Aspen Gold

by Janet Dailey

  “I know.” She nodded briefly, then turned, keeping her fingers curled around Old Tom’s hand, and faced Bannon, fighting off the tension and noting-as she had done countless times in the past-the blunt honesty of his features and the warmth and humor lurking around his mouth and eyes. “Bannon.”

  “Hello, Kit.” He nodded to her, a smile deepening the small weather wrinkles about his eyes. It was obvious to anyone, even more so to Kit, who’d known both men all her life, that Bannon and Old Tom were cut from the same pattern. Bannon had the same granite chin and brow, the same wide and deeply set eyes, the same roughly molded cheekbones.

  She noticed the bow of silk ribbon he wore in place of a formal black tie and smiled. “You still don’t follow the crowd, Bannon.”

  “Not hardly.” Amusement glinted in his eyes.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce us, Kit?” Paula asked in a prompting tone.

  “Sorry.” Still holding Old Tom’s hand, Kit swung around to stand between Bannon and Old Tom, her mood deliberately lighthearted and gay. “I want you to meet some of my friends from Los Angeles, Tom. This is John Travis, who really needs no introduction. The redhead is Paula Grant. She and I worked together on Winds of Destiny. Chip Freeman is the director of the movie we’ll be filming here in Aspen, and that’s my agent, Maury Rose.” She paused and linked arms with the two men flanking her. “Everyone, I want you to meet Tom Bannon. He owns Stone Creek, the ranch next to mine. He’s a tried and true cowman. And the gentleman on my left is his son, Bannon.”

  The usual round of handshakes and greetings followed the introductions. When it was over, Kit didn’t allow the conversation to lag.

  “I doubt if any of you noticed the distinction I made when I described Old Tom as a cowman, but in western lingo, that means he runs she-stock-cows, in other words-and raiser, his own cattle. Now, my father was a steer-man. He bought young steers and raised them for beef. There’s an old saying on the range that ‘steer-men go broke, but cowmen never do.’”

  “There’s some that would dispute that nowadays,” Old Tom stated.

  “Probably.” She studied his craggy face, the face of a man who had spent a lifetime grappling with the elements. A host of warm feelings and good memories welled up inside. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight. I talked to Angie before dinner and she told me you were here.”

  “We got here late. We drove the herd down to winter grass today and it took longer than it should. Some damned fool plane-”

  Kit covered his mouth with her hand, stopping the outflow of words. “I have a confession to make. I was in that damned fool plane that spooked your cattle, Old Tom. It was my fault. You see, I wanted to fly over the ranch and the pilot obliged. I’m sorry.” She lowered her hand.

  “You should be sorry. It cost us a lotta time to round ‘em back up again.” Old Tom tried to hang on to his gruffness as he looked at her with-narrowed eyes.

  “Kit’s been worried you’d be angry with her when you found out she was behind it,” John interposed, subtly coming to her defense.

  “I gotta right to be. It was a damned fool stunt-though I guess she couldn’t know beforehand that we were moving the herd,” he grumbled in concession.

  She winked at John. “I think I’ve just been forgiven.”

  “Don’t get sassy,” Old Tom warned, but without heat.

  Paula spoke up. “I’ll be honest. When I saw those cows stampeding and the cowboys chasing them, I thought I’d been transported back to the wild and woolly West. Especially when I failed to see any film crew around.”

  “The West still lives, Miss Grant.” Bannon tempered his assertion with a gentle smile.

  Kit missed Paula’s skeptical look, struck by the contrast their comments had underlined for her. Only that afternoon, Bannon had been one of those cowboys in boots and jeans and spurs, racing his horse to check the stampede. Tonight he was in formal dress, completely at ease in these sophisticated surroundings.

  “From the air, you appeared to have some good-looking cattle, Mr. Bannon,” John remarked, and Kit had to smile, seriously doubting that he had any knowledge at all about cattle.

  “They oughta be,” Old Tom stated. “According to the market, I’m paying for the privilege of raising them.”

  Maury frowned. “If that’s the case, why don’t you sell out?”

