By Wednesday morning, Mirabelle began to question the wisdom of inviting Jane and Caroline to visit with only two days to prepare for their arrival. In those two days, she’d been charged with getting the winter supplies organized in the root cellar and pantry, something that had taken the remainder of Monday and all of Tuesday. She had hoped to give the parlor a good cleaning, polish the furniture, perhaps find fabric to make curtains. She hadn’t had time to even wash the floor, for heaven’s sake.

“For years I’ve been dreaming of entertaining guests in my own home,” she mumbled to herself in the kitchen. “Now that my chance has come, I have dirty floors and faded drapes.”

She stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the parlor, looking out over the room in which she’d be hostessing her new friends. She set her hands on her hips, thinking through her dilemma. Ought she to spend the remainder of the morning getting the parlor as close to sparkling as she could manage, or ought she to spend that time baking something for her guests to eat?

She didn’t have time nor the materials to replace the curtains. And she couldn’t very well have people over to visit and not offer them anything to eat.

If that weren’t a convincing enough argument, her father-in-law’s presence in the parlor rather convinced her to avoid that room as much as possible. She hoped he would leave when her visitors arrived. He was a quiet presence in the room, but a trying one. He tended to glare, watching every move she made as though searching for something to criticize. When he did speak, it was never a thank-you or a compliment or any recognition of all the work she did. He was unhappy, and he nudged her uncomfortably close to being unhappy herself, something she worked very hard not to be.

Mirabelle slipped back into the kitchen and set herself to the task of preparing something to serve her guests. She eyed the supplies in the pantry, grateful it was well-stocked. She had pearl ash, enough to make a simple, but enjoyable, tea cake. Her baking skills wouldn’t win her any accolades, but she could make a respectable cake. And she had tea to serve with it. A well-brewed cup of tea or coffee, she’d learned during her year serving meals at a train station, could make up for a multitude of shortcomings in the kitchen.

She glanced at the clock. If she worked without a break, she could manage to get the cake in the oven with enough time to make Quinn and Tiernan their lunch. Baking the batter in cups rather than a full-sized cake pan would save her time as well. She could straighten the parlor while the cakes cooled. The timing would be close, but she might manage it.

Mirabelle had a great many moments during the next quarter of an hour in which she could almost imagine herself back in the bustling kitchen of the railway restaurant. Speed was essential when trying to serve meals during the short duration of a train stop. She was calling upon those hard-learned skills again.

She had the cakes divided up and in the oven with barely enough time to spare. She pulled down two deep plates from the cupboards and set two thick slices of bread in each. A slightly thickened gravy was hot and ready in a matter of minutes. She put the pot off the heat.

With the efficiency that came of experience, she sliced two apples, setting each in a small bowl, lightly sprinkling the fruit with cinnamon. Mirabelle poured gravy over each of the double-slices of bread and placed the plates on a large serving platter with two pairs of forks and butter knives. The apple bowls went on the platter next, then two cups set upside down, stacked inside one another. She pumped water from the sink into a pitcher and placed it at the center of the tray.

Mirabelle lifted the tray, not nearly as heavy as many platters she’d carried around the restaurant, and made her way with hardly a wobble to the dining room. She had the men’s places set and their meal set out just as Quinn arrived.

He gave her a single nod of acknowledgment, which she returned. That constituted a drawn-out conversation with him. Only on the rarest occasions did he actually speak. The longest they’d spoken was in his barn the previous week and during the ride back from town two days earlier. This was part of her motivation for inviting Jane and Caroline over for a visit; she needed someone to talk to.

She stepped to the back of the sofa and addressed Tiernan, still sitting near the fireplace. “Lunch is on the table.”

She made her way back to the kitchen without waiting for a reply of any kind. Tiernan, while not nearly as taciturn as his son, wasn’t likely to respond to her. He only spoke when he had complaints.

The cakes were nearly done. Mirabelle set herself to tidying up the kitchen while she waited. She would move on to the parlor in just a moment. Everything she’d pulled out and dirtied making the men’s lunch was cleaned and put away just in time to pull the small tea cakes out of the oven. She set them on the windowsill to cool and took her brand new broom and a few dust rags into the parlor.

