Chapter One

	Hayley Belton closed the door on her past and sighed.  There was a certain sense
of relief now that the funeral was over.  The second funeral in as many years, and
although there was now a great void in her life, there was also the freedom to move
ahead into her future unencumbered.
	Five years ago,  Hayley was just graduating from high school and had her whole
life ahead of her.  Her world was turned upside down, however, with the discovery that
her mother was suffering from cancer.  Hayley put her college plans on hold to stay home
and help her aging parents through the lengthy ordeal.  Her father was not a young man,
and had gone through hip replacement surgery just six months earlier.  Hayley just
couldn’t possibly leave him to look after her mother all alone.  Besides, what little money
they had saved up for her education would now have to be used to pay for her mother's
medical expenses. 
 	The months that followed were filled with many trips to specialists, two
operations, and extended treatment with chemotherapy, and at last the future looked
good.  Everything was  clear.   It looked like Hayley could finally put her life back on
track.   When the ordeal had begun, she’d taken a job waiting tables at a local diner.  Her
boss had been extremely understanding of her situation, and allowed her any time off she
needed to drive her parents for treatments.  Though it wasn’t a high paying job, she had
managed to save up enough to be able to reconsider entering college and she began
pouring over course brochures trying to find something she could take without being too
far away from her parents.  Though her mother was making amazing progress, she still
lacked energy; and her father couldn't move as fast as he used to. 	
	Just when things looked like they were starting to look brighter, however,
catastrophe struck once again.  While returning home from a routine check-up, a short
trip that Hayley's father had insisted she didn’t need to take off work for, he had suffered
a stroke while driving and lost control of his car.  Hayley’s mother had suffered several
injuries, but her father had not survived the crash.  It was for the best, the doctors had
told her.  The stroke had caused severe brain damage, and Howard Belton would never
have been the same again. 
	Hayley’s mother had never truly recovered from her husband’s death.  She
wavered between periods of acceptance, and times when she voiced her wish that she had
been killed along side her husband.  To add to the disaster, during the long convalescence
after the accident it was discovered that the cancer had returned, and this time she just
didn’t have the drive to fight it. 
	Now, Hayley stood on the threshold of her future.  She had loved her parents
dearly, but five years of caring for and worrying about her mother had been stressful. 
Though she grieved her loss, she was glad the strain had been lifted.  She had watched
her mother suffer for years. The last two years after her father’s death, had been
especially hard.  Watching the woman she loved fade away to a mere skeleton of her
former self was extremely painful for Hayley.  She would always miss her mother, but
she was glad the woman would never suffer again.  But would fate allow Hayley to move
forward this time, without throwing another curve ball her way? 
	She looked around the room.  She was standing in her parents living room, but it
no longer felt like home.  She set down her purse, picked up a pile of mail from a nearby
table.  The pile of letters had arrived just as she had been leaving the house for the
funeral home earlier, and she had set them aside to read later.  Now,  she walked into the
kitchen and sat down at the table and started leafing through the pile of envelopes.  
There were several sympathy cards.  She didn’t want to deal with them right now, and
shuffled them to the bottom of the pile.  Then there were the utility bills.  Didn’t they
know there was no one to pay them anymore, she thought, in a moment of bitterness
before reminding herself that of course, life went on as usual in the world regardless of
death.  More sympathy cards were flipped to the back, along with a magazine
subscription renewal notice, then Hayley stopped at an unfamiliar looking envelope.  She
set the rest of the pile down and turned the envelope over in her hand, eying it cautiously. 
The letter was addressed to Hayley Belton, and the return address was Whitehorse,
Yukon Territory, Canada. 
	Hayley pushed her chair back and stood up, tapping the envelope against the palm
of her hand.  There was only one place this letter could be from, and she was in no state
of mind to read it right now.  After wandering around the kitchen for several long
minutes, she tossed the envelope on the table, and with one last lingering look at it, she
left the room and went to her bedroom to change. 
	Hayley Belton’s life could have been much different right from the beginning. 
