“Do you know how to shoot a gun?” he asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” he added quickly as he pulled the gun from behind him and handed it to her through the window. “It’s ready to go. All you have to do is pull the trigger. Aim for the largest part of a person.” He saw her cringe. “You can do this.”

She nodded, a determined look settling on her features.

He gave her a smile, then pulled off his glove and reached through the broken window to touch her face with his fingertips. She closed her eyes, leaning into his warm palm. Tears beaded her lashes when he pulled his hand away.

Christmas at

Cardwell Ranch

B.J. Daniels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling author B.J. DANIELS wrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of thirty-seven published short stories. That first book, Odd Man Out, received a four-and-a-half-star review from RT Book Reviews and went on to be nominated for Best Intrigue that year. Since then, she has won numerous awards, including a career achievement award for romantic suspense and many nominations and awards for best book.

Daniels lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and two springer spaniels, Spot and Jem. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards, camps, boats and plays tennis. Daniels is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, Kiss of Death and Romance Writers of America.

To contact her, write to B.J. Daniels, PO Box 1173, Malta, MT 59538, USA, or email her at bjdaniels@mtintouch.net. Check out her website, www.bjdaniels.com.

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

In memory of Rita Ness, who will always be

remembered as the bright ray of sunshine she was.

She is dearly missed.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter One

Huge snowflakes drifted down out of a midnight-blue winter sky. Tanner “Tag” Cardwell stopped to turn his face up to the falling snow. It had been so long since he’d been anywhere that it snowed like this.

Christmas lights twinkled in all the windows of the businesses of Big Sky’s Meadow Village, and he could hear “White Christmas” playing in one of the ski shops.

But it was a different kind of music that called to him tonight as he walked through the snow to the Canyon Bar.

Shoving open the door, he felt a wave of warmth hit him, along with the smell of beer and the familiar sound of country music.

He smiled as the band broke into an old country-and-western song, one he’d learned at his father’s knee. Tag let the door close behind him on the winter night and shook snow from his new ski jacket as he looked around. He’d had to buy the coat because for the past twenty-one years, he’d been living down South.

Friday night just days from Christmas in Big Sky, Montana, the bar was packed with a mix of locals, skiers, snowmobilers and cowboys. There’d be a fight for sure before the night was over. He planned to be long gone before then, though.

His gaze returned to the raised platform where the band, Canyon Cowboys, was playing. He played a little guitar himself, but he’d never been as good as his father, he thought as he watched Harlan Cardwell pick and strum to the music. His uncle, Angus Cardwell, was no slouch, either.

Tag had always loved listening to them play together when he was a kid. Music was in their blood. That and bars. As a kid, he’d fallen asleep many weekend nights in a bar in this canyon listening to his father play guitar. It was one of the reasons his mother had gathered up her five sons, divorced Harlan and taken her brood off to Texas to be raised in the Lone Star State.

Tag and his brothers had been angry with their dad for not fighting for them. As they’d gotten older, they’d realized their mother had done them a favor. Harlan knew nothing about raising kids. He was an easygoing cowboy who only came alive when you handed him a guitar—or a beer.

Still, as Tag watched his father launch into another song, he realized how much he’d missed him—and Montana. Had Harlan missed him, as well? Doubtful, Tag thought, remembering the reception he’d gotten when he’d knocked at his father’s cabin door this morning.

“Tag?”

“Surprise.”

“What are you doing here?” his father had asked, moving a little to block his view of the interior of the cabin.

“It’s Christmas. I wanted to spend it with you.”

Harlan couldn’t have looked any more shocked by that—or upset.

Tag realized that surprising his father had been a mistake. “If this is a bad time...”

His father quickly shook his head, still blocking the door, though. “No, it’s just that...well, you know, the cabin is a mess. If you give me a little while...”

Tag peered past him and lowered his voice. “If you have someone staying here—”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that.”

But behind his father, Tag had spotted a leather jacket, female size, on the arm of the couch. “No problem. I thought I’d go see my cousin Dana. I’ll come back later. Actually, if you want, I could get a motel—”

“No. Stay here. Bring your stuff back later. I’ll have the spare room made up for you. Your uncle and I are playing tonight at the Canyon.”

“Great. I’ll stop by. I haven’t heard you play in a long time. It’ll be nice.”

Tag had left, but he was still curious about his father’s female visitor. He knew nothing about his father’s life. Harlan could have a girlfriend. It wasn’t that unusual for a good-looking man in his fifties.

Tag tried not to let Harlan’s reaction to him showing up unexpectedly bother him. Determined to enjoy the holiday here, he had made plans tomorrow to go Christmas tree hunting with his Montana cousin Dana Cardwell. He’d missed his cousins and had fond memories of winter in Montana, sledding, skiing, ice-skating, starting snowball fights and cutting their own Christmas trees. He looked forward to seeing his cousins Jordan and Stacy, as well. Clay was still in California helping make movies last he’d heard, but Dana had said he was flying in Christmas Eve.

