Plus, I hoped that it would teach Ethan to see the beauty in the world around him, and that even in this increasingly interconnected age, he could sometimes unplug and forget about the rest of the world.
But then again, Ethan was nowhere near as introverted as either I or his grandfather were. He would probably move into town as soon as he could. I refused to be bothered by that. And I just hoped that I could teach him enough about outdoor survival that he always knew he could come back to the wilderness, or the fringes of society at least, if he ever wanted to.
Today, the task was stockpiling wood for the winter. Ethan was pretty gung-ho about helping me out, but of course, I wasn’t going to trust the six-year-old with an axe, even if he had had the strength required to split logs for me. Instead, I showed him how to stack the wood to keep it dry. He made a great helper.
At least, until he dropped one of the logs on his finger. “Ow!” he cried suddenly, and I felt my heart stop as I nearly dropped the axe in my rush to look at what he had done.
I could see his lower lip quiver, but instead of crying, he frowned, holding up his finger so that he could look more closely at it. “Shit,” he said, much to my surprise.
I stared at him for a moment and then hurried over to see his finger. He had probably gotten it trapped between two of the logs, and the little finger was already swelling a little, turning a bit purple. There would be a nice bruise there for weeks to come, probably. For a moment, I felt bad about letting him help me. If he hadn’t been out there with me, he wouldn’t have hurt his finger. But I knew that if I hadn’t let him help me, Ethan would have spent the afternoon moping. That was just the kind of boy that he was.
He was a tough little kid, too. He still wasn’t crying. But still, I couldn’t endorse that language. “Ethan you know you’re not supposed to say bad words,” I rebuked him.
Ethan frowned deeper, and when he lowered his hand, I could tell that he had already almost forgotten about the pain. “Shit?” he said again. “Gramps says that sometimes.”
I almost laughed at the innocent way that he said it. But I forced myself to keep the stern look on my face. “There are some words that only adults are allowed to say,” I said. “And that’s one of them.”
“That’s not fair,” Ethan complained.
“I know,” I said. Again, I couldn’t help but smile at him.
Ethan lifted his finger towards me. “Kiss it so it doesn’t hurt?” he asked, again seeming young and sweet.
“I’ll do you one better,” I said, scooping up a handful of snow. “This is going to feel really cold, but I bet it’ll make your finger feel better.”
Ethan stared dubiously at me for a moment but eventually allowed me to press the frozen snow to his finger. He winced but continued to stay strong.
We were still like that when Dad came over. “Thought the mountain might have things for you to do this afternoon,” Dad said, shrugging his shoulders. “I know you’ve been busy lately.”
“Not the mountain, but I’ve got a ton of chores to do,” I admitted. “We’re trying to stockpile wood for right now. Maybe you could help Ethan with stacking the wood?”
“Good plan,” Dad said.
We worked in silence for a while, until Dad suddenly swore, shaking his hand. He had done the same thing that Ethan had earlier. I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help grinning. “Hey, watch your mouth. There’s kids around,” I said, looking pointedly towards Ethan.
“Yeah, watch your mouth!” Ethan said. He frowned. “I said that word earlier and Daddy got mad.”
Dad looked surprised for a moment and then laughed. He clapped his hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “You’re right,” he said. “I shouldn’t use bad words. And neither should you, champ.”
We went back to work for a while. Eventually, Dad cleared his throat. “I heard a rumor that you’ve got a new boss,” he said.
I blinked in surprise. Dad skied pretty regularly, although not as much now as he had when he was younger. He said that he didn’t like to ski on his own, and most of his friends from town had either moved away or fallen out of touch with him. Or both. Dad was a difficult man to stay close to, really.
I pushed away the thought that I might be just the same as him. Instead, I nodded. “Yeah, new owner,” I confirmed. “You remember Ian Peters?”
“That prankster you were always running around with?” Dad said. “He bought the place? I didn’t know he even lived around here.”
“He doesn’t, although he is back to visit. His sister is the new owner of the resort.”
“Huh,” Dad said, and I could tell he was mulling that over. “Well, I think that’s good.”
I frowned at him. “Good?” I said. “We don’t have any idea how she’ll run the place. The last time I saw her, she was just a kid! Not that she is anymore, but I just don’t see what’s so good about her taking over the place.”
Was that a hint of a smile on Dad’s face?
“I just think it’s good,” he said firmly. “You need a woman in your life.”
I sputtered in shock. “She’s just the owner of the resort,” I said. “Nothing more than that.”
Dad nodded, but he did it in the same way that I would if someone made a comment that I didn’t believe. I frowned, wanting to protest more, but I knew that would only make him more certain that there was something more to things between Bailey and I. Which there wasn’t.
But besides, this wasn’t the kind of conversation I wanted to have around Ethan. The boy was old enough to remember his mother. Beth had only died a couple years before. I didn’t want Ethan thinking that I was disrespecting the memory of his mother. Nor did I want him, on the flip side, getting his hopes up that one day he might have a ‘new mommy’.
Anyway, I didn’t know what Dad was talking about. I didn’t need a new woman in my life. Ethan and I were doing just fine on our own, not to mention the fact that I didn’t exactly have time to start a relationship with someone.