Although Howard and Colleen Belton were the most loving parents any girl could ever
have wished for, and she loved them dearly, neither of them were her birth parents. 
Hayley had been adopted as an infant, and her parents had never tried to hide that fact
from her.  They loved her as much as any mother or father could love a child they’d
actually given birth to.  Colleen had always reminded Hayley that she was their special
angel, because they had chosen her. 
	Childless after many years of marriage, the Belton’s had finally considered
adoption.  They had lots of love to offer a child, and the means to support one
comfortably.  They also felt that adoption would be giving a homeless child a new lease
on life.  But they wanted a baby, for two reasons.  Colleen wanted the experience of
raising her child from as close to birth as possible.  The other reason was probably the
one and only selfish stipulation Colleen Belton ever made in her life.  She did not want to
inherit another person’s emotional turmoil and have to try to break the ice with an older
child that had been scarred by an unfortunate bad start in life.  If any mistakes were made
in the raising of their child, Colleen had always said, she wanted those mistakes to be
their own.
	At that time, the Beltons were living in southern Alberta, where they had both
been born and raised. After months of contact with several Adoption agencies they had
finally received word that there could possibly be a baby for them, and Colleen and
Howard held their breath.  The story they eventually learned of Hayley’s birth tugged at
Colleen’s heart.  
	Hayley’s birth mother had been a fifteen year old native girl who had run away
from home once she could no longer hide the fact that she was pregnant.  She had tried to
get an abortion, but she’d been too late, and no one would perform it for her.  After a
brief time living on the streets of Edmonton, she had spent most of the rest of her
pregnancy at a local shelter for the homeless.   When she had given birth to a beautiful
baby girl,   she indicated she wanted to put the baby up for adoption.  
	Information on where she had come from proved sketchy at best.  Children’s
services and Indian Affairs had worked together to try to return the girl to her relatives,
but she refused to provide them with any information, and no one knew of her anywhere
they inquired.   The only thing anyone really knew was  that the baby’s father was white,
and she had run away because she had brought disgrace to her family.  When she left the
hospital two days after giving birth, no one ever saw  her again.  The baby was placed in
the hands of  Children’s Services and held for two weeks in case the birth mother
returned to re-claim her, while at the same time starting the process of finding the little
girl a home and a family.  When the mother did not return, the Belton’s were called
again.  They could have their baby.
	Colleen had adored her baby from the moment she first saw her.  She and Howard
had been loving parents to their little girl, and had never kept from her the knowledge
that she had been adopted.  Hayley had always felt very special knowing that she had
been the answer to her parents prayers when they could not have children of their own.
The complete circumstances of her birth mother’s situation, however,  hadn’t been made
known to Hayley until she was old enough to understand.  She had been older than her
mother had been when she was born, in fact, when the truth had finally been told.  Until
then, any questions about her birth that had come up had always been answered by ‘your
birth mother couldn’t look after you, and she wanted you to be well looked after.’ 
Colleen had always silently hoped there had been at least a thread of truth in that
explanation.  She had never wanted her daughter to feel unwanted by anyone while she’d
been growing up. 
	Indeed, the Beltons had been wonderful parents to their new baby girl, and Hayley
had grown up happy, healthy and loved.  She had never minded the fact that her skin was
darker than theirs, and her hair was jet black while Colleen's was blonde, and Howard’s
thinning hair was a light brown colour.  Colleen had never kept her native blood from
her, but Hayley had never felt any compelling urge to find her roots. 
	Now, Hayley wandered back into the kitchen and looked at the letter sitting on
the table in front of her.  She tried to ignore it, and made herself a cup of coffee. 
Whitehorse was a long way away.  That letter could wait a little longer to be opened. 
	When Hayley had been four, the Beltons had moved from Southern Alberta to
Vancouver.  Howard worked for an international company, and the transfer to the coast
had been a welcome change for him.  Three years later, they were on the move again, this
time for the last time, when he accepted another transfer, to the company’s American
office in San Diego, California.  Hayley was seven years old. Canada, and even more-so
the snowy Alberta winters, were distant memories stirred only by photographs of
relatives and scattered trips back to Canada for visits, usually in the summer time. 
