Which might be considered strange given how little time I had really spent in Park City in the scheme of things. But something about this just felt right.
That feeling only increased when I got off my flight and called Adam to ask him for a ride from the airport. He sounded only too happy to come and get me. But it was Ethan who flung himself at me first, when the two of them walked up to me.
“Bailey!” he cried, throwing his arms around my legs. “You came back!”
“Of course I did,” I said, smiling down at him and stroking his hair back.
“Just for a few days?” Adam asked quietly, his gaze searching my face.
I shook my head, unable to keep the smile off my face. “No,” I told him. “Ian and I talked to the board of directors. I still have to do some work with the casino company from here, checking in on Ian and video conferencing some of the meetings. But they’ve agreed to let me come back to Utah.” I paused. “I may still need you to help out with the more administrative things around the resort for now, though. If that’s okay?”
Adam grinned at me. “I think we can work out some sort of deal,” he said teasingly.
Relief washed through me. I relaxed further as he pulled me into his arms, lightly kissing me.
“Ew,” Ethan said from beside us, and I pulled away laughing even though I wanted nothing more than to deepen the kiss, to drag him home and have my way with him. Still, as we walked through the airport and Ethan slipped his hand into mine, linking Adam and I in a chain, I couldn’t help but feel like this was right where I belonged in that moment.
“Can we go skiing tomorrow?” Ethan asked as he skipped along between the two of us.
I glanced over at Adam to see his response to the question and winced when I saw that he was frowning. “It’s a school day tomorrow,” he reminded his son, and I realized that his worry about us skiing together didn’t have anything to do with my sudden return or some newly cold feet.
“But can’t I miss school just this once?” Ethan pleaded. “I’ll be really good and do extra homework the next day.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Adam looked over at me, then gave a rueful smile. Still, he shook his head. “Bailey just got back from Nevada,” he reminded Ethan. “I’m sure she has a bunch of work that she needs to do tomorrow. Plus, she probably wants to get settled in again.”
“I’m sure I can get by with one more day off,” I told Adam. “I hear you’ve been handling things even better than I could have. Sounds like you might deserve a vacation, and no one knows that I’m back to work yet.”
“I just took a vacation over the weekend,” Adam reminded me, but I could tell from the grin on his face that it was almost a done deal. If I really wanted to go skiing with Adam and Ethan tomorrow, then it would only take one more argument to sway him.
“You’ve been telling Ethan that we could all ski together for weeks now,” I reminded Adam. “Come on, it’ll be fun. We can at least do a half day and take the afternoon off, what do you think?”
Adam considered it for a moment. “Just the afternoon,” he finally said, nodding. “How’s that sound, buddy? I’ll pick you up from school at lunchtime and we can ski together for the afternoon?”
Ethan cocked his head to the side as he considered it, and I had to fight not to laugh when I realized that his ‘thoughtful’ look was exactly the same as his father’s. Finally, he nodded. “All right,” he said, reaching out a hand for his father to shake. “But we have to do a full day of skiing another time. Maybe on a Saturday when I don’t have school.”
“Deal,” Adam said, shaking his son’s hand.
“He’ll make a great businessman someday,” I joked. “He drives a hard bargain.”
Adam laughed and shrugged. “Well, as long as he doesn’t do anything crazy like deciding to move a whole state over to buy a ski resort,” he said, his eyes twinkling.
I had to laugh at that.
“I’m sure you probably want to get settled back in, but I was thinking that maybe we could go for ice cream,” Adam asked as we got in the car. He looked distinctively nervous.
I glanced back at Ethan, who looked excited at the prospect of ice cream. “Well how could I say no to that?” I asked, jerking my thumb back towards Ethan’s hopeful expression.
Adam’s eyes crinkled around the corners.
To be honest, I still felt nervous around him. I had thought that we had smoothed out the tension between the two of us when he was in Nevada, but it felt like a whole new thing, coming back here to Utah. Like we were starting another chapter in our relationship. A chapter that might lead us to a future together.
