He glanced back, saw Sundown watching the human drama with apparent delight.
Chase snapped off the lights, shut the door.
CHAPTER TEN
December rushed in with a flurry of events, parties, the madness of decorating, juggling schedules when a number of key staff were out with a twenty-four-hour virus, and for Bodine, the annual frustration of shopping.
She didn’t mind shopping, especially the point-and-click style of online. But Christmas raised her gift-giving bar. She couldn’t and wouldn’t settle for adequate or good enough or even not bad at all when it came to Christmas.
When it came to selecting Christmas gifts, she demanded perfection.
She had her father’s—two dozen Cohiba cigars and an antique humidor she’d battled for fiercely on eBay. She topped it off with a bottle of Three Ships single-malt whisky. She had her brothers’ presents in the bag, and the grannies’。 She’d ordered the managers’ gifts and would shortly hand sign the cards that would hold Christmas bonuses for staff.
A couple more gifts for friends, and some gag gifts—a Longbow tradition for stocking stuffers—didn’t worry her. But she’d yet to hit on the perfect gift for her mother.
That worry and weak spot left her vulnerable for Jessica’s not-very-subtle push for a shopping trip to Missoula.
So on a rare day off—when she’d have preferred to sleep late, to take a long, solo ride on Leo—Bodine searched for an empty slot in a parking garage in town.
Since every mother’s son and daughter seemed to have the same idea, it took some doing.
At least the morning held clear, she thought as she finally maneuvered her truck into a slot. Cold turned into bitter, but it was bright and cloudless.
After she climbed out, hung her purse cross-body over her coat, she eyed Jessica. “When I find my mother’s perfect gift, and I will, we’re going for pizza at Biga.”
“All right.”
“You’ve eaten there, haven’t you?”
“No.” Jessica pulled out a lipstick, and without benefit of a mirror, perfectly retouched her lips.
“How’d you do that?” Bodine demanded.
“Do what?”
“Put on that lipstick without looking?”
“Well, I know where my lips are.”
Bodine knew where hers were, too, but she’d like to learn that particular trick. “Did you say you haven’t eaten at Biga’s? Ever?”
“If I end up eating in Missoula, I usually have a salad.”
“That’s just sad.” Bodine took the stairs to street level. “You come in here a couple times a month, but haven’t had the best pizza in Montana—and likely anywhere else.”
Jessica answered with a pitying look. “I have to remind you I’m from New York. There’s no better pizza than New York pizza.”
“We’ll see what you say after.” On the sidewalk, Bodine put her hands on her hips, scanned the pretty town with its clever shops, restaurants, breweries. “I don’t have a single good idea in my head for my mother.”
“Something will click. I thought I was a discerning gift-giver, but compared to you, I’m a peasant. Honestly, Bo.” Always a happy shopper, Jessica hooked an arm with Bodine’s. “Those photographs you had enlarged and tinted for Cora, and that really lovely triple frame? It’s so perfect, so thoughtful.”
“I got the frame from Callen’s sister’s shop. They have great stuff. The Crafty Art.”
“I love that shop! Cal’s sister owns it?”
“She and her pretty adorable husband, yeah.”
“I’ve burned up my credit card in there more than once. But the gift’s really about the photographs.”
“The wedding picture of her and my grandfather’s a winner, and the one of the two of them with my mom is so sweet. Just the way he was holding both of them so close. It’s the one of Nana and Mom, with Alice as a baby, that may stir things up a little.”
When Jessica said nothing, Bodine added, “You can ask.”
“I know there are some difficult feelings about Alice. That she ran away when she was young.”
“The day of Mom’s wedding. Just lit out, left a bratty little note from what I can gather, took off in one of the trucks. Going to California to be a movie star.” Bodine rolled her eyes. “I know she sent a couple of postcards, then nothing. Not even one word to her widowed mother.”
Since the door was opened, Jessica poked around a little more. “I imagine they tried to find her.”
“Nobody talks about it very much, as it upsets Nana, puts her at odds with Grammy. I can’t blame Grammy for her hard feelings there, watching her daughter grieve and suffer all this time. I guess I can’t blame Nana for her feelings, either.”
They passed a man who wore reindeer knee socks outside his jeans and sleigh bells around his neck.
“Alice is her daughter, the same as my mother. Which puts Mom solidly between them, and that’s a hard place. So, not much talk, but kids know how to hear things, and we heard enough to know Nana hired a detective for a while, and they found the truck abandoned in Nevada, I think. And Alice just disappeared. It’s not hard to do, I guess, if you want to.”
“Brutal for Cora,” Jessica comforted.
“Yeah. Grammy won’t much like my gift to Nana, but I figure I’m offsetting that by digging out the christening gown her own grandmother made for her and having it restored and framed.”
“It’s such gorgeous work. And coming up with the little photos of all the babies who wore it was genius.”
Bodine paused in front of a shop. “I have my moments. Now, since I’ve often thought if I ever came across Alice Bodine, I’d want to punch her straight off, that’s enough about her. Let’s try this place, see if something clicks.”
Nothing did, but at Callen’s sister’s shop she hit gold.
“I should’ve known to come here first. I was hoping Savannah would be in today.”
“I come in here every time I’m in Missoula. I must have met her.”
“Really pregnant right now.”
“Yes! She’s wonderful. And now I have another Montana connection.”
Bodine held up a fancy ladies ostrich-skin clutch. “This is Sal. Purple’s her favorite, and this isn’t something she’d buy for herself. Isn’t practical.”
“Maybe not, but it’s beautiful.”
“We go back, me and Sal. She does love girlie.”
“Many of us do, and so does Chelsea. I’m getting her this scarf.”
Bodine eyed it—it looked like a painting of a Montana sky at sunset. “It’s more than pretty, but that’s not going to keep her neck warm.”
“It’s not about that.” Jessica swirled it around her neck, twisted this, flipped that, and had it looking like something out of a fashion magazine.
“How did you do that without looking? And don’t say you know where your neck is.”
“Mad scarf skills.” But she walked over to a mirror now, brushed her fingers over the thin, soft silk. “I want it for my own, so it’s a good gift.”
“I’d never find anything for anybody if that was my yardstick. I just … Oh!”