Aspen Gold (41 page)

On the sundeck, ringed like the pool area with radiant heaters to ward off the cool temperatures, a motley group of witches and warlocks, caped crusaders and fairy princesses, buckskin-garbed Indians and Cleopatras gathered around a raised wooden barrel filled with water, a layer of shiny red apples floating on its surface. Kit bent low over the tub, her long blond hair swept atop her head in a pompadour style. She ignored the advice hooted at her from all sides as she tried to sink her teeth into the slick skin of an elusive apple and wound up with a mouthful of water instead.

"It's cold," she protested on a laugh and wiped the icy droplets from her nose before trying again.

"No fair using your hands." John looked on, garbed in the black suit, ruffled shirt, and brocade vest of a riverboat gambler, complete with a diamond stickpin in his silk cravat and a wide-brimmed, flat-crowned hat.

"Show them how it's done, Kit." Paula clapped in encouragement, gypsy bracelets jangling on her arms, large gold hoops swaying from her lobes.

Bannon watched from a distance, a thumb hooked through the belt loop of his well-worn Levi's and a hip leaning against the deck rail. A gap in the crowd afforded him a clear view as Kit primly folded her hands behind a waist that looked wasp slim. Again she took an open-mouthed aim on an apple. Admiration and something more tugged at him as he watched her abandon herself to this child's game of bobbing for apples--without seeming less of a woman.

Scarlet silk rippled in his side vision, the splash of brilliant color drawing his glance.

Sondra stood in front of the glass doors to the living room, a pillar of red flame in her long cheongsam gown, her platinum hair pulled back in a sleek coil at the nape, her attention focused on the apple barrel.

A cheer went up. Bannon looked back as Kit straightened, water dripping from her chin and a red apple clamped firmly between her teeth. She plucked the apple from her mouth and held it triumphantly aloft, wiping the water from her chin with her other hand.

"Who's next?" she challenged.

A banker in a Robin Hood suit stepped forward to more applause, doffing his peaked hat in a gallant flourish as Kit spun over to John's side and finished taking the bite out of her apple.

"Mmmm, it's delicious," she said between crunches and swiped at the juice that tried to dribble from the corner of her mouth. "Have a bite," she urged, offering it up to him.

"What is this? Eve tempting Adam with the apple of knowledge?" He drew back in mock wariness.

"I didn't taste any knowledge, only cold, crisp and juicy," she replied, her eyes alight with humor. "Are you sure you don't want to try it?"

His gaze went to the shiny moistness of her lips.

"Maybe I will after all."

He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer as he tipped his head and kissed her, tasting all the apple sweetness on her mouth, lips, and tongue to the whistles and hoots of approval from the onlooking guests.

But not Bannon. Sondra saw the leap of muscle along his jaw a second before he wheeled away and walked into the house, his mouth pressed in a narrow line, his spurs making an angry jangle with each stride. Her glance went back to Kit and John Travis as Kit pushed him back, breaking the contact, a high color in her cheeks. Whether from the cool air, embarrassment, or pleasure, Sondra couldn't tell. Nor did she care.

Bannon's reaction was another matter. She hadn't liked it. She hadn't liked it at all.

She followed him into the living room strung with gossamer-fine cobwebs and lit by an array of candelabras. In a shadowed corner, a pseudo-seance was being held, visited by a ribald spirit, judging by the hoots of laughter coming from the participants. Sondra paid scant attention to it or to the costumed guests who spoke to her as she continued straight to the sunken bar where Bannon had posted himself.

He didn't hear her come up until she spoke, the sound of her voice drawing him half around. "That little scene upset you. You don't hide it well, Bannon."

He pushed the pilsner glass back to the bartender and picked up the bottle of Coors, not answering.

"It's common knowledge they've been having an affair. Surely you heard that--or did you choose not to believe it?" she guessed, her eyes narrowing as he took a swig of beer. "John Travis always romances his leading ladies, Bannon. How do you think they get to be his leading ladies?"

His hand tightened around the bottle's slick sides, his gaze fixed on it. "Sondra," he began in a grating voice.

