I'll Make you Fall in Love Again

"Home again, " Sam Wyatt muttered outside his family's hotel at the Snow Vista ski resort in Utah. "The question is, will anyone be happy to see you?"And why should anyone be happy? He'd left two years earlier, after his twin brother died. And he'd left his family in disgrace. He'd left and stayed away all this time out of guilt. And he'd come home out of a different kind of guilt. Maybe it was time, he told himself, to face the ghosts that lived on that mountain.
The hotel hadn't changed a bit. A rustic log building with a wide front porch filled with wooden chairs, it had three floors since the Wyatt family added the third floor as a residence. Guest rooms occupied the lower two floors, and smaller cabins were scattered throughout, offering privacy and unsurpassed views. Most of the skiers who came to Snow Vista stayed in lodges and hotels located a mile up the mountain.
It was impossible to accommodate everyone at the Wyatt Resort. A few years earlier, Sam and his twin brother, Jack, had made plans to expand the facility and turn it into a first-class destination. Their parents, Bob and Connie, had been enthusiastic about the idea, but Sam's departure seemed to have stalled everything-and not just the project. She gripped her travel bag tightly and tried to control the thoughts swirling frantically in her head.
Returning home wasn't going to be easy, but the decision had been made, and it was time to face the past."Sam!" a familiar voice exclaimed. His sister Kristi strode toward him. She was wearing a blue parka, ski pants, and black fur-lined boots. Her big blue eyes shone brightly, though not in a very friendly way. Of course, you couldn't expect a welcoming committee either...-Hi, Kristi."Hello?" She walked up to him and tilted her head back to look him straight in the eyes.
"Is that all you can think of? Hello, Kristi? After two years?"Sam calmly accepted the reprimand. It was what he had expected.-What do you want me to say?She snorted."It's a little late to ask me what I want, don't you think? If you cared, you would have asked me before you left."It was useless to defend himself against the well-deserved reproach, and judging by his sister's expression, he didn't even bother trying.
He remembered how Kristi had always adored him and Jack, but he realized, with great sadness, that that stage was over. And he had made sure it happened.But that wasn't why I came home. I wasn't there to stir up the past. He had done what he had to do, and he was doing it again."I would have told you not to leave, " Kristi said, blinking back tears. "You abandoned us. Like you didn't care about us."Sam took a deep breath, dropped the bag, and ran his hands through his hair.-Of course I cared about you.
All of you. Then and now.-Easy to say, isn't it, Sam?Would it help to say that I had continually thought about calling home?No, he decided. It wouldn't do. because he hadn't called. The only contact was a couple of postcards to let them know where he was, until last week his mother found a way to track him in Switzerland. It was still unclear how she had found him, but Connie Wyatt was an unstoppable force when she put her mind to something.-Hey, I'm not going to argue with you.
Not until I've seen Dad. How is he?A shadow of fear crossed Kristi's face, quickly replaced by a new burst of fury."Alive. And the doctor says he'll be fine. It's sad that the only reason you're back is Dad's heart attack." He seemed to calm down a little and shifted his gaze toward the mountain. "It was horrible. Maybe it was just a warning, but." He trailed off, but Sam didn't need to hear the rest.
A warning meant the whole family would be watching Bob like he was a grenade about to explode. A monitoring that would undoubtedly drive his father crazy.