Chapter Four


	Jules slouched into a chair in the living room and stared towards the short hallway
that led to the bedrooms.  What the hell have I got myself into now? He asked himself, as
he listened to the water running while Hayley got ready for bed.  After tomorrow, he was
going to be stuck in the Yukon wilderness with the most beautiful woman he had ever set
his eyes on.  Just looking at her made his blood flow faster, and once they got to the
lodge, there would be very few other people to look at for a while. 
	Winter was a slower season at the lodge, although there were still some who
booked winter getaways.  Some lodges closed down for the winter season, opening only
for a few months in the summer to cater to hunters and fishermen.  Jules lived at the
lodge year-round.  He liked the wilderness, and when business was slow, he could always
come into town and stay at the apartment for a few days if he really wanted a taste of
civilization for a while.  But the lodge was home, and being able to get the income of a
few winter travelers now and then was merely a bonus.  Strangely enough though,
Christmas always attracted a few regular customers to the GreyWolf.  Since he had
opened the lodge to the public five years earlier, he had enjoyed the help of Winny, his
trusted Inuit hostess, who had made the guests feel right at home.  Winny wasn't a young
woman anymore, however, and over the past year her arthritis had gotten worse and
worse, until she had no choice but to leave the lodge and move in with her sister's family
in the town of Teslin.  
	She had moved out before the frosts moved in, and Jules had operated the lodge
without Winny since August.  September and October hadn't been to hard to handle, but
he knew well before Winny left, that once busy season rolled around, he was going to
need a new hostess.  He still had the services of Marty and Anna, of course.   A married
couple in their fifties, who were irreplaceable in Jules' mind, they worked as his
helper/guide, and his cook, and lived in a cabin next to the lodge.   Marty was an
amicable man who loved to laugh with the guests, but Anna didn't like to mingle much
with strangers.  Working the kitchen was perfect for her, for she loved to cook, and her
food was said to have brought many a visitor back for a second trip.  Jules knew better,
however, than to ask her to come out of her kitchen and entertain his guests.  There were
a few seasoned regulars that had won her heart and could get her to sit for a chat for a
few minutes, but for the most part, Anna's food was savoured but she was not seen.
	Winny proved hard to replace, however.  It seemed everyone who was suitable for
he job, wasn't interested in holing themselves up in the wilderness for twelve months of
the year.  Even offering a whole month off hadn't been incentive enough, since the month
he would be able to offer would be either October or November.  So, he'd taken out an ad
in a major fishing magazine.  A half page ad, in a glossy magazine, with a picture of the
lodge and everything.  It was a magazine geared to fishermen, who'd have thought a
twenty-three year old girl from San Diego California would have answered it!  Moreover,
who'd have thought that the only other applicants had either been unqualified,  or had
changed their minds once he contacted them.  He had been left with only two people to
consider.  One was a sixty year old Han woman from Dawson, and the other was a
twenty-three year old from California, who claimed to be of Native  Canadian decent,
and didn't seem to mind the idea of living in the wilderness.
	I think I made the wrong choice! He grumbled to himself, staring in the direction
of the bedrooms. All was quiet now, Hayley had obviously gone to bed.  Any red-blooded
man would be thinking what he was thinking—what it would be like to go to bed with
her, he rationalized, but he had to keep his cool.  She was staff. She was off-limits.
Besides, Jules Landon wasn't the kind of guy a girl like her wanted to get involved with
anyway. If she didn't know it now, she'd find that out eventually. 
	Jules grumbled again and got up and went to bed. Sleep wouldn't come easy,
knowing Hayley was sleeping right on the other side of the wall, he was sure of that, but
he needed to be rested to fly back to the lodge in the morning.  Maybe then he could at
least put some distance between the two of them til the novelty of having her around
wore off!
