The Welcoming

dealt out keys, two of the group approached the desk to exchange money. Fifty for one, sixty for the other, Roman noted as Canadian bills were passed to Charity’s assistant and American currency passed back.
    Within ten minutes the entire group was seated in the dining room, contemplating breakfast. Charity breezed in behind them, putting on an apron. She flipped open a pad and began to take orders.
    She didn’t look as if she were in a hurry, Roman noted. The way she chatted and smiled and answered questions, it was as though she had all the time in the world. But she moved like lightning. She carried three plates on her right arm, served coffee with her left hand and cooed over a baby, all at the same time.
    Something was eating at her, Roman mused. It hardly showed . . . just a faint frown between her eyes. Had something gone wrong that morning that he’d missed? If there was a glitch in the system, it was up to him to find it and exploit it. That was the reason he was here on the inside.
    Charity poured another round of coffee for a table of four, joked with a bald man wearing a paisley tie, then made her way over to Roman.
    “I think the crisis has passed.” She smiled at him, but again he caught something. . . . Anger? Disappointment?
    “Is there anything you don’t do around here?”
    “I try to stay out of the kitchen. The restaurant has a three-star rating.” She glanced longingly at the coffeepot. There would be time for that later. “I want to thank you for pitching in this morning.”
    “That’s okay.” He discovered he wanted to see her smile. Really smile. “The tips were good. Miss Millie slipped me a five.”
    She obliged him. Her lips curved quickly, and whatever had clouded her eyes cleared for a moment. “She likes the way you look in a tool belt. Why don’t you take a break before you start on the west wing?”
    “All right.”
    She grimaced at the sound of glass breaking. “I didn’t think the Snyder kid wanted that orange juice.” She hurried off to clean up the mess and listen to the parents’ apologies.
    The front desk was deserted. Roman decided that Charity’s assistant was either shut up in the side office or out hauling luggage to the cabins. He considered slipping behind the desk and taking a quick look at the books but decided it could wait. Some work was better done in the dark.
    An hour later Charity let herself into the west wing. She’d managed to hold on to her temper as she’d passed the guests on the first floor. She’d smiled and chatted with an elderly couple playing Parcheesi in the gathering room. But when the door closed behind her she let loose with a series of furious, pent-up oaths. She wanted to kick something.
    Roman stepped into a doorway and watched her stride down the hall. Anger had made her eyes dark and brilliant.
    “Problem?”
    “Yes,” she snapped. She stalked half a dozen steps past him, then whirled around. “I can take incompetence, and even some degree of stupidity. I can even tolerate an occasional bout of laziness. But I won’t be lied to.”
    Roman waited a beat. Her anger was ripe and rich, but it wasn’t directed at him. “All right,” he said, and waited.
    “She could have told me she wanted time off, or a different shift. I might have been able to work it out. Instead she lies, calling in sick at the last minute five days out of the last two weeks. I was worried about her.” She turned again, then gave in and kicked a door. “I hate being made a fool of. And I
hate
being lied to.”
    It was a simple matter to put two and two together. “You’re talking about the waitress . . . Mary Alice?”
    “Of course.” She spun around. “She came begging me for a job three months ago. That’s our slowest time, but I felt sorry for her. Now she’s sleeping with Bill Perkin—or I guess it’s more accurate to say she’s not getting any sleep, so she calls in sick. I had to fire her.” She let out a breath with a sound like an engine letting off steam. “I get a headache whenever I have to fire anybody.”
    “Is that what was bothering you all morning?”
    “As soon as Dolores mentioned Bill, I knew.” Calmer now, she rubbed at the insistent ache between her eyes. “Then I had to get through the check-in and the breakfast shift before I could call and deal with her. She cried.” She gave Roman a long, miserable look. “I knew she was going to cry.”
    “Listen, baby, the best thing for you to do is take