Jennie Kim looked around the lobby of the Fire Lodge. She was about to begin her second season as owner/manager of the small ski hotel and was, if such a thing was possible, more nervous than she had been at the beginning of her first season. The insurance company had ruled that the helicopter accident that had killed her parents was an "act of God" and so there would be no insurance payment forthcoming. This meant that rather than having the cash reserves she had hoped for, the Fire Lodge was once again operating on the edge of insolvency. Cash was especially tight because she'd just had to use a chunk of her reserves getting the resort's old truck ready to (hopefully) last another winter.   On top of her money woes, there was added stress from the fact that her assistant manager - who should be showing up any minute - was her ex-girlfriend. She and Lisa had started dating last season, during Lisa's first winter working at Fire Lodge. It had been great, but as she was getting ready to leave at the end of the season, Lisa broke up with her. She said she didn't want to have to try to keep a relationship going long-distance while she was back in Thailand at university. Jennie could understand her logic, but that didn't make it hurt any less. She'd didn't know what the situation between them was going to be when Lisa got back - were they going to try to get back together again, or was last season to be just a fond memory? Based on the emails and phone calls they'd exchanged during the off-season, it could go either way. Jennie had considered not hiring Lisa back for this season, but that would have gone against her belief in keeping personal and professional affairs separate. Besides, there was no way she'd be able to find another assistant manager who'd work for as little as Lisa was.   Especially not since Lisa's job combined duties of assistant manager and maid. Jennie had hoped to be able to hire a full-time maid to take that weight off of Lisa, but the money just wasn't there. The best she had been able to do was to hire Sunmi, a local girl, to work part-time as a maid and take some of the work off Lisa. Sunmi had just moved back in with her parents after a particularly rought breakup with her last boyfriend, and was fine with working part-time and continuing to live with her parents while she got her head straightened out.   Then there was the matter of the kitchen staff. Chaeyoung, her executive chef (and another ex-girlfriend), and Jisoo, her sous chef, had started dating at around the same time as Jennie and Lisa had. At the end of the season, they went off to Seoul together. Their plan was for Chaeyoung to find a restaurant position while Jisoo started her first semester of culinary academy. Except for a brief email confirming that they'd be back on time for the new season, she hadn't heard from them at all during the off-season. She hoped they were still together, because she really didn't need drama in the kitchen, but she had no way of knowing. Like most restaurant people, Chaeyoung and Jisoo had unpredictable personalities, so anything was possible.   ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^   Jisoo Kim held her breath as she maneuvered her girlfriend's car, a Kia subcompact, around another mountain curve. Chaeyoung had insisted they both get driver's licenses when she bought the car, but Jisoo still didn't feel comfortable with driving. She had to admit, though, that having a car for the trip from Seoul to Fire Lodge was a lot more comfortable than taking the bus would have been.   Jisoo was looking forward to sharing a kitchen with Chaeyoung again. Her instructors at culinary academy had all been great, and she'd learned a lot, but there was no way the atmosphere of a strictly business, all-professional kitchen could compare to cooking with Chaeyoung. She and Chaeyoung had cooked on weekends in their tiny apartment's undersized kitchen, but it would be nice to get back to Fire Lodge's kitchen, which she still thought of as "their" kitchen.   Her phone beeped again in her pocket - another email. Jisoo had made a lot of friends among her classmates, and they had all promised to keep in touch this winter while Jisoo was away. Chaeyoung had promised to teach Jisoo all the skills she would have learned during winter semester so that she wouldn't be behind when she got back, and her friends were keeping her up to date on what they had been learning. A lot of it was things Jisoo had already learned in her first winter at Fire Lodge - a lot of soups, a lot of breads. That was good - it meant the guests wouldn't be subject to an eclectic menu based on the academy's curriculum, and it also gave Jisoo a chance to work on her knife skills. Glancing down at her hands, Jisoo could still see the scar on her left middl