B.J. Daniels - Christmas At Cardwell Ranch

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.”