Keeping Christmas

by B. J Daniels

  “YOU BASTARD!” Blinded by her anger at what he’d done to her mother and Rebecca, Dixie grabbed up the poker from the fireplace and came at Mason, hitting him across one arm and shoulder before he could get the gun from his pocket.

  He swore as he wrenched the poker from her hands and shoved the barrel end of the gun in her face. “Try me,” he snapped, his hand shaking with anger. “You think I won’t pull the trigger? You’re dead wrong.”

  “Oh, I know too well what you’re capable of,” Dixie snapped. “You hired two men to kill me and I know you killed my mother to keep her from exposing you.” She wanted to fly at him again but knew he would shoot her.

  “You’re mistaken, Dixie. I didn’t hire anyone to kill you. I prefer to take care of problems myself. I thought you knew that about me.”

  She saw pain in his eyes and desperation. He didn’t want to kill her. She felt confused. Why had he come here if not to keep her from exposing him? Could she be wrong about him being a killer? Then how did she explain the gun he held on her?

  “You were like family,” she snapped.

  He laughed. “Dixie, I am family. Haven’t you figured it out yet? My father was Earle Bonner. Just because the son of a bitch denied me the same way he did Carl…”

  She heard the bitterness in his voice. The jealousy she’d seen between him and Carl. It all made sense now. “That’s why you pretended to be Beauregard Bonner in Idaho.”

  “Don’t read more into this than is there. I just used his name,” Mason said. “I love your father like the brother he is.”

  She smirked at that. “Is that why you killed the woman he loved, my mother?”

  “Your mother died in a car accident. I would imagine she couldn’t face your father with the truth and found driving into the lake easier.”

  “That’s a lie. She wouldn’t have killed herself, not with two babies at home and a husband she loved,” Dixie snapped. “Were you jealous because she fell in love with my father? Or was it only ever about money?”

  “I made your father what he is today,” Mason said. “I was the one who talked him into doing the test well on the farm. He wouldn’t be anything without me.”

  “And you got rich right along with him.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not the same. Beau’s never understood that taking handouts from him isn’t the same as being the man behind the fortune. It makes a man bitter.”

  “Especially if he’s a thankless bastard,” she said.

  “Dixie, Dixie, why couldn’t you have just left things alone?” Mason said in his conciliatory tone.

  She heard a sound outside the cabin.

  Unfortunately, Mason heard it, as well. He stepped to her, grabbing her arm as he shoved the gun into her side, shielding himself behind her as she heard the dog bark at the cabin door.

  Chance. Her heart dropped. She opened her mouth to call to him, to warn him he was about to walk into an ambush. Mason clamped his hand over her mouth, the gun barrel now at her temple as he whispered, “Make a sound and the last thing your boyfriend will see is your brains blown all over his cabin.”

  CHANCE SAW Beauregard sniffing at two sets of tracks on the deck. He motioned for Rebecca to hang back as he flung open the cabin door. Beauregard bounded in. Chance ducked and rolled, coming up behind the couch.

  In that split second, as the door swung in, he’d taken in the scene in front of the fire. His heart had dropped like a stone as he saw Dixie, the gun to her head, and Mason Roberts with his hand over her mouth. Her blue eyes were wide with fear and fury.

  He came up from behind the couch just as Mason started to swing the barrel of the gun toward the dog. Dixie saw it, too, and made her move, just as Chance had known she would. She wasn’t going to let Mason shoot the dog—or him. Chance could never have loved her more than at that moment.

  As he leaped over the couch, Dixie elbowed Mason in the ribs and grabbed the wrist holding the gun. The shot went wild. The gun fell to the floor, skittering away as Chance tackled Mason and took him down, Dixie falling with them onto the floor in front of the fireplace.

  It all happened in an instant. Chance got a choke hold on Mason, who seemed to instantly drain of fight. Chance had an age advantage, as well as self-defense training. But still it surprised him that Mason didn’t seem to have the fight of a killer.

  Dixie scrambled to her feet to find the gun Mason had dropped. Chance had the man down, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

  At the sound of a low growl, Dixie turned to look back at Chance. He’d completely neutralized Mason, who sat against the wall breathing hard, head down, looking beaten.

