hillside to the cabin. “I can’t wait to see my sister.”