Dad shook his head. “You know you can’t just blow off your responsibilities to the mountain,” he chided.
“I’m not,” I said, an edge to my voice. “Dad, I just want to make sure that he’s okay.” I paused. “Look, I hope you’re not taking this as a personal insult, because it’s not. You know that I trust you with Ethan. Hell, you’re with him half the afternoons already. I just want to make sure that if he gets worse, or if he needs to go to a doctor, then I’m here to make that decision.”
Hanging in the air between us, I knew, was ‘unlike when Beth got sick’. Dad and I might not be close, but one drunken night, after Ethan had gone to bed, I had confessed that I felt like everything with Beth was my fault. Dad, of course, had assured me that it wasn’t. That there was nothing that I could have done, that there was no way of knowing how things were going to end up. That you couldn’t predict the future or plan for all possibilities.
That you couldn’t beat yourself up over things when your partner was lost.
Of course, everything that he said just felt like empty platitudes. The kind of thing that a father kind of had to say to his son. It read like a fucking movie script, to be honest. I had never talked to Dad about any of that again. But I knew he knew exactly what I was thinking at the moment.
Despite the breakthrough that we’d had after he gave Ethan the PowerBox, he didn’t respond with any sort of emotion. Instead, he just shook his head. “Well, let me know if you need me,” he said, heading for the door.
I thought about stopping him, but only for a second. Instead, the words out of my mouth were, “I’ve got it handled.”
When the door shut behind Dad, there was a certain finality to it that made me feel immediately guilty. But what was I supposed to do, chase after him and tell him that I was sorry? I didn’t want to leave Ethan alone, even for the short amount of time that it took me to do that. Instead, I just shook my head at the closed door and headed back into the kitchen to make sure that everything was straightened up in there.
20
Bailey
I was shocked to find that Wednesday was the busiest day we had had so far. I would have thought that the weekends, or at least Fridays, would be the worst days for the lift lines. But this was nuts.
When I arrived at work that morning, there had been a lineup already, just to make first chair. A line, in fact, that stretched all around the base area and halfway back to the parking lot. I headed into the lodge and found Kayla at the front desk. She grinned ruefully at me. “This is what happens when you get nearly a foot of snow right before Christmas,” she said, gesturing at the lodge.
Which was packed, people sitting at nearly every seat, pulling on boots or wolfing down quick breakfasts. I shook my head, still barely able to comprehend it. “I’ve never seen the place like this before,” I said.
“I think today’s definitely going to pass the record for visits,” Kayla confirmed, nodding her head.
“Is there anything that I need to do to keep things going?” I asked, even though I couldn’t begin to imagine what that would be.
Kayla shook her head. “It’s mainly up to the lifties; we just need to start getting people on the lifts and out on the mountain, and then they’ll spread out a little. I mean, there are still going to be some long lift lines today, so I hope you weren’t planning on skiing at all.” She paused. “Although another thing you could do would be to greet guests. We’ve got a bunch of resort ambassadors coming in as greeters today, but they could always use one more. Plus, we could use a liaison for guests who are having any sort of issue. It’s Gretchen’s day off and usually Adam would keep track of everything but he’s not here today.”
“He’s not?” I asked in surprise.
“Nope, he called in,” Kayla said.
“Is he sick?” I asked.
Kayla shrugged. “He didn’t say,” she told me. “Just that he’d be in tomorrow instead.” She snorted. “For all I know, he knows just how busy it’s going to be today and doesn’t want anything to do with it.”
“He wouldn’t shirk his responsibilities like that,” I said automatically, even though, hell, I barely knew the man. But I could tell that Adam had a huge sense of commitment to the resort and a great work ethic.
Kayla held up both hands. “Yeah, no, I was just joking,” she said. “I know that’s not it.”
I couldn’t help feeling a little worried. There was part of me that almost wanted to call Adam up right now and demand an explanation. But there was another part of me that knew I didn’t have any right to do that. If he wanted us to know what was going on, he would have told us. And besides, there was plenty of other work that I could do at the resort that day. I couldn’t waste time calling up Adam and trying to suss out what the problem was. If he didn’t come in the next day either, then maybe I would.
I headed out and got to work greeting the customers waiting in line. There seemed to be a never-ending stream of them. A little before noon, one of the cooks came out and told me that there were fresh chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen if I wanted to start handing those out to guests, so I started carrying out trays.
I smiled when I saw a dad with his young daughter ski towards me for cookies. I couldn’t help thinking back to when my own father used to bring Ian and I here over the holidays. Of course, it had never been quite this busy back then, and Ian and I frequently went skiing with dad. But it was still nice to know that the spirit of the resort was still the same in so many ways at it had been when I was a kid.
Who knew, maybe that little girl would one day grow up and buy a condo here as well. With that thought in mind, I continued to smile as I moved around greeting our guests.
The day passed pretty quickly like that. It was early afternoon when Kayla approached me with a ‘bad news’ look on her face. I immediately excused myself from the guests I’d been chatting with. “What’s up?” I asked her.