	Morning dawned as it always does in the Yukon winters. Dark.  Jules was used to
it, and switched off his alarm and crawled out of bed.  After having a shower and putting
on a pot of coffee, he knocked on the door of the other bedroom. When, after two tries,
there was no answer, he scowled and opened the door.  
	"Hayley?"
	The figure in the bed stirred, but still did not wake up.  Jules cursed under his
breath and   took a step further into the room, calling her name again.  The last place he
wanted to be was within twenty feet of Hayley Belton in a bed!
	"Hayley, wake up!"  he said, and saw her head move.
	"Jules? What's the matter? It's the middle of the night," she murmured.
	"No it isn't, Hayley. This is winter in the Yukon, we don't get much sunlight in
December. It's morning and it's time to get up and get ready to go.  I don't keep any food
in the apartment unless I'm planning to stay a while, so we'll go out for breakfast on our
way to the plane."
	Hayley moaned and rolled onto her back, then suddenly remembered that she was
in bed, and grabbed the blankets and pulled them up to her chin, looking at Jules in the
dim light that shone through the doorway.
	"What time does our plane leave?" she asked, rubbing her hand over her eyes. 
	He half smiled in the darkness. "Whenever we get there, Little One.  We'll be
flying to the lodge in my bush plane. It's the only access, there are no roads to the
GreyWolf, just the plane. Floats in the summer, skis in the winter.  I keep the plane on
the river on the edge of the city when I'm in town.  It won't take us long to get there."  He
saw her eyes widen in the dim light, and quickly continued. "Don't worry, no one is ever
stranded at GreyWolf. If I'm away with the plane, help can always be reached on the
satellite phone."
	"Oh," was all she said, and Jules suddenly became painfully aware that he was
standing  in the middle of her bedroom.  He cleared his throat and backed away towards
the door. 
	"Alright then. I'll leave you to get organized. I wouldn't have come in, but you
must have been sleeping well, you didn't hear me calling or my knock on the door."  With
that, he turned and strode out of the room, closing the door behind him. 
	Sleeping well was an understatement, Hayley thought, as she dragged herself out
of bed.   She must have been extremely tired, or maybe it was the northern air.  Whatever
it was, she had slept better than she had in a long time. 

	The flight to the lodge was breathtaking. Hayley looked down at the land as they
flew over miles of untouched forests, dotted with snow-covered lakes, and interwoven
with winding frozen rivers.  She shared her time between watching the world below, and
watching Jules as he handled the small plane with expert skill.  Then suddenly, as she
watched an expanse of white appear below them, a cluster of multi-coloured lights came
into view from behind the trees. 
	“Oh! That’s so beautiful!” she gasped in awe.
	“GreyWolf in December,” Jules said, glancing her way and easing the plane
lower.
	“That’s the lodge?” 
	“Yes.  Marty’s been busy putting up all the Christmas lights while I’ve been gone,
I see. Probably he thought it would be a nice welcome for you when you arrived, seeing
the lights from the air.”  He circled low over the lodge and back out over the lake, as he
spoke.
	“It is beautiful from up here!”  Hayley couldn’t think of anything she had ever
seen as beautiful as this, and she knew that although it would still look lovely from the
ground, she would never forget how it looked from the air.  Jules brought the plane in for
landing, and soon it was skidding over the snowy frozen lake and coasting up to shore,
where Hayley could see a man making his way towards them.  Before the propeller had
even stopped turning completely, the man had climbed on board one of the skis and tied
a rope to the plane, then he threw the door open and his friendly face peered out from the
hood of his fur-lined parka to smile at Hayley.
	“Welcome home, Boss,” the man said.  “Miss Hayley.”  He held out his hand and
helped her out of the plane, while Jules reached into the back.
	“Don’t let go of her, Marty,” Jules called out of the plane. “She’s just a little
thing, she might blow away in the wind.”