Tag planned to do all the things he had done as a boy this Christmas. Not that he could ever bring back those family holidays he remembered. For starters, his four brothers were all still in Texas. The five of them had started a barbecue joint, which had grown into a chain called Texas Boys Barbecue.

He would miss his brothers and mother this Christmas, but he was glad to have this time with his cousins and his dad. As the band wound up one song and quickly broke into another, he finished his beer. He’d see his father back at the cabin. Earlier, he’d returned to find the woman’s leather jacket he’d seen on the couch long gone.

Harlan had been getting ready for his gig tonight, so they hadn’t had much time to visit. But the spare room had been made up, so Tag had settled in. He hoped to spend some time with his father, though. Maybe tomorrow after he came back from Christmas tree hunting.

As he started to turn to leave, a blonde smelling of alcohol stumbled into him. Tag caught her as she clung to his ski jacket for support. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Not one of the skiers or snowmobilers who were duded out in the latest high-tech, cold-weather gear.

“Sorry,” she said, slurring her speech.

“Are you all right?” he asked as she clung to his jacket for a moment before gathering her feet under her.

“Fine.” She didn’t look fine at all. Clearly, she’d had way too much to drink. “You look like him.”

Tag laughed. Clearly, the woman also didn’t know what she was saying.

She lurched away from him and out the back door.

He couldn’t believe with it snowing so hard that she’d gone outside without a coat. Hesitating only a moment, he went out after her. He was afraid she might be planning to drive herself home. Or that she had been hurrying outside because she was going to be sick. He didn’t want her passing out in a snowdrift and dying of hypothermia.

Montana was nothing like where he lived in Texas. Winter in Montana could be dangerous. With this winter storm, the temperatures had dropped. There were already a couple of feet of snow out the back door of the bar before this latest snowfall. He could see that a good six inches of new snow had fallen since he’d arrived in town.

He spotted the woman’s tracks in the snow just outside the door. As he stepped out to look for her, he saw her through the falling snow. A man wearing a cowboy hat was helping her into his pickup. She appeared to be arguing with him as he poured her into the passenger seat and slammed the door. The man glanced in Tag’s direction for a moment before he climbed behind the wheel and the two drove off.

“Where did she go?”

He turned to find a slim brunette behind him. “Where did who go?”

“Mia.” At his blank expression, she added, “The blonde woman wearing a T-shirt like the one I have on.”

He glanced at her T-shirt and doubted any woman could wear it quite the way this one did. The letters THE CANYON were printed across her full breasts with the word bar in smaller print beneath it. He realized belatedly that the woman who’d bumped into him had been wearing the same T-shirt—like the other servers here in the bar.

“I did see her,” he said. “She stumbled into me, then went rushing out this door.”

“Unbelievable,” the brunette said with a shake of her head. Her hair was chin length, thick and dark. It framed a face that could only be described as adorable. “She didn’t finish her shift again tonight.”

“She wasn’t in any shape to continue her shift,” he said. “She could barely stand up she was so drunk.”

For the first time, the brunette met his gaze. “Mia might have had one drink because a customer insisted, but there is no way she was drunk. I saw her ten minutes ago and she was fine.”

He shrugged. “I saw her two minutes ago and she was falling-down drunk. She didn’t even bother with her coat.”

“And you let her leave like that?”

“Apparently her boyfriend or husband was waiting for her. The cowboy poured her into the passenger seat of his pickup and they left.”

“She doesn’t have a boyfriend or a husband.”

“Well, she left with some man wearing a Western hat. That’s all I can tell you.” He remembered that the blonde had been arguing with the man and felt a sliver of unease embed itself under his skin. Still, he told himself, he’d had the distinct feeling that she’d known the man. Nor had the cowboy acted odd when he’d looked in Tag’s direction before leaving.

“Lily!” the male bartender called. The brunette gave another disgusted shake of her head, this one directed at Tag, before she took off back into the bar.

He watched her, enjoying the angry swing of her hips. Then he headed for his father’s cabin, tired after flying all the way from Texas today. But he couldn’t help thinking of the brunette and smiling to himself. He’d always been a sucker for a woman with an attitude.

* * *

LILY MCCABE CLOSED the front door of the Canyon Bar behind the last customer, locked it and leaned against the solid wood for a moment. What a night.

“Nice job,” Ace said as he began cleaning behind the bar. “Where the devil did Mia take off to?”

Lily shook her head. It was the second night in a row that Mia had disappeared. What made it odd was that she’d been so reliable for the three weeks she’d been employed at the Canyon. It was hard to get good help. Mia Duncan was one of the good ones.

“It’s weird,” Lily said as she grabbed a tray to clear off the tables. In the far back, the other two servers were already at work doing the same thing. “The man who saw her take off out the back door? He claimed she was drunk.”

James “Ace” McCabe stopped what he was doing to stare at her. “Mia, drunk?”

Lily shrugged as she thought of the dark-haired cowboy with the Texas accent. Men like him were too good-looking to start with. Add a Southern drawl... “That’s what he said. I believe his exact words were ‘falling-down drunk,’” she mimicked in his Texas accent. “Doesn’t sound like Mia, does it? Plus, I talked to her not ten minutes before. She was fine. He must have been mistaken.”

