Page 2 of Secret Baby for Mr. Grump

“No, it’s fine,” I said. “Is everything okay on your end?”

The sigh was an answer in itself. “No,” she said. “We have less than fifty sign-ups for the resort this Christmas, and today is the deadline.”

“Crap,” I said, then remembered my resolve not to curse or show negative emotions in front of my son anymore.

“Sorry, sweetie,” I said to him belatedly, flashing him a smile that told him everything was okay.

He wasn’t looking at me, though. He was studying the wall at his side pretty intensely.

“What happened to the Miller church group?” I asked Athena.

“They canceled a few minutes ago.”

Double crap.

My family owned a resort just on the verge of town, where the road bled into mountains, and a dude ranch sat not far off. The resort was pretty dead during most of the year, but usually, it more than made up for it during Christmas time, when it suddenly got flooded with tourists, many of whom became regulars.

It was a major attraction for our small town of Summit, Montana, or at least it used to be. Three years ago, a large Holiday Inn opened up in the next town just twelve miles away, and since then, we’d seen our visitors dwindle every year, despite our best marketing efforts.

We needed about a hundred visitors this year to keep it running, and Athena and I had been busting our asses on the marketing angle with social media ads, promos, and even doing some footwork with flyers. Even then, we’d only barely been able to scrape up the hundred people needed to allow us to break even with running the place, and that was only thanks to a church group that signed up at the last minute.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I have no clue,” Athena said. “But it might have something to do with that negative review someone posted about how boring it was last year.”

I winced. Last year was the worst year we’ve had so far. We didn’t have enough money, so we downscaled most of our major activities, narrowing it down to only a few. Plus, one of our visitors suffered a near injury due to a creaky step. We’d been meaning to fix up the stairs before the incident happened, but we just didn’t have the spare funds. My father had been in the process of haggling with our carpenter when it happened.

I rubbed my forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “So what are we going to do now?”

“Frankly, I have no clue,” Athena responded, and I could sense the exhaustion in her voice as well. It was discouraging that we’d worked so hard with nothing to show for it, but as Dad liked to say, it’s the nature of the business. “I think it might be easier if we just sell.”

“No,” I said with a gasp, horrified at the thought. “How could you say that? The resort has been our family business for years.”

“Yeah, and right now, it’s costing us more money than it’s making,” she said. “We barely broke even last year. And we’re in debt this year. We don’t have to wait till we’re completely submerged in it to sell the place.”

“Look, it’s not hopeless yet. We still have time to—”

“Allie, Dad’s already looking for buyers,” she announced, and it was like a bomb was dropped on me.

It was like losing a significant part of us—our family, our traditions.

Plus, working at the resort was the only job I had. How would I provide for Caleb without it?

And then I realized why Athena sounded so calm about the whole thing. They’d probably already had the meeting and decided to sell before letting me in on it.

“And you guys didn’t think to invite me to this meeting y’all had?” I asked, trying very hard to keep the childish sulk out of my voice. They already saw me as a kid. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of acting like one too.

“I’m sorry, Allie,” Athena said sympathetically. “Dad didn’t want you to know just yet. He was thinking about how to break it to you in a better way.”

“He doesn’t have to do that. I’m not a child. He can just tell me things.” I sighed. “How long do we have until we sell?

“Allie—”

“How long, Athena?” I knew she wanted to tell me not to bother and that there was no way we were going to find enough visitors in such a short time, but I didn’t want to hear it. The resort meant a lot to all of us, and I wouldn’t give it up without a fight—until I was completely out of options. It might be irrational, but there it was.

“A week at most.”

“Alright. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll call you later.” I hung up before she could say anything else and turned to look at Caleb.

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