I didn’t dislike the thought of that. Actually, I liked that we felt even closer now than we had the morning before, in the suite in Vegas. But I was nervous that I might do something to screw it up. I knew Adam was nervous as well, and that just made me want to calm him down. But I wasn’t exactly sure what to do.
“I didn’t think you were coming back,” Adam admitted as he and I waited for the ice creams to be ready, while Ethan guarded our table near the windows.
I looked over at him in surprise, but Adam was carefully not looking at me. I thought back to our conversations in Nevada. I had assured him that I was coming back. But then again, logically it was one thing to believe someone. It was another thing to really trust them to do what they had promised you. And I knew that Adam had a hard time opening up to me and trusting me.
I couldn’t take that personally. But suddenly, I knew just how to calm him down.
I nestled in close to his side, wrapping an arm around his waist as I smiled up at him. “I could never leave you and Ethan,” I told him quietly.
Adam looked surprised for a moment, and then a slow smile broke out across his face. “It’s good to have you back,” he said, his voice just as soft as mine.
“It’s good to be back,” I promised him. Then, I smiled mischievously at him. “Even if it’s damned cold outside. Maybe we’ll just have to snuggle up by the fire like you promised me.”
Adam laughed. “Deal,” he said, leaning down to kiss the very tip of my nose. We grabbed our ice creams and took them back to the table, both Adam and I praising Ethan for the picture he had drawn of the three of us while he waited.
63
Adam
I dug through the things in the back of the car. “All right. Skis, poles, boots, socks, helmets, goggles. Gloves. Damn it, where are my gloves?”
I glanced at my watch. I was supposed to pick Ethan up from school in an hour. Plenty of time to get ready. But I couldn’t help feeling nervous. We were almost halfway through the winter season already, and I had spent plenty of nights getting Ethan ready for ski club. I had a mental checklist of what he needed by now. And to be honest, his stuff basically lived on the drying rack in the basement when he wasn’t wearing it.
It was my own stuff that was proving difficult to keep track of. I kept thinking that I must be forgetting something, going back through my stuff only to find that I was, in fact, forgetting something. Jesus. It wasn’t like this was my first time going skiing or anything. Not even my first time skiing that winter.
But I kept thinking about the fact that we were going skiing with Bailey, and that made all the difference.
I was still so shocked that she was back in Utah. I hadn’t really expected her to be able to work things out with the board of directors, or at least, not as easily as she made it sound like it had been. And what’s more, she said that she had approached the board of directors with Ian. That meant that Ian supported Bailey coming back to Park City. Despite the fact that he didn’t want her to be with me, or at least, not originally.
Of course, he had come out to Utah to fly me back to Nevada to see his sister over the weekend. I should have realized that that meant he supported our relationship. But I guess I had still been thinking that there must be some sort of catch, that he was trying to prove to Bailey and I that things wouldn’t work out for us long term. Like
he was trying to show me once and for all that Bailey and I were from different worlds.
Instead, it seemed like he really did support this relationship. I made a mental note to thank him for whatever he had done in getting Bailey to be able to return to Utah.
I had wanted to ask her to stay over the night before, but I hadn’t been able to think of a tactful way to approach that topic in front of Ethan. He might still be young, but I had a feeling he would understand the significance of me having a ‘sleepover’. And I wasn’t sure I was ready for that just yet.
Thankfully, Bailey didn’t seem upset when I dropped her off at her mountain condo. In fact, she was yawning by the time we were leaving the ice cream place anyway. “It’s been a busy few weeks in Vegas,” she admitted as I drove her home. She smiled softly over at me. “But man is it good to be home.”
Home. I liked the sound of her calling this place home. She hadn’t been there for very long, but now that I thought about it, it didn’t feel as much like home when she was gone.
Which was crazy, because I had lived here for my entire life. Ethan and I had a home. We were all that each other needed. Except.
Maybe that wasn’t entirely the case anymore.