	Howard had made a good wage, but at fifty-five, retirement had seemed like a
good idea when his doctors told him his long-suffering hip finally required surgery.  It
would give him time to recuperate, and then when Hayley left home for college, he and
Colleen would travel, and rekindle old friendships back home in Canada, maybe even
buy a motor home and take long road trips north.  It had never happened. He had only
been retired a little over half a year when they had received the news of his wife’s illness.  
Medical bills had eaten away their savings, and after Howard’s death there was still
enough for Colleen to live on, but not enough for luxuries. 
	It had been Colleen, in fact, that had coaxed Hayley to begin making plans for her
future. “I won’t be around much longer, Hayley. It’s time for you to start planning
ahead,” she had said.  Hayley had paid little attention to her mother’s urgings, passing
them off as a mother’s wish to see that her daughter was settled once the mother  was
gone.  Instead, she had devoted all her time to looking after the ailing woman.
	But Colleen always said some things were meant to be.  As a young man, Howard
had always enjoyed fishing in the Canadian wilderness, and he had continued to
subscribe to Canadian fishing magazines, buying several years worth of subscriptions at a
time, long after they had moved to San Diego.  Who knew when they might make that
trip, he'd always say, and sitting back reading the magazines always brought him closer to
his childhood home.   
	Although it had been two years since his death, the renewal for the last one of
those magazines lay on the kitchen table right now, in with the pile of sympathy cards
beside Hayley’s letter from the Yukon.  The two  bore an eerie connection, and Hayley
finally sat down and picked up her letter. 
	She had almost forgotten about the Yukon over the last few weeks.  Weeks that
had passed in a blur of nurses and hospital beds, and sleepless nights.  Her mother’s
health had deteriorated more rapidly, and it had become clear the end was nearing faster
than any of them wanted it to.  Any except Colleen, that is.  Colleen began to talk more
and more about finally joining her husband — and about Hayley’s future afterwards.  She
also took solace in reading her husband’s magazine, enjoying the calming memories of
younger days when she sometimes went fishing with him, or just listened to him talk
about his trips.  On one of those occasions, while she weakly leafed through the
magazine, her attention was caught by an add displaying a beautiful log building.
	“You should apply for this, Hayley,” she said, as her daughter sat quietly at her
bedside reading a book.
	“What’s that, Mother?”  Hayley leaned over to look at what had caught her
mother’s attention, then smiled.  The ad was for a hostess at a remote fly-in lodge in the
wilderness of the Canadian Yukon.   It looked like a fairly standard add, except for the
fact that it requested that the applicant be of native heritage.  It looked to Hayley like the
place was trying to hire its quota of minorities.  
	“You have the requirements,” Colleen went on. “And your waitressing would be
an asset in hostessing, I’m sure.”
	Hayley  smiled and shook her head.
	“I couldn’t possibly go to work there, Mother,” Hayley said softly.  “Imagine all
the red tape involved in going to work in another country.   Pamela’s cousin went up
there to work last year, and it took him months to get the paper work completed.  Look,
they want the successful applicant to start by Christmas.  That’s only three months
away.”
	Colleen had smiled at her daughter.  “You don’t have to worry about that,” she
had said, weakly.  “Bring me that box on the shelf in the closet.”  Hayley fetched her
mother the box, and the woman opened the lid, fishing through the stacks of papers. 
“You were born in Canada, don’t forget.  Howard and I have always kept our Canadian
citizenship, and yours, too.  You should have no problem working there. We still own
property there near Lethbridge that Howard’s uncle left to him several years ago.”  As she
spoke, she had pulled out a paper that looked like a deed and handed it to her daughter. 
Hayley’s birth certificate was also in the box.  She noticed it as her mother rested her
head back on the pillow and let the box rest on her lap.  She picked it up and looked at it.