  “Cattlemen don’t change, Mr. Rose,” Old Tom informed him. “They just die.”

  “Spoken in the best tradition of the romantic West,” Paula murmured, her mouth quirking.

  “You don’t believe in the traditional West, do you, Miss Grant?” Bannon observed.

  “Haven’t you heard?” Paula lifted her wineglass, eyeing him over the rim of it. “It died with John Wayne. It’s a lot of old-fashioned, sentimental nonsense. It isn’t even good theater anymore.”

  “You youngsters are hard people.” Old Tom shook his head in pity. “You don’t believe in anything. Maybe my generation was a little too given to getting choked up when the band played ‘God Bless America.’ But we believed in our tears. You folks won’t allow yourselves the luxury of honest emotion because you’re afraid of it. Now you’re all turning brittle and cold.”

  Paula let one hand flutter to her throat. “I do believe we’ve just had our knuckles rapped with a ruler.”

  Old Tom snorted at the irreverence in her tone. “And don’t give me that hogwash about how realistic you are. You don’t know the first thing about it. I’m from a generation that built a church and a school at one end of town, and a whorehouse at the other. That’s realism.”

  Kit knew from experience that Old Tom was just warming up. Laughing, she threw up her hands. “Enough. We surrender.” The band struck up a slow tune, and Kit took her cue from it. “Listen. They’re playing our song, Old Tom.”

  “Our song?” A frown pleated his forehead.

  “It’s a waltz, isn’t it?” she countered with mock innocence. “According to my dance card, the first waltz belongs to you. Your arm, sir?” She held up her own, the angle of her head saucy and challenging.

  “You’re doing this because you want me to stop offending your friends and shut up.” Old Tom dared her to deny it.

  “Right. And I want to dance, too.”

  “Two birds with one stone, eh?”

  “Something like that.” Kit smiled.

  Old Tom chuckled at her candor and took her arm. “In that case, let’s go show those folks how to waltz.”

  Bannon watched the two of them make their way onto the dance floor, then brought his attention back to Kit’s party and the red-haired actress who was studying him in a curious and speculating way.

  “Your father is…” Paula searched for the right word.

  “-a character?” Bannon suggested gently.

  Her head dipped in approval. “That’s a kind choice. Thank you, Mr. Bannon.”

  “You can drop the Mister and call me just plain Bannon.” He looked once again to the dance floor and the couple gliding through the waltz steps with graceful swoops and turns. “As for my father, he always has his opinion and he’s never been shy about voicing it.”

  “How true,” Paula agreed in a faint, dry drawl. “Any moment I thought he was going to call us a bunch of young whippersnappers.”

  “How old is your father anyway?” Maury asked.

  “Eighty-two.”

  “Really.” Chip said in surprise. “He doesn’t look it.”

  “Would that we could all carry our years as well when we’re his age,” Maury declared, then patted his protruding girth. “Not much chance of that, I’m afraid.”

  “Excuse me,” John Travis broke in. “I think I’ll slip out on the terrace and have a cigarette.”

  Maury nodded. “Sure. I’ll tell Kit where you are when she comes back.” His departure created a brief break in the conversation. Then Maury picked it up again. “I take it you’ve known Kit a long time,” he said to Bannon.

  “A long time,” he confirmed, unconsciousl
y glancing in Kit’s direction. Remembering. “We grew up together.”

  Paula, who missed nothing, murmured, “It was like that, was it?”

  He brought his glance back to her. “It was like that,” he said simply, then looked again at the couple on the floor, this time observing the flush of exertion that reddened his father’s cheeks.” Sorry, but I think I’d better rescue my father before he overdoes it.”

  On the dance floor, Old Tom guided Kit through a series of sweeping turns that had other couples on the floor moving out of their way. “You do realize that everyone’s watching us, don’t you?” Kit teased.

  “Only because I’m dancing with the prettiest gal in the room. Why, if Beauty was here, she’d been jealous. No, that’s not true,” he amended quickly. “She never would have been jealous of you, Kit. You were like a daughter to her, she was that fond of you.”