Admittedly, she knew Mia hardly at all. The young woman wasn’t from Big Sky. But then most people in the Gallatin Canyon right now weren’t locals. Ski season brought in people from all over the world. Mia had shown up one day looking for a job. One of the servers had just quit and another had broken her leg skiing, so James had hired Mia on the spot. That was over three weeks ago. Mia had been great. Until last night when she’d left before her shift was over—and again tonight.

“Well, tonight was a real zoo,” Reggie Olson said as she brought in a tray full of dirty glasses from a table in the back. “The closer it gets to the holidays, the crazier it gets.”

Lily couldn’t have agreed more. She couldn’t wait for Christmas and New Year’s to be over so she could get back to her real life.

“Did Mia say anything to either of you?” she asked.

Reggie shook her head.

Teresa Evans didn’t seem to hear.

“Teresa,” Lily called to the back of the bar. “Did Mia say anything to you tonight before she left?”

Teresa glanced up in surprise at the sound of her name, her mind clearly elsewhere. “Sorry?”

“Someone’s tired,” Ace said with a laugh.

“More likely she’s thinking about her boyfriend waiting for her outside in his pickup,” Reggie joked.

Teresa looked flustered. “I guess I am tired,” she said. “Mia?” She shook her head. “She didn’t say anything to me.”

That, too, was odd since Teresa was as close to a friend as Mia had made in the weeks she’d worked at the bar. Lily noticed how distracted the server was and wanted to ask her if everything was all right. But her brother was their boss, not she. His approach during her short-term employment here was not to get involved in his employees’ dramas. Probably wise since once the holiday was over, she would be going back to what she considered her “real” life.

“Maybe you should give Mia a call,” Lily suggested.

Her brother gave her one of his patient smiles, looked up Mia’s number and dialed it. “She’s not home,” he said after he listened for a few moments. “And I don’t have a cell phone number for her.”

“If she left with some cowboy, she must have a boyfriend we haven’t heard about,” Reggie said. “He’s probably the reason she was drinking, too,” she added with a laugh. “Men. Can’t live with them. Can’t shoot them.”

Ace laughed. “Reggie’s right. Go ahead and go on home, sis,” he said when she brought up a tray of dirty glasses. “The three of us can finish up here. And thanks again for helping out.”

She’d agreed to help her brother over Christmas and New Year’s, and had done so for the past few. Since it was just the two of them, their parents gone, it was as close as they got to a family holiday together. The bar was her brother’s only source of income, and with this being his busiest time of the year, he had to have all the help he could get.

Ace had learned a long time ago that if he didn’t work his own place, he lost money. With Lily helping, he didn’t have to hire another server. She didn’t need the money since her “day” job paid very well and working at the Canyon gave her a chance to spend time with the brother she adored.

“I am going to call it a night,” Lily said, dumping her tips into the communal tip jar at the bar. Her Big Sky home was a house she’d purchased back up the mountain tucked in the pines about five miles from the bar—and civilization. The house had been an investment. Not that she could have stayed with her brother since he lived in the very small apartment over the bar. Christmas would be spent at her house, as it was every year.

When she’d bought the house, she’d thought Ace would move in since her real home and work was forty miles away in Bozeman. But her brother had only laughed and said he was much happier living over the bar in the apartment.

Lily loved the house because of its isolation at the end of a road with no close neighbors—the exact reason Ace would have hated living there. Her brother loved to be around people. He liked the noise and commotion that came with owning a bar in Big Sky, Montana.

But as much as she yearned to go to her quiet house, she couldn’t yet. She wanted to make sure Mia made it home all right. Mia lived in an expensive condo her parents owned partway up the mountain toward Big Sky Resort.

Lily noticed Mia’s down ski jacket where she’d hung it before her shift, her worry increasing when under it she found Mia’s purse hanging from its shoulder strap. She left both there, thinking Mia might return to retrieve them. As she went out the back door of the bar, she saw that it was still snowing. She glanced toward Lone Mountain, disappointed the falling snow obliterated everything. She loved seeing the mountain peak glistening white against the dark winter sky. It really was a magnificent sight.

Thinking of the skiers who would be delirious tomorrow with all this fresh powder, she had to smile. She understood why her brother loved living here. The Gallatin Canyon was a magical place—especially at Christmas.

The Gallatin River, which cut through the steep, granite bluffs in a breathtaking hundred-mile ribbon of river and winding highway, ran crystal clear under a thick blanket of ice. Snow covered the mountains and weighted down the pine boughs, making the entire place a winter wonderland.

Before the ski resort, the canyon had been mostly cattle and dude ranches, a few summer cabins and even fewer homes. Now luxury houses had sprouted up all around the resort. Fortunately some of the original cabins still remained and the majority of the canyon was national forest, so it would always remain undeveloped.

The “canyon” was still its own little community made up of permanent residents as well as those who only showed up for a week or two in the summer and a few weeks around Christmas and New Year’s for the ski season.

