Aspen Gold

by Janet Dailey

  “When you’re eighty-five, you can get away with it.” She gazed after the woman, thinking of the old woman’s house with its wrap-around porch and the clutter of flowers around it, mentally calculating its value. The house itself was worth little, but the lot-its size and location-would sell for close to two million. If only the old woman would sell. Sondra shook off that thought and lifted her glance to Bannon’s face, studying the harsh angles of his profile. “Mrs. Carstairs was right, though. Laura does have a lovely voice. You were nervous for her, weren’t you?” she asked, remembering. “I saw the way you tightened up when she sang. What were you thinking about?”

  “Diana-wishing she could have been there to hear her.”

  Sondra looked away, her lips coming together in a thin and bitter line. “You never forget, do you?” she murmured too low for him to hear.

  “Looks like Dad found Laura.”

  Sondra saw Old Tom and Laura as they came around the corner of the church, hand in hand. Laura waved to them. Smiling, Sondra waved back. Laura immediately released her grandfather’s hand and ran across the grass to greet them.

  “You were wonderful, Laura,” Sondra said when she reached them.

  “Thank you, Aunt Sondra.” The girl fairly beamed at the compliment.

  Looking at Laura, Sondra saw a great deal of her sister. That was the hold Diana had on Bannon. That was Diana’s power, her way of forever reminding Bannon of the past. Thinking of that, Sondra hated her sister with a secret and passionate fullness.

  Old Tom joined them. “I told her none of the others sounded as good as she did.”

  “That’s true,” Sondra agreed. “We were all very proud Of you.”

  Laura’s smile grew even wider and she sank her teeth into her lower lip, trying to hold it back. Then she turned slightly. “Do you like my hair, Aunt Sondra? Buffy’s mother fixed it in a French braid for me.”

  “It’s lovely.”

  “Do you think if I slept on my stomach tonight it would still look nice for school tomorrow?”

  “I have a better idea. Why don’t you persuade your father to come by my house before he takes you to school in the morning and I’ll fix it for you?”

  “Can we, Dad?” Laura raised her dark eyes to him.

  “It means you’d have to get up a half hour earlier,” he warned.

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Okay,” Bannon said, giving in to the silent appeal of those dark eyes.

  “If we have that settled, how about some food?” Old Tom rubbed his hands together in obvious anticipation. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but that pancake I had for breakfast is long gone.”

  “How does beef burgundy sound?” Sondra asked. “With some of Emily’s homemade dinner rolls on the side?” She caught Bannon’s expression. “You are coming to dinner, aren’t you?”

  “Not this time, I’m afraid. We have some strays to round up. We’ll have to head straight back to the ranch. Thanks anyway-”

  “Another time then.” She smiled stiffly.

  In the parking lot, they separated and Sondra went to her car. When Bannon drove out, he turned in the opposite direction from the ranch. Sondra didn’t have to wonder where he was going. She knew. Every Sunday after church, he took Laura to the cemetery to visit Diana’s grave. It was a Sunday-morning ritual that never varied. Her fingers had a stranglehold on the steering wheel as she forced herself to drive slowly out of the lot.

  John Travis refilled his cup with coffee from the silver urn on the dining room’s long buffet table. Beside him, Nolan Walker lifted the domed lid on a serving dish, releasing the tantalizing aroma of bacon into the room. John ignored it and rejoined Kit at the white-lacquered table.

  “Want some?” She offered him a bite of croissant slathered with strawberry jam.

  “No thanks.” He glanced at her plate. Not ten minutes earlier it had been mounded with bacon, sausage links, crisp hash browns, eggs scrambled with chopped chives, and the croissant. Only the croissant was left.

  “It’s delicious,” she said, as if in warning.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” he replied and watched as she took a bite of the croissant.

  Paula paused in the doorway, red hair tumbling about the shoulders of her dressing robe of green paisley silk. “Must all of you make so much noise,” she complained. “Have some pity, please. My head feels like there’s a full symphony orchestra inside playing the ‘Anvil Chorus’ over and over.” She made her way to one of the empty chairs at the table and lowered herself onto its Peruvian patterned seat. “I’ve never had such a horrible hangover from drinking a measly five glasses of wine.”