“We’ve got a problem,” Kayla said grimly.
“What kind of problem?” I asked her.
“Apparently one of the lifts, Dasher Express, the one over on the west side of the hill, went out about five minutes ago and the lifties can’t get it to start back up again. They’re not even sure what happened in the first place; no one hit the emergency stop or anything,” Kayla explained.
I swore under my breath. “Are there guests on it?” I shook my head. “What am I saying? Of course there are guests on it right now.”
“It’s been the busiest lift all day,” Kayla confirmed. “Everyone’s over skiing the bowls and stuff.” She paused. “The other problem for everyone standing down there at the bottom waiting for the lift is that there’s literally no way for them to get back here except by getting up to the top of the mountain and skiing out. We’ve got ski patrol already blocking off the way down there and directing people to alternate spots on the mountain, but unless we want to evacuate everyone already on that side with snowmobiles or whatever.”
“That could take a long time,” I surmised. With the way the lifts looked down here at the base area, I could only imagine how many people were waiting for the Dasher lift when it broke down.
I tried to think of what to do. But I knew there was really only one thing we could do; we needed to call Adam. He was the only person, as far as I knew, who was qualified to work on the lifts. If he couldn’t come in that day, maybe he at least would know someone else that we could call. We couldn’t very well leave our guests stranded. Whatever was up with him, I knew that he would understand that.
I sighed. “I’ll call Adam,” I told Kayla.
“I can, if you want,” Kayla offered, giving me a sympathetic look.
I shook my head. “Nah, I’ll do it. If I have to, I’ll pull the boss card and tell him that whatever’s going on, I need him to get his ass over here.” I just hoped it didn’t come to that.
I headed inside and back to my office, where it was a little quieter. Then, I gave Adam a call.
“Bailey?” he
asked in surprise. “What’s up?”
“You know how you keep telling me that I can always call you during your days off? Well, I need you to come in today. As soon as possible,” I told him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding worried.
“Something with the Dasher lift,” I told him. “No one really knows what. But we’ve got people stranded on the lift and down in the lift line there, so we really need you.” I paused. “I wouldn’t have called if I knew anyone else who could help. But I at least need a recommendation for someone else who might be able to help.” I paused. “It’s our busiest day ever, and I really don’t want to have the bad press over this.”
Adam groaned, and I could hear the frustration in his tone. “Did the lifties hit the emergency stop?” he asked. “Sometimes it sticks a little and you just have to jiggle it a bit to get it working again.”
So much for how I could call him whenever it was his day off. I started rethinking whether it made more sense to hire someone on to work with him. I knew that he was against that idea, that he liked having control of every part of the maintenance of the mountain. But it meant we had a serious problem if he wasn’t available.
“They didn’t,” I said tightly. “They have no idea what happened, it just stopped.”
“All right,” Adam said. “I’ll be right over there.”
“Thanks,” I said, hanging up the phone before he could say anything else. Then, I headed out to talk to our mountain operations lead to chat about how we were going to minimize the bad press from this.
Just when things were really going well for the resort, I thought with a sigh as I walked. But then again, wasn’t that always the way with businesses? You could never just count on things to go well. There were always going to be some hitches in there. Half of being a good business person was knowing how to minimize the messes.
And making sure that your staff were going to be there when they were supposed to be there. I tried not to feel frustrated with Adam, especially since I didn’t know what was going on with him that day, that he couldn’t be there. But at the same time, it was hard not to be frustrated. Our busiest day and no mechanic on site?
Yeah, we were definitely going to need to have a talk about that. I sighed, filing that away for now. First, we needed to get all our guests off the lift and to safety. We’d worry about the rest later.
I should just be glad that it wasn’t too cold right now, and that it wasn’t snowing. The guests stranded on the lift probably weren’t too comfortable, but things could have been much worse. We’d get them off there as quickly as we could, even if it meant evacuating the lift.
21
Adam
Of course this was the day that there was a problem at the mountain while I wasn’t there. Of course. I closed my eyes and counted to ten, trying not to let frustration get the better of me. I knew that Bailey had done exactly the right thing in calling me; I knew that she hadn’t had any choice in the matter. And I knew that I needed to get over there and get that lift working again. It probably wouldn’t even take that long, in the scheme of things.
But it wasn’t like I could leave Ethan here alone. On any other Wednesday, he would have been at school right now, and it wouldn’t have been an issue. Hell, before Bailey showed up, I wouldn’t even have minded taking him over to the resort with me. But now, well. The trouble was, there was something that insisted that I should have told her about Ethan before now.
Which was ridiculous, really. It wasn’t like Bailey and I were in a relationship or anything. She didn’t need to know every detail of my life. She didn’t deserve to know every detail of my life, even. But she had asked me if I was single, and she had made it seem like maybe she was interested in me. Hell, she had invited me in for wine, after we’d had dinner together in what might have been a date.
