beside the bins.”
Yep. No sense of humor at all. “I’ve already ordered more Do Not Feed The Bears Or Else Lose Your Life signs, along with better directions for getting into the trash bins. It’s not rocket science, so I’m sure our guests will figure it out with the help of the extra pictures.”
Gwyneth’s mouth tightened. “Also, it’s end of month. The payables and receivables need to be—”
“Right. I’ve got a calendar.”
“Okay, but also there’s the—”
“Good Lord.” Lily tipped her head back to take in the huge wood beams running the length of the large lodge that she’d been walking through all of her life. Then she turned to her sister. “Look at me, Gwyneth. Do I look like I give a crap that you’re chasing after me and listing all my responsibilities, as if I was a five-year-old?”
Gwyneth’s lips all but disappeared now. “No. No, you don’t.”
“Good. So maybe you could try not to give a crap if once in a while I do things my way. What do you think?”
Gwyneth slowly let the clipboard down to her side. “I’m not trying to nag. I just want to see Bay Moon under control.”
Bay Moon Resort was a big, fancy name for a place that wasn’t really big or fancy but just right. They had fifteen guest rooms, a full-service cafeteria, a bar, a gift shop and a ski-rental shop. They also had a reputation for being one hell of a gathering spot, attracting so many repeat visitors on their mountain and in their lodge every year that getting into the place had become tough enough for the Lake Tahoe brochures to give them the coveted “exclusive” title.
Lily didn’t think of the place as exclusive so much as…home. Gwyneth didn’t feel the same way, nor did their middle sister, Sara. That’s because Gwyneth and Sara had lived with their parents in town while Lily, the problem child, had been sent here after a series of “unfortunate incidents” involving some admittedly bad choices on her part. She’d come to Grandma and Grandpa’s resort at age sixteen, as slave labor for “straightening out.”
And boy howdy, how she’d gotten straightened out. It hadn’t been her grandpa’s lightning temper or her grandma’s lectures, either, though both had probably contributed. It had been the mountain itself that gave her a sense of peace and the strength to just be herself. “Bay Moon is completely under control.” She stopped before the huge double wooden doors that would lead her into the glorious Sierra winter and right to the ski lifts that were her own personal wonderland. Before she’d even graduated high school, she’d been an emergency medical technician and certified professional ski patroller—nothing but a disguise on her part, really, one that had allowed her to work as ski patrol on the slopes she loved with all her heart.
Until she’d been given the general manager position.
She was still an EMT, still a certified patroller, only now things were different, more complicated, and she didn’t get out as often as she’d like. In fact, she hardly got out at all.
“Lily Rose, I’m trying to talk to you.”
“No, you’re trying to drive me crazy.” She pressed her temples to keep her brains from exploding. “And you’re doing a fine job, too. I’m asking you to back off.”
“How can I do that? If I didn’t stand on top of you, you wouldn’t get anything done.”
Lily gaped at that. Gwyneth still, after all this time, truly believed it was the nagging that made Lily tick. She could tear her hair out over that, but the truth was, there had been a time when she’d have needed someone on top of her. She’d sneaked out regularly. She’d pulled pranks, such as running the snowmaking machines in July or filling the water tap in the cafeteria with green food coloring, freaking out guests and employees alike. She’d even stolen a vehicle—if you could call it stealing to borrow a snowcat to go four-wheeling beneath a midnight moon…
She’d been a handful, no doubt, but damn it, she’d paid the price. Her family never looked at her and saw a grown-up—even now, they still saw her as that wild child.
She could deal with that. She was dealing with that. “You know I’ve been running this place since Grandma died last year, and without any major snafus.”
Gwyneth crossed her arms. “You say that as though you’ve never screwed up.”
“Right.” Lily had to laugh. “How could I deny it when we both know you remember each and every long-ago transgression?”
Gwyneth sighed. “This isn’t about your past. Wild or otherwise.”
The hell it wasn’t. But she absolutely didn’t want to get her sister going on the subject because it usually took Gwyneth a good long time to list every single indiscretion of Lily’s errant youth. Far too long to be standing still on a rocking January morning when a foot of fresh powder was calling her name. “Tell you what. Let’s call a truce.”
“A truce?”
“Yes. I’m sorry Grandma left Bay Moon to me and not you, and you’re sorry you’re uptight and anal.”
“But you’re not sorry Grandma left Bay Moon to you when she died last year.”
“Okay, you caught me.” She smiled, but Gwyneth did not, making her sigh. “Look, this place is small and perfect the way it is, and Grandma knew I’d keep it this way. That’s all. I’m doing this for her, for her memory.”
Gwyneth drew herself up to her full height of five foot two, the same as Lily. The resemblance between them was considerable. Both had unmanageable, untamable, wavy light brown hair, matching light brown eyes and full mouths that looked great in lipstick.
But only Lily had a ready smile.
Gwyneth’s mouth was turned down in a frown, as usual. “I wouldn’t have gone against her wishes.”
“I think you wouldn’t mean to, but you’d have found a way to justify it. The ski hill’s already at capacity on most weekends and our day lodge can’t handle any more than that. You would need to build another lodge, and then you would want more rooms…It would never end. We’d become one of those big, impersonal places I hate.”
“I’m not a bad person, Lily Rose.”
Lily had to grin at that. “Bad is relative.”
“As you would know.”
“Absolutely. And by the way, there’s nothing wrong with being bad once in a while.”
Her sister sighed the sigh of a martyr. “I can’t reason with you, you don’t have normal reasoning. And all I’ve ever said about Bay Moon is that with a little expansion—”
“We’d make a killing,” Lily finished for her. “That would be great, but it’d turn into something that Bay Moon was never intended to be.” She was adamant on this. When she’d first been dumped here by her at-their-wits’-end parents, she’d had all rights rudely revoked. No phone, no TV, no car, no friends and especially no boys. She’d been forced to serve the guests and worked the shop, the cafeteria and the lifts, only getting to ski or board as often as she could sneak out.
As
