Free Fall Read Free

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.”
    â€œA truce?”
    â€œYes. I’m sorry Grandma left Bay Moon to me and not you, and you’re sorry you’re uptight and anal.”
    â€œBut you’re not sorry Grandma left Bay Moon to you when she died last year.”
    â€œOkay, 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.”
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œI’m not a bad person, Lily Rose.”
    Lily had to grin at that. “Bad is relative.”
    â€œAs you would know.”
    â€œAbsolutely. 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—”
    â€œWe’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 a result, no one knew better than she that the best part of Bay Moon was its size and charm. Like the fictional Cheers bar, everyone here knew everyone’s name, their likes and dislikes. Expanding would turn it into another Park City or Vail, where no one knew anyone and it was all about fashion and who the celebrity guests were. That simply was not going to happen. “Grandma knew what you and Sara wanted to do with this place. Just as she knew that as the older, responsible granddaughters, you two were the logical choices to inherit. But the fact is, she left it all to me.” A burden she’d neither coveted nor asked for. Hell, she’d have been happy working ski patrol the rest of her life.
    â€œYes, she left it all to you,” Gwyneth said. “Even though you’d never held a business or finance position, didn’t balance your own checkbook and had never had so much as a single lasting relationship in your life.”
    â€œAnd what do relationships have to do with anything?”
    â€œShows a lack of ability to commit, Lily.”
    No, it showed a lack of willingness to commit—a direct result of her bossy, demanding family. Love was a burden, Lily had long ago decided, and an unwelcome one. “Okay, listen. Let’s save my failings for another time. Maybe Thanksgiving, when everyone can join in on the fun. For now, we have jobs, good ones. We make extremely good livings just the way things are.”
    â€œYes.” Gwyneth dropped her gaze over Lily’s ski-patrol attire. “And I see