Outside, her breath expelled in cold white puffs. She hugged herself as she looked through the driving snow and saw Mia’s car. Mia was always so protective of her car. It seemed strange that she would leave it. But if she really had been drunk... Maybe she was planning to come back.

Who had she left with, though? Some cowboy, the Texan had said. That, too, didn’t sound like Mia, let alone that the cowboy had “poured her into the passenger seat.”

Everything about this felt wrong.

Unable to shake off the bad feeling that had settled over her, Lily headed for her SUV. The drive up to Mia’s condo didn’t take long in the wee hours of the morning after the bars had closed. There was no traffic and few tracks in the fresh snow that now blanketed the narrow paved road. Her windshield wipers clacked noisily trying to keep up with the falling snow, and yet visibility in her headlights was still only a matter of yards.

Lily was used to driving in winter conditions, having been born and raised in Montana, but just the thought of accidentally sliding off the road on such a night gave her a chill. Why hadn’t she told her brother where she was going?

She’d heard tomorrow was supposed to clear, the storm moving on. With a full moon tomorrow night, maybe she would go cross-country skiing. She loved skiing at night in the moonlight. It was so peaceful and quiet.

Through the falling snow, she got glimpses of Christmas lights twinkling on the houses she passed. She’d already done all her Christmas shopping, but she was sure her brother would be waiting until the last minute. They were so different. She was just thankful they were close in spite of their differences, even though Ace was always trying to get her to loosen up. He saw her orderly life as boring.

“You need to have some fun, sis,” he’d said recently when he’d given her a ski pass and the ultimatum that she was to use it on her day off. “It will do you good.”

She didn’t need Ace to tell her what else he thought would do her good. She’d forbidden him to even mention her former fiancé Gerald’s name. Not that it often stopped him.

Distracted with her thoughts, she saw that she’d reached her destination. But as she pulled up in front of Mia’s condo, her earlier bad feeling turned to dread.

Mia’s front door stood open. A drift of freshly fallen snow had formed just inside the door.

Chapter Two

The hair stood up on the back of Lily’s neck as she got out of her SUV and walked toward the gaping front door.

“Mia?” she called as she carefully peered in. She could hear music playing inside the condo. Mia’s unit was on the end, and it appeared that whoever was staying in the adjacent one wasn’t home.

Lily touched the door. It creaked the rest of the way open. From the doorway, she had a view of the stairs. One set went up, the other down.

“Mia?” she called over the music. No answer as she carefully stepped in.

She’d only gone a few steps up the stairs when she saw what appeared to be a fist-size ball of cotton roll across the floor on the breeze coming in the open door behind her.

One more step and she saw dozens of white balls of cotton. Her heart began to pound. Another step and she saw what was left of the living room sofa cushions.

The condo looked as if it had been hit by a storm that had wreaked havoc on the room. The sofa cushions had been shredded, the stuffing now moving haphazardly around the room. Lamps lay broken in pieces of jagged glass shards on the wooden floor. A chair had been turned over, the bottom ripped out. Nothing in the room looked as if it had weathered the storm that had blown through here.

Who would do such a thing? Why would they? Lily fumbled out her cell phone as she backed down the stairs, her heart hammering against her rib cage. What if whoever had done this was still in the condo?

“I need to report a break-in,” she said the moment she reached her SUV and was safely inside. She kept her eyes on the open doorway. When the dispatcher at the local marshal’s office answered, she hurriedly gave her name and the address.

“Is the intruder still there?”

“I don’t know. I only went just inside the door.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m outside. I don’t know where the owner of the condo is. I’m worried about her.”

“Can you wait in a warm place?”

“Yes. I’m in my vehicle and watching the condo.”

“Please stay there until law enforcement arrives.”

* * *

MARSHAL HUD SAVAGE was on duty when the call came in. He’d just been up on the mountain on a disturbance call. All day he’d felt as if he were moving in a fog. A cop friend of his from the academy had been killed two nights ago. He was still in shock.

Paul Brown’s death, on top of what had happened to Hud’s family last spring, had left him shaken. In April, he’d let a dangerous woman come into his home. Hud’s wife and children had almost been killed.

He was a marshal. He should have seen what was right in front of his eyes. He would never forgive himself. Worse, the incident really had him questioning if he had the instincts anymore for this job.

When he’d heard that his friend Paul had been murdered just forty miles away in Bozeman, he’d been ready to throw in the towel.

“I’m running scared,” he’d told his wife, Dana.

She’d hugged him and tried to persuade him that none of what had happened to their family was his fault. “I was the one who was so excited to have a cousin I’d never met come stay with us. You saw that I was happy and ignored things you wouldn’t have under any other circumstances.”

“I’m a marshal, Dana. There is no excuse for what happened last April. None.”

Now as he turned into the condo subdivision in the pines, he tried to push everything but this latest call out of his mind. More and more, though, he wasn’t sure he deserved to be wearing this star.

As he pulled up, a young brunette got out of her SUV and stood hugging herself against the cold snowy night. A break-in this time of year was unusual. Normally this sort of thing happened during off-season when there were fewer people around.

“Are you the one who made the call?” he asked as he got out of his patrol pickup.

She introduced herself as Lily McCabe.

