Page 339 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
Somehow, I had been the person who stepped up to be in charge of things.
Oh, I knew how it had happened. There had been a long conference call with Bailey, me, and the heads of the various departments around the mountain. She told them that she had already entrusted to me the task of writing her weekly reports. But now, somehow, I was running the weekly meetings and really running the place in her absence.
What was stranger, though, was the fact that I kind of enjoyed it.
I never would have foreseen myself in any sort of managerial role. I mean, I was sort of a one-man department, as the mountain’s sole mechanic and maintenance person. Gretchen was my liaison with the rest of the mountain, though, writing down complaints from the guests and things like that. So technically, she was kind of my manager in all but title.
I had generally kept to myself, working hard to clear my task list each week. There was plenty for me to do around the resort. But I guess the fact that I went all around the resort, working in the condos and on the lifts, among other things, was something that made me stand out for this position, as far as Bailey was concerned.
That and the fact that I had been there for a while now. I definitely wasn’t one of the seasonal workers who came in for a few months at a time and then left again. I was here year-round, and had been for my entire life. My whole life was invested in the resort.
And that was what made it easy to accept the position Bailey had asked me to take. It had nothing to do with the kisses that we’d shared while she was here in Park City. It had nothing to do with her promise, when I dropped her off at the airport, to save herself for me.
Because the more time that passed since her departure, the more I realized I had been stupid to expect anything from her. She was gone, and she wasn’t coming back. Oh, she was still the owner of the resort, and that meant that she would probably be back at some point, just to check on her investment and see how everything was doing. But she had taken herself off the payroll like she wasn’t planning to actually work there anymore, and she hadn’t booked a return ticket.
When she had initially left, she had promised me that she was only going to be gone for a week or two. Just long enough to sort out her brother, Ian’s, situation with the family casino business. But it had been two weeks, and there was still no sign of her return. I had to get over that naïve hope that I’d had that she and I could make something work between the two of us.
I didn’t know who I had been trying to kid, anyway. I wasn’t fully over Beth, my deceased wife, and I never would be. Hell, every time I looked at our son Ethan, I had to think about her. I could see so much of her in the young boy; her curiosity, her chattiness, her easy amusement. I knew she would have been proud of the comments on Ethan’s report card from the first half of the school year. I could practically smell the decadent holiday cookies that she would have spent the month of December concocting.
I wasn’t ready for a new relationship, and I probably never would be. And even if I had been, Bailey deserved someone better than me. She was smart and rich and well-traveled. She shouldn’t tie herself down with some blue-collar mechanic who had barely ever left Utah.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved my job and my home and everything that I had built in my life. But that honestly made it even worse. I wasn’t going to try to better myself to be with Bailey. I was who I was, and it just wasn’t enough for her.
But for now, looking around the conference and counting all the familiar faces, it was time to turn my attention back to the resort. “Thanks for coming to the weekly meeting, everyone,” I said, nodding at the rest of the staff. “And now that we have the holiday season fully behind us, I just want to thank everyone again for all the hard work and long hours that you all put in during the busiest busy season that we’ve ever had.”
There were some laughs around the room, and I grinned at them, scanning the list in front of me to remind myself of what I had planned to talk about that day. I moved easily through the agenda, fielding questions when they came up, and then turned the floor over to everyone else for general comments and queries on things that I hadn’t mentioned.
Jen, one of the front desk assistants stood up. “Just wanted to let you know that a couple of the heaters in the lodge seem like they’re on the fritz,” she said. “We’ve had a couple guest complaints about draftiness.”
I frowned and jotted a note for myself, nodding at her. “I’ll check it out,” I promised her. “As soon as this meeting is over, in fact.” I didn’t have any idea what the problem could be, and I only hoped that it wasn’t anything too time-consuming to fix.
I didn’t want to admit that I was stretching myself too thin, but to be honest, I kind of was. Bailey had hired me an apprentice to help me out around the resort with the basic maintenance stuff, something that I had begrudgingly accepted. I liked having full control of how things were taken care of around there, but at the same time, I knew there was no way that I could take on the administrative duties that Mike had been managing, plus write those weekly reports for Bailey, plus get done everything that I normally did around the resort. So it only made sense for me to get a little help.
Another reason that I should probably just have said no to Bailey in the first place. But it was damned difficult for me to tell her no about anything.
Still, the easier the heating fix was, the better. For a moment, I almost wished that Ian was still running around, interfering with Bailey’s running of the resort. He probably would have just ordered new heaters, and the problem would have been solved. Except that then, I’d be in charge of changing out the heaters in probably every building in this place, I thought to myself, a crooked smile on my face.
“Anything else?” I asked, looking around the room. But no one spoke up. I nodded. “All right, then. Get back to work, you lazy bums!”
There was more laughter, and everyone dispersed. I was headed towards the door myself when Kayla caught my arm. “Hey,” she said. “Just wondered if you’d talked to Bailey lately.”
“Regarding what?” I asked. “I mean, I’ve talked to her a few times. Why?” I didn’t mean it to sound rude, but I didn’t know how much Kayla knew about Bailey and I. Not that Bailey and I had really had a chance to talk about ‘us’ since she had gone to Vegas. She was up to her neck in work with the casino, and I had my hands full here as well. We had chatted a few times, but our personal chats had been limited to a few quick minutes before we’d segued into talking about more important things, like the resort.
Kayla shrugged. “Just wondered if she had told you when she was coming back. I haven’t heard anything from her.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think she has a flight booked yet,” I told her. “I’m sure it won’t be much longer, though.”
“I don’t know,” Kayla said, grimacing. “Ian’s finally out of the papers, but things still don’t sound very good.”
“Yeah, I know Bailey’s been pretty busy trying to smooth ruffled feathers with the casino’s regulars and the board and everyone,” I said, nodding. “But like I said, I think things are winding down soon. Bailey said she’d only be gone for a week or two.”
It was false optimism, really. Like the more I insisted it wouldn’t be that much longer, the more likely it was that Bailey really would book that return flight. I just couldn’t let myself believe otherwise.
Kayla grimaced, though. “I’m honestly starting to wonder if she’s really going to come back.”
“She said she was going to,” I said shortly.
“I know she did,” Kayla said. “And I’m sure she was planning on it when she left. But I’m wondering if maybe she went back home and realized how much she missed it. The warm weather, her friends, her brother. I don’t know.”
