Keeping Christmas - By B. J. Daniels Page 0,74

father? Or was it only ever about money?”

“I made your father what he is today,” Mason said. “I was the one who talked him into doing the test well on the farm. He wouldn’t be anything without me.”

“And you got rich right along with him.”

He shook his head. “It’s not the same. Beau’s never understood that taking handouts from him isn’t the same as being the man behind the fortune. It makes a man bitter.”

“Especially if he’s a thankless bastard,” she said.

“Dixie, Dixie, why couldn’t you have just left things alone?” Mason said in his conciliatory tone.

She heard a sound outside the cabin.

Unfortunately, Mason heard it, as well. He stepped to her, grabbing her arm as he shoved the gun into her side, shielding himself behind her as she heard the dog bark at the cabin door.

Chance. Her heart dropped. She opened her mouth to call to him, to warn him he was about to walk into an ambush. Mason clamped his hand over her mouth, the gun barrel now at her temple as he whispered, “Make a sound and the last thing your boyfriend will see is your brains blown all over his cabin.”

CHANCE SAW Beauregard sniffing at two sets of tracks on the deck. He motioned for Rebecca to hang back as he flung open the cabin door. Beauregard bounded in. Chance ducked and rolled, coming up behind the couch.

In that split second, as the door swung in, he’d taken in the scene in front of the fire. His heart had dropped like a stone as he saw Dixie, the gun to her head, and Mason Roberts with his hand over her mouth. Her blue eyes were wide with fear and fury.

He came up from behind the couch just as Mason started to swing the barrel of the gun toward the dog. Dixie saw it, too, and made her move, just as Chance had known she would. She wasn’t going to let Mason shoot the dog—or him. Chance could never have loved her more than at that moment.

As he leaped over the couch, Dixie elbowed Mason in the ribs and grabbed the wrist holding the gun. The shot went wild. The gun fell to the floor, skittering away as Chance tackled Mason and took him down, Dixie falling with them onto the floor in front of the fireplace.

It all happened in an instant. Chance got a choke hold on Mason, who seemed to instantly drain of fight. Chance had an age advantage, as well as self-defense training. But still it surprised him that Mason didn’t seem to have the fight of a killer.

Dixie scrambled to her feet to find the gun Mason had dropped. Chance had the man down, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

At the sound of a low growl, Dixie turned to look back at Chance. He’d completely neutralized Mason, who sat against the wall breathing hard, head down, looking beaten.

Chance reached to jerk Mason to his feet, turning as Dixie did to see what Beauregard was growling about.

Dixie blinked in astonishment. “Rebecca?”

She stood just inside the front door of the cabin. In her hand was Mason’s gun, the one Dixie had been looking for.

“I thought I told you to call off your dog?” Rebecca said as she leveled the gun at him.

“Beauregard,” Chance ordered. “Down.”

The dog stopped growling, but like everyone else in the room kept his gaze on Rebecca.

“What are you doing here?” Dixie asked.

“Didn’t Chance tell you? I came to see you, little sister.”

Dixie knew that sarcastic tone too well. “How long have you known?”

Rebecca smiled. “I overheard Mother and Mason arguing. What was I?” she asked Mason. “Five? I heard you threaten to kill her if she told my daddy. I heard everything you said, including how you would take me far away so she would never see me again.”

Mason was looking at her, a strange expression on his face.

“You said you would kill me, you didn’t care about the little snotty-nosed brat, isn’t that what you said?” Rebecca continued, the gun held steady in her hand, her voice calm, no emotion in her face.

“Rebecca, put the gun away and we can talk about this,” Chance said quietly. “You don’t want to do anything you’ll regret.”

She laughed. “Believe me, I’m not going to regret it. When I heard you were in Montana, I knew what you were doing,” she said to Dixie. “All those years of keeping the secret just to have you planning to tell the whole world about me and

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