Page 281 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
I pulled out my phone, glad for at least that much illumination. I had already saved all the various numbers for the personnel in my contacts list, so it was easy enough to find Adam and dial him up. “Hello?” he said when he answered the phone.
“Hey, it’s Bailey,” I said, wishing my voice didn’t sound quite so meek.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“There’s a sort of situation in the condos,” I told him. “A problem with some of the lighting in the hall. I was hoping that you could come and check it out. I know it’s your day off, so I’m sorry to call you in. But Kayla and I aren’t having any luck figuring out what’s going on.”
Adam groaned. “Please tell me you haven’t already tried to do anything yourself,” he said.
I bit my lower lip, not sure how to respond to that. Suddenly, I felt like a chastised child. I should have just called him in the first place.
“For future reference, you can always call me on my days off, and I’m usually around to do whatever you need,” Adam said. “I can be there in about an hour. There’s a reason you have a maintenance person. I’m qualified to do the work that the place needs.”
“I know, I know,” I said, staring down at my feet. “I just…wanted to help.”
“I’ll see you soon,” Adam said, hanging up the phone before I could really finish apologizing. I slowly put my phone back in my pocket, grimacing. I felt foolish. But still, did Adam have to be so rude about it? I really was just trying to help. And spare him having to come in to work on a day off.
I didn’t remember Adam ever being so brusque with me when we were younger, and it made me wonder again what had changed about him. Kayla seemed to think that he was damaged goods, and maybe she was right. But I wondered how he had gotten that way.
CHAPTER 9
ADAM
I tried not to feel frustrated about the fact that Bailey had tried to fix things at the ski resort without consulting me. I knew, rationally, that she was only trying to help. And sure, it would have been nice not to be called in on one of my precious days off. But Dad was there to watch Ethan, so really, it would have been better for her just to call me.
I was a little worried to see just what she had managed to do. We had redone a lot of the wiring that summer when we had put in the new condos, but given the age of the lodge itself, everything was kind of on the same grid and that meant that it could be finicky, to say the least.
I wanted to think that Bailey wouldn’t have done too much on her own before she called me. But I couldn’t help but feel especially nervous when I pulled up in the employee lot and saw that easily half of the lights in the main lodge, plus most of the lights in the condos, were all out. I groaned inside and immediately headed for the utility room in the new condos. Sure enough, that’s where I found Bailey and Kayla, still messing around with the switches.
“All right, let me at it,” I told them, and Bailey immediately turned around with a look of relief on her face.
“I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you!” she said. “I hit the switch for the hall, but it seems to have knocked out half the power at the resort, and now I can’t get it to turn back on.” She shook her head. “It’s all so confusing, all of these little labels. Someone really should clean them up sometime.”
“I know my system,” I said, trying not to sound rude even though to be honest, I had very little patience left for her. There was a reason the resort had a maintenance man, after all. Was that one of the changes she thought that she could make in taking over this place, fire me? Or at least cut back on the hours of work that I did for the resort?
She’d always struck me as intelligent, but I didn’t know what she was like as a businesswoman. Maybe she was the kind of person who only looked at the bottom line and didn’t really give a damn for how it affected the business itself. Or maybe she just really didn’t understand what my position was there at the mountain. Suddenly, I started to wonder whether my job was as secure as I had thought that it was. Brooks Mountain was in Bailey’s hands now, and she could really do whatever she wanted.
And the trouble was, if I lost this job, I’d have a damned hard time finding a new position now, with the season already started. I didn’t want to have to uproot Ethan in the middle of the school year, nor pull him away from his friends, his ski mountain, and everything else. Plus, if we had to move away from Park City, I wasn’t naïve enough to think that Dad would follow us. That meant that I would no longer have the free help around the house and with Ethan.
“Kayla, why don’t you get back to the front desk?” I suggested so that I could step in and take a closer look at just what they had done. Time to prove just how useful I was around here, so that I wouldn’t have to worry about losing this job.
In actual fact, it might just be a good thing that Bailey and Kayla had really screwed things up on their own. It would give me a chance to prove myself to the new boss and all.
But it was hard to concentrate on what I was doing with Bailey hovering behind me. “Can you explain to me what you’re doing? Just in case this happens again?” she asked.
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “Hopefully next time, you’ll just call me before you start monkeying around with the breakers,” I said. “But basically, when you flipped half the switches in the board, you shorted out a couple of the circuits. So I’m doing a little bit of repair on those. And no, it isn’t anything that you should be working on yourself.”
“Oh,” Bailey said, sounding put out. She was quiet for a moment, but her eyes didn’t leave me as I continued to work. “So what were you up to on your day off, anyway?” she asked suddenly. “Anything fun?”
“Just chores around the house,” I said, shrugging one shoulder. “Was hoping to get in some skiing for an hour or two, but there’s lots that needs doing at this time of year.”
“Right,” Bailey said, sounding guilty. “I really am sorry that we had to call you in today. And that I messed everything up.” She paused. “If there’s anything that I can do to help you out, let me know. I know that there’s a way that things are done around here and I’m still trying to figure it all out, but I don’t want to be one of those bosses who…” She trailed off, not seeming to know just what she was trying to say.
I had to admit, I appreciated her saying that. I was never a fan of those bosses who were totally hands off with the businesses that they owned. But at the same time, she was right; she didn’t know how things worked around here. There was no one to take up the slack for me if I cut back on my hours. And I didn’t like the idea of the resort hiring someone else who was skilled in the same area, if only because I had my system and things worked out well when I was the only person messing around with various pieces of equipment. Besides, it wasn’t really a large enough resort to warrant an additional maintenance and mechanics person.
“So you’re sticking around Utah for the holidays, huh?” Bailey said, continuing to try to chat with me while I worked. “Bet your dad’s still here, isn’t he? He’ll never leave this place; he’s a true mountain man.” She laughed, but I grimaced. I knew she didn’t mean it as a bad thing, but I also knew that she probably looked down on people like me and my dad. We made our living by working hard, working with our hands. Not everyone could just come into a ton of money.
But I let those comments slide for now. “Holiday season’s the busiest season at the resort,” I reminded her. “I kind of have to be here.”
