Keeping Christmas

He stared at the young woman in the photo. Pixielike, her hair was cropped short and dyed a glaring hot pink. At the center of thick black eyeliner were two twinkling blue eyes that radiated a mischief he remembered only too well. Dixie had always been cute. The cheekbones were high and maybe her best feature. Her lips were full and turned up in a devilish grin. A hellion. Just as her father had described her.

Chance chuckled to himself thinking Dixie probably was Beauregard Bonner’s comeuppance. Maybe there was justice on earth after all.

“REBECCA? Rebecca.”

Rebecca Bonner blinked.

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said,” Pookie snapped irritably. They were having lunch at Rebecca’s favorite restaurant. She’d hoped that lunch with her friend would improve her mood. So far it had been having the opposite effect.

“What is going on with you today?” Pookie demanded.

Rebecca shook her head, realizing this had been a mistake. She should have gone shopping instead, bought something outrageously expensive and skipped lunch. “I think I might be coming down with something.”

Pookie did an eye-roll. “What is really bothering you? Is it the kids?”

It wasn’t the kids. Not that Rebecca had really wanted children in the first place. It was just something you did. Like the big house, the expensive car, the clothes and the husband.

She’d had a nanny from even before she brought Linsey home from the hospital. She gave the kids little thought except when they were screaming like this morning and she had so much on her mind.

“It’s not the kids.”

Pookie lifted one perfectly shaped brow. “What’s the bastard done now?”

“It’s not Oliver, either.” She sipped her strawberry daiquiri.

“Of course it is.”

“Have you heard something?” Rebecca asked, her heart starting to pound. Pookie often knew things almost before they happened. That was one reason Rebecca had called her for lunch today. If there was a rumor going around, Rebecca wanted to be the first to hear about it and make sure it got nipped in the bud quickly.

“I haven’t heard a thing.” Pookie held up three fingers. As if she was ever a Girl Scout. “And I can’t believe I wouldn’t have heard.”

Rebecca was counting on that. “You’d tell me at once if you did.”

“Of course.” Pookie looked worried. “Why, have you heard something about Adam?” Adam was her friend’s husband. A balding, pot-bellied, thirtysomething attorney at a top agency in the city who kept Pookie in a style even better than she’d been accustomed to—which said a lot given that Pookie was born to Houston society.

“Come on, what’s going on with you?” Pookie asked, leaning toward her, grinning. “Give. Who is he?”

Rebecca shook her head and tried to wave away Pookie’s protests. Pookie would be surprised if Rebecca told her that she hadn’t been with a man other than her husband in months. Her friend went through a lot of men and thought everyone else did, too.

“Come on. You and I have never kept secrets.”

Rebecca thought how naive Pookie was. Everyone kept secrets. Even from their best friends if they were smart.

“I told you about my pilates instructor.” Pookie pretended to pout.

“There isn’t anyone,” she said, feeling even worse. Not even Oliver. Except for that one night. He’d acted so strangely that night. She brushed the memory away, hating to remember his attempts at lovemaking. They’d never made love that she could recall. Intimacy at their house was more like a corporate takeover.

“Oliver’s been acting…strange,” Rebecca confided, seeing no harm in the obvious.

Pookie lifted a brow as if to ask how she could tell. “Well, if it isn’t another woman…”

“He’s involved in some kind of deal at work. I’m sure that’s all it is. He has this thing about winning.” That, she knew, was his form of orgasmic release. He had never seemed that interested in sex. Or maybe it was just her he wasn’t interested in.

Pookie narrowed her eyes, studying her. “There isn’t a man? Come on, I saw that look in your eye.”

Rebecca groaned, knowing her friend would keep after her until she gave her something. “I was thinking about Chance Walker,” she said, and braced herself for her friend’s reaction.

WHEN HIS FOOD arrived—his usual—a slab of bone-in ham, two eggs over easy, hash browns and whole-wheat toast with blackberry jam, Chance placed the picture next to his plate, studying it periodically as he ate.

If he was right and the photograph was taken eleven years ago, who knew how much Dixie Bonner had changed. She was probably more outrageous than ever.

He shook his head as he thought about the kid he’d known. Would he even recognize her now?

“Girlfriend?” the waitress asked, moving for a better look at the photo.

“Not hardly. Actually, it’s a case I’m working on. Any chance you’ve seen her? She’d be eleven years older than when this was taken.”

Lydia, an older, stocky woman, shook her head. “Sorry. And believe me I would have remembered the hair if it was still that color.”

“I have a feeling this one has tried it all,” he said, looking at Dixie’s photo.

“You sound like you know her.”

“Used to, when she was twelve,” he said with an amused shake of his head. “She was hell on wheels back then. I just assumed she would grow up and be more like her sister.”

Lydia raised a brow.

“I 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.