by Nora Roberts
kiss? On the mouth?”
“Yes, a real kiss. And it occurred to me he’s your brother. I’m your friend, but I’m also your employee, so—”
“Oh, just bucket the employee business. Chase is a grown man and can kiss whoever he wants to kiss—if they want it. And he wouldn’t kiss somebody who didn’t because he’s not made that way, so if the two of you were fine with it, why wouldn’t I be?”
“I wouldn’t say he was fine with it. He’s the one who stopped, then started apologizing all over himself until I wanted to knock him down. I mean, what kind of idiot—” She broke off. “He’s your brother.”
“I can love and stick up for my brother and still know he’s an idiot in some areas. Apologized about kissing you?”
“Taking advantage of me.” Realizing she had a sympathetic audience, Jessica let it fly. “Advantage of me? Do I look like someone who’d let anyone take advantage of her? I’m from New York! Does he think I haven’t put down my share of men who pushed when I didn’t want to be pushed? Then it’s how he didn’t want me to feel obligated—like I’d start something with him because I felt pressured as a resort employee. That’s what he gets out of me kissing him? Oh, I better go along with this if I want to keep my job! If I felt sexually harassed, he’d know it like that!”
She snapped her fingers. “I’m not some scared, weak little mouse who can be taken advantage of or pressured.”
Bodine let her wind down. “I’m going to say this. Apologizing like that? It’s just like him. And I’m going to guess he’d thought about kissing you for a while. Chase isn’t one for impulses—unless he’s running around with Skinner, who brings out that side of Chase. He … deliberates things, and he obviously hadn’t finished deliberating about you before you ended up in this particular situation. Then he straight off feels responsible. I’m not saying don’t be pissed a little at how he fumbled it, and his fumbling was downright insulting, but I hope you can give him a little leeway, seeing as he was only being Chase.”
“I can try.”
Reaching over, Bodine poked Jessica’s arm. “I’m not sticking up for him, or only a little. I expect you let him know he’d insulted you.”
“Oh, I did.”
“Which would’ve confused and frustrated him, and when it sank in, would’ve appalled him, as he’s got a powerful respect for women. I’d never call him smooth.”
Jessica let out a short laugh at the very idea.
“Not like Rory is, and just to digress a minute on that? Rory’s going to do more than flirt with the adorable Chelsea sooner or later, if she’d like more than flirting. He reads people as well as a scholar reads books, it’s why he’s so good in sales. He wouldn’t take advantage any more than Chase, but he’ll move a lot faster. Anyway.”
She drove for another minute as she put her thoughts together. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he—Chase—worked up an apology for the apology, so I’m going to ask you, as a friend, do you like him?”
“Of course I do,” Jessica began. “He’s a very nice man.”
“Rory’s a nice man. Are you planning on kissing him?”
Jessica blew out a breath. “No.” Friends, Jessica thought. Not just work friends, not just acquaintances.
Friends. She could take that next leap.
“I’m attracted to Chase. I’m interested in him.”
“Then if you want a repeat, or more, you’re going to have to make the next move. He won’t, or it’ll be a year or so before he works up to it on his own.”
“Just to be clear”—Jessica held up a finger—“are you saying I should go after your brother?”
“I’m saying, as your friend, and as your employer, just so we touch all the bases, you and Chase are both grown-ups, both single, both with minds of your own. As his sister, who knows him inside and out, I’m advising you: If you want to start something, you’ll have to start it. And nobody who knows either of you is going to be shocked or worried if the two of you start sleeping together. I don’t know why people let sex be so damn complicated.”
“I’m not talking about having sex with him.”
“Of course you are.”
Jessica let out a sigh. “Of course I am. I need to think about it. Not for a year or so. A day or two is enough for me. Bodine?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I like having a friend.”
Glancing over, Bodine grinned. “You got lucky with me. I’m a hell of a good friend.”
She continued to grin as she punched the gas again. Nearly home now, she thought as she passed a blue compact heading in the opposite direction, and she really wanted to get there.
* * *
If Karyn Allison’s tire had blown two minutes sooner, Bodine would’ve seen her on the side of the road and stopped rather than zipping by the car as Karyn drove toward Missoula.
Two minutes would have changed everything.
* * *
He cleaned blood from his hands with snow. He hadn’t meant to do it. Why hadn’t the girl just behaved? He had a right—God given—even an obligation to procreate, to continue his line.