  Chance reached to jerk Mason to his feet, turning as Dixie did to see what Beauregard was growling about.

  Dixie blinked in astonishment. “Rebecca?”

  She stood just inside the front door of the cabin. In her hand was Mason’s gun, the one Dixie had been looking for.

  “I thought I told you to call off your dog?” Rebecca said as she leveled the gun at him.

  “Beauregard,” Chance ordered. “Down.”

  The dog stopped growling, but like everyone else in the room kept his gaze on Rebecca.

  “What are you doing here?” Dixie asked.

  “Didn’t Chance tell you? I came to see you, little sister.”

  Dixie knew that sarcastic tone too well. “How long have you known?”

  Rebecca smiled. “I overheard Mother and Mason arguing. What was I?” she asked Mason. “Five? I heard you threaten to kill her if she told my daddy. I heard everything you said, including how you would take me far away so she would never see me again.”

  Mason was looking at her, a strange expression on his face.

  “You said you would kill me, you didn’t care about the little snotty-nosed brat, isn’t that what you said?” Rebecca continued, the gun held steady in her hand, her voice calm, no emotion in her face.

  “Rebecca, put the gun away and we can talk about this,” Chance said quietly. “You don’t want to do anything you’ll regret.”

  She laughed. “Believe me, I’m not going to regret it. When I heard you were in Montana, I knew what you were doing,” she said to Dixie. “All those years of keeping the secret just to have you planning to tell the whole world about me and my mother and my…” Her gaze shifted to Mason. “My father. You would love to destroy me, wouldn’t you?”

  “Rebecca, that’s not true. I wouldn’t—”

  “Shut up!” She swung the gun so it was pointed at Dixie’s face. “Daddy’s little girl. You think I didn’t know he loved you best? He knew I was some bastard’s daughter. But you—” Her voice broke. “It doesn’t matter. I always knew who I really was. What I really was. My own father hated me.”

  Mason made a sound of denial, but it was cut off by the boom of a shot from the pistol in Rebecca’s hands. Wood splintered just over Mason’s head.

  Dixie felt Chance step up behind her, his hands on her waist. She knew what he planned to do, felt it in his touch.

  “Rebecca,” Chance said. “Give me the gun. You’re not a killer.”

  She laughed. “Wrong, Chance. Who do you think hired the men to stop my sister? I’m my daddy’s daughter.” Her gaze moved to Mason. “My real daddy’s daughter.”

  As Chance shoved Dixie aside and launched himself at Rebecca, she swung the barrel of the gun. Dixie heard the thunder of the shot as she fell, heard the sound Mason made as the bullet found its mark.

  Rebecca got off only one more shot before Chance reached her.

  Dixie heard his cry of pain and scrambled to her feet in time to see her half sister hit the floor, the gun still in her hand.

  Chance swung around, a look of horror on his face as he dragged Dixie into his arms, shielding her from the sight of her sister dead on the floor from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

  Epilogue

  That spring was the longest of Chance’s life. It had snowed every day for months after Dixie had taken the jet back to
Texas to be with her father.

  Chance had wanted to go, but Dixie said she needed some time alone and that her father needed her. For a while, Chance called her every day, then once a week, then once a month. He knew Dixie and Beau needed to heal and that they both blamed themselves.

  Beau had managed to keep the real story out of the press. As far as the public knew, the holidays had been a tragic time for the Bonner family. A burglar had broken into the Lancaster home and killed Oliver Lancaster, husband of Rebecca Bonner Lancaster, while she was away on Christmas vacation with her sister Dixie in Montana.

  While there, she was tragically killed along with Beauregard Bonner’s closest friend and associate, Mason Roberts.

  Only Chance knew that Beau had found an envelope with his name on it on his desk weeks later when he returned to his office. It was from Mason. A confession letter filled with painful apology and regret. In the letter, Mason told Beau he was taking the jet to Montana to try to protect Dixie from Rebecca. Mason feared that Rebecca was behind Dixie’s abduction, faked kidnapping, and ultimately planned to have her killed.

  Carl paid off Oliver’s gambling debts, keeping that part quiet from the press, and spent more time with Beau at the house. They talked a lot about Sarah.

