Page 301 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
I laughed and bent down to give him a quick hug. “I’ll see you soon,” I promised him. “And thanks,” I added to Bailey.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Just get that lift fixed for me!”
I knew this probably wasn’t the end of it. That Bailey and I were still going to have to have a talk about the fact that I had a kid, that I had been married, that I hadn’t told her about any of this. I didn’t even know where to start with it all, really. But that was a conversation for another time.
For now, I trusted Ethan in her hands, even though by all rights, I barely knew her. But from what I knew about Bailey, I knew that she was warm, kind, fun. Ethan was going to be fine.
I had work to do. I headed out front and hopped on the snowmobile without a second thought, speeding up towards the lift station so that I could figure out what the problem was.
CHAPTER 22
BAILEY
To say that I was shocked to find out that Adam had a son was an understatement. I never would have guessed that was what he was hiding. And Ethan wasn’t exactly young, either. He had to be five or six years old. It immediately made me want to ask so many questions.
Why hadn’t Kayla told me? She had to know about him.
Who was Ethan’s mom? Why hadn’t Adam corrected me when I asked how he was still single? Was he still single, or was he actually together with some woman, Ethan’s mother? Anything was possible; Adam wasn’t exactly the chattiest of guys.
How could Adam spend as much time at the resort as he did? Where was Ethan during all of that time? Of course, he would probably be at school or a daycare for part of the time. And I supposed Adam’s father was still in the area, or so he had said. That could explain it, I supposed.
But it didn’t seem like Adam to just abandon taking care of his son to someone else. There had to be more to it than that.
I wanted to know everything. But I also knew that interrogating Ethan wasn’t the way to go. However, I wondered if getting to know the kid, becoming friends with him even, might get Adam to open up to me a little more.
Maybe there was a very tangible reason for why Adam was so guarded all the time.
Well, I had always liked kids. Actually, before I bought the resort, I had thought about doing something that involved kids as my new career. But at the end of the day, I liked being in the business world. And I definitely didn’t regret that now.
At the moment, I was thinking about those families that I’d been meeting all day. Really, Ethan was just an extension of that same thing. Part of the family here at this resort. I smiled at him. “All right, hot chocolate is over this way!” I told him, leading him towards the other end of the lodge.
We got our hot chocolates and marshmallows and sat down at one of the tables.
“I wish I could go skiing,” Ethan sighed as we watched a family clump inside, kicking snow off their ski boots and laughing the whole way.
“Do you know how to ski?” I asked him. I had no idea how old kids normally were when they learned how to ski. I had seen some pretty tiny tots out there on the hill a couple times now, but it was hard to determine ages when they were bundled up against the cold.
Ethan scoffed at me. “I’m one of the best skiers in the local school program,” he informed me proudly.
“Wow!” I said. “You must be a real natural. Bet you want to be an Olympian when you grow up?”
Ethan scrunched up his nose again in thought, and I couldn’t get over how adorable he was when he made that face. But eventually, he shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “I like skiing, but I’d rather ski the back country.”
“The back country?” I asked in surprise. “Does your dad let you ski that already?”
“Well, no,” Ethan said, giggling. “He lets me go in the trees sometimes, but only when I’m with him, and I have to be really careful and go really slow.” He chattered on about some video he had watched that summer and how he had thought that he wanted to learn to do flips and things and maybe ski in the half pipe but now he wasn’t sure.
“Bet you have plenty of time to make that decision, though,” I pointed out, winking at him, and he grinned.
“Guess so,” he said. “Do you ski?”
“Yep,” I said, nodding at him. “Actually, my dad taught me to ski. But I was a little older than you when I started, I think. How old are you anyway?”
“I’m six,” Ethan said. “Can we go skiing?”
I tried not to grimace. “That’s probably not a good idea right now if you were feeling sick this morning,” I reminded him, trying not to crush his hopes.
But he was surprisingly matter-of-fact in his acceptance of what I had said. “Oh, right,” he said. “I’m feeling better now.” He paused. “But I don’t want to feel sick again today. We have ski club tomorrow and I don’t want to miss it!”