	Hayley looked back at Jules as Marty’s laughter rang through the crisp air.  Jules
smiled and winked at her, then climbed into the back of the plane to retrieve her luggage
and the other supplies he had brought back from Whitehorse with them.   Hayley watched
in amazement as the suitcases and boxes were loaded onto a sled for the three hundred
yard trip to the building, while harnessed dogs sat waiting patiently.
	“You actually use dog sleds for stuff like this?” she asked.
	Jules stuck his head out of the plane and handed Marty another box.  “The
sledding is one of the winter attractions we offer.  Marty is a master at it.  We do have a
snowmobile that would do the same job, but Marty likes to show off what his dogs can
do, every chance he gets.”  Again there was a wink, this time directed past her, to Marty,
who’s jovial laugher hadn’t seemed to have stopped since they had arrived.  The last of
the boxes had been loaded, and Jules fastened the door of the plane securely.  “You want
to walk, or ride?” he asked, looking over his shoulder.
	“Ride?” her eyes were wide.  “On that?”
	Jules couldn’t tell if her reaction was apprehension or excitement, but Marty
didn’t wait to find out.  He patted Hayley on the arm and motioned for her to climb onto
the sled in front of the cargo.  With a quick glance at Jules, she did as she was told, and
soon she was riding up the gradual slope from the lake to the lodge in relative comfort. 
All she could do was stare at the building in awe.  It was a very large, and very beautiful
log structure, framed by the snowy pines that grew all around, and capped with a pillow
of snow that just slightly overhung the roof, reaching down to the Christmas lights Marty
had installed. 
	“Anna!”  Marty called out as he ushered Hayley into the building.   If she had
thought the lodge was beautiful from the outside, Hayley had not been prepared for the
inside.  The heat reached her as soon as she stepped in the door, and she pulled her hat
off as she looked around, taking in her surroundings.  Everywhere she looked she saw
wood, beautifully varnished to a warm glow.  Across the wide expanse of the main sitting
room, a huge fireplace with towering chimney, made from smooth round rocks,
dominated the whole far wall, and in it, a warm crackling fire burned.  The only thing
that marred the expanse of stone was the large slab of golden pine that was mounted part
way up to serve as a mantle.
	Two large arm chairs were placed on either side of the fire, and facing it was a
comfortable looking sofa faced the fire, its back to the entry, effectively dividing the
fireside area of the large room from the entry area.   From the entry side, a large wooden
staircase led upwards, to a balcony that stretched the entire width of the room.  The
railings of both the stairs and the balcony still bore the natural shapes of small trees. 
Beneath the balcony, a wide doorway lead into what was obviously the dining room, and
there were a  couple of narrower doors as well.  One of those doors had a plate on it
displaying the word ‘office’, the other was partly open and was apparently a games room,
for Hayley could just see the corner of a pool table.
	Just then a plump, greying woman came through the wide doorway.  Her skin was
dark and her face was carved with wrinkles, and when she smiled, her eyes nearly closed
completely as her round cheeks pushed upwards, but she said nothing.  Marty deposited
Hayley’s suitcases on the floor and turned to go back for more of their cargo.  It was
Jules, coming in with boxes as Marty went out again, who introduced Hayley to Marty’s
wife. 
	Anna only smiled and nodded as he spoke to her, then reached for Hayley’s coat
and showed her where to hang it up, before motioning the girl towards the fireplace. 
With the door opening and closing a few more times as supplies were brought in, Hayley
was glad for the warmth of the fire, and sat perched on the edge of one of the large
chairs.
	In the days after her arrival, Hayley soon learned that Anna rarely did much more
than smile.   Whereas Marty laughed almost constantly and talked a blue streak, Anna
would merely give her eye-closing grin and nod, and sometimes offer a few rationed
words, like ‘dinner ready now’.  It became clear, however, that despite her lack of
conversation, Anna liked Hayley.  At times she would appear at the girl’s side with a cup
of hot chocolate and a smile,  and motion towards the fireplace, with a nod and the words
‘rest now.’   The two women would sit and enjoy the warming drink in relative silence. 