Hence my nervousness today and the fact that I kept forgetting various bits of my ski gear. It was almost like my brain was trying to sabotage this outing before it even began. I shook my head at the very thought of that. If I was missing anything when we got to the slopes, I was sure that I could find a replacement, either in my work gear or in the rental shop. There was nothing to worry about.
I picked up Ethan at school and drove him over to the mountain. I hadn’t seen Bailey yet that day; she had told me to take the morning off. She wanted to get caught up on all the paperwork first, and she didn’t need me for that. Of course, I was even more nervous as I thought about her going through the comments from our customers. I wondered if she would say anything about the changes that I had made in her absence. I started to wonder if maybe I had overstepped a little.
But when we reached the mountain, Bailey was waiting for us in the lodge, and she was all smiles. “Lunch,” she said, gesturing towards the picnic that she had laid out on one of the tables.
Ethan cheered when he saw the grilled cheese and French fries. He gave Bailey a quick hug and then sat down at the table. Bailey sat down as well, raising an eyebrow inquisitively at me. I shook my head and forced myself to smile. To take a deep breath, to calm down a little.
Ethan and Bailey chatted about his school while we ate. Then, it was time to put on our ski things. “Shoot, I forgot my poles in the car,” I realized as we started to get our gear on.
“Go ahead and grab them,” Bailey said. “I can finish getting Ethan ready.”
“Are you sure?” I asked uncertainly. Not that I didn’t want to leave Ethan alone with Bailey, but I didn’t want her to have to get him into all of his gear. “I can just ski without poles today.”
But Bailey was already kneeling in front of Ethan, nudging me out of the way. “Go ahead,” she said. “Trust me, I’ve got this.”
“Okay,” I said, slowly smiling at her.
By the time I got back to the lodge, she and Ethan were all ready to go. Ethan proudly showed off the stickers that Bailey had given him. I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help grinning. “If you’re going to keep hanging around with him, you’d better not spoil him rotten,” I teased Bailey.
She stuck her tongue out at me, and I couldn’t believe how adorable she looked like that, dressed in all her ski gear, like a real snow bunny. “I don’t think you get a say in whether or not I’m going to spoil him,” she said.
I laughed and shook my head. “Let’s go skiing,” I said.
As we rode up the chairlift together, Bailey pulled her phone out of the inside pocket of her coat. “We need a picture,” she declared, turning the camera so that it was pointed at us. I grinned and slipped an arm around Ethan, leaning in so that she could get us all in the frame. “What a great picture,” Bailey said, smiling as she looked down at her screen.
“Can you ski all the runs on the mountain?” Ethan asked Bailey.
“I can, but maybe not well,” Bailey told him. “I have a hard time with the bumps and the trees. I can get through them, but it’s not pretty.”
Ethan giggled. “I’m the best bump skier in my club,” he bragged.
“I bet you’re pretty amazing,” Bailey said seriously. “Go easy on me so that I can keep up, all right?”
“Okay!” Ethan promised her.
I had to admit that as I watched them together for the rest of the afternoon, I found myself falling more and more in love with Bailey. She was so patient with him, listening as he babbled away on the chairlift and grinning good-naturedly as he told her all about what he was working on with his ski club.
Ethan was always a pretty friendly kid. But around Bailey, he just blossomed. And I knew, right then and there, that I had been selfish in not wanting to open up our lives to anyone else. Ethan needed more than just me and his grandfather in his life. He needed someone like Bailey.
At the end of the day, we stopped in the lodge for hot chocolate. While I got the drinks, Bailey helped Ethan out of his ski boots and ski gear. I brought the mugs back to the table and plunked down next to Bailey on the bench. She leaned into me.
“This was fun,” she said, smiling at me.
“It was,” I agreed, grinning right back at her.
“Can we ski again tomorrow?” Ethan asked excitedly.
Bailey laughed. “I thought you were telling me all about the cool science project you get to do tomorrow,” she reminded him, before I could even say anything.