But for the briefest of moments, I thought back to the Bailey that I’d seen the day before. Cool, confident. Infuriating, to be honest. I doubted she knew the first thing about running the mountain. I could still see those bright green eyes in my head. And suddenly, I was mentally stripping her down, pushing her onto the bed, climbing over her and kissing every inch of that tanned skin of hers.
No, I wouldn’t go there. She was my boss. Nothing more than that. She couldn’t be more than that.
8
Bailey
I was waiting for Kayla at the front desk when she arrived on Thursday morning. She paused, looking surprised to see me there. Then, she grinned. “If you’re trying to get me to play hooky with you today, I’m going to have to tell my boss,” she joked.
I laughed and shook my head. “Not exactly what I had in mind,” I told her. I shrugged and leaned in, keeping my voice down. “As you probably know, I don’t know very much about running a place like this,” I admitted.
I had done a lot of research the night before and a lot of thinking. I didn’t want everyone in the place doubting that I knew what I was doing, even though I knew that there were probably a lot of them who were already skeptical about my qualifications.
And I wasn’t looking to implement any major changes at the moment, anyway. But I did want to make sure I really had a handle on things around the place. And that meant getting some insider intel.
The previous day, when I had arrived at the resort, Kayla had acted like there hadn’t been a span of years since we had been close friends. She had acted happy to see me. I knew that of anyone at the resort, I could trust her. So if I needed help, and I needed someone who was going to be discreet about the help that I was getting, she was the person that I needed to talk to. I was sure of it.
“I have a feeling you know more about running this place than anyone else,” I said to Kayla.
“What makes you say that?” she asked in surprise.
“You’re smart,” I said simply. “You keep
your eyes open. And besides, you’re right here in the thick of things. Not to mention the fact that you’re the kind of person who gets to know everyone. I could use that right now.”
Kayla grinned, and I could tell that she was preening a little. “I don’t know everything,” she cautioned. “But everything that I know, I’ll share with you.”
“That’s perfect,” I told her.
Kayla made a face. “You’re probably going to have to ask Adam some questions too, though. He’s your handyman, and I know he knows a lot more about the condos and snowmaking and some of the other operations stuff than I do.”
I nodded, making a mental note of that. I tried not to let excitement course through me at the idea that I was going to have to chat with Adam at some point. But I couldn’t help it. I knew that I needed to keep him at an arm’s length. He was my employee. And a damned important employee at that. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that it would be easy to replace a lift mechanic if I did something to offend him.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about how good he had looked the previous day. There was an air of mystery about him, too. He’d been cordial enough, but he hadn’t been the prankster that I remembered him being. There was something dark in his gaze, and I wanted to figure out what it was. Wasn’t he happy working here? Or had something else happened that gave him that darkness?
“Let me show you around,” Kayla said, glancing at her watch. “John, you don’t mind watching the front desk until I get back?”
John widened his eyes in mock fear. “But there are so many guests right now!” he said, gesturing towards the nearly empty lodge. It seemed like everyone who was here had already headed out to ski.
Kayla snorted and held up her cellphone. “You have my number. Call me if things get busy, but otherwise, I’ll be back in a little while.”
“No problem,” John said.
Kayla led me away from the front desk. “This means that we can catch up a little too,” she said once we were out of earshot of her coworker.
I laughed. “Well, what do you want to know?” I asked jokingly.
“Everything,” Kayla said. “What have you been up to? I haven’t seen you since, what, that trip we took in junior year? When you came up to Arches to climb that spring?”
“No, it was Cuba, the summer between junior year and senior year,” I reminded her.
“Oh yeah!” Kayla said. “For some reason, I always think that that was the summer before that. What a great trip.” She paused and then looked at me in surprise. “Matt! Are you still dating him? Or married or something?”
I laughed and shook my head. “Nah, Matt’s long gone,” I said, shrugging. Actually, it was weird to even think about Matt now. It seemed like it had been a lifetime since I had dated him. Since I had even thought about him.
“What happened?” Kayla asked, and I shrugged again.
“I don’t know, we just weren’t meant to be. He wanted so much more, so fast. Like, he wanted to get married the second we were out of college. And I just wanted to live my life a little first, you know?” I glanced away from Kayla. I knew what she was probably thinking; that I was just as commitment-phobic as ever. And honestly, that was what doomed most of my romantic relationships.
I just couldn’t seem to find anyone that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. And I couldn’t help thinking about my parents’ divorce. They had still claimed to love each other. But they could barely stand to be in the same room with one another.
It all just left me pretty jaded, feeling like maybe the idea of marriage wasn’t something that I really wanted to pursue. If that doomed my relationships, then so be it. I had more fulfilling things in my life anyway.
Like this new undertaking, Brooks Mountain Resort.
“But you’ve dated other people since then?” Kayla pressed, and I remembered suddenly that Kayla was one of those people who basically couldn’t stand to not be in a relationship. Hers never lasted all that long, but she seemed to always have a new guy. She wouldn’t understand if I said that it had actually been two whole years since I had dated anyone at all.
