Janet Dailey - Aspen Gold

ASPEN GOLD

A Novel

by

Janet Dailey

Volume I of Three Volumes

Pages i-vii and 1-234

This braille title was originally produced for and is made available with the cooperation and permission of The Library of Congress.

Produced in braille by Braille International, Inc., 3142 S.e. Jay Street, Stuart,

Florida 34997 Telephone number

(800(336-3142

This braille edition contains the entire text of the print edition.

Copyright 1991 by Janet Dailey

All rights reserved.

BOOK JACKET INFORMATION

In Aspen Gold, the breathtaking terrain of Aspen, Colorado--once a frontier town, now a playground for the wealthy and powerful--serves as the backdrop for the enthralling story of a beautiful "urbane cowgirl" who must decide between a glamorous career and the handsome man she has secretly loved all her life.

Blond, outgoing Kit Masters, born and brought up on an Aspen ranch, is both country girl and city girl: her beloved father taught her to ride and hunt, while her mother took her to ballet and music lessons, theater and concerts. As a young woman, Kit left Aspen to pursue an acting career in Hollywood. She also left behind handsome rancher-lawyer Tom Bannon, who grew up on the ranch next door, the man Kit thought she would marry--and who broke her heart by marrying someone else.

Now, after years of bit parts, Kit has been offered her first really big break: the lead role in a movie opposite famous actor-producer-

and ladies' man--John Travis.

By coincidence, the movie will be filming in Aspen.

Except for her father's funeral, Kit has not been back to Aspen--or seen Tom Bannon-

in many years. Upon her return, she inevitably meets Bannon again, and they rediscover their romance. Both of them, however, are haunted by the past: Kit by the pain he caused her, Bannon by the memory of his dead wife. In addition, John Travis has begun to pursue Kit, ardently.

Kit has managed to remain unspoiled by her newfound success and her surroundings: beneath her sunny facade, she is a woman with a strong sense of family, loyalty, and integrity, with deep ties to the land where she grew up and that she still considers her home. Now she faces several difficult and dangerous decisions guaranteed to test the values she holds so dear. What will Kit choose to pursue--fame or love? If fame, is she willing to pay the price it demands? And if love, which man does she truly love? How will she provide for the future-

by holding on to the land that is the bedrock of her family, or by responding to the pleas of environmentalists and developers for the good of larger numbers? And what of the threat that the diabolical Sondra Hudson holds over both Kit and the men in her life? Can she really wreck the happiness Kit sees within her grasp?

With Aspen Gold, Janet Dailey has created her most lively and absorbing story, a novel that captures perfectly the values of the nineties, the romance of a particular magical place, and the passions of a love that lasts a lifetime.

Janet Dailey is one of America's best-selling female novelists. She and her husband, Bill, live in the Ozark Mountain country of Branson, Missouri.

Janet Dailey stays in touch with her readers through her annual newsletter. If you would like to be on her mailing list, please send your name and address to:

HCRBLED

Box 2197

Branson, Missouri 65616

NOVELS BY JANET DAILEY

Touch the Wind

The Rogue

Ride the Thunder

Night Way

This Calder Sky

This Calder Range

Stands a Calder Man

Calder Born, Calder Bred

Silver Wings, Santiago Blue

The Pride of Hannah Wade

The Glory Game

The Great Alone

Heiress

Rivals

Masquerade

Aspen Gold

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

ASPEN GOLD

A Learjet streaked across the crisp autumn air, its nose tipped down in a slow but steady angle of descent. Below, the Rockies loomed, mighty upthrusts of granite bristling with spruce. It was a wild land, an ageless land, harsh and beautiful by turns. Its unbridled grandeur was limitless, constantly challenging the strong and mocking the weak--and always indifferent to man's attempts to tame it.

Here, where great herds of elk once grazed the high mountain meadow, five hundred head of crossbred Hereford and Black Angus cattle trailed across the autumn yellow grass, flanked by a half dozen riders. On the right, a river of aspen gold tumbled down the stony breast of a mountain slope, crashed through a black-green wall of pine, and spilled its bright yellow flood onto the meadow.

Sunlight glinted on the jet's polished surface. Old Tom Bannon caught the flash of metal and threw back his head, directing his gaze skyward, away from the cattle being driven to the winter pasture near the headquarters of Stone Creek Ranch.

The ancient Stetson hat on his head was brown and weather-beaten like the eighty-two-year-old face it shaded. The big hands folded across the saddle horn were speckled with liver spots, and age had fleshed up his big-boned frame and shot his hair with gray.

His widely spaced and deep-set eyes looked out from beneath shaggy brows and searched the flawless October sky for the source of the light flash that had jarred him from his silent reminiscences of past autumn cattle drives. The sight of the sleek aircraft hurtling up the valley like a white arrow flying low--too low--brought his hard, square jaw together.

"Will you look at that blasted fool?" Old Tom flung a hand in the direction of the plane, directing the sharp-edged words at his son and namesake, Tom Bannon. "What in thunderation is going through his head to be flying that low? It's a damned fool stunt, that's what it is."

Following the line of his father's outstretched arm, Tom Bannon spotted the private jet. At thirty-six, he was a younger and leaner version of his father, with a face like the mountains, full of crags and hard surfaces, a face that wasn't handsome, yet one any woman would look at twice. Those who knew him well never called him Young Tom, or even Tom; he was simply Bannon. He'd been that from the first moment his father had set eyes on him and proclaimed, "He's a Bannon, right enough."

"What d'ya bet it's one of those idiots from Hollywood taking a scenic tour before landing in Aspen?" Old Tom challenged.

When Bannon saw the insignia of Olympic Pictures painted on the plane's white fuselage, he had an idea who was on board, but he didn't waste time on speculation. Instead his glance sliced to the cattle bunched in front of the open gate as the droning whine of the jet's engines began to make itself heard.

"Ned! Hank!" he shouted to the two riders on the flanks. "Push 'em through the gate!"

He spared one look to the rear of the herd, locating his nine-year-old daughter, Laura.

She trailed behind, her head bobbing from side to side, her slim shoulders dipping and swaying, her fingers snapping to the beat of the rock music coming over her headset. Oblivious to everything but the song, she hadn't heard his shouted order.

Bannon whistled a shrill command to the two cow dogs trotting alongside her pinto. Like twin streaks, they shot after the herd, harrying them from the rear while Bannon pushed at the balking leaders, reluctant to leave the summer range.

Ignoring their bawls of protest, he rode his buckskin against them, urging them forward with his voice and the slap of a coiled lariat against his thigh.

From the knoll, Old Tom watched as the first of the cows went through, stiff-legged and suspicious, heads lowered in distrust. But one look at the plane speeding through the sky and Old Tom knew they'd never get the rest of the herd through. The plane was so close he could see the pilot's dark aviator glasses and the faces pressed close to the cabin's porthole windows.