Anna usually finished her drink before Hayley, then she would sit back in her chair with
hands folded on her lap, and watch the fire.  She had an uncanny way of sensing when
Hayley’s cup was also empty, and  would stand up with a smile, reach for the cup, nod,
and head back to the kitchen.   
	At first Hayley felt obligated to make conversation during these sojourns, but
after a while she realized that Anna didn’t need idle chit-chat.  She saved her words for
important occasions, or when questions were asked of her that required more than hand
signs to answer, and as Hayley would later learn, she was quite capable of talking when
she needed to. 
	By her third day at the lodge, Hayley had seen very little of Jules.  After
delivering her into Anna's capable hands, he seemed to disappear, showing up for meals
and not much else.  Hayley began to wonder what her purpose at the lodge was, since he
hadn't actually told her much about her job, other than that she was to answer the phone,
and he wasn't around to ask any questions.  With little else to do, she stood looking out
the window that overlooked the lake.  It looked like a winter wonderland, and she had
never seen so much snow before.  
	Since Jules was nowhere to be seen, she decided to take advantage of what little
daylight there was outside and explore the exterior of the lodge on her own. After
changing into her thermal undies and warm clothes, she bundled up in parka, hat and
boots and stepped outside.  It had seemed like a good day to explore, but once outside,
she found it was much colder than it looked, and a breeze was sifting the snow around on
the ground.  Still, she wanted to see the lodge from the outside while the sun was up and
began to follow the path cut through the snow down to the lake.
	The plane was nowhere to be seen, but she had heard Marty talk about a shelter
for it, so she assumed the building she saw that jutted out onto the lake like a boathouse,
must be the plane shelter.  She looked beyond it and her eyes spanned the shoreline that
seemed to go on forever.  Along the edge of the snow covered expanse that hid the lake,
trees stood laden with snow, looking like they were bundled up in Sidney's furs just like
she was. Her eyes circled even further around the lake. She could see the ever lightening
landscape, as nearer, darker islands were superimposed in front of farther, lighter shores. 
The picture before her was like none she had ever seen before. 
	While she stood there, she began to register a wind blowing through the fur of her
hat, and turned to head back towards the lodge.  To her surprise, she could not even see
the building, and to make matters worse, she had to keep her head bowed so the wind and
snow did not attack her directly in her face.  Looking back towards the lake she saw that
great clouds of snow were now racing across the open expanse, and the far shores she
had just been admiring were being erased before her eyes.  She turned to make her way
back to the lodge, but as she tried to follow the tracks from her walk to the lake the wind
swirled around and began to fill them.  She struggled with the incline from the lake up
towards the lodge, slipping back every few steps, and with the wind that seemed to push
her down as well. The cold caught in her lungs, and she gripped her parka around her
neck with one fury mitt, while trying to shield her face and eyes with the other.  She
seemed to be getting nowhere, and when she stopped to survey her progress, she still
could not see the lodge.  The next step sent her falling into the snow, as the snow gave
way under her foot making her slip.  She got up, but as soon as she took three more steps,
she was down in the snow again.  
	This time she lay there for a few seconds, catching her breath.  It was easier to
breathe while laying face down in the snow she discovered, because she could create a
shield with her mitts so  the wind couldn't get to her face.  Almost exhausted from her
struggles, she let the weight of her forehead rest on her mittened hands for a second or
two before attempting to get up again. 
	Just then she heard the sound of a voice bouncing off the wind in the distance. 
She had just realized that the voice was calling her name, when she was literally picked
up out of the snow and propped on her feet again.  The large figure, faceless in parka and
hood, held her tightly supporting her the rest of the way up the incline, until at last the
wind seemed to ease off and she lifted her eyes to finally see the lodge within a few feet
of them.  Apparently the wind hadn't calmed down at all, the lodge simply acted as a
windbreak, and they were able to make  faster progress on the last few feet. When they
reached lodge door, she was pushed inside with a sense of urgency.  She stood shivering
as she shook the snow off of herself. 