“I’ve dated,” I hedged. “It’s just been a while. I’ve been busy with work and stuff.”
Kayla groaned. “You can’t let your work be your whole life,” she said.
I laughed. “Well, I just bought a new business,” I reminded her. “For the moment, it might just have to be.”
Kayla shook her head but before she could say anything in response to that, one of the guests came up to the two of us. “I’m sorry, I think I remember you from before,” he said to Kayla. “You work here, don’t you?”
“I do!” Kayla said, giving the man a bright smile. “What can I help you with?”
“I just was wondering if you could do anything about the lights out in the main hall of the new condos,” the man said. “I might be missing something, but I can’t seem to get them to turn on, and it’s mighty dark in there.”
Kayla frowned. “I’m so sorry about that!” she told the man. “I’m not sure what the problem is, but we’ll get right on that.” She looked over at me as the man thanked her and walked off. “That would be a task for Adam. I’ll give him a call. Maybe you can chat about the business with him while he’s here, too.”
I shook my head. “We don’t need to call Adam in for something like this, I’m sure,” I said. “We’re smart enough to figure out what’s wrong with the lights. It’s probably just a blown fuse or something. Come on, let’s go take a look.”
“Okay,” Kayla said, but I could tell she wasn’t so sure that it was a good idea.
I didn’t know why I was so reluctant to call in Adam. Obviously, I was going to have to get used to working alongside him. There was no reason for this flutter of nervousness in my gut every time I thought about him.
But no, I told myself. That wasn’t the reason why I didn’t want to call him in. I just was sure that there was no reason to call him in on a day when he wasn’t working, just to fix some silly problem with the lights. Besides, I didn’t want to be just a figurehead at the company. I wanted to be involved with everything. If that meant fixing lighting issues, then that was just another thing for me to do.
When we got to the hallway, I saw that it really was pretty dark in there. The five overhead lights that went down the middle of the hallway all seemed to be out. I frowned, peering up at them. “They probably didn’t all go out at once, but we should check the bulbs anyway, just to be on the safe side,” I said. “I bet if just one or two of them went out, no one would really notice it, so maybe things have just been getting progressively darker in here until suddenly they were all out.”
Kayla looked skeptical, but she helped drag a chair over so that I could reach one of the bulbs. I gave it a small shake and, sure enough, there was a faint noise inside. “Definitely gone out,” I confirmed. “We have spare bulbs, right?”
“Yeah, they should be back in the supply closet under the stairs,” Kayla said. “I think that’s where the fuse box is for the condos, too; maybe we can try that as well.”
“Sure,” I said easily. “Like I said, I’m thinking it’s probably more to do with the bulbs, but it wouldn’t hurt to see if there’s something wrong with one of the breakers too. Lead the way.”
Kayla guided me down the hall to the supply closet. Once there, she started rooting around for more of the bulbs while I pulled open the fuse box and tried to make sense of the small letters labeling each switch. I frowned and tried one of the switches experimentally, glancing back over my shoulder towards the hall. Still no change.
I tried another switch, not sure which hallway this was in terms of the labels. Suddenly, everything got even darker than before, the emergency lights turning off as well as the lights here in the supply closet. I hurriedly flipped the switch back in the other direction, but there was no change.
“What did you do?” Kayla groaned from somewhere off to my left.
“Oops,” I muttered, flipping
the switch back and forth a few more times. But there was still no change. I sighed. “Maybe we should call Adam.”
“Told you we should have done that from the start,” Kayla said, sounding like she was trying not to laugh. I was glad for the darkness to hide my flaming cheeks.
I pulled out my phone, glad for at least that much illumination. I had already saved all the various numbers for the personnel in my contacts list, so it was easy enough to find Adam and dial him up. “Hello?” he said when he answered the phone.
“Hey, it’s Bailey,” I said, wishing my voice didn’t sound quite so meek.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“There’s a sort of situation in the condos,” I told him. “A problem with some of the lighting in the hall. I was hoping that you could come and check it out. I know it’s your day off, so I’m sorry to call you in. But Kayla and I aren’t having any luck figuring out what’s going on.”
Adam groaned. “Please tell me you haven’t already tried to do anything yourself,” he said.
I bit my lower lip, not sure how to respond to that. Suddenly, I felt like a chastised child. I should have just called him in the first place.
“For future reference, you can always call me on my days off, and I’m usually around to do whatever you need,” Adam said. “I can be there in about an hour. There’s a reason you have a maintenance person. I’m qualified to do the work that the place needs.”
“I know, I know,” I said, staring down at my feet. “I just…wanted to help.”
“I’ll see you soon,” Adam said, hanging up the phone before I could really finish apologizing. I slowly put my phone back in my pocket, grimacing. I felt foolish. But still, did Adam have to be so rude about it? I really was just trying to help. And spare him having to come in to work on a day off.
I didn’t remember Adam ever being so brusque with me when we were younger, and it made me wonder again what had changed about him. Kayla seemed to think that he was damaged goods, and maybe she was right. But I wondered how he had gotten that way.
One Shot At Love: A Billionaire Single Father Romance Page 5