B.J. Daniels - Christmas At Cardwell Ranch

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.”