	“What in heaven's name did you think you were doing?”  Jules' voice boomed at
her as he flipped the hood down off his head, revealing at last the identity of her rescuer. 
Hayley frowned meekly and pulled off her mitts and hat.
	“I just wanted to see what it looked like outside.  I didn't go very far,” she said,
chewing on her lower lip, and Jules cursed under his breath.  “It wasn’t windy like that
when I left the lodge, I had no idea it would turn into this.”
	“You don't know the Yukon well enough to go out like that! Heck, you don't
know any northern area well enough to go traipsing about in the snow all alone.  When
the wind picks up it is very easy to get disoriented by a blinding whiteout.  People have
been known to get lost in blizzards just feet from their own homes, completely unable to
see where they were!”  He looked at her sternly, and her frown deepened. She turned
away from him, not wanting to see the anger on his face, and pried of her boots. Snow
tumbled out of the tops of them, some still caked to her pants, some already melted snow
leaving wet fabric up her legs. 
	"I'm sorry, I’ve been cooped up inside this lodge all by myself ever since I got
here, I just thought I’d go see what it looked like outside and get some fresh air.  Since
nobody seemed to be going to take me, I went by myself.  I won't do it again,” she said,
sniffling because of her cold nose.  “I'm going to go change out of these wet things.”  
Without looking at him again, she hung up her parka and fled for the stairs, and the
sanctuary of the room she now called her own. What a stupid thing to do! she
admonished herself, as she closed her door firmly behind her.  But she had never
expected the wind to pick up like it had, and she really hadn't gone very far.  She sniffled
again, and pulled her wet pants off, dropping them in a heap on the floor. Her long-johns
were soaked through too, and she discarded them as well.  Her knees were sticky and
cold from having gotten wet, and she covered them with her hands, feeling the warmth
radiating back into them.
	What have I done, Mom? She asked, looking at the framed picture of her parents
that sat on her dresser.  Why did I even agree to come up here?  I don't know anything
about a place like this! What else will I do wrong?
	“Hayley?” The deep voice spoke softly from outside her room almost at the same
time as a gently knock on her door. She gasped, and contemplated telling him to go away,
but instead she grabbed the blanket off the foot of her bed and wrapped it around her
waist.
	“Come in.”
	Jules opened the door and peered inside, a look of concern on his face. “Hayley,
are you alright?”  Seeing her frown, and nod, he sighed. “Listen, I'm sorry I yelled at you
like that. It's just that you are my responsibility here.  Anna told me you had gone outside,
and hadn’t come back in yet.  When I saw you laying in the snow — “ He seemed to
shiver, and thrust his fists deep into his pockets.  “I was worried.  I imagined the worst.”
She shrugged and looked away.  “I'm sorry I went outside without letting you know first.
You weren't around, and I just thought, well, it looked so beautiful outside and I just
wanted to see it.  I really didn’t think it was any big deal just going down to the lake and
back.  I would never have gone wandering off in the woods alone, or anything like that.”
	She lifted her eyes without raising her head, and as she sat there looking at him
through her still damp lashes, he found himself catching his breath. What he hadn't told
her was that when Anna had told him Hayley had gone out in the snow alone, he hadn't
been able to get his parka on fast enough.  He had been frantic, concocting visions in his
head of finding her frozen in the snow, or worse, that the snow would have blown over
her and that he would never find her at all. His heart had been beating a hundred miles an
hour as he had trudged through the wind.  Her trail could be seen leaving the lodge, but
after the windbreak of the building ended, the marks were quickly becoming mere
indentations in the wind-carved snowy landscape.  
