Christmas At Cardwell Ranch. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

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