"You don't like the implications of that, do you?"

she said, suddenly impatient. "Do you think men are the only ones who make bargains and compromises to get to the top? Women aren't any different. She spent nine years in Hollywood, working in soaps and bad horror movies. John Travis gave her a chance to do something more and she took it." She paused an instant. "You live too much in the past, Bannon. It's gone. Let it go."

Her voice choking in anger on the last, she swung away and walked off before she said Diana's name. She brushed past the joker and headed blindly toward the dining room and its lavish buffet, but her way was blocked by a harlequin chatting with a rhinestone-studded cowgirl and a pirate.

As Sondra walked around a tall pedestal table bearing a giant jack-o'-lantern, she inadvertently triggered a motion sensor. A sudden, wild cackle filled the room as a witch on a broom swooped from its box mounted high in the room's cathedral ceiling.

Sondra jumped at the sound of the insanely shrill laughter, straight into a gossamer curtain of draping webs. She batted at it wildly, then curled her fingers into it and yanked it from its hangings. She stood there for an instant, breathing hard, her head pounding, the edges of her vision blurring as she looked at the silken cloth in her hand.

She darted a quick look around, but no one had seen. No one had noticed. Their heads were all tipped up to watch the flying witch complete her circle of the room and return to her box high in the darkly shadowed ceiling. She wadded the webbing into a ball and tucked it in a marble planter, then paused and glanced back at the sunken bar. Bannon wasn't there.

He couldn't have left--not this early. All her muscles tightened, a rage rushing through her again.

Then she caught a glimpse of his back, the familiar set of his square shoulders beneath the short denim jacket, as he wandered onto the darkened empty deck off the far end of the living room.

Immediately she forced the tension from her muscles and continued to the dining room to check on the caterers.

Laughing, Kit led the way back into the expansive living room, transformed by the multitude of flickering candle flames into a cavernous room of eerie, dancing shadows, an effect that not even the overstuffed sofas and sumptuous furnishings could negate. As her glance swept over it, she declared, "Hollywood couldn't have done this better."

"She must have used a professional set designer." Chip pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and peered curiously around him. "I wonder who she got?"

"Enjoy, Chip. Don't scrutinize,"

Paula admonished in a despairing tone.

"He can't help it," Kit informed her.

"It's that mad-genius costume asserting itself."

"The "mad" part might be right," John murmured near her ear, not loud enough for anyone else to hear.

Her over-the-shoulder smile faded when she saw John wasn't joking. The pull of his mouth was much too grim. It softened when he noticed her glance, but it came too late to make light of his remark.

When the pressure of his hand firmed on her back, signaling her to continue forward, Kit complied and tried to ignore the troubling implications of his comment, telling herself it meant nothing more than the usual clash of temperaments on a film project.

Away from the congestion around the doors to the sundeck, Kit paused. "What next?" she asked the others. "Dancing by the pool?"

"Look at this." Chip bent close to an open sarcophagus, propped in the corner, its mummy inside. "An electric eye of some kind." He pointed to a small black object mounted on the wall near it, then waved a hand in front of it, breaking the field. Ghostly emanations came from the sarcophagus as the mummy's eyes popped open and a hand lifted.

"Isn't that something?"

"It's something, all right," Paula murmured.

"This party has almost as many tricks as treats."

"Sondra's parties are always highly imaginative," John remarked as he ducked to avoid snagging a trailing cobweb on his hat.

"Do you realize that my vacation in Aspen began with a party, and now it's ending with one?" Paula said on a marveling note.

"You're leaving?" John glanced at her in surprise.

"Yes, I'm flying back to L.a. the day after tomorrow." She adjusted the gold bangles around her wrist. "It's a few days earlier than I planned, but my agent called. He's arranged for me to meet with the producers on Days.

They're changing their storyline and introducing a host of new characters. They want me to be one of them. Right now they're talking the right number of digits. Plus I'll have some input on my character."

"Another villainess, of course," John guessed dryly.

"What else?" She lifted a shoulder, the scooped neckline of her peasant blouse slipping to expose much of its creamy whiteness.

"Paula has a talent for playing bad, good." Kit grinned.

"That I can believe." But his glance was on Kit, his eyes warm and bold, a blatantly sexual look. "So you're going to be staying alone at the ranch. That gives me some very stimulating ideas."

