Made to Be Broken Read Free Page B

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.

Chapter Three
    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