Page 337 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
CHAPTER 46
ADAM
Bailey smiled at me again. “You really didn’t have to drive me to the airport,” she said. “I could have taken a cab.”
I shrugged and glanced over at her as I flicked on my blinker to change lanes for the departures section of the airport. “I know you could have,” I said. “But I didn’t have that much to get done this morning, and this could have been a long cab drive for you. Plus, I never know if I trust the way those guys drive. You know, they’ll give just about anyone a job as a cabbie. I don’t think there’s any sort of driving test. Which there probably should be, given the amount of snowy, winter driving they have to do out here.”
Bailey looked like she was trying not to laugh as she reached over and lightly squeezed my thigh. “I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say at once,” she said teasingly, and I fought not to feel embarrassed.
It wasn’t that I was feeling particularly chatty that morning. But I was feeling nervous. After the kiss in her office the previous afternoon, I had hightailed it out of there before things could get too heavy. I knew that I probably shouldn’t have kissed her. But I hadn’t been able to stop myself. And besides, I had a feeling that she was going to find someone she was more interested in when she went back to Nevada. So really, that kiss was just a way of saying goodbye. Reminding myself of what I could never actually have.
I hated to think of it that way, but it was the truth. This was goodbye, and it wouldn’t do to treat it otherwise.
Somehow, though, I was only now starting to realize just how much I cared for her. I hated the idea of her ending up with someone else. Who would it be? Some smooth-talking businessman? One of their regular clients at the casino, a guy with more money than he knew what to do with? Someone who had never had to work a day in his life?
Definitely not someone like me, either way. And the truth was, I would be happy for her, if she found the right guy. She deserved so much more. I just wondered if I would ever get to see her again. Maybe she would find another project more suitable for her. She clearly planned to be gone for a while, if she was worried about finding someone to be her liaison here, in case anyone had problems with the way that things were going.
It was funny, really. It wasn’t like the previous owners had really been too involved. Life would go on like it always had. But I was already imagining what it would be like in the lodge, without Bailey’s smiling presence. It would feel like something was missing, I was sure.
Stupid as that might be. She had barely spent any time there at all; that place had been going for a lot longer than she had been the owner of it. And not only that, but we didn’t really need her to help with running things. So she wanted me to write up weekly reports for her? I would do that at least until her interest started to wane. I doubted it would take too long.
I pulled up to the departures drop-off area and got out to help Bailey with her bag. She laughed and batted my hands away. “Come on, you don’t have to do that,” she said. “I barely packed anything; I’m not going to be gone for that long.”
“Do you already have your return ticket?” I asked in surprise. She hadn’t mentioned anything about that the previous day, and I thought that she would have told me if she was only going for a short time. She had made it sound like she didn’t know exactly what she needed to do or how long it would take. But now she seemed so sure that it would only be a short time.
Bailey grimaced and shook her head, though. Just as I had suspected. “No. But I figure if I tell everyone that I’m only there for a week or two at the most, then we can get everything done and I can get back here.”
I could hear in her voice, though, that she didn’t actually believe it would be that easy. She knew she could be there for a while. Packing light was just optimistic.
Or rather, she probably had no reason to pack any other way; it wasn’t like she was going to need all her heavy winter gear when she got to Vegas. It could get a little chilly there in the winter, especially when the sun went down, but it didn’t get nearly as cold as Utah, and she definitely wasn’t going to be skiing or anything like that.
For a moment, I wanted to ask if she was going to miss the snow. But that was silly to ask, and anyway, she probably needed to go catch her flight.
But still, she lingered there. “I just wanted to say thank you again for everything,” Bailey said seriously. “It means a lot to me, knowing that I can count on you around the resort. And with everyone else.”
I shrugged. “Just doing my job,” I said, trying not to be awkward.
“I know,” Bailey said, looking like she was going to say more. But then, she shook her head. “Anyway, I’ll be back as soon as I can. But maybe we can chat while I’m gone? Like on the phone or through the computer or something. I know you’re going to be busy. And I mean, I will be too…” She trailed off, looking sheepish.
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything. More than anything, I wanted to kiss her, but I was still thinking of the kiss the previous day as a goodbye kiss, and I didn’t know if I could go through another one of those without stupidly blurting out my feelings for her.
My feelings for her. Oh man, what a mess. I had never meant to get this tangled up in thinking about her. But I couldn’t help it, I liked her. She wasn’t Beth, but she sure was special. Hard-working, good at what she did, empathetic, and sweet. She had Ethan and I both wrapped around her little finger. And the fact that Ethan liked her so much only moved her even higher in my esteem.
But I couldn’t have her. I knew that. I was almost hoping that she would find someone else in Vegas and never come back, even if it meant I had to have an altogether too difficult conversation with Ethan about it.
“Have fun in Vegas,” I told her. “And if you want to, you know, date other people while you’re there, I hope you know that that’s fine with me. I don’t care what you do.” The words came out all wrong, but I was surprised to see anger flicker across Bailey’s face.
“Why, because ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’?” she asked scathingly. “I’m not that kind of girl. I’m not going to go out and get drunk and sleep with a bunch of strangers just because it’s Vegas. Some of that novelty kind of wears off once you’ve lived there. And to be honest, I was never all that interested in that in the first place.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said, wincing. Jesus, it was as though I had called her a whore. I really hadn’t meant to insult her. “I just meant, if you find the right guy there, you know like a businessman or something, you don’t have to wait to tell me about him face-to-face. In fact, if you’re coming back here, I’d rather know that ahead of time, before, I don’t know, I run into him at the resort or something.”
Bailey stared at me. “If I find the right guy,” she said flatly. Then, slowly, she grinned at me. “If I find a businessman or something?”
I pressed my fingertips against my eyelids, sighing heavily. “Look, I know you deserve someone better than me. You and I come from different worlds, Bailey. And what we’ve had here, it’s been nice, but I get it. You’ve got to go back to the world you came from. Call this a winter fling or something. Don’t worry; you’re not the first person to dabble in the joys of the seasonal lifestyle before going back to the real world.”
Bailey blinked and then grabbed my lapels, pulling me into a rough kiss. Our teeth clacked against one another’s, and I probably could have made her let go of me if I had really wanted to. But I was so surprised by that reaction to what I was saying that I just let her go with it for a moment.
When she pulled back, she was staring fiercely into my eyes. “Adam, this wasn’t some stupid seasonal fling,” she said. “And I don’t know who the hell told you that you weren’t good enough for me, or that we were from different worlds, although I have my suspicions, but I don’t give a damn about any of that. I’ve never been interested in the businessmen or the guys around the casino. Half of them are too cocky, or too stupid, or too boring. And the rest are just jerks. I like you. And there’s no such thing as ‘better’, as far as I’m concerned.”
