Aspen Gold (33 page)

Sunlight streamed through a break in the clouds and spilled over the liver-colored brick that paved Aspen's open mall. From the window of her private, second-story office, Sondra watched as Kit Masters stepped out of the agency's entrance, then paused to slip a folded copy of the listing agreement inside her purse.

With a slight toss of her head, Kit shook back the loose mass of honey blond hair and moved off, angling across the square, briefly disappearing behind the diamond sparkle of the fountain's spray.

Idly Sondra ran her fingers up and down the top edge of the original copy of the agreement, then glanced at the signature on the bottom that so clearly spelled out Kit Masters's name. There was a faint, almost feline quality to the sober curve of her lips, one that matched the gleam in her eyes.

Both vanished the instant she heard the clink of crystal in the room. In a fluid turn, she faced away from the window. Warren stood in front of the lacquered Chinese cabinet, a decanter of Courvoisier in his hand.

A carefully bleached eyebrow lifted in cool censure. "Helping yourself to my private stock, Warren?"

"A minor celebration is in order." He smiled with easy confidence and splashed portions of brandy into two glasses. "This morning we received a solid nibble on that commercial block from a group of Denver investors with beautifully deep pockets. Then this plum parcel is handed to us on a silver tray. Such good fortune should be toasted."

"There's time enough for that later." Sondra crossed to her desk. "We have work to do."

Warren considered arguing the point, then shrugged.

"Suit yourself." He tossed down the contents of her glass, then picked up the second one and sauntered over to her desk. "By the way." He sat down in a black-lacquered chair and crossed a leg, smoothing the precise crease in his trousers. "Dr. Adams is coming to Aspen for the weekend. I plan on taking her out to dinner Saturday evening. At company expense, of course."

"Of course," Sondra echoed dryly, laying the listing aside and reaching for her initialed notepad.

"It's a shame I'm not a member of the Caribou Club. It would be the perfect place to take her." He swirled the liquor in his glass and watched the light play on its moving surface.

"Sell that commercial block to Dr. Adams and her group of investors and I'll include a year's membership in the club with your commission check as a bonus."

Warren raised his glass. "I'll drink to that."

"Then do it so we can get down to business."

Her glance was cool and quick.

"What business is that?"

"Call Ernest Gruber and tell him to go out to the Masters ranch immediately. I want that property shot from every conceivable angle while there's still some autumn color left." She began committing to writing the mental list she had been making. "You can also tell him that I expect the finished pictures to look like something in a National Geographic spread. And I want it yesterday."

"That's going to cost you," he warned. "You won't get him to do this one for free."

"I know." She went on to the next item.

"I want a video of the property with that same quality look. Contact Bluelake

Productions and Silver Sky Video.

Whichever one can give me the fastest turnaround, I'll take. I'll need an aerial view of the property, a topo map, and a plat by five o'clock this afternoon."

"Five?!" Frowning, Warren uncrossed his legs and sat up.

"No later than five-thirty. I'm meeting Austin James for drinks at six."

"Austin James, the land planner?"

"The same," she replied without looking up from her notes.

"What are you seeing him for? What's this all about?"

"It's about another Aspen."

"Another Aspen." Warren stared at her, his drink forgotten.

"Yes, Silverwood Ranch is the ideal setting for one," she said, then paused, her head lifting slightly. "Silverwood," she repeated in a musing tone, then picked up the telephone receiver and buzzed her secretary.

"Yes, Miss Hudson?"

"Check the atlas. See if there's a Silverwood, Colorado, listed," Sondra instructed and promptly hung up. "What was the name of the graphic artist we used on the Cottonwood Condominium project, Warren?

Sam--something, I think."

"Sid Parrish."

"Parrish." She nodded and marked that down.

"Call him. I want to see some of his ideas for the name Silverwood." Her glance lifted to Warren.

"Don't you think you should get started on all this?"

she challenged.

He looked at her for another long second, then gulped down the last of his brandy and stood up.