"Liar," she said, as always finding it easy to tease him. "You've had those ideas from the beginning."

"So I have," he admitted, his hand rubbing over her back in an idle caress.

"Speaking of ideas, treats, and what's next," Paula spoke up. "Let's see what goodies await us at the buffet table."

"Sounds good to me," Chip said, finally breaking off his inspection of the animated mummy.

Kit shook her head. "I think I'll pass. I'm still full from dinner."

"And the apple," John reminded her.

"That too."

"How about a drink?" he asked when Paula and Chip set off for the dining area.

"Please. Make it something nonalcoholic,"

Kit requested.

"Not champagne?" He raised an eyebrow.

"It isn't a champagne night." At some point the evening had gone flat; Kit wasn't sure when. "Halloween is mulled wine or hot chocolate with a splash of peppermint schnapps."

"I'll remember that," he said and moved off, the diamond-studded stickpin winking in the flaring light of a candle flame.

Alone in the shadowy corner, Kit wandered over to the sarcophagus and trailed a finger along the edge of its gilded lid. A breeze filtered through the open doors onto a side sundeck, its freshness scenting air redolent with the odor of hot candle wax. More restless than curious, Kit strolled over to the open doors.

Bannon lounged against the rail, his hands braced on the top of it, his long legs stretched out at an angle. A beer bottle sat on the rail next to him and his head was tipped down as if he was contemplating the scuff marks on the toes of his boots. Kit hesitated, but pride wouldn't let her back away--just as it had never allowed her to confront Bannon with the truth of how deeply she'd been hurt when he married Diana. Yet it was something else that kept her from admitting to herself that he still had the power to hurt her.

She stepped onto the deck, her long skirts swishing in a soft rustle of fabric. His head came up, the brim of his hat shading his eyes, but she could feel them on her.

"I suppose you call that outfit a costume," she said lightly, her glance running over him. The sun-faded jeans and denim jacket, the boots with the run-down heels and blunt-tipped spurs, the worn-soft chambray work shirt, and the weather-stained cowboy hat on his head, all were the clothes of a working cowboy, typical of the dress Bannon wore on the ranch.

"I can guarantee it's authentic." He drew one foot back, a spur musically rattling, but he didn't rise. The words were friendly enough but not the coolness in his voice.

He'd been on the front sundeck when John had kissed her. Kit had glimpsed the hard, closed look on his face before he'd walked off. Part of her had been annoyed by it.

He had no right to be jealous; he'd given that up when he married someone else. Yet another part of her had taken perverse satisfaction out of knowing she could still make him jealous. It was this bewildering mixture of feelings that kept pushing and pulling at her, unsettling her, never totally letting her go.

"It's definitely authentic," she agreed and walked past him to the rail.

She paused there, facing the night, a nearby radiant heater giving off a toasty warmth and the breeze cool and fresh on her cheeks. The band by the pool struck up a hard, driving rock song, the level of laughing, chatting voices rising and falling. Yet the feeling was one of quiet and stillness, a dusting of stars in the sky, visible beyond the soft glow of Aspen's lights, the surrounding black mountain masses cutting jagged chunks out of the sky.

"It's a beautiful night, isn't it?"

"Yep."

That one-word answer pulled her around, forcing her to acknowledge the tension in the stillness, the strong cross-currents in the air, the heavy undertow of feeling.

"Spoken in the best tradition of the strong-and-silent type," Kit mocked, half serious and half in jest. "Gary Cooper couldn't have delivered it better."

"I guess you'd know about that." Bannon's glance bounced off her as he tipped the bottle to his mouth and poured the last of the beer down.

"Did Sondra mention to you that she has someone interested in buying Silverwood?" Kit asked, deliberately changing the subject.

"She mentioned it." He set the empty bottle back on the rail beside him.

"She brought some people out last week to show them around. She thinks that they may be making an offer soon." She tried to sound very matter-of-fact, but she couldn't keep the regret that she had to sell out of her voice. Her glance drifted over the contemporary stone-and-glass house in front of her. "I hate to think of houses like this being built along the ridge trail," she said with more vehemence than she intended.