Ethan’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah!” he said. “Well, maybe Thursday. Or this weekend.”
“We’ll talk about it,” I said, lightly squeezing Bailey’s thigh beneath the table.
It was kind of strange, having Bailey back in the lodge with me, there at Brooks Mountain. It made me more aware of all the hesitations that I had had in the first place. She was still my boss, and it looked like that wasn’t going to change any time soon. But right now, I didn’t care who saw the two of us together.
I was happy. Happier than I had been in a long time, even including the trip to Vegas last weekend. And I wasn’t going to let anything take that away from me.
64
Bailey
I couldn’t believe how much fun skiing with Adam and Ethan was. Of course, Adam was a much better skier than me, and even Ethan was more daring than I was. But they were both so patient with me. And it was a load of laughs, really. Ethan told me all about his classes at school, catching me up on everything new in his life since the last time I had seen him. And through it all, there was Adam. Even when he was just listening, his eyes seemed to constantly be on me.
I couldn’t remember ever seeing him look so happy and carefree before, not even when I had seen him away from work. Not even in Vegas the previous weekend.
I never wanted to lose this, I realized. No, I truly loved this man and his son.
“I’d invite you guys over for dinner, but I don’t really have anything in the house at the moment,” I apologized as we were finishing up our hot chocolate. “I need to do some grocery shopping now that I’m back.”
Adam winced. “I’m sorry if this afternoon took up too much of your time,” he said, sounding strangely formal.
I nudged him with my shoulder. “I had fun,” I said quietly, hoping he could see just how serious I was. I wouldn’t have traded that afternoon for anything in the world. I could always go grocery shopping some other day. These were the kind of moments that you had to hold on to while you had them.
He, of all people, should know about that.
It made me think of the early, early years with my family. Back when my parents were still together. I only had vague memories of those first few winter trips, but what I remembered was so wonderful. Mom bringing us a picnic lunch to share at the base of the ski
resort. Ian picking me up at the end of the day when my ski school classes were over and convincing me to ski with him on runs that, in retrospect, I probably hadn’t been ready for yet.
Those trips had been over far too soon. I just hoped I got to spend more time with Adam and Ethan. Especially since I could tell that Adam was enjoying this as much as Ethan and I were.
Adam glanced over at Ethan and then back at me. I could see the uncertainty in his gaze, and I decided to push things a little. “Maybe we could go out to dinner together. The three of us,” I said.
“Don’t feel like you have to,” Adam said hurriedly. “I’m sure that Ethan has some homework from his morning classes that he needs to get done tonight.”
I frowned at him and then pulled him off to the side, out of earshot of his son. “Adam, did I do something wrong?” I asked him.
“What? No!” Adam said, looking shocked that I would even ask that. “I just want to make sure you know that you don’t have to spend time with us. That you can have a life. I’m sure Kayla probably wants to get drinks with you.”
“We’ll get drinks some other time,” I said, shrugging. “I live here now, remember?”
“Yeah, but…” Adam trailed off, looking sheepish. “Just, I know that it’s a lot to take in. To adjust to. Having a kid around all the time. I’m used to spending all my free time with Ethan, but there’s no reason why you should have to.”
I knew that I was looking at him like he had two heads. I shook my own head. “Adam, I like spending time with you. And I like spending time with Ethan. And I know that you can’t just abandon Ethan. I wouldn’t want you if you weren’t such a great dad, I don’t think.” I paused, trying to figure out how to say this. “I count myself lucky because I get to spend time with you and Ethan. You let me into your lives, and I know that that’s a big deal.”
Adam stared suspiciously at me. “You’re not just saying that?” he asked.
“If I didn’t want to spend time with you, I wouldn’t have agreed to go skiing with the two of you again sometime. I know Ethan takes things like that seriously,” I pointed out. “I wouldn’t have agreed if I didn’t like the two of you. So now, do you want to go get dinner together?”
One Shot At Love: A Billionaire Single Father Romance Page 36