  “You don’t have a hangover.” Kit cast a sympathetic glance in Paula’s direction and spooned strawberry jam from its crystal dish onto her plate.

  “Really? My head tells me differently,” Paula countered in a voice as and as the desert, then lifted a limp hand. “Chip, be a sweetheart and bring a cup of coffee. Black.”

  “You’re probably suffering from altitude sickness.” Kit broke off a bite of croissant and dipped it in the jam.

  “Pardon?” Paula’s head came up slowly.

  “The symptoms range from shortness of breath to nausea, heart palpitations, insomnia, and headaches. Sometimes excruciating ones,” she added, smiling sympathetically at Paula.

  “Insomnia?” Nolan set his plate on the table and pulled out a chair. “Is that why I had such a tough time sleeping when we first got here? Usually my head touches the pillow and I’m out like a light.”

  “Probably. It’s caused by the reduced humidity and oxygen content in the air here. Don’t forget, Aspen is more than eight thousand feet above sea level. Sometimes it takes your body a couple of days to adjust to the change in altitude.” Kit popped the bite of jam-dipped croissant into her mouth and chewed slowly.

  “If that’s true, why are you so disgustingly chipper?” Paula eyed her with a mixture of censure and envy.

  Kit shrugged. “I’ve always been able to acclimatize quickly…maybe because I was raised here.”

  “So what’s the cure?” Paula wanted to know. “Other than a whole bottle of Tylenol?”

  “There isn’t one, other than time, although I’ve heard it helps to drink plenty of fluids, stay away from alcohol, and not overdo it.”

  “Believe me, I have no intention of doing anything more strenuous than sprawling on the coach all day,” Paula declared as Chip pushed a steaming cup of coffee in front of her. She wrapped both hands around it and took a slow, grateful sip of it.

  “How about something to eat?” Chip suggested.

  Paula shuddered expressively. “Please, my head is already in revolt. I don’t want my stomach joining it.”

  “Poor kid,” Kit murmured and, finished the last of her croissant.

  When the heavyset maid, Carla, padded into the dining room to check the contents of the chafing dishes, John said, “Bring Miss Grant some aspirin, Carla.”

  Chip raised his hand. “I’ll take some, too.”

  “I guess I don’t have to ask what everyone’s plans are for today,” Kit said when the maid left to fetch the aspirin. “It sounds like you’re all going to lie around, taking it easy.”

  “What are your plans?” John set his cup down.

  “I’m glad you asked.” She folded her napkin and laid it beside her plate, her eyes gleaming with a warm humor. “Because I was hoping I could persuade you to let me borrow a car so I can drive into town.”

  “No problem. Where are you going?”

  “To the cemetery. I want to visit my father’s grave.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “You don’t have to,” Kit told him.

  “I want to. Unless you’d rather go alone.”

  “It isn’t that.”

  “Then I’m ready when you are.” He pushed his cup back.

  Sunlight spilled through breaks in the trees’ leafy canopy and gleamed on the shiny-smooth surface of the granite ma
rker engraved with the phrase “Beloved Father.” Beneath it was the name Clint Masters, followed by his date of birth and date of death. Kit knelt beside it, one knee balanced on the autumn yellow grass, a hand running lightly over the granite.

  John Travis stood quietly to one side, deliberately not intruding on her private moment. But he watched her and noted the softness of her expression, the love in it, and the sorrow.

  A breeze sprang up and stirred the fallen leaves, sending them chasing after one another in a tumbling game of tag. Kit scraped aside long strands of hair from her cheek, then lifted her face to John, something distant, almost faraway in the look she gave him.

  “This is the first time I’ve seen the gravestone.” She straightened to stand erect and slipped the ends of her fingers inside the slash pockets of her tobacco brown jeans.

  “It’s nice.” They were mundane words, but he didn’t know what else to say.