I should have told her about Beth, and I should have told her about Ethan. I didn’t even really know why I hadn’t. But I did know that if I just showed up at the resort now with my son in tow, things were going to look bad. It was going to look like I had been hiding this from her, like I was either ashamed to have a son or else didn’t trust her with that information. I wasn’t sure which was worse.
Either way, I didn’t really want to do that.
So I tried calling Dad. But either he was out or else he was ignoring my call after my snappy words from that morning, my insistence that I could handle this on my own, without his help. I swallowed hard and called up the babysitter who sometimes helped me out. But she was busy as well. I tried Dad again, but I still couldn’t reach him.
There was nothing else that I could do. I knew we couldn’t leave our guests stranded up on the lifts, and I knew that even if we got them all evacuated by other means, I was going to have to get that lift spinning as soon as possible. With the way we’d been getting slammed with snow lately, it was one of the most popular lifts on the hill, servicing a good half of the expert terrain, from bowls to glades and everything in between. It would be a huge media issue if the lift was out of commission for more than an hour.
I sighed and headed into Ethan’s room. “Hey, buddy,” I said, unable to keep the unhappiness out of my voice. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” Ethan said, and he definitely did sound and look better. A lot more lucid. And when I felt his forehead, he was nowhere near as warm as he had been that morning. Whatever bug he had had, it seemed to have mostly gone. My relief was short-lived, though; all I could think about was the fact that I had no choice, I had to take him to the resort. Whatever might come of that.
“I’ve got to go fix one of the lifts at the resort,” I told Ethan slowly. “And I tried calling Gramps to see if he could stay with you, but he’s not around right now.”
“That’s okay,” Ethan said immediately. “I can come with you. I like going to the mountain.”
I swallowed hard, resisting the urge to ask if he was sure. Because even if he had said that he didn’t want to go with me, I had no other choice. This wasn’t a good idea, not by any stretch of the imagination, but there was nothing else that I could do.
“All right, let’s get dressed as quickly as we can,” I told him instead.
“Okay!” Ethan chirped, leaping out of bed and rushing towards his little dresser.
I helped him get ready and then carried him out to the car and got him strapped in. “Let me know if you start feeling yucky again,” I told him, adjusting my rearview mirror so that I could see him nod. “And when we get to the resort, I want you to stay right with me, okay? I’m going to have to leave you with someone so I can ski over to Dasher, and I want you to mind your manners.”
Yet another complication to this whole plan; normally, he would stay with Gretchen if he was with me at the resort and couldn’t actually tag along on the work that I was doing. But today was Gretchen’s day off. I fought the urge to swear. What a messed up day. I would probably have to leave him with Kayla and whoever was at the front desk, but that was exactly where Bailey was most likely to see him.
I’d figure it out when I got there, though. Right now, all I could think about was the lift and what might be wrong with it. I hadn’t noticed anything out of the usual with it lately, so I wasn’t sure why it would spontaneously quit working. Unless maybe something had iced over. With the way it had been snowing this year, that was entirely possible. Not meant to happen, of course; we knew that these pieces were going to be used outside, and there were certain precautions made to ensure that the lifts kept spinning whatever the weather. But if a little water had somehow dripped into somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be, that could cause all sorts of problems.
“I’m going to try to make sure that we don’t have to stay very long,” I promised Ethan as I helped him out of the car. “But I don’t really know what’s wrong with the lift. I brought some things for you to do while you’re waiting, though.”
“That’s okay,” Ethan said, slipping his little hand into mine as we walked towards
the lodge. “I know it could take a while. I like it here, though.”
“I know you do, buddy,” I told him with a small sigh. Internally, I still wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. “You make sure you let someone know if you start feeling yucky again, though, okay? They’ll give me a call on the radio and we’ll go back home. Or to a doctor.”
Ethan rolled his eyes. “Dad, I’m fine,” he promised me. “I feel all better now. Don’t you always tell me that sleep is the best medicine?”
I had to laugh in response to that, because hearing those words come from the mouth of my six-year-old was hilarious. Some people said that kids never listened. Not true with Ethan; I could count on him to parrot my words back to me at the most random of times.
I wanted to say something more to him about staying back behind the counter with Kayla, or in general just staying out of sight. But there was no way to really tell him that without making him suspicious. And again, it wasn’t like I was trying to hide the fact that he existed. The only thing that I could think to tell him was that my new boss was scary and that he wouldn’t want to see her.
But I didn’t want to make him not want to come to the resort anymore. And besides, that would only make things more awkward when Bailey eventually found out about him.
I tried to tell myself that the only reason I was so sure that Bailey was eventually going to find out about him was that she was my boss and she had shown that she planned to be around the resort a lot that winter. She and I were going to interact a lot, and it was only a matter of time before she found out about Ethan.
But in my heart, I knew there was more to it than that. I actually wanted Bailey to find out about Ethan, when I really thought about it. I was still worried what it would mean for her and I, what she would think about me for having kept his presence from her. But I wanted Bailey to know him, and I wanted Ethan to know Bailey.
One Shot At Love: A Billionaire Single Father Romance Page 12