Sweet Reunion (13 page)

Justin put his foot back down on the ground, and
turned his body to face Amanda, who was still standing quite close to him. She
started to back away, but he snaked his arm around behind her waist before she
could move an inch.

“So,” he breathed huskily, but with a sexy and playful
grin, “I believe we were going to revisit the necessity of this towel...”

Amanda smiled and opened her mouth to parry back, but
nothing came out. Her face and neck were flushed, and Justin could see that he
must be getting to her. That meant it was time, not to retreat, but to push
forward. He leaned in face in close to hers, so that their lips were mere
millimeters from touching.

“Don't you think an act of heroism like this deserves
a kiss?” he breathed.

Unfortunately, he was never to know what her answer to
that question would have been, because Sam, iPod earbuds firmly in place, came
bouncing into the bathroom at that moment, unaware that Amanda and Justin were
standing just inside the doorway. Her momentum as she bumped into them caused
all three to topple over, Justin barely able to catch both girls and break
their falls.

As they lay on the floor a mere instant after having
tumbled there, Karina's head popped into the bathroom doorway, looking down on
them with consternation. “Hey!” she protested, “You guys are throwing a
threesome and nobody thought to invite me?”

Chapter 12

Amanda and Justin sat in the main administrative
office of Mountain Ridge Outdoor Adventures later that morning, staring at each
other over the desk uncomfortably. Neither one of them was sure whether they
should speak first or wait for the other, and when it came to that, neither one
of them was actually sure what they should say.

Eventually, Amanda broke the silence. “Thanks for
coming down, Justin,” she began haltingly, “I think it's good for the staff to
return to a sense of normality as soon as possible. I think it's really what we
all need, and I appreciate you being on board with that.”

Justin nodded. He was certainly on board with
establishing a sense of normality, although he was nowhere near as confident it
could be accomplished by something as mundane as simply coming to back to work
on the day after Parker's memorial service.

“Absolutely, Amanda,” Justin said soothingly,
“Whatever you need, I'm here.”  He intended this assurance to be comforting,
but instead of seeming calmed, this statement in fact seemed to agitate Amanda.

“It's not about what I need,” Amanda said sharply, “It's
about what's best for the business. You know? OUR business? The one that we
both run?
Together
?”

“Right,” Justin said, flustered, trying to backtrack,
“I realize that, and I'm on board with that, 100%. But I just want you to know
right up front that I fully respect the fact that this place was your father's
baby, it's his legacy, and you're the one that's been here all along. So,
you're calling the shots. I'm completely prepared to follow your lead in every
decision. That's all I meant by 'whatever you need from me' – honestly.” 

Justin swallowed hard. His plan of winning Amanda over
and convincing her that he could be trusted to stick around and weather the
storms was off to a brilliant start, he thought ruefully.

Amanda took a deep breath and nodded, seeming slightly
mollified. “OK,” she said, “You're right, sorry to snap. I must just still be a
bit on edge from yesterday.”

Not to mention, she added silently to herself, from
the strain of keeping myself from falling back in love with you again, since I
know that you might disappear at a moment's notice – that's also been slightly
stressful. But of course, she would never say anything like that directly to
Justin.

Amanda opened her day planner and laid it in between
the two of them so that they could each read it from their own angle.

“We've got less than six weeks until Mountain Ridge
Outdoor Adventures is slated to open for the winter season,” she began, “It's
crucial that we open on time to maintain our healthy bottom line. Every single
day that we delay opening, a day that we should be taking in revenue but don't,
it's not just a revenue neutral day – we are paying the staff. So, every late
day not only costs us in lost revenue, but in actual outgo.”

“A double whammy,” Justin said grimly.

“Precisely,” Amanda agreed.

“Well, we'd better figure out how to open on time,
then,” Justin stated confidently, hopeful that Amanda noticed and appreciated
his strong use of the term 'we.'

“I know six weeks sounds like a long time, especially
to someone who isn't used to staying in one place very long, but in truth, when
you look at all that needs to be done – it's barely enough time.”

Justin nodded. He made a conscious decision to ignore
the barb about not staying in one place very long, and to ignore all future barbs
that he was sure would come in the future – and deservedly so. After all, he
was on a mission to win Amanda back. You couldn't do that sort of thing by
taking the bait when the other person tried to pick a fight.

“OK,” he said, “Why don't we start out by making a
list of all the things that need to be done, and approximating how much time
each task is going to take in terms of man hours. Then we can figure out how to
allocate the staff's time most effectively. Once we have that information, we
can also make a master schedule that lays everything out over the six week
period, so we'll know every step of the way if we're hitting the target or
not.”

Amanda nodded gratefully, happy at the prospect of
becoming engrossed in a quantifiable task, something that she could wrap her
mind around. Something that had a definitive beginning and end.

“That sounds like a great plan,” she said, and pulled
out the winter brochure from the year before, so that they could go through all
of the activities offered by the resort and brainstorm every task that would
need to be completed to make each offering winter-ready. She also unfolded a
map of the property so that they could look at the tasks from a geographic
point of view, examining every inch of the resort's property and listing all of
the maintenance and repairs which would need to be accomplished over the next
month and a half. Later, they would go over all of the necessary administrative
tasks and make sure that they were well in hand, but right now, the priority
remained opening on time for winter season.

As Amanda and Justin plotted and planned, heads bent
over documents, talking back and forth, adding to lists, making suggestions,
discussing, sussing out, coming to conclusions, and developing an ever
increasingly companionable rhythm and rapport – Amanda actually forgot herself
for a moment and let down her walls.

She was so involved in the task and so focused on the
planning that she lost her focus on maintaining the unbreakable iron will that
it took to keep Justin at arm's length, emotionally.