With the desperation that can only be understood by a woman about to entertain other women in her unkempt home, Mirabelle set to the task of making the room as presentable as she could. Windows were wiped, surfaces dusted, the floor swept. Though she couldn’t replace the curtains, she did straighten them, making them as even on either side of the window as she could.

The bits of ash that managed to sprinkle themselves along the hearth were swept and dumped into the ash can. The portrait above the mantel hung the tiniest bit crooked. Mirabelle pulled over a footstool and carefully adjusted the portrait frame until it hung straight once more.

She’d been intrigued by the woman in the portrait from her first day in Quinn’s home. The woman was lovely, strikingly so. She had the daintiest of noses and a perfect rosebud mouth. Her brown hair held the same hint of red that Quinn’s did. But it was her eyes that first told Mirabelle that this beauty was her late mother-in-law. Those piercing gray eyes were the same shape and had the same quality as Quinn’s, though his eyes were blue.

This was the previous mistress of the house Mirabelle now ran. Could they have been more different? The late Mrs. Quinn was lovely and obviously graceful. The dress she wore had inspired instant envy in Mirabelle. Even more than a decade out of date, that dress was finer than anything Mirabelle had ever worn, precisely the sort of dress she had often daydreamed about wearing to a ball or dance or fine social. The fabric looked luxurious. The lace ruffling at the collar and front of the gown was stunning. She would never have been able to afford even a small bit of that lace. Perhaps her late mother-in-law’s fine apparel meant she herself would be permitted a reasonable clothing budget. She had but the one dress, and it had seen far better days. How she would love to own something pretty and new.

Enough of your woolgathering, Mirabelle. You have guests arriving soon.

She gathered up her cleaning supplies and returned to the kitchen. The men hadn’t yet brought their plates back from the dining room. She crossed to the windowsill. If her cakes had cooled enough, she would sprinkle them with a bit of sugar.

But the cakes were gone.

She looked around, although unsure where she expected them to be. They weren’t on the countertop or the work table. Perhaps the cakes fell out. Mirabelle stretched up onto her toes, peering out the open window. But she was too short to see.

They wouldn’t have fallen out. The sill was deep, and the cakes had been farther inside the window than out. Where in heaven’s name? The cakes were nowhere to be seen. She would have to check outside after all. She’d have nothing to offer her guests if the cakes were lying out there in the dirt.

Her first time as a hostess. What if it was a disaster? A lump started in her throat, but she pushed it down again. There was no reason to believe the cakes were ruined. She simply had to find them and finish her preparations.

She could ponder the puzzle while she washed the men’s lunch dishes. She moved into the dining room. Not even one step inside, she froze.

“My cakes.” The words came out as a gasp.

Tiernan sat there, his lunch plate untouched, with one of her small cakes in his hand and the crumbly remains of at least one other on the table in front of him. Another cake sat awaiting its fate. How many had he eaten?

“My cakes.” There was more force behind the words that time, more accusation. “You ate my cakes.”

“Didn’t know they were yours.” Tiernan took another bite, finishing off the cake he held.

Mirabelle looked at Quinn, but he seemed as unconcerned as his father.

“Those were for the ladies who are coming today for my sewing circle. I made them special.” A horrible thought hit her without warning. “Did you eat them all?”

Tiernan picked up the uneaten cake. Mirabelle moved to his side in two large strides and snatched it from his hand.

“These were mine.”

“I am not a child,” he said. “I don’t have to ask permission in my own home to eat a cake.”

How could she argue with that? And, yet, he ought to have asked. And, yet again, she hadn’t warned them the cakes were special. This was Tiernan’s home, his and Quinn’s. But it was hers as well. At least it was supposed to be.

“They were special for my guests.” The protest sounded weak even to her ears.

She looked to Quinn for some support. He kept as quiet as ever, not offering any excuses or apologies. Would neither of them show the slightest remorse?

“What am I to serve them?” She looked from one man to the other.

Tiernan nudged his untouched plate in her direction. “Give ’em this lot.” He scrunched his nose up. “Best of luck to you getting them to eat it.”