To spread his seed into the world.
And hadn’t God put her right in his path?
There she’d been, on the side of the road with a blown-out tire. A clearer sign of divine intervention he’d never seen.
Now, if she’d been too old—for childbearing—or uncomely, as a man had a right to take a comely woman for his wife, he’d have changed the tire for her, like a good Christian, and continued on his way.
On his hunt.
But she was young. Younger than the tavern whore and pretty as a lemon drop. Since she’d already set about jacking up the car, she showed she had some spirit, and a man wanted some spirit passed on to his sons.
And hadn’t she thanked him, smiled pretty as you please when he stopped to do the job for her?
He appreciated good manners. How she’d stepped back to let him take over demonstrated she knew her place.
But then she’d gone and taken out her phone, said how she’d call the friends she was meeting, let them know what was going on.
He couldn’t have that.
He told her so, and she’d given him a look he didn’t much like. Disrespectful.
He hit her. Looking back now he could see he shouldn’t have let what happened with the other one cause him to pull his punch. Should’ve put her down hard, considering how she’d yelled and hit back at him.
Caught him right in the balls, too, before he’d given her a good whack with the lug wrench.
But she’d been breathing, even moaned a little when he hauled her into the back of his truck, trussed her up, slapped some duct tape over her mouth in case she started that yelling again.
He’d gone back, too, picked up her phone and got her pocketbook out of her car. He’d heard about how the police found those things before.
He’d felt too damn good, knowing he’d done what he’d set out to do, what he was meant to do. She’d wake up in her room, and he’d teach her her place right quick. Her duty.
But when he’d gotten back to the cabin, gone to pull her out, there was a lot more blood than he’d expected. His first thought was that he’d have to clean it off.
His second was she’d gone and died on him right in the back of his damn truck. Just died on him.
It not only soured his righteous mood, it scared him some.
He’d covered her back up, driven straight off. He hadn’t even gone in the cabin. Home wasn’t the place for some damn dead girl who didn’t know how to behave.
Especially with the ground too hard to dig a grave.
Bitter about his bad luck, he drove through the night, through a squall of snow toward the wilderness. It took some doing, some snowshoeing with a dead girl over his shoulder, but he didn’t have to go far.
He buried her in snow, along with her phone, her pocketbook. But he took the money out of it first, took the blanket he’d wrapped her in. He wasn’t stupid.<
br />
Nobody would find her until spring, most likely, and maybe not then. The animals would take her first anyway.
He considered saying a prayer over her. Decided she wasn’t worthy of it, hadn’t been worthy of him. So he cleaned her blood from his hands with snow, and left her in the dark stillness of wilderness.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bodine purely loved Christmas Eve. The resort closed midday after the last of the checkouts, and remained closed until the day after Christmas. Security would make their rounds, of course, taking shifts, and horses would be tended. But for all intents and purposes, everyone had a day and a half to spend with friends and family.
The grannies would come, spend the night, and the ranch hands and any employees who weren’t with their own families were welcome to a feast of food and drink.
Bodine rode home with Callen—a habit at least three times a week now—through a steady Christmas snowfall.
“Are you going to see your mom and sister for Christmas?” she asked him.
“Tomorrow, yeah, for dinner.”
“You give them my best. What did you do for Christmas back in California?”
“Mooched off friends. Like I’m doing at your place tonight.”
“We’ve got enough food for an army. I only praise Jesus the women in my family conceded years back to have the resort kitchen handle this do. Otherwise, I’d be stuck peeling and chopping the minute I walk in the door.”
“You could come hide out at the shack, help me deal with the presents I’m hauling to my sister’s tomorrow.”
“You haven’t got them wrapped yet?”
“I’ve got till tomorrow, don’t I? And I don’t wrap. That’s what those fancy bags are for.” He glanced over. She had her hair braided back, a long dark twist, and her face was flushed from cold and pleasure. “Are you all wrapped up?”
“Wrapped, bowed, tagged, and under the tree.”
Didn’t she look all smug about it? And pretty as a Christmas ribbon.
“Show-off.”
Laughing, she angled her head, fluttered her lashes. “Being smart and organized isn’t showing off. Plus, I’ll admit I had Sal help me. She likes to fuss with wrapping, is a hell of a lot better at it even if it does take her half of forever. And it kept her distracted.”
