Page 285 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
No, I pushed those thoughts away. I didn’t know where they had come from, even. Bailey? Spend time with her? I was probably only thinking about that because I used to spend so much time with Ian. And actually, if Ian was still in town, I should see if he wanted to hang out at some point. We had a lot of catching up to do.
There was a part of me, though, that was still thinking about Bailey as I contemplated the fishing holes. Dinner with her had been kind of nice in a way. It had been a while since I had shared a meal with someone other than Dad or Ethan. I would do it again. But she had only wanted to have dinner with me so that she could chat about hiring someone else to take over part of my duties on the hill. It hadn’t been a social call at all.
I needed to remember that. I wondered why it was so difficult to remember that.
CHAPTER 12
BAILEY
I frowned down at the box of things closest to me. And then transferred my gaze to the other bags of things that littered the floor. I’d gone shopping to buy all the things that I was going to need for my new condo. To be honest, I hadn’t brought all that much with me from Nevada. Just some clothes, but that was about it. Not the kinds of things that I needed to actually live here in Utah, I was starting to realize.
Ian had had to return home to work, and he had sent me some of the stuff that I should have brought. I had gone out and found towels and things for the kitchen and a couch cover and stuff like that, but now it was a matter of getting everything organized.
To be honest, it was about the last thing that I wanted to be doing today. I’d much rather be out skiing again. I had put in some work the previous morning but gone out for a few laps in the afternoon and rediscovered my joy for it. Now, that was all that I wanted to be doing.
But I needed to get this place feeling like a home, I knew. The sooner it felt like a home, the sooner I’d start to feel like I actually belonged here. Like I hadn’t made a mistake in impulsively purchasing a ski resort.
I was trying not to let the panic get to me. But to be honest, I’d felt nervous and unsettled ever since that dinner with Adam. I had really botched the thing with the lights, but it wasn’t just that. Actually, it was more the fact that when I had suggested hiring someone to take over some of his duties, he’d acted like I didn’t understand anything about what he did for the mountain.
And I didn’t, not really. But it was unnerving to realize just how easily everyone could tell that.
I didn’t want to think about that today, though. Today, I was going to get my things organized here at home and then maybe explore the town a little. Then, I’d be in a position to start the new week off right. I rubbed my hands together and started pulling things out where I could see them.
I was about halfway through laying things out on the floor when someone knocked at the door. I frowned, wondering who it could be. When I opened the door, I was surprised to see Kayla. I laughed. “How the heck did you find me here?” I asked her.
She grinned and shrugged. “Wasn’t too hard,” she said. “You had to turn in your address to HR when you filled out all of your paperwork. So it’s in the system.”
“Makes sense,” I said, nodding.
“What are you up to anyway?” Kayla asked. “Today’s my day off, so I was thinking maybe we could do something.”
“I’d love to,” I said. “Actually, I was thinking that I’d really like to just wander around town in a little while. But right now, I’m trying to get all my stuff unpacked and put away.”
“Oh wow,” Kayla said, looking around at the mess when she followed me inside. “You have a lot of stuff.”
I snorted. “Not really,” I said. “It just looks that way because it’s all on the floor.”
Kayla raised an eyebrow at me and pointed towards a pile of neatly folded towels. “You have, like, ten towels. How many guests are you expecting?”
I laughed. “Well, I couldn’t decide which color I wanted,” I said. “So I bought three of each color.” I frowned. “Maybe I could have gone with two of each color.”
Kayla just shook her head. “Well, why don’t I help you get unpacked?” she suggested. “It’ll go faster with both of us working at it, and then we can grab lunch and hang out.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said, and we got to work.
A little while later, Kayla giggled. “Look at this picture!” she said, holding up a photo that had fallen out of the front of one of my notebooks. “It’s us, way back when.”
I grinned when I saw the photo she was holding up. “Yeah,” I said. “That was always one of my favorites.” It was Kayla and I with our arms around one another on one side of the frame, with Ian and Adam on the other side and the mountain in between us. We were all laughing, probably at something that one of the boys had just said. We looked happy.
It was part of what had made me want to come back here now, to be honest. Those vacations when we were younger, things had just seemed so perfect here. Beautiful scenery, great people, and good skiing. What more could you ask for?
“Gosh, is that Adam?” Kayla asked, peering at the photo. “He looks so different.”
“That’s because he doesn’t have his broody mysteriousness that he has now,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What’s up with that anyway? He used to be so friendly, and now it’s like he wants nothing to do with me.”
Kayla shrugged, looking away from me. “I don’t know much about him, to be honest,” she admitted. “At least, not outside of work. He’s pretty careful to keep his personal life private.” She paused. “He’s got his ghosts though, that’s for sure.”
I tried not to be disappointed with what she had told me. I’d been hoping that she could shed a little more light on things, though. I wished I could figure out what it was that made Adam so silent and stern these days. The sooner I figured that out, the sooner I could go about getting him to relax and be more like the happy-go-lucky kid that he had once been.
