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Best to change the subject. You got a boyfriend?”
    Piper gulped. What ribs could be worth this?
    “Don’t answer that. Harold fancies himself a matchmaker. You give him the least bit of information and he’ll go hunting up a beau for you.” Ida poked Jason’s leg. “You read those test results?”
    “What tests? I go to the boat show in Toronto for two days and you’ve got people doing tests?”
    “I do my job.” The older woman sniffed. “Public health said we had to have a water check. I got it done. No problem there.”
    “Good.”
    Ida stood and peeked under the barbecue lid, adjusted the heat.
    “Ribs need a few more minutes,” she explained. She wiped her hands on a towel hanging on the front of the barbecue. “Water’s okay, but we do have a problem with some of the campsite facilities. He’s going to let you know.”
    “Fine.” Jason switched subjects, but he didn’t meet her stare. “Piper thought someone was working up on Lookout Point. Know anything about that, Ida?”
    “Nope. But the telephone people visit it in the spring and the fall. Could be them.” She turned to Piper. “What was Serenity Bay like when you used to come here?”
    “Pretty much the same. Maybe there were a few more people but then I was mostly here in the summer. In the winter Gran and Papa went to Florida but only after we celebrated Christmas together at Cathcart House.” She didn’t want to talk about the past. “About the summer people—do you know the kind of radius you’re drawing from?”
    “We’ve done some surveys.” Ida prattled on about the city dwellers who came north to get away.
    “Would you be able to get me a list with addresses? I’d like to get an idea of our current market.”
    “Sure.” Ida shrugged as if it wasn’t important. “I’m in Tuesday.”
    “Do you always take Mondays off?”
    “Unless there’s something pressing. The town hasn’t got enough money for full-time office staff in the winter.” Ida plunked down on one of the patio chairs. “I’ll start working full-time after Easter.”
    “Is there any new industry in the area?” she asked, looking for something to hang her plans on. “There used to be a sawmill—”
    “It’s been closed for years.” Harold pulled out a map. “I heard that years ago some folks found a nice vein of copper up past the mill road—about there,” he said, pointing. “Purest ever seen, according to the stories. Shone in the sun as if it had been molded into those rocks forever. People used to stop by, take little pieces of it. Few years of that and it was gone, too.” He shrugged. “But it brought the place a minute or two of fame.”
    While he’d been speaking, Ida had hurried away. She now returned with a platter and scooped the ribs off the barbecue onto it and handed it to Harold.
    “Time to eat,” she announced.
    Piper followed Ida to the dining room, where a long buffet table, six chairs and a huge black table were set.
    “Piper, you sit there. Jason can sit across from you and Harold and I will hold down the ends. Good. Now, grace, Harold.”
    Harold gave thanks, then picked up one of the plates stacked in front of him and began to load it with ribs, creamy mashed potatoes and bright green peas.
    “Oh, my!” Piper gaped when he placed it in front of her. “It looks delicious, but it’s way too much. Perhaps you can make me a smaller plate.”
    “Nonsense! You get started on Ida’s ribs, you won’t stop.”
    Piper looked at Jason while searching her brain for some way to make them understand that she would never be able to eat what she’d been served. But Jason was busy eyeing his own heaping plate and spared her only a quick grin as he picked up a rib.
    “Try them first,” he advised, then bit into the succulent meat.
    Since everyone else had begun to eat, Piper followed their lead. She picked up the smallest piece between two fingers and nibbled at the end. The spices hit her tongue like those candy Pop Rocks