  “Yes.” She stared at it for a long minute. “Next time I’ll pick some flowers to bring. There won’t be any larkspur, Indian paintbrush, or columbine this late in the year, but I should be able to find some of the purple daisies and the golden tops from the rabbit brush. Dad loved wildflowers,” she said in explanation, then swung her gaze to the surrounding mountains. “In the summer, he used to ride deep into the mountains just for the beauty of the wildflowers. He said it was like seeing miniature alpine gardens.”

  “It must have been beautiful.”

  “It was. It is,” she amended, then took a long breath and smiled. “Ready to go?”

  “If you are.”

  She nodded, then reached but one last time and ran tracing fingers over the rounded top of the stone, some of the sun’s warmth beginning to penetrate it. She turned to leave, then paused when she saw they weren’t alone in the cemetery. Several rows away Bannon stood at the foot of his wife’s grave, his hat at his side and his daughter’s hand in his. She stared at the girl, her black hair pulled smoothly back to make a dark frame for her face, dark eyes turned up to her father.

  John touched her arm and she almost jumped. “What, What’s the matter?” He studied her curiously, his eyes probing her expression. Then he joked, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “It almost feels like it in a way,” she admitted, then nodded in the direction of the father-daughter pair. “Bannon’s daughter-she looks enough like Diana to startle me.”

  “Diana?”

  “Bannon’s wife. She died shortly after Laura was born. There were complications…” She shrugged off the rest.

  “Was she a friend of yours?”

  “No. I never met her until after they were married. I was away at college.” She could say the words now without tasting any of the bitterness they’d once held, but she could remember the shock, the pain she’d felt when she’d read that short letter from her father informing her of Bannon’s marriage. “Shortly after graduation, I moved to Los Angeles so I really only saw her with Bannon a few times. She was very beautiful-long black hair and dark, almost black eyes, flawless skin.”

  “No freckles?”

  She met the warm humor in his eyes and smiled. “No freckles.”

  He held her gaze for another second remembering last night, then glanced idly back at the pair. “I take it he’s never remarried.”

  “No. He hasn’t forgotten Diana.” Kit watched as Bannon shoved his hat onto his head and smiled down at his daughter. Hand in hand, they turned and made their way toward the high-riding black pickup parked on the grassy verge of the cemetery’s narrow lane. Old Tom stood beside it, the sunlight making his hair look even whiter. Like Bannon, he wore a dark, western-style suit and a string tie. “It looks like they’ve been to church,” she observed. “I haven’t attended Sunday worship service in ages. When I was growing up, we never missed a Sunday.”

  “Was your family religious?” The pickup pulled away.

  “Religious?” Kit hesitated over that. “I don’t think that’s the right word-although it’s impossible to live in the midst of the Rockies without feeling the presence of God. I don’t know-going to church was just something you did on Sunday. At least in my family.”

  She noticed John had that withdrawn look and guessed it was an experience he didn’t share. With his next words, he changed the subject. “Let’s drive into town and have some coffee at one of the sidewalk cafes.”

  “All right.” She glanced at the white Range Rover, then at the trees and the sky, feeling the breeze on her face and breathing the fresh, sharp scent of the air. “I feel like walking. Do you mind? It can’t be much more than a dozen blocks to the downtown area.”

  He hesitated only a moment, then said, “Why not? We can always catch a cab if we don’t feel like walking back.”

  “Lazy,” she accused with a laugh.

  “I’ll remember you said that.”

  With smiles still lingering, they left the cemetery and followed the road to the highway, his arm lightly draped across her shoulders, their pace a leisurely one. On the bridge that spanned Castle Creek, they stopped and leaned on the rail to watch a man in waders, knee-deep in the center of the stream, cast his fish line across a patch of shallow riffles. Traffic rumbled over the bridge at a steady rate.

  “You’d think he would have picked a quieter spot,” John remarked. “With all this noise, he isn’t likely to catch any fish.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t care.”

  “Why go fishing if you don’t want to catch fish?” He eyed her with challenge, the cleft in his chin deepening at the wry twist of his mouth. The breeze had rumpled his sun-streaked hair, sending strands falling carelessly across his forehead.