Mother's name, Jane Doe, father's name, unknown.   For a moment she thought about
how things might have been if her birth mother had not given her up. Would she and her
run-away mother have lived in poverty?  Would they have returned to some reservation
where her mother’s family lived and lived there? She sighed.  She’d been happy all her
life, that was all that mattered.  She’d never been concerned about her blood relatives,
and she wasn’t about to start now.  Colleen was her mother in her heart, and always had
been.  She’d looked at the woman who lay withered and weak in the bed beside her, and
shaken her head.
	“It’s still too soon.  I can’t leave you, Mom.  You need me.”
Colleen had opened her eyes and smiled.  “Hayley, I won’t be around in December.”
Hayley had frowned. “Don’t say that, Mother!”
	But it had been Colleen's turn to shake her head.  “No, Sweetheart.  I need to go.
It’s time, and you need to look forward.  Your whole life is ahead of you. Now promise
me you will at least send in an inquiry for this job.  It looks like a beautiful place, and the
change would be good for you.”
	“Alright, Mother, I’ll do it right now, if that will make you happy.  But no more
talk about being gone by Christmas!”
Hayley had written her letter to the lodge in the Yukon and her mother had looked very
pleased.  The stamped envelope had been left sitting on the desk under the window for
three days, but Colleen had not forgotten about it, and had asked every day if it had been
mailed yet, until finally Hayley had dropped it in the mail just to keep her mother
content.  Three weeks later Colleen Belton had died.  She’d been right, Hayley thought,
with a frown, as the tears flowed down her face.  She was gone before Christmas after
all. 
	Hayley sighed and picked up the letter at last.  With a spurt of determination, she 
ripped the envelope open across the top, took a deep breath and reached inside to pull out
the folded pages.  As she read, her fingers began to tremble, then the tears began to flow
more freely.  Why was it that this letter had arrived exactly on this day, she thought to
herself.  How did it know that today, of all days, she might just be tempted to accept the
offer it held?  How did it know that the prospect of getting away, as far away from the
scene of all her losses, would seem so appealing?  And how did it know that just days
earlier, while laying on her death bed, Colleen Belton had held her daughter’s hand and
whispered to her ‘now you promise me, child, that if you get offered that job in Canada,
you’ll take it. It could be the best thing to come out of all this’, and that now those words
were ringing in Hayley’s ears followed immediately by the echo of her own whispered
reply ‘ yes Mamma, I promise.”
	Hayley rested her head on the table and cried.  Was it an omen that the reply from
the Yukon had arrived on the same day as her mother’s funeral?  It had to be.  Her
mother had always told her, everything happens for a reason.  Despite the hesitation she
felt deep inside, she felt she had no choice.  For some reason beyond her knowledge, she
was meant to go to the Yukon.  She straightened in her chair and picked up the pages of
the letter and read over it one more time. 

	GreyWolf Lodge is pleased to acknowledge  your  interest in the advertised 
 	position of  Lodge hostess.  Your qualifications and background information 
	have been carefully considered, and I am pleased to offer you the position,
	should you still be interested.  Please contact the Lodge by satellite phone 
	at your earliest convenience to discuss further arrangements and finalize  
	travel preparations.  Arrival must be no later than Christmas. Should this 
	not be possible, please notify the Lodge immediately

	Hayley took a deep breath and tried to steady herself.  This was what her mother
had wanted, she might as well make that call now as later.  There was no time like the
present, before she changed her mind and ended up  regretting breaking the last promise
she ever made to her mother.  She pushed her chair away from the table and went into the
living room and sat down beside the phone. 
	For several minutes Hayley just sat looking from the phone to the letter.  The man
to contact gave his name as Jules Landon.  She wondered what kind of a man he was. 
She remembered watching fishing shows with her father when she had ben a child, and
seeing the older men, much like her father in her mind, showing people where the best
fish were and how to catch them.  She conjured up an image of what Jules Landon might
look like, and smiled. This won’t be so bad, she told herself.  Just pick up the phone and
dial the number.
	“GreyWolf Lodge,” came the voice at the other end of the line after the third ring. 