First, he ate all her tea cakes, then he insulted the meal she’d made for him? Quinn had finished his lunch, so it couldn’t be as terrible as Tiernan made it out to be. Again, her husband made no effort to defend her.

Mirabelle let her frustration firm her resolve. She hadn’t crumbled under indifference before; she certainly wouldn’t do so now. “If you two are finished, I’ll just clear the table.”

Without looking at either of them more than was necessary, she set their dishes on the platter she’d left in the dining room for just that purpose. She’d learned well how to disappear while clearing tables. A good waitress was unobtrusive.

But I’m not supposed to be merely an employee anymore.

The men stood from the table and made their way from the room, not bidding her farewell or thanking her for the meal.

“I do my work and you do yours,” Quinn had said. But surely he intended her to be more than a worker. Surely.

“It will get better,” she whispered to herself when the room was empty. “It will. It has to.”

In the meantime, she had a more immediate difficulty to solve. What was she going to serve Jane and Caroline?

She lifted the tray in her hand and carried it into the kitchen.

I can’t offer them buttered bread. That would be too humiliating.

She could tell by looking that Tiernan hadn’t even tasted the lunch she’d made. None of his utensils were the slightest bit dirtied. The gravy had a thin skin from sitting undisturbed as it cooled.

Mirabelle pushed out a breath. She was about to eat leftover lunch because she hadn’t the luxury of making herself a meal. This wasn’t quite what she’d imagined when she’d pictured a home and family of her own. She’d never been invited to eat with Quinn or his father during their morning or noontime meals. She ate her dinner in the dining room, mostly so she could sit for a few minutes, but neither of the men talked to her.

She took a fresh fork from the utensil drawer and returned to the cold plate of bread and gravy on the counter. She stood there, alone, eating her hand-me-down meal.

She’d known this wasn’t a marriage of love, that she was there to work and help around the house. She hadn’t expected immediate tenderness or affection, but she had anticipated being appreciated and shown a little kindness. She needed at least that.

“Pull yourself together, Mirabelle. This melancholy mood is not like you.”

She was nervous was all—nervous and a little overwhelmed.

Heavy footsteps announced Quinn’s arrival without the necessity of looking back to see him.

“Da didn’t know about the cakes,” he said.

But once he did know, he didn’t care. Neither of these men did. Heavens, she was struggling to shake this gloom. She took another bite of the cold, now-unappetizing meal.

“He is an old man,” Quinn continued. “He hasn’t a lot of pleasures in life. The cakes are a small thing, really.”

Except it wasn’t about the cakes. Reaching out to these would-be friends was the only thing she had done for herself in the week she’d been in Wyoming. It was her first chance for connection and companionship, an opportunity to find people she could matter to. It was a bit of hope she’d offered herself, and it was slipping away.

“I haven’t a lot of pleasures in my life either, Quinn. Having friends over for tea and cakes was meant to be one of them.”

“What time are the ladies arriving?” Quinn didn’t sound overjoyed at the prospect. But he’d agreed to it, and she had lost enough battles that day.

She took a breath and firmly grasped her optimism once more. All would go well. She was determined it would. “They’ll be here at one o’clock.”

“It is one o’clock now.”

For the first time since he arrived, she looked back in his direction, but her gaze slid past him, through the doorway, to the clock just visible on the mantel in the parlor. It was, indeed, one o’clock. She hadn’t even smoothed out her hair or brushed her dress.

So much for lunch. Mirabelle moved quickly to the scrap bucket and scraped the remainder of her meal into it. She had her apron off and hanging on its peg in a trice. Quinn all but blocked the doorway. She was forced to pause in front of him.

“Da really didn’t know about the cakes,” he said.

Find a reason to feel encouraged. Search out a silver lining. “I appreciate that he didn’t do it intentionally. Next time, I’ll be certain to warn him so we’ll not have this difficulty again.”

Quinn gave one of his quick nods. That, she’d discovered, could mean anything from “hello” to “I agree” to “I’m sure you just said something, but I wasn’t really listening.”

In that moment, she needed more than that from him. She needed a kind word, a bit of appreciation, someone to lean on while she regained her own strength.

She needed to not feel so alone.