Blood and Chrysanthemums Read Online Free Page A

to ask Kellie if she wanted him to bring her anything, then left Domano Sports, heading for one of the five coffee shops that had sprung up in the last year. They were part of the increasing gentrification of the town that had rendered the main street almost unrecognizable as the one he had driven his battered used car along for the first time ten years ago. He would be quite happy if the Ralph Laurens and Club Monacos went back where they came from. . . . but the coffee shops could stay. Cappuccino was rapidly becoming a necessity of life, not a luxury.
    It was the enduring paradox of living in a tourist town; tourists paid the bills and spoiled the ambience, profit supported his habits and led to the increasing commercialization and sometimes ugly development. Because the town was inside a national park, growth was regulated. . . . but where there was money, or even the smell of money, there was also a way. Someone could always think of reasons the town needed more hotel rooms, more golf courses, more malls. One person’s livelihood destroyed another person’s vision of the town, and which side of the line you were on often depended on whether it was your livelihood in question or not.
    Something across the street caught his attention, a flash of red against the store windows, a blur of darkness where there should only have been light. Attention dragged from the irresolvable question of the future, he looked across the street and saw her. It was the woman from the climbing wall. . . . Ardeth Alexander. He matched her pace, watching her.
    On the street, she stood out even more than she had at the wall.
    Everything about her seemed to be black: low boots, leggings, short skirt, loose jacket. Her only concession to the prevailing fashion in Banff was a bright red polar fleece top beneath the jacket. The breeze stirred the line of her hair and a red stone flashed in her ear.
    He remembered looking down into wide brown eyes.
    She turned down the alleyway and headed for the door of Snow Rats, a small shop as well known for its tasteless and outrageous T-shirts as for its snowboarding and ski equipment.
    He remembered the flush across her pale cheeks as she hauled herself up by one impossibly slender arm.
    The smell of coffee wafted through a suddenly opened door and reminded him why he had come.
    He hovered on the sidewalk, balancing the promise of coffee and a break from work and the memory of her fingers in his. Jesus, Frye, for a guy who likes risks, you sure are a coward, he mocked himself. How long has it been since you met a woman halfway as interesting as that one? The coffee will be here tomorrow. She might not be. What have you got to lose?
    He ran across the road before he could answer that question.
    Snow Rats was cramped and loud, metal or thrash or whatever the latest popular noise was called was pounding from the stereo. Mark eased his way in and saw her immediately, squeezed in between a rack of skis and the wall of T-shirts. She was working her way through the shirts, head bent, hair falling like shadows around her cheeks.
    “Hey, Mark,” a voice hailed from his left, and he looked over to see the clerk leaning on the counter looking at him. “Steve,” he acknowledged, suddenly embarrassed, and noticed almost absently that Steve had cut his long, blond dreadlocks and acquired a pierced nose since the last time he’d seen him.
    “In here checking out the competition?” Steve asked, though their stores were hardly genuine rivals. Snow Rats’ adolescent snowboarders didn’t venture into Domano’s main-street store and Domano’s well-heeled patrons tended to be looking for expensive equipment and the clothes that suggested they knew what to do with it, whether they did or not.
    “Been out yet?” Mark asked, moving over to look at the rack of snowboards, Ardeth a dark blur at the edge of his vision.
    “Couple of times on the snowpatch up on Norquay. You?”
    “Not yet.” The bell over the