“Ace’s sister,” he said with a nod.

“Sometimes I forget how small a community Big Sky is,” she said, not looking in the least bit happy about the prospect that everyone knew her business.

Gossip traveled fast in the canyon. Hud had heard something about Ace’s sister being left at the altar. He couldn’t imagine any sane man leaving this woman.

“Wait in your vehicle while I take a look inside,” he told her. But as he headed for the open front door, he saw that she was still standing outside as if too nervous to sit and wait.

At the door, he pulled his weapon and stepped in, even though he doubted the burglar was still inside. The condo had been ransacked in a way that surprised him. This was no normal break-in. Nor was it a simple case of vandalism. Whoever had done this was looking for something and was determined to destroy everything in his path if he didn’t find it.

He moved carefully through the upper floor, then the lower one, before he returned to the woman waiting outside.

“Is she...”

He shook his head. “No sign of anyone. I’ve called for backup. Until they get here, can we talk in your vehicle?”

She nodded and climbed behind the wheel. She’d left the SUV running, so it was warm inside. He couldn’t help noticing how neat and clean the interior was as he pulled out his notebook. “Whose condo is it?”

“I don’t know their name. Mia told me that her parents own it. She is the one who’s been staying here.”

“Mia?”

“Mia Duncan. She went to work for my brother at the Canyon three weeks ago. I’m here helping out over the holidays, as you apparently know.”

He nodded. He’d heard Ace’s sister had bought a house about four years ago up the mountain—about the same time her brother had opened the Canyon Bar.

“Were you meeting Mia here after work?”

Lily shook her head. “She left before her shift was over. I was worried about her, so I decided to drive up and check on her.”

“Did she say why she left?”

“No. That’s just it. She didn’t say anything. One of our patrons saw her leave with a man. The patron said he thought she’d been drinking.”

He sensed that she didn’t see how any of this helped and hated talking about Mia behind her back. “Could the man she left with have been a boyfriend?”

“She’d said she wasn’t seeing anyone, but I can’t swear to it.”

“Did this patron describe the man he saw her leave with?”

“Just that he was wearing a cowboy hat and driving a pickup.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down much. What is this patron’s name?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never seen him before. I’m sorry that I can’t offer much in the way of details. He had a Southern accent, if that helps.”

“You’re doing fine. Did you see anyone leaving as you drove into the condo complex tonight?”

“No. But as soon as I pulled up here, I saw that her door was partially open. I only went a few steps inside before I called you.”

He’d seen her footprints in the snow. Unfortunately, the footprints of the intruder had been covered by fresh snow. Someone who knew Mia’s hours at the bar and knew she wouldn’t be coming home until the bar closed? But she left early. So where was she?

Hud wrote down Lily’s cell phone number and closed his notebook as another patrol rig drove up. “I’ll call if I have any more questions.”

“I don’t know Mia well, but I’m worried about her. This is the second night she’s left in the middle of her shift without telling anyone. Before that she was our most reliable employee.”

He nodded. If it wasn’t for the ransacked condo, he would have just figured the woman had met some man and fallen hard. People in love often became less reliable employees.

Hud assured Lily he’d let her know when he heard something. But he could tell nothing he might say would relieve her worry. After seeing the inside of the condo, he shared her concern.

* * *

WITH HER SHIFT finally over, Teresa Evans opened the back door of the bar and looked out at the falling snow. She had mixed feelings about seeing her boyfriend after the fight they’d had earlier before she’d left for work.

But she didn’t have to worry about it. The main parking lot was empty. No Ethan sitting out here in his old pickup, the engine running, the wipers trying to keep up with the falling snow. No Ethan at all.

The only vehicles were Reggie’s SUV and Ace’s old Jeep. Both were covered in snow.

“Do you need a ride?” Reggie asked behind her, making her jump. The other server stopped to frown at her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said a little too sharply.

Reggie raised an eyebrow.

“Didn’t Lily say Mia left with someone else earlier?” Teresa asked. “Her car’s gone.”

Reggie glanced to the spot where Mia had parked earlier. Teresa followed her gaze. There was a rectangular spot in the snow where the car had been.

“I guess she must have come back for it,” Reggie said with a shrug. “I hope she wasn’t as drunk as that customer thought she was. Bad night to be driving as it is.”

“Yeah,” Teresa agreed. “Or to be working.”

Reggie took hold of her arm and gently squeezed it through Teresa’s coat. “Hey, accidents happen. Ace knows that.”

It took her a moment to realize that Reggie was referring to the tray of glasses she’d dropped earlier in the evening when she was clearing one of the tables. “Clumsy,” she said to cover the truth. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

“Is everything okay with Ethan?” Reggie asked, lowering her voice, as they stood under the shelter of the small landing just outside the bar. Reggie didn’t look at her when she asked it. Instead, she pretended more interest in digging her keys out of her purse.

Teresa stared through the falling snow, trying to conjure Ethan and his old pickup. “We’re good.” That wasn’t exactly true, but it was too cold to get into it out here in the wee hours of the morning. “I appreciate you asking, though.”

