Christmas at Cardwell Ranch. B.J. Daniels
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She felt a chill now as she slogged through the deep snow, glad she wasn’t that far from home. She’d left behind the cluster of buildings that made up the center of Meadow Village. Now there was nothing but snowy darkness. Pines, their branches heavy with snow, stood like sentinels at the edge of the mountain to her right. To her left, the golf course was an empty field of deep snow.
The storm hadn’t let up for hours. She kept her head down against the falling snow, but it still clung to her face and eyelashes. With each step, she regretted not going back into the bar and calling Ethan. Sometimes she was her own worst enemy.
At the sound of a car approaching, she moved to the edge of the road. Probably Ethan, she thought. Was it possible he’d simply fallen asleep and on awakening, realized he hadn’t picked her up?
She felt headlights wash over her. Chilled to the bone, she could feel the deep wet snow soaking into her jeans up to her knees. She was angry with him, but right now she didn’t feel like fighting. Worse, she didn’t want her own foolish stubbornness to make her end up walking the rest of the way home just to spite Ethan or try to make him feel guilty.
Once they got back to the apartment, she would take a nice hot shower. Maybe have a beer with him. Or a soda, she thought, remembering that she was pregnant. She might even be up for making love. Anything to take the edge off and forget for just a while that her life was a mess and had been as far back as she could remember.
Teresa shielded her eyes from the blizzard and the bright headlights as the vehicle caught up to her. A thought struck her in that instant. The engine sound was wrong. She knew it wasn’t Ethan in his old pickup even before she saw the large black SUV slow to a stop next to her.
It was one of those expensive big rigs like ones she saw all over Big Sky. The windows were dark as well as the paint. She was trying to see inside, to see if she knew the driver, when the back door was suddenly flung open.
The man who jumped out was large and bundled up in a bulky coat. Her heart was already racing by the time he grabbed her. She tried to scream, but he clamped a gloved hand over her mouth and dragged her toward the large SUV. She fought, but he was too strong for her. Still, she got in a few good kicks and punches before he forced a smelly cloth over her mouth and nose, and everything went black.
Chapter Three
Hud got the call just after daylight the next morning. He’d been up all night with the break-in. He needed sleep and food badly, and was on his way home, hoping for both when the call came in.
“My fiancée didn’t come home last night.”
“Who am I speaking with?” he asked. The man sounded more than a little upset.
“Ethan Cross.”
Hud knew Ethan, knew his record. A wild, good-looking kid who’d gotten into trouble a lot before going to the academy and becoming a highway patrol officer.
“Your fiancée is Teresa Evans?” he asked to clarify. Ethan had been with Teresa since high school. That was the nice thing about a small community. Hud knew the players, at least the local ones.
“She works at the Canyon. I was supposed to pick her up after closing, but I got called out on an accident down by Fir Ridge. With the roads like they were, I didn’t get back in time. When I realized she wasn’t home, I went looking for her. This isn’t like her.”
Hud took a guess. “Did the two of you have a fight earlier yesterday?” It was an old story, one he’d heard many times.
“Not really a fight exactly. Still, she wouldn’t not come home.”
“She probably just stayed at a friend’s place to let things cool down. Have you checked with any of her friends?”
“There’s only one she’s been tight with recently. I tried Mia’s number, but she doesn’t answer.”
“Mia Duncan?” Hud asked, and felt his pulse quicken when Ethan said yes. “Have you tried Teresa’s cell phone?”
“She forgot to take it when she left for work. I found it when I called her number looking for her.”
“Let’s give her a few hours and see if she doesn’t turn up,” Hud said, hoping he didn’t have two missing women, since Mia Duncan hadn’t turned up yet, either.
* * *
TAG COULDN’T BELIEVE how much he’d missed this. As he trod through the knee-high snow on the mountain the next morning swinging the ax, he breathed in the frosty air and the sweet fresh smell of pine.
“How about that one?” Dana called from below him on the mountainside. They had climbed up the mountain behind his cousin’s ranch house Christmas tree hunting. Now she motioned at one to his far right.
He waded through the new-fallen snow to check the tree, shook off the branches, then called back, “Too flat on the back. I’m going up higher on the mountain.”
“There’s an old logging road up there,” she called from down below. “I’ll meet you where it comes out. If you find a tree, give a holler. Meanwhile, I’ll keep looking down here.” She sounded as if she was enjoying this as much as he was, but then Dana had always loved the great outdoors.
He felt a chill as he remembered what had happened to her and her family last spring. Some crazy woman had pretended to be a long-lost cousin, and having designs on Hud, had tried to kill Dana, her children and her best friend, Hilde. Fortunately Deputy Colt Dawson had found out the woman’s true identity and arrived in time to save them all.
Tag couldn’t imagine something so horrifying, but if anything, his cousin Dana was resilient and Camilla Northland was in prison, where hopefully she would remain the rest of her life.
The new snow higher up the mountain was as light as down feathers and floated around him as he climbed. He had to stop a couple of times to catch his breath because of the altitude. “You’re not in Texas anymore,” he said, laughing.
The land flattened out some once he was near the top, and he knew he’d hit the old logging road. As he started down it, he kept looking for the perfect tree. Dana’s husband, Marshal Hud Savage, had warned him not to let Dana come back with one of her “orphan” trees. Hud hadn’t been able to come along with them. He was working on a burglary case involving a condo break-in and a possible missing person.
“She’ll find a tree that she knows no one will ever cut because it’s so pitiful and she’ll want to give it a Christmas,” Hud warned him. “Don’t let her. You should see some of the trees that woman has brought home.”
Tag told himself he would be happy with whatever tree they found as long as it was evergreen. But he knew he was looking for something special. He hadn’t had a real Christmas tree in years. Along with getting one for Dana’s living room, he planned to pick up a small one for his father’s cabin. He knew Harlan probably didn’t decorate for Christmas, but he’d have to put up with it this year since his son was determined to spend Christmas with him.
Dana had said she would lend them some ornaments and the kids would make some, as well. Tag couldn’t wait, he thought, as he looked around for a large pretty tree for Dana and a smaller version for him and his father.
He hadn’t gone far down the logging road when he picked up a snowmobile track coming in from what appeared to be another old logging road. Dana had told him that they often had trouble in the winter with snowmobilers on the property because of the catacomb of logging roads that ran for miles.
He remembered hearing one late last night, now that he thought about it. A lot of people got around that way in the wintertime. For all he knew, his father had been out and about after the bar closed. To visit his girlfriend? The thought made him smile.
“I found a tree!” Dana called from somewhere below him on the mountain. He couldn’t see her through the thick, snow-filled pines.
“An