Keeping Christmas

Daddy was looking at her, studying her, his eyes glazed from the alcohol, but he wasn’t drunk. Nor was he stupid. “You were a fool not to marry him.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He picked up the fresh drink the waiter left on the table and stared down into it as if it were more fascinating than her by far.

“I beg your pardon?” she said again, leaning toward him over the table, working to keep her voice down. After all, she was part of this family and no stranger to loud, ugly scenes. Just not in public.

“You, of all people, know why I married Oliver,” she said, her voice low and crackling with fury. “To give this family respectability because even with all your money, Daddy, you couldn’t buy it, could you?”

He didn’t look at her, but what she saw on his face shocked her. Shame.

She felt sick. He’d known what she’d done and why. He’d never believed that she married Oliver for love. He’d known that she had sacrificed her own happiness for the family and he hadn’t even tried to stop her.

She rose from the table, picking up her purse, glaring down at him. “As I said, I have things to do.” She turned on her heel.

Just as he hadn’t stopped her from marrying Oliver, he didn’t stop her from leaving the restaurant.

CHANCE DROVE DOWN the road to where a wide spot had been plowed at the edge of the lake and pulled over. He tried to calm down before he called Bonner again.

“Hello?” Bonner sounded asleep. Or half-drunk. Because of the hour and the bar sounds in the background, Chance surmised it was the latter.

“What the hell are you trying to pull?” He’d planned to be calm, not to tell Bonner what he thought of him. But just the sound of the oilman’s voice set Chance off.

“Chance?”

“I just met the private eye you hired from Texas. J. B. Jamison. Want to tell me what the hell that was about?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“A Texas private investigator named J. B. Jamison.”

“He said I hired him? Well, he’s mistaken. You’re the only private investigator I hired.”

Chance swore. “Mistaken? How could he mistake that?”

“Maybe someone hired him using my name, but it wasn’t me,” Bonner snapped. “I give you my word.”

For what that was worth. It was all he could do not to tell Bonner what he thought of that. Instead, Chance thought of his own daughter.

“Someone broke into my office last night,” Chance said. “From what I can tell, it wasn’t Jamison. That means there is someone else looking for Dixie.”

“Well, I didn’t hire them,” Bonner said, sounding angry. “How many times do I have to say it?”

Chance shook his head, fighting to rein in his temper. If not Jamison, then who had broken into the office and taken the answering machine tape?

“Let’s be clear on this,” Chance said. “I’ll find your daughter. That’s what you’re paying me to do. I’ll even give her a ride to the airport so she can return to Houston, if that’s what she wants. But I won’t let anyone use the kinds of methods Jamison does and hog-tie her and haul her across state lines all the way back to Texas. That’s kidnapping and I won’t be a part of it no matter what’s going on between you and Dixie.”