	Seeing her laying face down in the snow, he had cursed himself for leaving her
alone so much, and prayed that he wasn't too late.  Being near her had caused him inner
turmoil, so he had been avoiding her, and now he blamed himself for her misadventure,
and would never have forgiven himself if he hadn't found her in time.  The anger that had
spilled out in his words when they had made it back inside the lodge had actually been
directed more at himself than at her, but she could never have known that.
	“You had me very worried,” was all he said to her, and the look in her eyes when
she apologized once again,  nearly made him groan.  Why was this woman having this
effect on him? Why did he want to cross the room, scoop her up and cradle her in his
arms, and promise her that he would protect her forever? In all his thirty-six years, no
woman had ever even remotely stirred the word forever within him. But he knew that if
he didn't take his eyes off her, he wouldn't be able to talk his way out of what he wanted
to do next, and that was something he mustn’t do!
	With a suppressed groan, he dragged his eyes away from her and looked around
the room. Her suitcases were gone, obviously she had unpacked and settled in. Small
personal items were scattered on the dresser, giving the room a warm, lived-in feeling,
and beside them sat a framed portrait of a brown haired man with his arm resting casually
over the shoulders of  a blonde woman.  Thankful for the excuse to focus on something
other than the fact that he had just noticed Hayley's wet clothes on the floor.  He realized
her legs must be bare beneath the blanket that was thrown over her lap! Walking over to
the picture, he picked it up, studying it closely.
	“Who are they?” he asked.  
	“Those are my parents,” Hayley said, with the sound of love unmistakable in her
voice.  Still, he was confused, and turned a questioning gaze toward her.   His eyes took
in her darkened skin and long, shiny black hair and dark brown eyes, then he looked back
at the picture.
	“Your parents?” 
	“Howard and Colleen Belton,” she offered, clutching the blanket around herself
and moving to stand beside him. “The only parents I ever knew. They adopted me at
birth.”  
	“Ahh, I see” was all he said, but he didn’t see at all.  He stared at the two smiling
faces for a long time. Somewhere in the back of his mind the thought she's not really
who she said she was, is she Jules old boy? mocked him, but it was quickly followed
by Why should I care? She never said anything but that she was of native decent.
She's obviously that.
	She must have read his thoughts, for she spoke again.  “I don’t know anything
about my real parents, except that my mother was a teenaged native girl and she told the
hospital that  my father was white.  She ran away from home before I was born, and gave
me up for adoption before she left the hospital.” Hayley sighed. That part of her
existence, those months before her birth and the few short weeks after, seemed like a
story from another person’s life. Whenever she told it, and she seldom did,  it just didn’t
feel like she was talking about her life.  Jules was one person, however, who deserved to
know the truth, she thought, since he had hired her on the basis of her being native. 
Though she still didn’t know why that was an important factor for him.  
 	“So, you see, I'm only half native on the outside, and I’m all white on the inside. 
Does that make a difference to you?”
	“No, of course not!”   
	 “Why did you advertise for a native worker anyway, Jules?”
	He stood looking down at the picture in his hands.   “It was a promise I made to
myself when I opened this place.   Sort of a tribute to my mother's memory.”  He glanced
at her, and for a split second Hayley thought she saw the distant look of a child in his
eyes.  He reached out and brushed a strand of her hair and tucked it behind her ear, but
she sensed that although he was looking at her, he wasn't really seeing her. 
	“My mother was Algonquian.  My father was white.  An American who moved to
Canada during the Viet Nam war times,” he said, and he seemed not to be about to
relinquish any further information than that.
	“A draft dodger?” she asked, cautiously.
	“No, he never got drafted. He moved legally, but he did do it to beat the draft.  He
was a geologist, Canada offered job opportunities in mining exploration.”  He took a
deep breath,  set the picture back where he had found it, and swung around on his heels,
heading towards the door. “You'd better get dressed, Anna will have dinner ready soon.”  
	And with that, he was gone.  As usual, when he considered a topic of discussion
closed, he left no doubt of that fact in anyone's minds.