  “Maybe he just likes fishing for the sake of fishing.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Not everything has to have a purpose, John T.” But she could tell he didn’t understand that reasoning. “You have a lot to learn about life’s finer moments of pure simple pleasure.”

  “Such as?”

  “Do you know what would taste good right now?”

  “Coffee.”

  “No. Ice cream.” Kit straightened from the bridge rail and reached for his hand. “Come on. I’ll buy you a cone.”

  She flashed him a grin and took his hand, giving it a tug to pull him along. Chuckling, John let himself be dragged away

  Across the bridge, the highway curved to make its wide sweep down Main Street. Ignoring it, they went straight and followed Hallam Street, once known as Bullion Row, to stroll through the West End.

  With the pickup pointed toward Stone Creek and home, Bannon increased its speed, the city limit sign behind them. The sun was high and bright, warming the wind that rushed through the truck’s open windows. Yet Bannon could feel the sharp, cool eddies of coming winter in the air.

  He glanced at Laura, sitting in the middle next to him, her gaze fixed on the road ahead of them. “You did fine today, Laura. I was very proud sitting there, listening to you.”

  Sometimes when he talked to her, he felt the absorbing attention she paid him. Other times, as now, her mind was away on its own thoughts, locking him out-as Diana had locked him out.

  She turned her head to him, her eyes serious and dark. “Will you ever get married again, Dad?”

  Momentarily he was thrown by her unexpected question. “Why would you ask that?”

  “I just wondered.” Still serious, still thoughtful, a faint frown line between her eyebrows, she turned back to stare at the road. “Maybe I could like another mother.”

  The tone of her voice troubled him. It wasn’t like her. It was cautious, holding her thoughts away from him. There was something on her mind she didn’t want to talk to him about, making him realize she was no longer a child.

  At nine years old the world was no longer all colored and wonderful to her, her thoughts were no longer a child’s simple black-and-white ones. Soon she’d be thinking as a woman thought-complex, something no man easily figured out. Soon she wouldn’t be his little g
irl anymore. The thought sobered him.

  Laughing, Kit emerged from the ice-cream shop on the mall, then swung back to wait for John, taking a quick lick of her double-dipped cone to check its melting drip. She eyed the single-dipped cone in his hand with mock disapproval.

  “Twenty-eight flavors and you choose strawberry. Very tame, John T.,” she chided.

  “I like it.” He took a disinterested lick, preferring to concentrate on her, watching as her lips closed around the top dip of green ice cream, a look of pure enjoyment in her expression, a sexuality and sensuality pouring from her like warm sunshine.

  “Mmmm, but there’s no surprises with strawberry,” she declared, her eyes darting, absorbing everything around them.

  “My palate isn’t as sophisticated as yours.” He matched her casually wandering pace, his glance going to the cone in her hand. “What is that you’re eating? Pistachio and-?”

  “Swiss chocolate almond. I like nuts in my ice cream. I like the cold and the crunch.” Kit hurriedly licked away a trickle of melted ice cream running down the sugar cone, then drew back, frowning thoughtfully. “I forgot. When you mix green and brown together, what color do you get?”

  “Yuk.” He caught her in the middle of a bite, startling a laugh from her. Her hand came up quickly to wipe the ice cream from her chin and cover her mouth while she struggled to swallow the bite through the laughter in her throat.

  Succeeding, she turned dancing eyes on him. “That was a terrible thing to say.”

  “I could have said worse.”

  “True.” She examined the cone again. “And you’re probably right. The only color green and brown make is yuk.” Untroubled, she took another bite and crunched on a nut while she let her gaze wander, her eyes taking in the scattering of other strollers wandering along the landscaped thoroughfare. “It used to be that just about everyone you saw was eating ice cream. It was the favorite way to get rid of the dryness in your mouth after a line of coke. Or so I was told,” she qualified as a running breeze kicked up some fallen leaves and chased them around an iron lamppost.