Her smile dimmed, dropped away. “She’s missing Billy Jean. They always spent Christmas Eve together drinking champagne cocktails. And now that other girl’s gone missing, and Sal’s decided she was taken off by the same one who killed Billy Jean.”
When he said nothing, Bodine looked over. “You think the same?”
“I think they were both women alone, both had breakdowns—out of gas for one, flat tire for the other. I leave the rest of the thinking to the sheriff.”
“Car jacked up like she started to change the tire, but she didn’t have a lug wrench—from what I read about it. It seems she’d have called somebody, as her mother said she had her cell phone when she left. But it could be the battery was dead. It could be, most likely, she hitched a ride, and then …
“I had to pass her,” Bodine added. “Almost had to.”
“What do you mean?”
“I read what time they said she’d left her mother’s. She’d gone to see her mother, and was driving back to Missoula to meet some friends, some of her college friends. She goes to U of M. Jessie and I almost had to pass her, her going, us coming from town that evening. I went right by where they found her car. I have to wonder how much I missed her by.”
She shook it off.
“But I think what happened to Billy Jean was somebody from outside did it. It could have even been a guest, though I hate to think it. I think somebody snatched that girl, and that’s a terrible thing, but it’s not the same. She was only eighteen—a lot younger—and Billy Jean drove home the way she did most every night. This Karyn Allison hadn’t been home for a visit, I heard, for a couple weeks.”
He understood why she needed to believe that—and maybe she had it right. But believing that wouldn’t push her to take precautions. So he firmly stomped on her theory.
“It could be two different people went after two women having car trouble inside of a month within about twenty miles of each other.”
Bodine hissed out a breath. “That’s what I tell Sal when she gets worked up about it, and what I tell myself because I want to sleep at night.”
Since that satisfied him, he nodded. “No harm in that, as long as you stay smart and keep your eyes open. I’ve never known you to do otherwise.”
“I don’t even know why I’m talking about it on my favorite night of the year. Except I was thinking how your mother must be so happy to have you home for Christmas, and that other mother doesn’t know where her girl is, or if she’s all right.”
To comfort herself, she leaned forward to stroke Leo, then straightened. “Wait. Keep my eyes open? Is that why either you or Rory ends up hitching a ride to and from with me if I’m not on Leo?”
Callen rode easy. “Just saving fuel.”
Her sarcasm dripped like melting ice. “Just thinking about the environment?”
“More should.”
She couldn’t argue that. And found, when she broke it all down, she couldn’t be insulted, either. Very much. “I appreciate the concern. Though I can handle myself just fine, I appreciate the sly, manly lookout all the same.”
She smiled, overbright, when Callen sent her a slow, careful look.
“Is that so?”
“It is. I don’t appreciate the big, strong men not just coming out and saying so in order to spare my little female sensibilities, but I appreciate the concern.”
“It wasn’t about your female sensibilities. It was more about your stubborn streak and temper.”
“Why is it men are called strong or tough, and women stubborn?”
“I’m not touching that.” He clucked his tongue instead and took Sundown into a trot.
“Coward,” Bodine accused, but she laughed as she came up beside him.
“About some areas.”
They rode companionably into the ranch yard.
“I’ve got to get something from the shack.”
When Callen veered off, Bodine shrugged and led Leo into the stables.
“That was a nice ride,” she said as she unsaddled and unbridled him. “You deserve a good rubdown, and maybe a little something special after.”
She grabbed a hoof pick, tended to his feet before giving him a good rub with a towel. As she picked up a soft brush, she heard Callen come in with Sundown.
Since she had a jump on him, she finished first, carted her saddle to the tack room, then came back for Callen’s.
“I’ll get that in a minute.”
“I’ve got it now.” But she paused outside the stall. “I’ve also got a jar of peppermint treats—”
As Callen said, “Don’t!” Sundown let out a long, high whinny, gave Callen an enthusiastic butt with his head before sticking it over the door. The horse aimed a wildly bright-eyed look at Bodine.
“Next time spell it. I expect he’ll figure that out before long, but for now don’t say either of those words out loud. Out of the way, you.”
Callen managed to nudge Sundown back, get out of the stall, before the horse stuck out his head again.
Testing—she couldn’t help it—Bodine said, “Peppermint treats.”
“Oh, for Christ’s—” With a shake of his head, Callen hefted the saddle from Bodine as Sundown danced and whinnied.
“Is he … like … cheering?”
“You could say that’s his version of yippee. Just hold on a