Hayley sat mesmerized, her fingers gripping the receiver so tight her knuckles were
turning white.  The voice that met her ear was calm and deep.
	“Hello?” The voice spoke again, and Hayley shook herself out of her trance,
reminding herself that she had to speak back.
	“I’m sorry,” she blurted out a little too quickly.  “This is Hayley Belton calling. 
I’m looking for Jules Landon.”  She spoke with a tone of uncertainty, but the man’s
self-assured reply came across the line without hesitation.
	“You’ve found him, Miss Belton.   I’m glad to hear from you. I’ve been waiting
for your call.”  
	“Yes — well — umm — I just got your letter today,” she said, haltingly.  Not
only was the voice much younger sounding than she had expected, for some reason it
seemed to intimidate her.  It projected a new image in her mind, that replaced the kindly
old fisherman she had cooked up in her head.  An image  of a man who knew exactly
what he wanted, and wasn’t prepared to accept any less.  Hayley suddenly found herself
wondering it she was in way over her head.
	“I see,” the man said,  as if he felt the need to coax her to continue, and Hayley
thought she sensed a touch of impatience in his tone.  She took a deep breath and plunged
into the conversation.
	“I’m sorry if I seem a little distracted, Mr. Landon.  The truth is, I’ve just returned
from my mother’s funeral today, and I’m still a little shaken. Your letter was here,
however, and I thought I’d better call you while it was fresh in my mind.”
	There was a pause at the other end of the line, after which the man finally spoke
again, but this time his voice was softer and less official sounding.  “I’m sorry to hear
about your mother, Miss Belton.  Really, you didn’t have to call today.  It must be a very
painful time for you.”
	“It is,” Hayley said, her mind wandering away from her telephone conversation as
she replayed the last few days. She took a deep breath, and her breath caught in her
throat.
	“Miss Belton, are you alright?  Would you like to continue this conversation
another time? You can call me back another day, this doesn't have to be done today.” 
This time his voice was even softer, and she actually smiled to herself. 
	“I’ll be fine," she said. "I just wanted to get this call over with right away. You
know, think about something else for a while instead of the past few days' events.”
	“I understand,” he said, then after a long pause he shifted the conversation back to
the task at hand. “I had been hoping you would be able to fly up here as soon as possible,
Miss Belton, but under the circumstances, you may not be able to get away right away?  I
do need you in place no later than Christmas, however.  Will that be a problem?”
	“No, I don’t think so.  There are a number of things I will have to take care of
here before I leave, but I should be able to wrap things up well before then.”
	“Alright then,” he said, a tone of finality in his voice. “Take as much time as you
need, and call me by the end of the month to let me know when you think you can fly
out.  As I said, the sooner the better, but December will do if I have to wait that long. 
However, if you don’t think you will be available by then, I will be forced to look at
another applicant.”
	“Oh! No, I’m sure I can get everything settled by then, and anything I can’t,
certainly should be able to be done over the phone or by mail.”  Hayley bit her lip. Had
she sounded too desperate?  That was the last thing she wanted this man to think, but she
needed a job and this job might as well be it.  Besides, she was certain now that her
mother had been right.  Getting away would do her a world of good.
	“Good,” he was saying, clearly preparing to dismiss her.   “I’ll be waiting to hear
from you at the end of the month.  Oh, and Miss Belton, GreyWolf Lodge will be paying
your plane ticket up here, you won’t have to worry about anything. Just bring yourself
and warm clothes.”
	“Are you sure?” she asked, somewhat hesitant.  “I mean, I’m a long way away. If
I pay for my flight to Vancouver or something, it would — “
	“Quite sure, Miss Belton.  This is standard practice. Think no more about it.”   He
said goodbye to her, and hung up, leaving Hayley to look around the room feeling
suddenly completely overwhelmed.    Neither Colleen nor Howard had any family in
California.  The only relatives she had, as a matter of fact, were a couple of elderly
cousins in Calgary.  The house would have to be sold, everything in it would have to be
sorted through, disposed of, or stored away.  Right now, however, she didn’t have the
energy to do a single thing.