Claiming Her Billion-Dollar Birthright by Maureen Child Page B

granted the charm of the city he’d grown up in.
    It was modern of course, with plenty of high-end boutiques and shops for the megawealthy and celebrities who flocked here every year. But it was also an old mining town. Brick buildings, narrow streets, brightly colored flowers in boxes and old-fashioned light posts that were more atmospheric than useful. It was a mingling of three centuries, he supposed.
    â€œIn Aspen, we’ve sort of held on to the old while we welcomed the new.”
    â€œI love it,” she said, her head whipping from side to side so she could take it all in.
    He threw a quick look at her, saw pure pleasure dancing in her eyes and wondered how he was going to maintain a strictly business relationship with the youngest of Don’s daughters. As his mind wrestled with his body’s wants, he tried to focus on the road and not the way she lazily crossed her legs.
    â€œIt’s so big,” she said after another minute or two.
    â€œAspen?” He gave her another quick look. Coming from a city the size of San Francisco, he was surprised to hear she thought Aspen was big. “It’s not, really. Population’s around five thousand with a hell of a lot more than that every winter for the skiing and in the summer for the food and wine gala.”
    â€œNo, not Aspen itself,” she corrected. “Colorado. It’s all so…open. God, the sky just goes on forever.” She laughed a little and shrugged. “I’m more used to fragments of sky outlined by office buildings.”
    â€œWhich do you like better?”
    â€œWell,” she said as he stopped at a red light, “that’s the question, isn’t it? San Francisco is beautiful, but in a completely different way. I feel so out of my element here.”
    The light changed, he put the car in gear and stepped on the gas. Keeping his eyes on the road, he said, “You’re Don Jarrod’s daughter, so Colorado’s in your blood. Your family goes back a long way here.”
    â€œTell me,” she said, focusing on him now more than the city around them.
    â€œI’ll do my best,” he said, thinking back to everything he’d heard Don talking about over the years. “Don’s great-great-grandfather started the resort. He was here for the silver mining boom that started the city back in 1879. Bought himself some land and built what he called the biggest, damnedest house in Colorado.”
    Erica smiled. “No shortage of self-esteem in the Jarrod family then?”
    â€œNot at all,” Christian agreed with a chuckle. “Anyway, by 1893, Aspen had banks, theaters, a hospital and electric lights.”
    â€œImpressive,” she said, half turning in her seat to watch him as he spoke.
    â€œIt was. Then the bottom dropped out of the silver market, mines closed and people moved out by the hundreds. Eli Jarrod refused to go, though. He kept adding on to his house, and opened it up as a hotel. There were still plenty of people back east who wanted to come out here on fishing and hunting trips and Eli was set up to take care of them.”
    â€œSmart.”
    â€œNot a shortage of brains in the Jarrod family, either,” he told her. “Anyway, Eli managed to hang on. The Depression wasn’t easy for anybody, but then the resort really took off in 1946. Then people were discovering the mountains for skiing and the Jarrods were prepared to handle the tourism trade.”
    â€œRight place, right time?”
    â€œI guess,” he said, “though they hung on through the lean years when everyone said that a hotel in the middle of ‘nowhere’ was a bad idea. So maybe you could just put their success down to pure stubbornness.”
    He steered the car past a delivery truck and along street after street. Businesses gave way to bungalow homes set far back on wide lots dotted with pines. Soon they left the city behind and turned onto a road guarded on