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.
He planned to ask her when he saw her.
There was also the remote possibility that she really had been kidnapped, that the kidnapper had foolishly left eight messages on his machine. But that brought up the question of why call him? Also, what kidnapper would leave eight messages on his machine?
He figured no matter what was going on, Dixie wouldn’t have left her location or where she was headed on his answering machine. And neither would her kidnappers.
Chance swore and headed down the lake and eventually into town, figuring she should be here today if she continued her traveling pattern. The day was brilliant, the sky a deep blue, the mountains glistening white, the sun blinding overhead.
He glanced in his rearview mirror and saw a light-colored panel van pull out behind him.
“YOU WERE THINKING about Chance Walker?” Pookie cried, then ducked her head as several of the nearby diners frowned over at her. “Why?” she asked in a hushed whisper. “It wasn’t like you were ever serious about him. Marrying him would have been social suicide.”
Rebecca nodded. All true. She hadn’t even considered marrying Chance. But what she hadn’t told Pookie was that she’d thought he would stay around Houston. She would have had an affair with him in a heartbeat.
She’d never dreamed Chance would go to Montana to work for the summer and not return to Texas. One of the secrets she’d never told Pookie was about the breakup. Pookie had always assumed that Rebecca had broken it off with Chance because she’d met Oliver and he was the better catch hands down.
What Pookie didn’t know and never would was that Chance had been the one to break off their relationship. He’d figured out that she’d never planned to marry him. Oliver knew she’d been dumped and had never let her forget it. The bastard.
So even if Chance had stayed around Houston, she doubted he would have been up for an affair. Just the thought made her angry and upset.
And now her sister was in Montana.
With Chance?
The thought killed her appetite.
“Why are you even thinking about Chance at this late date?” Pookie demanded quietly.
“I wasn’t. It’s just that I think Daddy is in Montana and it made me think of Chance.” At least she assumed that was the “son of a bitch” Oliver had been referring to, and Oliver had said something about Dixie.
Pookie started to say something, then stopped as she looked past Rebecca