The man in the chair looked up at her. Grumpy. So Sierra did what she did best—she smiled at him. He smirked but she knew she had melted him a little bit. Since she was a little girl she’d known how to charm her way out of a bad situation.

    She walked around town a little bit, stopping in at the diner for a midafternoon ice cream. She chatted with the waitress Lola, a fortyish woman with two kids. Lola had been working in that diner for years—when she was married with small children, when she was divorced and a single mother, now still single, working two jobs and trying to finish her education by going to school part-time. Lola gave Sierra the gossip on the diner—what the boss was like, which fry cooks were dependable, who on the kitchen crew would back her up. She also told her where to buy the khaki shorts and white golf shirts that would be her uniform at the diner.

    Sierra wandered the town after that, dropping in at the drugstore, checking out the small grocery. She noted two law offices, a small storefront clinic, a hair salon and barbershop. There was a furniture store—custom designs. There were three small art galleries, one liquor store, one jewelry store, a bank, a consignment shop that tied up some time as she browsed, two churches and the fire department. The guys were washing down one of the rigs in the drive—nice eye candy. The police department was just across the street from the fire department.

    The next day she drove to Leadville to buy her uniform and spent the day looking around that town. She found a bigger bookstore and a great little grill that served wonderful burgers. She then drove out to the barn to check in with Cal who was up to his eyebrows in what appeared to be crown molding. There was a lot of hammering and sawing going on upstairs and Cal was painting the molding. She told him all about Timberlake and Leadville as if he didn’t know for himself. Maggie came back from Sully’s, dirty from gardening, and informed Sierra she would be joining them for dinner, then went off to shower and change.

    The next few hours proceeded like a beautifully choreographed dance. Sierra ran the Shop-Vac around while Cal cleaned up his paintbrushes and folded up the tarps. Tom and his son came downstairs covered with sawdust and Sierra laughingly vacuumed them off. Tom and Cal had a beer, and some corn chips and salsa were put out. Sierra had a Diet Coke with Jackson while Maggie, refreshed, fixed herself orange juice. Cal began to putter in the kitchen getting chicken ready to put on the grill. Tom and Jackson left and the three of them were like a small, cordial family. Maggie told Sierra to be sure to check on Cal while she was in Denver working. The dinner of chicken and vegetables, casually thrown together, was delicious and nutritious. Then the dishes were cleaned up. It was like the fantasies Sierra had. Fantasies of a family, of feeling normal, of belonging.

    She watched as Cal was kissing Maggie’s neck and rubbing her belly. Then she remembered it wasn’t really hers. It was their life and she was a guest.

    Sierra borrowed trouble and darkness. It was a bad habit. A dirty little secret she kept. Deep inside you’re very lonely and unhappy, her inner voice reminded her.

    “I have to get going,” she said. “Thanks for dinner and everything.”

    “Don’t run off,” Maggie said.

    “Don’t you have to get up early and head for Denver?” Sierra asked.

    “Not that early,” she said.

    “Get some sleep,” Sierra said. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

    As she drove back to Timberlake she asked herself, Can I make this work? Must I always feel like some weird outsider? She knew that Cal and Maggie weren’t doing that to her.

    When she got back to town, still early in the evening, there seemed to be a lot of activity in the hostel. Sure enough, a group of young girls had come in and they were loud. There was lots of laughing, shouting, talking at the top of their voices. She got to her room and saw a duffel on the second bed in her room, but the rambunctious girls were just a room or two away. Well, Sierra wasn’t going to undress for bed in that case. Most of her belongings were in her car and she had only her backpack with her. She’d go back to her car in the morning for fresh clothing and shower and change then. This was the downside of staying in a hostel—it was a busy young people’s kind of place and one traded privacy for cheap housing.

    She sat on her bed and dug around in her backpack for something to read. Out in the car she had several books on recovery that were nearly memorized by now. She didn’t feel like that tonight. She pulled out her copy of Pride and Prejudice. It was battered all to hell. Sierra carried three novels—Pride and Prejudice, Forever Amber and Gone with the Wind. That pretty much established her as a tragic but hopeful romantic. It had been hard to leave Wuthering Heights behind and that was telling. No happy endings for Sierra. Not yet.

    The noise escalated and Sierra hoped someone would complain. Mrs. Singleton didn’t stay the night in the hostel—she had her own small house in town. The young man who was left in charge for the night was pretty social; he might not mind the noise. Or the girls. When Sierra had checked in there were no single rooms and Mrs. Singleton said that chances were good no one would need a bed in a double and if anyone did, it would most certainly only be let to a woman.

    She opened her book, midway, hungry for a little of Mr. Darcy’s evolution from aloof snob into a real hero. She put her smartphone on one of her music downloads, her earbuds in her ears and settled in to ignore the noise of girls having fun. She didn’t last long. Less than an hour passed when she went downstairs and told John, the young man in charge, he’d have to do something about the noise.

    “I’ve talked to them a couple of times,” he said. “College girls. I don’t want to ask them to leave if I can avoid it.”

    A little bit later one of the girls stumbled into the room. She looked about eighteen. And she was drunk.

    “Roomie!” she greeted with a slur.

    “Crap,” Sierra said. “You’re drunk!”

    “Jes a little,” she said, then hiccuped. She held out a fifth of whiskey. “Wanna little?”