  Dixie had quit her job and taken Rebecca’s and Oliver’s three children and moved into her father’s huge empty house. Beau had retired, selling Bonner Unlimited, and setting up trust funds for the kids. He’d realized, according to Dixie, that he had no need to make more money.

  Instead he wanted to spend more time with his family. Dixie sent pictures of the kids with grandpa.

  More times than he could count, Chance started a letter to Dixie, asking her to bring the children and come be his wife. But he always ended up tossing the half-written letters in the fire.

  He’d thought about going to Texas and begging her to come back with him. But he couldn’t ask her to leave Texas, her family and the only home the kids had known, as much as she wanted to.

  One bright warm day in June, Chance took his fishing pole down to the lake, Beauregard bounding along beside him as they climbed into the boat and motored out to a favorite spot. He’d caught a few nice trout when he heard a commotion on the beach and looked back toward his cabin.

  Over the winter, he’d remodeled it, adding a second floor to give himself something to do, as well as to put the memory of what had happened there far from his mind.

  Now he stared toward the beach, his heart in his throat. When he’d built onto the cabin, he’d done it with the dream that maybe he could get Dixie and the kids to come up next Christmas. They could have a real Christmas with a larger tree. He’d even buy some decorations.

  He knew that’s all it was, a dream. He never thought he’d see Dixie Bonner in Montana again, let alone standing on his doorstep.

  But as he started the motor on the boat and turned the bow toward shore, he could have sworn that was her on the beach. There were three kids playing in the water along the edge of the lake.

  Beauregard barked excitedly as Chance neared the shore. He cut the engine, staring at the woman standing near his boathouse. She had her eyes shaded against the sun, but even from a distance he could see that she was smiling. Her long legs were tanned, that not-so-scrawny behind was clad in white shorts, and he could make out a peach tank top beneath that wild mane of dark curly hair that fell past her shoulders.

  She hesitated only a moment, then charged toward him, splashing into the water. Beauregard plunged in, swimming to her, making a yelping sound, excited at the sight of her.

  Chance laughed, took off his shirt and dove in, swimming toward her as the boat floated lazily toward shore.

  He caught her in chest-high water, pulling her into his arms. She was laughing and crying, kissing him, then pulling back to look into his eyes as if he was the best thing she’d ever seen.

  “I got your letter,” she said.

  “My letter?”

  “The one asking me to marry you, silly.” She was grinning at him, mischief in her eyes.

  “But I never—”

  She kissed him cutting off the rest of his words. As she pulled back, she said, “But you know I would never accept a proposal unless it was in person.”

  “I recall.” He looked into those amazing blue eyes. “Have you always known me so well?”

  She grinned. “Since I was twelve and I fell madly in love with you. It was just a matter of time before you asked me to marry you. That is why you added on to the cabin, isn’t it?”

  He laughed. “You know it.” He glanced toward the edge of the lake where Rebecca’s three children stood as if waiting. They looked anxious, almost afraid of what was going to happen next. “Do they know?”

  Dixie nodded. “They’re just waiting for you to make it official so they can go swimming in the lake at their new home. Oh, I should mention that my father and uncle Carl plan to buy a place across the lake. They want to be close to the kids. Including the ones you and I are going to have. Still glad you sent me that letter?”

  He laughed. “Marry me, Dixie Bonner, and I promise to love you and those three kids and any others we might have until death do us part.”

  “Just like in the letter you meant to write me,” she said with a grin.

  “Just like in all the letters I did write you but just didn’t mail,” he said as he brushed her wet hair back from her face, wondering how he could be so blessed. “Well?”

  She grinned. “All I can say is…it’s about time, Chance Walker.” She kissed him, then let out a whoop. On the beach the kids started clapping and cheering. Then they were all in the water, the sun beating down on them, the sky bluer than blue on one of those amazing Montana summer days.

  He said a prayer for his daughter and gathered his family around him, already thinking of Christmas and the homemade tinfoil silver star he’d saved to put on top of the tree.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6181-9

  KEEPING CHRISTMAS

  Copyright © 2006 by Barbara Heinlein

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  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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  †McCalls’ Montana

  **Montana Mystique