She chuckled, picturing the character of Jake’s friend rather clearly. But she still felt a little uncomfortable as they started walking. Three tiers of wood-frame houses climbed the hillside to their left, accessible only by stairs. More than half of them, Jake had already told her, were over a century old. Which was interesting, just as she found the whole town of Wallace interesting, but the feeling of being a fish out of water wouldn’t leave her. This was a long way from the world and the people she knew. It wasn’t that she was shy of meeting strangers, she told herself, straightening her sweater for the third time. It was just…she was shy of meeting strangers. She always had been. There had been too many strangers in her life. Her mothers’ husbands, the staff and classmates at each new school… “Jake,” she said hesitantly.

He stopped on the walk, turning toward her with a smile. Dressed in jeans and a blue-striped shirt, he looked irrepressibly Jake, casual and comfortable no matter what he wore.

“I’m dressed wrong,” she said unhappily.

Those shaggy eyebrows of his flickered up, perusing the soft black sweater and impeccable houndstooth skirt. “You look terrific.”

“And…silly. The thing is, when I packed to come with you-”

His hand curled around hers. “Honey, when you’re alone with me, I like you without clothes. When you’re with other people, you dress the way you feel comfortable. Your natural style is more formal than mine, which is perfectly fine. Is it any more complicated than that?”

Not when he put it that way, although Anne had the fleeting thought that a fashion designer would blacklist Jake for life. They climbed to the third tier of houses and stopped at the doorway of a tall, dark green two-story house. The man who answered the door had jowls like a basset hound’s, big, warm, friendly eyes, a thatch of unruly black-gray hair, and a can of beer in his hand. “Jake! I didn’t expect you back for another week at least. And you, darlin’-”

“Anne,” she supplied, already smiling at the homely, cordial features of the big-shouldered man.

“Anne,” he echoed, shooting a stern look at Jake, and threw an arm around her shoulder as he led her inside. “Carla. We’re getting a divorce!” he shouted to someone in another room.

“How about next Tuesday?” a feminine voice shouted back to him.

He paid no attention, his eyes on Anne as he gave her a bear-type hug. “You’re a lot prettier than he ever let on,” Jake’s friend told her, and leveled another threatening stare over her shoulder. “You could have brought her any day but Thursday, when we might have had a chance to get to know her.”

“Anne can cope with the crowd,” Jake assured him.

Reed took it upon himself to ensure that Anne felt comfortable, introducing himself before he rattled off another eight names…eight, nine, ten…of the other people gathered in the two rooms she could see. A beer can was placed in her hand, and just as promptly taken away.

“The ladies are having cherry punch,” a redheaded wisp of a woman informed Reed. She wiped her hands on a dish towel as she rose up on tiptoe to kiss Jake. Rapidly, she scolded a child for turning the sound too high on a TV set in another room, and then extricated Anne from the bearlike grip of her husband. “I’m Carla, Reed’s wife, if you haven’t already guessed. Come on into the kitchen with me. You can’t enter a whole houseful of strange people and sit down by yourself. Who are you going to talk to? I always feel terrible when I have to do that. Reed, you big oaf, bring her some punch. Oh, wait, maybe you’d rather have beer…”

“Punch is fine,” Anne assured her, preferring something nonalcoholic. She added immediately, “But anything is fine.”

“That’s exactly how I feel when I’m making potato salad,” Carla agreed with an impish grin. “I hate making potato salad. For heaven’s sake, keep me company…”

The kitchen was no less chaotic than the rest of the comfortable house. Two high school boys with their father’s jowls were stomping in the back door, peeking at sealed containers on the crowded counters as they sauntered through. A woman with stern features and a smile of pure sunshine started a second conversation with Anne as Carla continued chattering. Anne caught her name-Alice. Carla placed some deviled eggs in front of her, to be transferred to a serving plate, and tied an apron around her waist. They had shouted down her earlier offers to help, but this just wasn’t the kind of household where one could sit on the sidelines and worry about being shy.

Gradually, Anne sorted out what was happening. When Reed’s mine was open, he and Carla celebrated Thursdays. The people in the other rooms were their kids and neighbors, miners, people who worked in the town. Two were mining professors from Spokane; another was a doctor. They all seemed to get together regularly once a week. Each guest brought a dish to pass and a six-pack of beer.