  “I loved her, too.”

  “I miss her.” For the first time since they’d taken to the floor, his steps faltered. He recovered, but the sureness was no longer there. Belatedly Kit noticed the beads of perspiration that had broken out along his brow.

  “You look tired.” She suddenly wished she hadn’t asked him to dance.

  Old Tom scoffed at that. “Bannons are like Saint Bernard’s. We look old and tired from birth. He didn’t give her a chance to pursue the subject. “How long are you going to stay this time? Is this another one of those trips where you fly in and fly back out?”

  “This time I’m going to be here so long that you’re going to get tired of seeing me.”

  “Not these eyes, Kit. Never of you.” he insisted in a voice gruff with sincerity.

  A hand clamped onto Old Tom’s shoulder and there stood Bannon, his smile warm and faintly challenging. “My turn, I believe.”

  With a little bow, Old Tom backed away, turning Kit over to Bannon with an alacrity that betrayed his previous disclaimer of fatigue. Bannon’s arm circled the back of her waist and his hand came up, catching hers, its calluses snagging briefly at the fine fabric of her glove as his fingers closed around hers. The wedding band he wore stood out against the deep tan of his skin, a glaring reminder that he’d married someone else even though he’d said he loved her-obviously not as much as she had loved him.

  She looked away, her eyes seeking Old Tom and watching as he paused on the edge of the dance floor and wiped the perspiration from his forehead and around his mouth. His hand trembled slightly when he returned the handkerchief to his pocket.

  “I shouldn’t have asked him to dance,” she murmured. “He enjoyed it.”

  “Just the same, I’m glad you cut in.” In that respect, she meant it.

  “It seemed natural.” Bannon smiled. “One more dance floor, one more dance-homecoming, the prom, Andre’s disco. This goes back a long way. Dancing with you is a habit I can’t seem to break.”

  She tipped her head back. “Do you remember so many of those dances, Bannon?” She’d always wondered if he thought about her.

  “When I’m dancing with you, I do.”

  “That was a long time ago. More than ten years.” Yet the firmness of his hand on her back was an incredibly familiar sensation-as was the pattern of his steps and the slope of muscle in his shoulder where she rested her hand. Only back then, they’d danced slower…and closer. Mentally shaking off that memory, Kit drew in a deep breath and smiled. “We had some good times, didn’t we?” It was a perspective of the past she wished she could keep.

  “We did, indeed,” Bannon agreed, then mused idly, “Ten years.” He cocked his head to one side and made a show out of peering intently at her nose. “I do believe you’ve acquired a few more freckles in that time.”

  “You used to tease me horribly about my freckles,” Kit remembered. “You almost made me cry once. I went home and used lemon juice, Clorox, peroxide-I even tried sandpaper to get rid of them.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t succeed. I like them.”

  “They give me a touch of character, don’t you think?” With a tilt of her head, she pushed her nose up a little higher and struck a pose. Long ago, she’d learned it was easier if she kept the conversation light.

  Bannon laughed. “As if you needed any more,” he said, then recalled, “we never pulled our punches with each other, did we? We always talked straight, had our share of arguments, too.”

  Kit nodded thoughtfully. “Funny, but I can’t remember what a single one of them was about.” No longer smiling, she lifted her gaze to his face. “Can you?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Wonder why.” She puzzled over that.

  “Probably because we never argued about anything important.”

  “Then why did we argue at all?”

  “Maybe because we were together so much. Because we had so damned much fun.” He wasn’t sure what it was he was trying to say. Kit Masters had been a strong, deep part of his life. There’d been a time when she was nearer to him than any other woman. Some of that old feeling remained so that, even now, as he danced with her, he felt at ease, comfortable, knowing there was nothing he had to explain to her, knowing she would understand. “We were young, Kit. We knew each other well. We knew which buttons to push to set off the other. Once in a while, we pushed them out of sheer orneriness.”

  “I suppose.” Her expression became faintly grim.

  “I never meant to hurt you, Kit.” Yet he knew he had, even though she’d never said so.

