I found Sammi in the kitchen, rocking in a chair she'd dragged in from the front room. The best chair from the front room, I might add. She was cuddling Destiny and crooning to her. Mother and child. A scene to warm the heart… if the mother in question wasn't currently being paid to clean the guest rooms.

I'd let Sammi bring Destiny to her job, even picked up a secondhand playpen. But the baby was never in it. Sammi worked holding Destiny on her hip, which made for very sloppily made beds and crudely chopped vegetables.

With her long blond hair, trim figure, and big violet eyes, Sammi Ernst was the prettiest girl in White Rock. When I walked in, her face was glowing with an inner beauty that would have made Revlon sign her up on the spot. Then she saw me and the light went out.

"I heard we had a complaint," I said.

"Emma couldn't wait to tattle, could she? Mr. and Mrs. Toronto Yuppies abandoned their kids, then bitched 'cause I'm taking care of mine."

"I hear Mrs. Anderson offered to look after Destiny for you."

"That old bag? She's so fucking senile she'd probably put Destiny out with the recycling and feed her milk to the cat."

Inhale. Exhale.

I reached down to pat Destiny on the head. Sammi swatted my hand away.

"That's her soft spot, you know."

"No, I don't know. I don't have kids, as you're quick to remind me. I don't understand babies. But I do understand this business. Whether or not that couple should have complained doesn't matter because the cus tomer – "

" – is always right," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "You take too much of their shit, Nadia. You wouldn't see me letting people walk over me like that."

"No? Maybe you're right. The next time I've just sat down to a meal and a guest demands after-dinner drinks served by the lake, I'll hand them a beer and point them to the path. Then they'll write an online review complaining about the lousy service. After a few of those, our bookings will drop, and I won't be able to keep a housekeeping assistant on the payroll."

She said nothing, but that told me I'd made my point.

"Do you want this job, Sammi?"

"Fuck, yeah. You think I'd take everyone's shit if I didn't need the money?"

"You don't need to take anyone's shit. You could apply for welf – social assistance – until Destiny is old enough to go to school."

She glowered up at me. "No fucking way. I am not winding up like her." From the venom in her voice, I knew she meant her mother. "I'm going to show Destiny how a real mother acts. I'm going to work for a living and look after us."

"All right then, tell me if this would work out…"

I outlined some changes to her schedule, bringing her in later and having her leave before dinner. Most of her hours would be midday, when guests were out.

"That means fewer hours a day, but you'll be working five days instead of four. And if we have a full house, I may need you for serving at dinner hour and cleanup after. You'll need someone to pick up Destiny during that time."

A long pause. Then, "I guess Tess or Kira could…"

"I also want to see Destiny in her playpen now and then. And when I was in Toronto, I saw someone wearing this sling for carrying babies. It would keep your hands free – "

"I can't afford any more stuff."

"I'll buy it. If you want to take it home, you can pay me back. How's that?"

She complained more about accepting "charity" than my other conditions, but eventually we came to an agreement. I prayed it would work out.

In the brochure for the Red Oak Lodge, there are four seasons. "Summer Sizzle" runs mid-June through August. "Fall Foliage" goes until mid-November. Then "Winter Wonderland" runs through March. The lowest priced one is "Spring Savings," so named because "Dismal, Muddy, and Black-Fly Infested" really doesn't have the same marketing oomph.

Being early May, we were in the "Muddy" section of that season, with the damp chill fading and the black-flies moving in, but slowly. For people wanting a deal or looking for a break after a long winter, May is a decent enough month. On weekdays we were lucky to have any guests, but weekends we usually ran close to capacity. The lodge has a dozen rooms – including mine – so at full occupancy we can host twenty-two. By Friday evening, we had seventeen, enough to keep one elderly couple, one hostess/ guide, and one teen girl busy.

For once, Sammi pulled her weight. She didn't turn into a cleaning dynamo, but she did her "chores" with less complaining and even put Destiny in the playpen for her naps, snapping at me that I'd better not wake her with my "thumping around" or it'd be my own fault if Sammi had to rock her when she should be working.

Even on a staff of three, Sammi was never going to make Employee of the Month. But living out here meant Sammi didn't have a lot of life choices. Having Destiny at sixteen meant no high school diploma. With her family reputation, no one would hire her. Even if they did, there wasn't any day care in town. She couldn't even move out of her mother's home; there were no rental units around. If I could help her make enough money and get enough job experience to leave White Rock, it was the best thing anyone could do for her.

Quinn e-mailed me Sunday. Just a quick note to apologize again for taking off early and to thank me again for helping him… and to ask whether I'd have time for an IM chat that evening.

I said yes to the chat… and spent the rest of the day mentally preparing for the "Let's just be friends" speech. But it never came. We chatted as we always did. There was a case in the U.S. that week of a man charged after beating to death a guy he'd found raping his girlfriend. Quinn wanted to know if I'd heard about it and what I thought. We talked about that for a while, debating the circumstances and the ethics. Then he asked a few spelunking questions and we got into that, swapping stories until I had to sign off.

So nothing had changed. Maybe "the speech" was still coming. Or maybe he'd decided, since I hadn't seemed disappointed that nothing romantic happened in Toronto, that I was okay sticking with friendship and there was no need to discuss it.

Was I okay with friendship? I did feel a pang of disappointment. Was that because I'd wanted to be seduced? To feel what I had last fall, Quinn's enthusiasm sweeping aside my reservations? To enjoy the passionate, reckless affair I'd imagined?

Or was that pang just bruised ego? Maybe more than that – a slap to a still-tender part bruised when I'd been rejected by friends, family, and lover after I shot Wayne Franco.

But I'd been thinking the same thing about Quinn – that we'd be better off as friends – and it didn't mean there was anything wrong with him. There just wasn't enough of a spark to take the risk. Normally when a potential lover says "let's just be friends," it really means "I don't actually like you that much," and the promised friendship never materializes. Quinn still sought my company, still wanted to chat… and chat and chat.

Maybe it would deepen into more someday, when both of us were ready. For now, I could use a friend more than I could use a lover.

Tuesday morning, I was returning from a walk with our only guests – an elderly couple – and saw Emma on the porch, ostensibly filling the bird feeders. That was Owen's job, meaning she was waiting to talk to me.

"Did you let Sammi go?" she asked after our guests had gone inside.

"What? No. What'd she say?"

"Nothing. She hasn't shown up, and whatever her faults, she's punctual."

My first thought was that she'd messed up her new schedule and thought she had Mondays and Tuesdays off. But before she left Sunday afternoon, she'd double-checked with me on what time to be in today. "Have you called her place yet?"