Page 68 of A Little Too Late
She lifts troubled eyes to mine. “I’m sorry. That sounds awful. He was pulling himself together by the time I arrived. The hotel was in rough shape, though. I thought maybe the recession had been a factor.”
“I’m glad he’s been good to you. And if he’ll let me, I’ll help him. See? I’ve been brainstorming.” I point to my sketch of Penny Ridge.
“An in-town development could be so cool,” Ava says, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Think of all that new terrain.”
“Oh, I am.” I wrap an arm around her. “It would be good for the town, too. More street traffic for the shops. Locals’ access to skiing would improve. Hell, the kids could walk to the lift after school. That was basically my dream when I was a kid.”
“I bet.” She smiles at me.
I glance down at my sketch, feeling a flare of excitement. Maybe Block doesn’t like my dad. But he might talk to me…
Ava’s phone bleats loudly. “Hang on,” she says, leaning over to fish it out of her bag. “I have to check this.” She frowns at thescreen and then answers the call. “Yeah, Bert? What’s up?” She listens to him, then closes her eyes. “Okay, sure. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Did you call... Okay, good.”
“Problem?” I ask after she hangs up. “How big?”
“Bigger than a cat, smaller than a dog,” she says with a wry smile. “And there’s two of them.”
“Wait, what?”
She stands up. “Bert took a crew of ski-patrol members up for their mandatory nighttime training. They found two raccoons in the warming hut, because somebody left the door open.”
“And why is thisyourproblem?” I have to ask, standing up, too. I’m already mourning my pizza date.
“Because it’s nine o’clock, and I’m the associate manager,” she says. “I’ll get someone on the maintenance staff to help me. But nobody’s officially on duty at this hour, and I can’t have the warming hut closed on opening weekend.”
“Huh,” I say slowly. “How about I come, too? And aren’t raccoons rabid?”
She grins. “You look nervous, Reed. But this is no big deal. It’s worse in the spring, because then we get bears.” She is already pulling on a sharp-looking Madigan Mountain Staff jacket. “Bert called the animal-control service already. Mostly I’m going up there to assess the damage.”
“I’m still going,” I say, unwilling to spare any of our precious time together. “I guess we can’t send my dad?”
“Your father and I used to trade off the burden of being on call in the evenings. But when he got married, I told him I would handle it for a while. It was my wedding gift to him.”
That doesn’t sound fair. I put on my ski jacket—the same one Ava had borrowed earlier tonight. And she’s zipping up hers. The subtle mountain goat logo she drew looks slick on it, too.
It almost makes me want one.
CHAPTER 25
WHAT A MESS, KIDS!
REED
Twenty minutes later, I’m standing outside the snowmobile shed with Ava and a maintenance guy named Hank. Ava wears a backpack containing work gloves, headlamps, and trash bags.
She seems awfully cheerful about it, in spite of the fact that we could be making out on the sofa upstairs.
A pickup withRandy’s Humane Animal Controlpainted on the side pulls into the maintenance lot on studded tires. The engine shuts off, and a lanky white guy with curls escaping his beanie hops out. “Ava!” He gives her a big smile. “Always a pleasure!” He lopes across the snow to give her a big, overly tactile hug.
“Glad you could get here in this weather,” she says.
“Eh, the snow has mostly stopped.” He releases her and glances up at the sky. Then he claps his mittened hands. “Okay, lady. Whatta we got this time?”
“Bert says raccoons.” She beams at him from close range, because this dude is the kind who does not know how to respect a woman’s personal space.
“Point of entry?” he asks.
Ava doesn’t seem to notice that this guy is a flirt. “Bert thinks someone just left the door ajar. This early in the season, we have new people who don’t understand the consequences of their actions—and their snack wrappers.”