“Hey, we’re friends. You sure you don’t want a ride?” Reggie said, looking around as she found her keys in the bottom of her shoulder bag. “I don’t see Ethan.”

“He’ll be along soon. He probably just fell asleep. I’ll give him a call. If worse comes to worst, I’ll walk. It’s not that far.”

Reggie looked skeptical. “You’d be soaked to the skin if you walked in this.” But she let it drop, no doubt sensing that whatever was going on with Teresa, it wasn’t something she wanted to talk about. “Well, then, I’ll see you tomorrow. I just hope it won’t be as crazy as it was tonight.” With that, Reggie stepped off the covered landing and headed for her car.

Teresa found herself wondering when Mia had come back for her vehicle as she watched Reggie clean the snow from her car and finally drive away. She couldn’t shake the memory of what Mia had said to her earlier.

Several cars went by, disappearing quickly into the falling snow. Still no sign of Ethan. Reaching into her pocket, she told herself he had probably fallen asleep and forgotten to set the alarm. Her pocket was empty. She tried the other one. Empty. With a groan, she remembered leaving her cell phone on the breakfast bar earlier. She’d been in such a rush to get out of the apartment and away from Ethan, she’d forgotten it.

Ethan wasn’t coming. Had she really expected him to come after the fight they’d had? She considered going back inside the bar to wait, but she didn’t want Ace to know Ethan had stood her up. As soon as Reggie’s taillights disappeared in the snowstorm, Teresa started the walk home.

The fight earlier had been another of those stupid ones.

“I need to know you want to marry me and have this baby,” he’d said while she was getting ready for work.

“Stop pressuring me.” Ever since she’d told him she was pregnant, he’d been so protective that sometimes she couldn’t breathe. He was determined they had to get married and settle down. His idea of settling down was moving closer to his parents, who lived down in Billings.

“I don’t think your new friend Mia is good for you. I saw her talking to some guy the other day. I’ve seen him before. He’s bad news.”

Teresa stifled a groan.

“I don’t want you getting involved in some drug deal, or worse.”

She had turned to face him, unable to hide her growing impatience. Ethan had been like this ever since he’d gone to the law enforcement academy and was now working for the Montana Highway Patrol.

“I’m sure Mia isn’t involved in any kind of drug deal.”

“Your friend might not realize what she’s getting herself into with a man like that.”

It made her angry to hear him talk this way. “Mia’s a big girl,” she’d snapped. “She can take care of herself.” When Ethan looked skeptical, she’d added, “Mia carries a gun.” Instantly, she’d wished she hadn’t added that part.

“She what?” he’d demanded.

“It’s just a small one. She wears it strapped on her ankle.”

Ethan had sworn and begun to pace. “You’re hanging out with a woman who carries a concealed weapon? Does she even have a permit to carry it?”

“Damn it, Ethan. Stop acting like a narc.”

He had stopped dead in his tracks. “What?”

“It’s just that you used to be fun. Now you’re such a...”

He had waited for her to finish.

“Cop.”

Without another word, he’d grabbed his coat and left.

Still, she couldn’t imagine him not picking her up. He was too concerned about her and the baby. Something must have come up with his job, she thought now as she walked through the deep snow toward the apartment they shared.

Ethan had been her high school sweetheart. She smiled to herself now as she thought of how they’d been back then. He had been adventurous, up for anything. His friends said he was crazy fun.

But a couple of years ago, he’d almost gotten into some serious trouble with some ex-friends of his. The incident had apparently scared him straight. He was no longer crazy fun. Far from it.

Teresa wasn’t sure she wanted to be married to a cop. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be married to Ethan. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to be pregnant.

Shoving those thoughts away, she found herself worrying about Mia as she ducked her head against the thick falling snow. Tonight she’d seen Mia get into some kind of argument with a man who’d come into the bar alone. The conversation had looked personal—and definitely heated. At one point the man had grabbed Mia’s arm. In the skirmish, the man ended up spilling his drink on her.

Teresa had quickly stepped in.

“Back off. I have it under control,” Mia had snapped, wiping at her alcohol-soaked jeans.

Teresa might have argued differently, but the man had raised his head and looked right at her before getting up and leaving.

Mia had apologized a while later when they’d both gone up to the bar to get their drink orders. “I just didn’t want you getting involved.” Mia’s gaze had met hers, worry in her eyes. “I might have already involved you too much. I’m sorry.”

She’d been startled by her words. Even more startled when Mia had gone to the room where they kept their coats. Teresa saw Mia take something out of Teresa’s ski jacket pocket and stuff it into her jeans pocket.

Teresa had confronted her, only to have Mia pull away. She’d stood helplessly as Mia grabbed her tray of drinks and headed off through the crowd toward one of the large tables at the back of the bar.

Not long after that Mia had seemed unsteady on her feet.

As Teresa had gone back over to the empty table where the man had been sitting, to clear his table, she spotted the hypodermic needle lying under his chair. Her heart had begun to pound. Was Ethan right? Was the argument over drugs?