"I just wish I knew what "all this" is."

"A little homework, Warren. A little homework."

She smiled faintly, a determined light entering her eyes as she silently vowed to be thoroughly armed when she approached J.d. Lassiter this time.

With no particular destination in mind, Kit strolled down Hunter Street, idly passing time while Paula was at the salon getting her hair done. She refused to think about the copies of the listing agreement in her purse. She'd made her decision and taken the necessary steps to carry it out; there was nothing left to think about.

The sun was out. The sky was beginning to clear.

She had some free time on her hands and she was going to enjoy it.

Crossing Main Street, she turned left to wander past the Pitkin County Courthouse, an imposing red sandstone and brick structure built a century ago. As she approached the front steps, Bannon walked out of the building, carrying a briefcase and wearing a western-cut navy suit and tie with his usual cowboy boots and hat.

Bannon paused when he saw her, his features taking on a faintly grim set.

Kit hesitated, too, remembering--as he no doubt was--their harsh exchange the day before. But she halted at the bottom of the steps, forcing a meeting.

"I'm glad I ran into you." She opened her purse and took out one of the copies of the agreement with Hudson Properties. "Since you're handling the estate, I thought you should have a copy of the listing agreement I just signed with Sondra. I was going to mail it, but I might as well give it to you now."

"Right." He slipped the copy into his inside jacket pocket.

Kit plunged on before he could walk away.

"I was angry and upset yesterday.

Bannon, I want you to know that it isn't that I don't care whether you like it that I'm selling the ranch. It's that I can't care. Please try to understand it wasn't a decision I made lightly. I know how you feel--"

"Do you?" he challenged quietly and looked away. "I wonder."

Conscious that her temper was dangerously close to the flashpoint again, Kit took a slow, calming breath and tried to respond in a reasonable tone.

"I know you're against more development in the valley--"

Bannon cut her off again. "You're wrong.

I'm not against more development in the valley.

I'm against the kind of development that's designed exclusively for the rich. And you can bet that's exactly what will be built on your land. But that's not your problem, is it? You won't even be here ... unless you use some of the money from the sale to buy yourself an expensive second home in Aspen so you can visit one or two times a year like the rest of your Hollywood friends do."

He spoke without heat, but that didn't lessen the sting of his words. Kit struggled again with her temper.

"Bannon, please," she protested curtly.

"I don't want to argue with you."

He held her gaze for a long second, then shook his head with a vague kind of weariness.

"I'm not trying to argue with you, and I'm not trying to change your mind." He looked away and sighed.

"I'm not even angry--just frustrated."

Glimpsing the tiredness and regret that shadowed his roughly planed features, Kit smiled faintly. "I believe you."

There was a glimmer of warmth in his brown eyes when he turned back to her. A heavyset man brushed past Bannon to climb the courthouse steps.

Bannon shifted out of the way and cupped a hand to her elbow. "Let's walk," he said and guided her to the corner. "Remember when we were in school back in the seventies and Aspen was faced with runaway growth from the skiing craze that swept through America after the Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley were televised? They tightened the zoning regulations to keep Aspen from turning into a condominium city. It worked, slowing growth to a crawl," Bannon recalled as they waited at the corner for the traffic light to change.

"But it backfired, too. Restricting the amount of land to be developed, reducing the supply but not the demand, land prices soared. The harder something is to get, the more people seem to want it." The light turned green and Bannon stepped off the curb with Kit beside him. "That hasn't changed, Kit.

If anything, it's gotten worse. In the last three years alone, land prices have doubled."

"It's unfortunate, but it's still better than the alternative. At least Aspen has been able to retain the character that attracted people here in the first place."

"Has it?" They walked up Mill Street, Aspen Mountain rising in front of them. "In case you haven't noticed, Aspen is fast becoming an opulent ghost town of multimillion-dollar mansions that get visited by the owners two or three times a year." He glanced sideways at her, something challenging in the look, but this time in a friendly way. "How many familiar faces have you seen since you've been back?"

