Keeping Christmas. B.J. Daniels
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dated her older sister.” It surprised him the regret he heard in his voice. Not that he hadn’t married Rebecca. Just that things had ended so badly.
“First love?”
“I guess it was. She went away to college back east and met someone…” Someone more appropriate. “I hear she has three kids now and her husband is a hotshot attorney in Houston.”
Lydia put a hand on his shoulder. “Honey, something tells me you are better off without her.”
Chance laughed. “I have no doubt about that.”
“Want the rest of that ham wrapped up for Beauregard?” she asked as she cleared his table.
“Please.” He put everything back in the manila envelope, including Dixie’s picture, finished his coffee and took the envelope and foil-wrapped ham out to the pickup.
Beauregard devoured the ham in one bite and waited for more as Chance started the pickup. “Sorry, bud, that’s it until dinner.”
Taking out the map of Montana, he stared at the jagged line he’d drawn on it last night as he’d traced Dixie Bonner’s route.
Dixie hadn’t come to him, so that meant he’d have to go to her. If he was right, there was a definite pattern to her movements. She was headed his way. All he could figure was that she didn’t want anyone to know it.
Chance found that pretty humorous since someone obviously knew and had gone to some trouble to break into his office to take his answering machine tape. He wondered what message she’d left and why it was important to whoever was apparently looking for her.
He planned to ask her when he saw her.
There was also the remote possibility that she really had been kidnapped, that the kidnapper had foolishly left eight messages on his machine. But that brought up the question of why call him? Also, what kidnapper would leave eight messages on his machine?
He figured no matter what was going on, Dixie wouldn’t have left her location or where she was headed on his answering machine. And neither would her kidnappers.
Chance swore and headed down the lake and eventually into town, figuring she should be here today if she continued her traveling pattern. The day was brilliant, the sky a deep blue, the mountains glistening white, the sun blinding overhead.
He glanced in his rearview mirror and saw a light-colored panel van pull out behind him.
“YOU WERE THINKING about Chance Walker?” Pookie cried, then ducked her head as several of the nearby diners frowned over at her. “Why?” she asked in a hushed whisper. “It wasn’t like you were ever serious about him. Marrying him would have been social suicide.”
Rebecca nodded. All true. She hadn’t even considered marrying Chance. But what she hadn’t told Pookie was that she’d thought he would stay around Houston. She would have had an affair with him in a heartbeat.
She’d never dreamed Chance would go to Montana to work for the summer and not return to Texas. One of the secrets she’d never told Pookie was about the breakup. Pookie had always assumed that Rebecca had broken it off with Chance because she’d met Oliver and he was the better catch hands down.
What Pookie didn’t know and never would was that Chance had been the one to break off their relationship. He’d figured out that she’d never planned to marry him. Oliver knew she’d been dumped and had never let her forget it. The bastard.
So even if Chance had stayed around Houston, she doubted he would have been up for an affair. Just the thought made her angry and upset.
And now her sister was in Montana.
With Chance?
The thought killed her appetite.
“Why are you even thinking about Chance at this late date?” Pookie demanded quietly.
“I wasn’t. It’s just that I think Daddy is in Montana and it made me think of Chance.” At least she assumed that was the “son of a bitch” Oliver had been referring to, and Oliver had said something about Dixie.
Pookie started to say something, then stopped as she looked past Rebecca and smiled. “Well, he’s not in Montana anymore,” she said under her breath as Rebecca heard someone approach the table from behind her.
IN HIS REARVIEW mirror Chance watched the van coming up the road behind him. The two-lane highway ran along the lake, over the dam, then headed south to Townsend where his office was located. This time of year, the road got little traffic with most of the places on the lake closed up for the winter.
Chance slowed to give the driver of the van the opportunity to pass. The van slowed, as well, staying right with him, and confirming his suspicions.
As the road began to snake around the north end of the lake, Chance sped up. The van sped up, too, the driver doing his best to stay with him, even taking some dangerous curves too fast, leaving little doubt that the driver was determined not to lose him.
Fortunately this morning there was no other traffic on the road. As Chance came around a corner with a nice wide deep ditch on each side, he braked, coming to a stop, blocking both lanes.
The van came flying around the corner. The driver hit his brakes but clearly realized there was no way he could stop on the snow-packed road and aimed the van for the ditch.
Chance pulled his pickup over to the side of the road and, taking the shotgun from the rack behind the pickup seat, jumped out to bound down into the snowy ditch to jerk open the driver’s side door.
He shoved the shotgun in the man’s face. “Why the hell are you following me?”
“Easy,” the man cried, throwing his hands up. “I’m a private eye. Just like you.”
Chance swore at the man’s thick Texas drawl. “Who the hell are you?”
“Let me reach into my jacket…”
“No way.” Chance reached in and withdrew the man’s wallet—and a 9 mm pistol. He chucked the pistol over the top of the van where it disappeared in the deep snow. The wallet he flipped open to the man’s ID. J. B. Jamison, Private Investigator, Houston Texas.
“Who hired you?” Chance asked as he tossed the wallet into the back of the empty van. Not that he didn’t already know the answer.
“Bonner. Beauregard Bonner.”
“What the hell did he hire you to do?” Chance demanded. “Follow me?”
“Find his daughter and take her back to Texas.”
Chance was still pointing the shotgun at the man. “And that has what to do with me?”
“Bonner told us she might contact you.”
So that was it. Beauregard was covering his bets. Setting Chance up because he thought Dixie would come to him. But lacking faith that Chance could get Dixie back to Texas. Now why was that?
“So you broke into my office and stole my answering machine tape,” Chance accused.
The man looked genuinely surprised. “No. I was just tailing you, hoping you’d lead me to Ms. Bonner. That’s all.”
“Roll up your pant legs,” Chance ordered. “Whoever broke into my office scraped his leg on my desk.”
Jamison didn’t look happy about it, but he pulled up one pant leg, then the other. No sign he’d been the one to get hung up on the desk.
“Get out.”
Jamison looked out at the deep snow, then at Chance and the shotgun. “I didn’t break into your office. There is no reason to—”
“Out.” Chance stepped back so the Texas P.I. could get out of the van. The man stepped gingerly into the deep snow. He wore loafers and slacks, although he’d been