It still gave her chills to remember the look on the man’s face when he’d glanced up at her. Not long after that, she’d seen Mia stagger into some man before leaving through the back door. Mia had definitely appeared drugged. Had she left with the man?

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 orphan tree?” he called back, and heard her laugh. “Hud will have my head,” he mumbled to himself as he started to drop off the side of the mountain, heading in the direction he’d heard Dana laugh.

He’d only taken a couple of steps when the sun caught on an object off to his right. Tag saw what looked like a branch sticking up out of the snow. Only there was something very odd about the branch. It was blue.

As he stepped closer, his heart leapt to his throat. It wasn’t a branch.

A hand, frosty in the morning sun, stuck up out of the deep snow.

* * *

MARSHAL HUD SAVAGE arrived by snowmobile thirty minutes after he’d gotten the call from his wife. He found Dana and Tag standing half a dozen yards away from the body. It was the second time in the past six years that remains had been found on the ranch. Hud could see that Dana was upset and worried.

“It’s going to be all right,” he told her. “Go on down to the house and wait for the coroner. He’ll need directions up here.”

As soon as she left, he stooped down and brushed the snow off the victim’s face. Behind him, Tag let out a startled sound, making him turn.

“You know her?” he asked.

Tag nodded, but he seemed to need a minute to find his voice. “She works at the Canyon,” he said finally. “I think her name is Mia. I ran into her at the bar last night. Or more correctly, she ran into me. Was she...murdered?”

“Looks like she was strangled with the scarf around her neck,” Hud said. He could see where the scarf had cut into her throat. “But we’ll know more once the coroner and the lab does the autopsy.”

“I thought it might have been an accident,” Tag said.

Hud studied him. He seemed awfully shaken for a man who’d only just run into the woman the night before. “So, what exactly happened last night at the bar?”

He listened while Tag recounted the woman stumbling into him, apparently quite drunk, and how he’d gone out the back door after her to make sure she was all right. “I saw her getting into a pickup with a man.”

“And you think her name was Mia?” Hud asked. Could this be the missing Mia Duncan? He had a bad feeling it was.

Tag told him that all he knew was what another server at the Canyon had told him. “She had apparently left in the middle of her shift.”

“Do you know the name of the other server you talked to?”

“Lily. At least that’s what the bartender called her.”

Hud nodded. “Tell me about the man the victim left with behind the bar.”

“Cowboy hat, pickup. It was snowing so hard I can’t even swear what color the truck was. Dark blue or brown, maybe even black. That’s about it. I only got a glimpse of the man through the snow,” Tag said.

“But he got a good look at you?”

He saw that the question took Tag by surprise. “Yeah, I guess he did.”

“I might need a statement from you later,” Hud said. “If you think of anything else...”

“I’ll let you know,” Tag said as the coroner and another deputy arrived by snowmobile. The coroner’s had a sled behind his snowmobile.

“Dana will have a pot of coffee on when you reach the house,” Hud told him. He’d seen Tag’s rented SUV parked in front of the ranch house.

Tag nodded and turned to leave.

Hud watched him go, worrying. Dana had just been disappointed by one “cousin.” He didn’t want her disappointed again if he could help it. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that Tanner “Tag” Cardwell knew a lot more about the victim than he’d admitted.

He reminded himself that his instincts were off. He was probably just looking for guilt where there wasn’t any.

* * *

TAG WAS GLAD he didn’t have to talk to anyone on the walk down the mountain. His head was spinning.

He’d been shocked when he’d recognized the dead woman—even more shocked when he’d seen what she was wearing. A leather jacket like the one he’d seen lying over the arm of his father’s couch just yesterday.

Since discovering the body, he’d kept telling himself it couldn’t be the same woman. Just as his father couldn’t be involved in this.

That was why he hadn’t mentioned the jacket to the marshal, he told himself. He couldn’t be sure it was the same one. But both his father and the woman had been at the bar last night. Tag knew how some women were about cowboy guitar players—even old ones.

A chill had settled in his bones by the time he reached the ranch house. He liked the idea of a hot cup of coffee, but he didn’t want to talk to anyone—especially his cousin—about what he’d seen on the mountain.

As he climbed into his rented SUV, he told himself that the woman’s death had nothing to do with his father. And yet Tag couldn’t wait to reach the cabin. Harlan Cardwell had some explaining to do.

* * *

LILY TRIED NOT to roll her eyes at her brother. “Ace.”

“Don’t ‘Ace’ me. Lily, it’s time you got back on the horse. So to speak.”

She really didn’t want to talk about this and now regretted stopping by her brother’s tiny apartment over the bar this early in the morning. She’d come to talk about Mia Duncan—not her ex-fiancé, Gerald Humphrey.

“What chaps my behind is that Gerald was the wrong man for you in the first place,” Ace said as he refilled her coffee cup. “That man would have bored you to death in no time.”

She thought about how much she and Gerald had in common. Of course Ace thought him boring. Ace had never understood what she and Gerald had shared.

“But to pull what he did,” Ace continued. “If he hadn’t skipped the country when he did, I would have tracked him down and—”

“I really don’t want to have this discussion,” she said, picking up her mug and moving over to the window. The world was covered in cold white drifts this morning. The sun had come out, turning the fresh snow to a blinding carpet of diamonds.