  She gave him a quick smile. “I know you didn’t.” But her warm smile was accompanied by a quick lift of her chin, an assertion of pride in its tilt-a pride that he’d hurt. “I forgave you long ago, Bannon.”

  Forgave, but she hadn’t forgotten. Bannon understood that, just as he understood that beyond her breezy smile and laughter-loving nature was a woman of strong feelings and a strong will.

  He didn’t say anything, letting the waltz music carry the silence, something dreamy and wistful in its lilting tune. He watched her, conscious of the soft line of her lips and the steady return of her gaze. He felt some of the heat from those earlier days when he’d gone with her, danced with her, kissed her, and felt the half-giving, half-resisting strength of her body.

  Kit turned her head, breaking the contact, an earring swinging with the abruptness of the movement, an abruptness she tried to disguise by smiling at a couple dancing past them, and wondering how she could have known what he was thinking after all this time-and been stirred herself by the exact same thoughts and memories. She must have imagined it.

  She faced him again with a measure of her former composure. “I thought I’d drop by your office on Monday and pick up the ranch keys. It will probably be in the morning. Is that all right?”

  “That’s fine. In fact, it’ll be a good time for us to go over some paperwork regarding Clint’s estate.”

  “If you say so, but you should know by now, Bannon, that all that legal stuff is Greek to me.”

  “Don’t you mean Latin?” He grinned.

  Kit laughed, her bare shoulders lifting in a faint shrugging movement. “Latin, Greek-it doesn’t matter. I still don’t understand. Thank heaven Dad knew that and named you his executor.”

  “You would have managed if you had to.” Bannon deftly steered her between two couples.

  “Barely.” She thought about that for a minute, then added, “Although after all the forms and paperwork I’ve had to fill out on Mother, I should be an expert.”

  “How is she?”

  “The same. Stabilized. In remission. They tell me she could live another thirty years. But she’ll never come home again.”

  “Kit-”

  She saw the sympathy, the pain and pity in his eyes. For her and for her mother. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not tonight, Bannon.” She smiled quickly, firmly.

  Bannon observed the determined set of her chin and nodded “Okay.” Yet he couldn’t help thinking of all that Kit had been forced to cope with these last nine months with her father’s death, the sudd
en and rapid deterioration of her mother’s health, and the demands of her career-and quietly marveled at the resiliency of her spirit.

  Without meaning to, Bannon drew her closer and caught the soft, subtle fragrance of her perfume. It brought back every old memory and some of the old desire as they circled the dance floor, their steps matching with the ease of two people who had danced a lifetime together.

  Sondra paused in front of the terrace doors, her lips thinning in irritation at the sight of New York financier George Greenbaum with J. D. Lassiter. She could guess at their conversation. George had been boring everyone this evening with his inside knowledge of all the political posturing in Washington over the S&L scandal. For the moment, J. D. appeared to listen with interest, which meant it would be the wrong time to break in.

  Aware that she couldn’t continue to stand there without conveying the impression she was waiting to gain an audience with J. D., Sondra searched for a diversion. The ballroom doors on her left opened directly onto the terrace with a softly lit fountain as its centerpiece. Silhouetted figures moved in the darkness, guests from the party, the telltale glow of cigarettes in their hands. Sondra instantly rejected the thought of joining them and turned back to the ballroom-just as John Travis approached, one hand already delving inside his jacket for a cigarette.

  “John, how wonderful to see you again.” Sondra forced the meeting, deliberately ignoring the initial flicker of annoyance in his glance.

  “Sondra.” His hand came out from inside his jacket, without the cigarette pack, as he stopped to brush a kiss across her cheek in greeting. “You look lovely, as usual.” He stepped back, sweeping her with a took. “Black suits you. But how could it not when you have all that moonlight trapped in your hair?”

  “I see you’re still playing the charming rogue.” She smiled at his flattery, coolly unmoved by it. “I wondered if you were here. You come to Aspen so seldom anymore. It did me no good at all to sell you that house in Starwood.”

  “You know how it goes-I’ve been busy.” There was something about her that reminded him of a cat, all aloof and cunning.