A Little Too Late (Madigan Mountain #1)(86)
I resented Reed. I despised Dad. There was a difference.
“I can see you’re going to make this absolutely easy on both of us,” Reed muttered.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yeah. You are.” He grabbed something out of his pocket, and a second later, keys flew through the air. I caught them. “Seasonal lodging is full getting the new hires trained, but one of the employee housing duplexes is empty. It’s unit sixteen, up the hill —”
“I know where the duplexes are. Thanks.”
Reed took another deep breath and closed his eyes for a second, as though he was on the search for inner peace or something. “You could just stay up at the house with me—”
“I’d rather go back to the sandbox for a year than step foot in that house.”
He sighed. “The fact that I know you mean that is something else, West. It’s the house we grew up in.”
“I need to unpack.”
He put his hands up like he was under arrest. “At least that means you’re staying long enough to do it. Welcome home.” He tossed a second set of keys at me and walked away, leaving through the side door, where Maria sidestepped to get out of his way.
“How much did you hear?” I asked her as I locked up.
“Enough. I thought middle children were supposed to be the peacemakers?” We walked across the parking lot that smelled like fresh blacktop and climbed into my truck.
“I was too busy taking care of my mom that last year, then raising Crew, to give a shit about peace.” And Reed had been having the time of his life on a ski team in Vermont.
Life was a lot of things, but fair wasn’t one of them.
“Crew’s your little brother, right? The X Games guy?”
“That’s him.” I put the truck into reverse and then backed out of the spot, flipping us around so I could pull out onto the road. At least this wasn’t new. “Let’s get you to your new place.”
“I stopped on the way in and picked up a few essentials for you.” She motioned to the back seat where I saw a grocery bag. “Figured you hadn’t eaten, and you’re kind of an ass when you’re hungry. Plus, I was hoping if I got in your good graces, you wouldn’t make us start today.”
“You’re not the first person to say that to me.” A smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. “And thanks for the groceries. We’re not starting until tomorrow and, even then, it’s just an area orientation flight.”
I got her dropped off at her new place and waved to her husband, Scott, as I pulled out.
I passed the picturesque, alpine-style resort my mother had taken so much pride in and kept driving up the mountain. Her stamp was everywhere: the heritage red accents of paint, the friendly staff that waved at me even though they didn’t recognize me, and the window boxes that dripped red and white flowers that had yet to give in to fall. Except she hadn’t planted those flowers, not in fifteen years since she’d passed.
There were a few new potholes as I headed up the hill, but everything else looked the same. I pulled into the cul-de-sac where the employee housing duplexes sat, then parked along the curb, my mind preoccupied with Reed’s comments.
Had I chosen the wrong helicopter? Had it been a mistake to go for occupancy and the security of dual engines? Were we capable of luring that kind of clientele here while the expansion was built, or had I just doomed us to failure? I hadn’t even been home for two hours and Reed was already in my head.
I slung one of my duffels over my shoulder, then lifted the grocery bag, fumbling with the car, house, and hangar keys as I walked up the path to the door. Everything depended on this first season. Maria and Theo had uprooted their entire lives for this—for me, for the opportunity to do what we loved while working for ourselves.
And as much as I wanted to beat the shit out of Reed some days, he’d called. He’d asked for help, and I’d answered. Why? Because as much as I hated this place, I was also wildly in love with it, and the thought of it slipping into some corporate sleezeball’s hands if the expansion failed and Dad ended up selling wasn’t something I could stomach.
I keyed open the door and didn’t bother looking at the layout as I walked through the living room and toward the kitchen. The units had been built when I was a kid, and they were all identical. An open-concept, shared space made up the rectangle of the living room, dining room, and kitchen. Every kitchen had the same model refrigerator and stove, and a washer and dryer was in a storage-style mudroom toward the back. Every unit had two identical staircases inside that framed the space, leading to separate, lockable hallways that led to separate two-bedroom units.
It seemed like a waste of space to give me a four bedroom, but I wasn’t complaining. I’d never been big on having people in my space, which was probably why I’d never made a relationship work the way Theo and Maria had.
Or maybe it was just that I’d never met someone who I wanted to be around twenty-four seven.
I yanked open the fridge and grimaced, shoving the bacon and eggs Maria had picked up for me onto an empty shelf. Whoever had been here last hadn’t cleaned out the fridge. Guess I knew what I’d be doing after my run. The place was colorfully decorated with throw pillows on the couch and poster-sized framed pictures on the wall of far-off locations like the Serengeti, which was odd, considering we were a ski resort, but I guess everyone got sick of snow at some point.