“Sis, I love you and I hate to see you like this.”

Lily spun back around, almost spilling her coffee. She couldn’t help being annoyed with the older brother she’d idolized all her life. But this was a subject they had never agreed on.

“You hate to see me like this?” she demanded. “Ace, I’m happy. I have a great life, a rewarding career. I’m...content.”

He mugged a face. “Sis, you live like a nun except for the few times a year that I drag you out to help me with the bar.”

“We really should not have this conversation,” she warned him, wondering now if he had actually needed her help at the bar or if his asking her to work the holidays with him was part of some scheme to find her a man. If it was the latter... She said as much. “Ace, so help me—”

He held up his hands in surrender. “You know how much I need your help. And I didn’t mean to set you off this morning.”

But he had. “You should be more concerned about your other employees. If you had seen Mia’s condo...”

“I am concerned. I put in a call to the marshal’s office first thing this morning, but no one has called me back yet. I called the condo number Mia gave me, but not surprisingly, there was no answer there. I figure once she discovered the break-in, she probably stayed with a friend last night.”

Lily wasn’t so sure about that since she didn’t think Mia had made any friends in the weeks she’d been working at the Canyon. The only person Mia had spoken to at the bar was Teresa. Which had seemed odd because of the age difference.

Mia was in her late thirties, while Teresa was barely twenty-one. Neither was outgoing, so that could be why they’d become somewhat friends, at least from Lily’s observation.

So this morning, she’d placed a call to Teresa’s cell, only to reach her boyfriend, Ethan. “Mia isn’t the only one who’s missing this morning,” she told her brother. “That’s why I came by so early. Teresa didn’t come home last night.”

Ace seemed only a little surprised, but then he’d been running a bar longer than Lily had been helping out. “Maybe Mia and Teresa are together. I’m sure they’ll turn up. Teresa and Ethan probably had a fight. I noticed she was acting oddly last night.” He frowned. “But then again, so was Mia, now that I think about it. I saw her get into it with one of the customers. Teresa came to her rescue, but Mia handled it fine.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about that last night?” Lily demanded.

“Because it blew over quickly. You and Reggie didn’t even notice.”

“Who was the customer?”

Ace shrugged. “Some guy. I didn’t recognize him. Lily, people act up in bars. It happens. A good server knows how to handle it. Mia was great. I’m telling you, I wouldn’t be surprised if they both show up for work tonight.”

Lily hoped he was right. “Did you ask Mia why she left early night before last?”

“She apologized, said she’d suddenly gotten a migraine and hadn’t been able to get my attention, but since it hadn’t been that busy...”

Lily nodded. Had Mia been drinking the night before last as well as last night? If so, Lily really hadn’t seen that coming.

But what did she really know about the woman? Other servers she’d worked with often talked about their lives—in detail—while they were setting up before opening and cleaning up after closing. She’d learned more than she’d ever wanted to know about them.

Mia, though, was another story. She seldom offered anything about herself other than where she was from—Billings, Montana, the largest city in the state and a good three hours away. It wasn’t unusual for people from Billings to have condos at Big Sky. Mia’s parents owned a condo in one of the pricier developments, which made Lily suspect that the woman didn’t really need this job.

“What do you know about Mia?” Lily asked her brother now.

He shrugged. “Not much. She never had much to say, especially about herself. I could check her application, but you know there isn’t a lot on them.”

“But there would be a number to call in case of emergency, right?”

“I think that is more than a little premature,” her brother said. “Anyway, if the marshal thought that was necessary, he would have contacted me for the number, right?”

“Maybe. Unless they have some rule about not looking for a missing adult for twenty-four hours. Still, I’d like to see her job application.”

Ace got to his feet. “I’ve got to open the bar soon anyway. Come on.”

In the Canyon office, her brother pulled out Mia Duncan’s application from the file cabinet and handed it to her.

He was right. There was little on the form other than name, address, social security number, local phone number and an emergency contact number. Most of his employees were temporary hires, usually college students attending Montana State University forty miles down the highway to the north, and only stayed a few weeks at most. Big Sky had a fairly transient population that came and went by the season.

So Lily wasn’t surprised that the number Mia had put down on her application was a local number, probably her parents’ condo here at Big Sky.

“No cell phone number,” she said. “That’s odd since I’ve seen Mia using a cell phone on at least one of her breaks behind the bar.”

Lily didn’t recognize the prefix on the emergency number Mia had put down. She picked up the phone and dialed it, ignoring her brother shaking his head in disapproval. The number rang three times before a voice came on the line to say the phone had been disconnected.

“What?” Ace asked as she hung up.

“The number’s been disconnected. I’ll call the condo association.” A few moments later she hung up, now more upset and worried than before. “That condo doesn’t belong to her parents. It belongs to a retired FBI agent who recently died. The condo association didn’t even know Mia was staying there.”

At a loud knock at the bar’s front door, they both started. Lily glanced out the office window and felt her heart drop at the sight of the marshal’s pickup.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.