"Not many," she admitted. "But I haven't been in town much either."

"That doesn't matter. You still won't see many. And every year they become fewer and fewer."

"People are always moving to new towns. It's a national trend."

"But their reasons aren't the same," Bannon insisted. "The director at the Aspen Art Museum recently resigned when she couldn't find a two-bedroom home in Aspen that rented for less than two thousand dollars a month."

Kit had no response to that. They walked a few more paces in silence. Then Bannon said,

"I don't blame you for worrying about how you're going to take care of your mother. I worry, too.

About raising my daughter in a town where there's so much subtle emphasis on material possessions, where the stores sell one-hundred-thousand-dollar fur coats." He waved a hand at the full-length sable displayed in the window of a furrier across the street. "Or boots that cost four thousand dollars, or sweaters for six hundred and up. Where other girls her age have their own television sets, compact disc players, and heated pools to swim in. High times, high style, high living--that isn't the kind of small-town environment you want to raise your child in."

"No," Kit agreed quietly, sobered by the thought that she had no children to raise, no cause for the same concern. She couldn't help thinking how different it might have been if Bannon hadn't married Diana. But there was no point dwelling on a past she couldn't change.

"Most of the people who work in Aspen can't afford to live here. Most of them don't even shop here.

It's too expensive. Which makes it hard to get help. Several restaurants don't even open for lunch anymore. What's going to happen when all the volunteer firemen move someplace else?" he asked, grimly rhetorical, then sighed. "I do what I can, but it's never enough."

"Like the rooms above your office that you rent to the schoolteacher and that man you represented on a pro bono basis," Kit recalled, eyeing Bannon with a quiet pride.

He smiled ruefully. "Sometimes I feel like the little Dutch boy with his thumb plugging the hole in the dike. A stopgap that stems the flow but doesn't correct the problem. There's no easy solution. There's too much money in this town and money changes the way people think. When you're poor, you look at things one way. When you've got a million dollars in your pocket, you look at things differently. The money won't let you do anything else."

"I don't accept that."

"It's true. If a man spent ten dollars and built a lemonade stand out of scrap lumber, then charged three dollars for a small glass, he'd be condemned for it. But if that same man spent five million dollars and built apartment units, then rented them for three thousand dollars a month, he'd be forgiven because of the amount of money involved--even though it's the same sin."

"It isn't right." Even to her own ears, that sounded terribly naive.

"No, it isn't." Lifting his hand, Bannon glanced across the street.

"Do you remember Max Davis?"

"The tyrant of the boards? Are you kidding?"

Kit grinned, instantly recalling the big, ruddy-faced man who'd been the director of the first play she'd done with the local repertory company. "No one could forget Max. Is he still around?"

"Still around, still involved with the theater company. In fact, they're in rehearsals for a new musical over at the Wheeler." He nodded in the direction of the red-sandstone building on the corner.

The opera house was an Aspen landmark built over one hundred years ago, when silver was king.

At three stories it was still the tallest building in Aspen. "Want to drop in?"

"I'd love to." She broke out of her strolling pace and grabbed at his arm, drawing him along as she headed across the street with quickened strides.

The house lights were down, the only illumination coming from the work lights on the bare stage of the old and elegant opera house. Gravitating toward the stage, Kit moved quietly down the shadowed center aisle, her gaze riveted on the six dancers in practice tights and faded leotards working out a routine.

"Five, six, seven, eight!" the choreographer called out the count, his hands clapping the beat.

A piano banged out boisterous notes, the music filling the empty house as twelve feet hit the wooden floor in unison, six bodies moving and twisting as one, arms sweeping out on signal, heads tilting, legs lifting, feet slicing through the air. Kit slipped into the fifth row and sank into the second seat, leaving the one on the aisle for Bannon.

"Ball change before the kick," the choreographer shouted the reminder, hands clapping.

"Good. Show me some hip in that turn. Make it sharper. You're dance-hall girls, not ballerinas."