“I really should get going,” he said, not that he really had anywhere to go, though he’d agreed to stay until the opening.
Christmas was only a few days away, he realized. Normally, he didn’t do much for Christmas. Since he didn’t have his own family, he always volunteered to work.
“Where are you going?” Tag asked.
“I’ve got some Christmas shopping to do.” That, at least, was true.
“Dana is planning for us all to be together on Christmas,” Tag said as if he needed reminding. “She has all kinds of plans.”
Jackson laughed. “She wants us all to try skiing or snowboarding.”
“There’s a sledding party planned on Christmas Eve behind the house on the ranch and, of course, ice skating on an inlet of the Gallatin River,” Hayes said with a laugh when he saw Austin’s expression. “You really have to experience a Montana Christmas.”
He tried to smile. Anything to make up for missing the wedding so everyone would quit bringing it up. “I can’t wait.”
They all laughed since they knew he was lying. He wasn’t ready for a Montana Christmas. He’d already been freezing his butt off and figured he’d more than experienced Montana after crashing in a ditch and almost getting killed by a woman with a tire iron. However, never let it be said he was a Scrooge. He’d go Christmas shopping. He would be merry and bright. It was only for a few days.
“You know what your problem is, Austin?” his brother Jackson said as they walked out to their vehicles.
Austin shook his head although he knew what was coming. He’d already had this discussion with Tanya in Houston.
“You can’t commit to anything,” Jackson said. “When we decided to open more Texas Boys Barbecues in Texas—”
“Yes, I’ve been told I have a problem with commitment,” he interrupted as he looked toward Lone Mountain. The peak was almost completely obscured by the falling snow. Huge lacy flakes drifted down around them. Texas barbecue in Montana? He’d thought his brothers had surely lost their minds when they had suggested it. Now he was all the more convinced.
But they’d been right about the other restaurants they’d opened across Texas. He wasn’t going to stand in their way now. But he also couldn’t get all that excited about it.
“Can you at least commit to this promotion schedule we have mapped out?” Hayes asked.
“Do what you think is best,” he said, opening the SUV door. “I’ll go along with whatever y’all decide.” His brothers didn’t look thrilled with his answer. “Isn’t that what you wanted me to say?”
“We were hoping for some enthusiasm, something,” Jackson said and frowned. “You seem to have lost interest in the business.”
“It’s not that.” It wasn’t. It was his life. At thirty-two, he was successful, a healthy, wealthy American male who could do anything he wanted. Most men his age would have given anything to be in his boots.
“He needs a woman,” Tag said and grinned.
“That’s all I need,” Austin said sarcastically under his breath and thought of Rebecca and the way she’d reacted to her husband. What kind of woman left her husband and child just before Christmas?
A terrified one, he thought. “I have to go.”
“Where did you say you were going?” Hayes asked before Austin could close his SUV door.
“There’s something I need to do.”
“I told you he needed a woman,” Tag joked.
“Dana is in Bozeman running errands, but she said to tell you that dinner is at her house tonight,” Jackson said before Austin could escape.
All the way to the hospital in Bozeman, all Austin could think about was the woman he’d rescued last night. Rescued? And then turned her over to a man who terrified her.
Austin thought of that awful old expression: she’d made her bed and now she had to lie in it.
Like hell, he thought.
When he reached the hospital, Austin was told at the nurses’ station that Mrs. Stewart had checked out already. His heart began to pound harder at the news, all his instincts telling him he had been right to come back here.
“I thought the doctor wasn’t going to release her until tomorrow?”
“Her husband talked to him and asked if she was well enough to be released. He was anxious to get her home before Christmas.”
Austin just bet he was. “He was planning to take her straight home from the hospital?” he asked and quickly added, “I have her purse.” He’d forgotten all about putting it into his duffel bag last night as the highway patrolman helped the woman down to his waiting patrol car.
“Oh, you must be the man who found her after the accident,” the nurse said, instantly warming toward him. “Let me see. I know her husband stayed at a local motel last night. I believe they were going to go there first so she could rest for a while before they left for Helena.”
“Her husband got in last night?” Austin asked in surprise. Helena was three hours away on Interstate 90.
“He arrived in the wee hours of the morning. When he came by the hospital to see his wife, he thought he’d be able to take her home then.” She smiled at how anxious the husband had apparently been. “He left the name of the motel where he would stay if there was any change in her condition,” the nurse said. “Here it is. The Pine Rest. I can call and see if they are still there.”
“No, that’s all right. I’ll run by the motel.” He realized Rebecca Stewart wouldn’t have been allowed to walk out of the hospital. One of the nurses would have taken her down to the car by wheelchair. “You don’t happen to know what Mr. Stewart was driving, do you?” She remembered the large black Suburban because it had looked brand-new.
The Pine Rest Motel sat on the east end of town on a hill. Austin spotted Marc Stewart’s Suburban at once. Austin had to wonder why Marc’s “wife” had been driving an older model car.
That didn’t surprise him as much as the lack of a baby car seat in the back of the Suburban. Marc had had the vehicle for almost a month according to the sticker in the back window. The lack of a car seat was just another one of those questions that nagged at him. Like the fact that Marc Stewart had gotten his wife out of the hospital early just to bring her to a motel in town. That made no sense unless he’d brought her there to threaten her. That Austin could believe.
The black Suburban was parked in front of motel unit number seven—the last unit at the small motel.
Austin didn’t go anywhere without his weapon. But he knew better than to go into the motel armed—let alone without a plan. He tended to wing things, following his instincts. It had gotten him this far. But it had also nearly gotten him killed last summer. He had both the physical and mental scars to prove it.
Glancing at the purse lying on the seat next to him, he wondered if all this wasn’t an overreaction on his part. Maybe it had only been an argument between husband and wife that had gotten out of control. Maybe once Rebecca Stewart’s memory returned, she wouldn’t be afraid of her husband.
Maybe.
He picked up the purse. It was imitation leather, a knockoff of a famous designer’s. He pulled out the wallet and went through it again, this time noticing the discount coupons for diapers and groceries.
He studied the woman in the photo a second time. It wasn’t a great snapshot of her, but then most driver’s license mug shots weren’t. Montana