“Usually the beer is warm, since my fridge’ll only hold so much,” Carla admitted. She leveled a worried stare at Anne. “You like the punch? It’s a mixture of crushed apples and cherries. I made it myself in the fall, but it doesn’t turn out the same way every year.”

“It’s delicious,” Anne said truthfully. The drink was tangy and cool; her throat was parched, and she’d drunk two glasses already.

Dinner was set out haphazardly on the kitchen table, to be collected in equally haphazard fashion and eaten wherever one could find a seat. The menu was simple: ham, potato salad, bright red Jell-O, sweet potatoes in a hickory-nut sauce, chestnut bread. Anne caught a glimpse of Jake an hour later, when he came in to get a plate-and, perhaps, to check up on her. His palm made a circle at the small of her back. “Doing okay?”

“Absolutely fine.” Her smile was meant to tell him she didn’t need taking care of. She’d seen he was engrossed in a nonstop conversation with one of the mining professors and a burly man she assumed was a miner.

“Anne?”

She glanced up from filling her plate.

“Watch the punch, honey.”

She glanced at the table and noticed that the punch bowl was almost empty and that her hostess had her hands full. When she’d found the pitcher in the refrigerator and refilled the bowl, Anne meant to sit next to Jake, but Reed claimed her, steering her to a seat next to him in the already crowded living room.

“He’ll talk your ear off,” Carla warned Anne. “When you’ve had enough, just call out for Jake.”

“We’re going to talk about our divorce,” Reed informed his wife.

“Yeah, yeah. You’ve been promising me that for eighteen years.” Carla handed her husband her plate and went to retrieve a sprawling six-year-old from the top of the bookcase. Carla then reclaimed her own dinner and wandered among guests, a bright red bird with ceaseless energy.

“I love that woman,” Reed informed Anne.

Anne chuckled as she speared a forkful of food. “Have you two always lived here?”

“Our families have been here four generations. Always the silver… Once it gets in your blood, it’s damn hard to get it out.” He gestured in Jake’s general direction. “He’s the exception to the rule. Most times we’re friendly people here, but to have someone new arrive and try to settle down as one of us…” He shook his head. “Just doesn’t happen. He’s nothing like the rest of us, but he still fits in, if you get my meaning. You going to marry him?”

“Mmm,” Anne said expressively-savoring the taste of the ham.

Reed nodded to his eldest son, who filled Anne’s glass yet another time with Carla’s delightful punch. The room grew increasingly warm; Anne grew increasingly thirsty. Talk finally turned to mining. Anne had the feeling that was inevitable. She settled back next to her host once she’d finished her dinner.

This mine was open; that one just closed; Harvey had been hurt; there had been an explosion and a fire… Anne listened, feeling like a foreigner trying to absorb the flavor of their lives. The men lived with real danger day by day in the mines. There was always the chance that a mine would close when the economy shifted or a vein ran out. No one ever considered leaving, though. Even Harvey, who’d been hurt, would stay in the mining community; they would care for him until he was well enough to get a job. These people cared for their own, and had for generations. Their loyalty to one another touched her heart.

Reed kept reaching over to pat her knee. You’re accepted, said the gesture. He delivered the same proprietary pat periodically to the fanny of his passing six-year-old. The thought made her unexpectedly feel like giggling. Jake had been engrossed for the hour and a half since dinner in a conversation with three men, but he shot her an occasional glance. Are you still doing all right? Certainly, certainly, certainly. She felt like laughing again.

“You sure can hold your wine, can’t you, sweetheart?” Reed patted her knee yet another time. “I respect a woman who can hold her liquor.”

“Me, too,” Anne answered blankly, wondering what on earth he was talking about. She hadn’t drunk anything but cherry punch…but even as a sudden, alarming thought registered, Reed’s eldest son was in front of her again, filling her glass to the brim and sending her a twinkling grin. She made a hurried attempt to count exactly how many times she’d seen that twinkling grin…when a hiccup erupted from her throat. Anne turned tomato-red.

“I should have known any woman of Jake’s could drink ’em under the table,” Reed roared in approval.

“Enough of this mining talk. Music, everybody. You have any favorite songs, darlin’?”

“Thousands,” Anne agreed brightly. She loved music. From across the room, Jake’s pewter-colored eyes suddenly came into focus. He looked distressed. Distressed? She waved a vague reassurance in his direction.