Page 293 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
“The place I want to take you to is a few miles away,” I told her, “but I was thinking that since your condo is here at the hill, we could take your car and then drive back here, and then I’ll pick my truck up then.”
“Sounds perfect,” Bailey said, leading me over to a nice new sedan. “Where exactly are we going?” she asked as we drove.
“It’s this great little Irish pub. Good live music most nights, a good beer list, and some of the best hearty, warm food that you can imagine. Perfect for after a day of skiing.”
“Sounds great,” Bailey said, nodding approvingly. Then, she gave me an appraising look. “You’re not going to make me dance, though, are you?”
I laughed and shrugged playfully. “We’ll see.”
“So how’s it feel, being the successful new owner of one of the best resorts in the west?” I asked Bailey when we had ordered dinner.
She snorted and shook her head. “I don’t know if you could really call me ‘successful’ just yet,” she protested. “I mean, sure, I haven’t made any huge mistakes, at least not that I know of, but the whole reason things are running as smoothly as they are is because you guys already have such a great system in place.”
I shrugged. “That’s partly because the previous owners didn’t want to be involved at all, with any of this,” I said.
“I still can’t imagine that,” Bailey said. “I mean, I know there are people like that. But if I’m going to own a business, I want to be right there on the ground level, involved with as much as I can. It’s fun to me.”
“It’s more about the money to some people, though,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Bailey said. She paused and then grinned at me. “But you said that this dinner was about getting my mind off work,” she reminded me cheekily.
I laughed. “That is what I promised,” I agreed. But at the moment, I couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t about work.
Or about Ethan, but I still wasn’t ready to tell Bailey about my son. I wasn’t sure why, exactly. Well, maybe because if I told her about Ethan, I would have to tell her about Beth, and I wasn’t ready for her to know about Beth just yet. I didn’t want to see her pity over the fact that I was thirty-two and already a widower.
But that wasn’t all of it. Maybe it was just that I was afraid if she knew about Ethan, she would be even more hesitant to call me into work on my days off. Or maybe it was the fact that she wouldn’t want to go to dinners like this with me if she knew that I had a son that I was responsible for as well. Never mind that Ethan was perfectly happy to spend the evening with his grandfather. Never mind that I had plenty of time to spend with my son even during these busy holiday weeks.
I wasn’t sure exactly what held me back, but with my whole life spent either at work or home with Ethan, I didn’t know what else to talk about.
Bailey came to my rescue, though. “So, do you have any plans for Christmas?”
I shrugged. “Not really,” I said. “I usually go skiing every year. It’s one of the best days of the season. Never too crowded, and everyone’s just out to have some fun.”
“I would have thought that Christmas would be one of the busiest days to be out there,” Bailey mused.
I shook my head. “Nah, most people are at home spending time with their families,” I reminded her. And of course, I would be spending time with my family as well. It was the one day of the year that I could count on Dad to get out there and ski with me and Ethan. But I didn’t explain all of that to Bailey.
“What about you?” I asked her instead. “Are you staying here or headed back to Vegas to spend time with Ian?”
“I’ll be here, but I’m still hoping that Ian will be able to get back here at some point during the season,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Can I admit something?”
“Sure,” I said, heart already hammering with ideas about what she might admit. Had she heard something about me from Kayla or one of the other workers? Or did she want this to be a date?
But her confession had nothing to do with me. “To be honest, it’s kind of nice doing something separate from Ian for once. Like, we grew up together and we’re always going to be close. But I feel like in the casino business, I was always in his shadow. Now, I have the chance to just be myself and do things my own way. It’s refreshing.”
“Who’s talking about work now?” I teased, trying to get my beating heart to calm down.
Bailey laughed. “Fair enough,” she said. “All right, how about this one; you always seemed like a family guy. Why are you still single?”
I stared at her for a moment, wondering if those words had really come out of her mouth. At first, given the way that she blushed, I expected her to try to take them back, too. But instead, she just gave me that look of challenge that she had perfected.
I knew that this was the point where I should tell her about Beth, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not yet. I just wasn’t ready yet. And really, who could blame me for that?
“Why are you still single?” I countered instead. “Las Vegas must have ten times the eligible bachelors as Park City. You can’t tell me that not a single one of them has managed to ever catch your eye.”
I hoped I didn’t offend her by saying that. It just seemed like the easiest way to turn the attention away from myself. And I didn’t really want to talk about myself right now, partially because I found myself wanting to learn as much about Bailey as I could.
Bailey laughed and shrugged. “I’m too focused on work to be interested in having a relationship,” she said, and I tried not to wince.