After an hour of plotting and planning, listing and
scheduling, they finally had what seemed like a workable solution for getting
the park ready in plenty of time to open on schedule in winter.

Honestly, Amanda hadn't been entirely sure that the
timing would work out, so to have it in front of her in black and white – a
document which, if followed, would ensure the timely opening and therefore
future profitability of her father's – now her – enterprise...it felt like a
lifeline. It felt symbolic, as well – the first big hurdle that Amanda needed
to clear as the owner, and she now had a well-laid out path to successfully
clearing it. It was a great feeling.

She looked up at Justin, her cheeks flushed with the
thrill of accomplishment. “I think we really did it,” she said, a touch
disbelieving.

Justin smiled back equally happily, “I agree, I think
it's a strong, workable plan.”

Amanda said more seriously, “There's just one small
wrinkle that we're going to need to address.”

Justin looked at her questioningly and said, “What's
that?”

“Well,” Amanda said, “There's certainly no way that we
can do all of this on our own. We need the staff, at least a majority of them,
to continue working. But they've been completely freaked out since my father's
accident.

“Not to mention,” she added, elbowing him in the ribs,
“It remains to be seen how they're going to react to the new boss man.”

“Well,” Justin said in a matter of fact tone, “I think
we can take care of both of those things right now. Let's call a meeting.”

--- ~ ---

Amanda and Justin stood in front of the small group of
five employees that Mountain Ridge Outdoor Adventures currently had on staff.
They were a rag tag bunch, Amanda reflected, but they were the Mountain Ridge
Outdoor Adventures family, and she wouldn't trade them for the world.

There was Bertha Hodge, a plump woman in her
mid-sixties who did all of the cooking and cleaning up at the main lodge. Then
there was Jane Gonzales, who handled administrative work in the office, as well
as scheduling all reservations. Next, Meredith Beene, the part-time bookkeeper.
Lastly, the “Bartollo Boys,” Mikey and Jack, a pair of brothers who – in the
curious way that small towns sometimes operate – were still widely referred to
as “boys” although they were in their mid-fifties, and no one really seemed to
think it was odd. The Bartollos handled miscellaneous maintenance around the
property.

Of course, as each season got underway and guests
arrived, there would be contract workers brought on – a housekeeping staff, and
expert guides in the various activities offered at the resort. But these five
were the core, the only year round salaried employees. In short...the family.

“Hi, everybody,” Amanda began with a slight tremor in
her voice. The tremor was coming from nervousness at public speaking, not from
a lack of conviction about what she was about to say, but her audience would
have no way of knowing that. She cleared her throat.

“So, I just, you know...um...wanted to, um, take this
opportunity to let everybody know that, you know, um, everything is going
strong...it's really, well...” she stopped and cleared her throat again. This
public speaking thing was really difficult.

At her father's memorial service, the short speech she
had given had gone surprisingly smoothly, and she thought that it must only be
because the other emotions that were flooding her had been so strong and
overwhelming that they had drowned out her anxiety. But now, in front of this
small group of only five people, her nerves were definitely getting the better
of her. She stopped and took a deep breath.

“OK, let me start over,” she said more confidently,
“You guys know I'm not the best at talking in front of groups, but here is
basically what I want to say. I know that there has been some talk about people
being unsure what the future holds for Mountain Ridge Outdoor Adventures.”

The staff nodded as one. This small affirmation of her
audience connecting with her words actually had the opposite of what the
expected and desired effect would have been. Rather than calming her and giving
her confidence to move forward more effectively with her speech, instead, it
caused her to falter yet again.

“Well...um...you know, that's totally not true...” she
said.

Bertha looked puzzled. “What's not true?” she asked
uncertainly.

Amanda gulped audibly, “Oh, that, you know, anything
is wrong, or that we might be closing, or...”

“We might be closing?” one of the Bartollo Boys
exclaimed in a shocked tone.

“No, no! We're not! That's my point!” Amanda said,
trying to get her train of thought back on track.

“But people are talking about it, is that it?”  Bertha
tried to clarify, cautiously, “I mean, you wouldn't have brought it up if it
wasn't a possibility, right?”

“No!” Amanda said, trying with all her might to
overcome her nerves and get some conviction into her tone. She was aiming for
“emphatically,”  but if she was honest, she knew that she probably only
achieved “defensively.”

“That's my whole point!” she tried again. This was all
spinning out of her control more quickly than she could have imagined.

Justin stepped forward smoothly. “Closing is
absolutely not on the table,” he said, with conviction ringing out in his voice
that Amanda could only dream about achieving, “No one's talked about it, no one's
considered it. The only reason it came up here at this meeting is because we
want to assure you that nothing like that is actually going to happen.

“Just this morning, Amanda and I spent over an hour
coming up with a detailed schedule of work and tasks that need to be completed
before the winter opening. As far as we're concerned, Mountain Ridge Outdoor
Adventures is opening for the winter season right on schedule. That's where
we're headed, that's where our focus is, and that's where we want everyone's focus
to be.”

He turned and gave Amanda a small smile, “Convoluted
attempts aside, that's what we're trying to get across at this meeting.”

Amanda blushed, laughed, and gave him a swat on the
back of the head. Just like that, the tension in the room was broken. The five
employees laughed as well, and suddenly, like magic, the entire room was on the
same team.

Justin continued, “We are planning on opening on time
this winter, and we fully expect this opening to be the first of many winter
openings to come. But in order to achieve that, we need your help.”

Amanda felt the atmosphere in the room changing again.
The employees' interest was piqued, and the air was tinged with something
resembling excitement. Amanda realized that it was the electricity that came with
working together toward a common goal. The seven of them were coming together
as a team.

It had been exactly what she had hoped to achieve when
she had walked into the room and began to speak, but had been unable to get
there. In fact, her fumblings had actually had the opposite effect.