Everyone in Cinder Creek had already decided how Mabel Harlo’s story would end.

They simply disagreed on how long it would take.

A penniless widow.

Three hungry little girls.

No home.

No husband coming back.

No money hidden beneath a floorboard, no wealthy uncle riding in from the East, no miracle waiting beyond the next hill.

To the people watching Mabel cross the dusty main street beneath the merciless Wyoming sun, she was not a woman searching for another chance.

She was a tragedy walking upright.

And some people, Mabel had learned, found tragedies entertaining—as long as they belonged to someone else.

“Poor thing,” women whispered from beneath parasols.

“She’ll be begging by Sunday,” a shopkeeper muttered.

“Should’ve married better,” said a man whose own wife had buried two infants and still cooked his supper every night.

Mabel heard them.

She heard everything.

She simply refused to let her daughters see that their words hurt.

Six-year-old Clara walked on her right, clutching Mabel’s hand. Eight-year-old Rose walked on her left. Eleven-year-old Annie followed behind carrying the small cloth bundle containing nearly everything the Harlo family still owned.

Their dresses were clean but patched.

Their shoes were dusty.

Their faces were thin.

That morning, Clara had asked whether breakfast was coming later.

Mabel had lied.

“Of course.”

There had been no breakfast.

There had been only enough bread for the girls, and Mabel had told them she wasn’t hungry.

She had become very good at saying that.

Three months earlier, her husband Nathan had been alive.

Three months earlier, there had been a roof over their heads, soup simmering on the stove, and Nathan’s boots beside the door.

Then a freight wagon had overturned in a mountain pass.

Nathan’s body had been brought home beneath a canvas sheet.

Within six weeks, a banker named Abel Voss had appeared with papers claiming Nathan owed more money than Mabel had ever known he possessed.

The house was seized.

Their savings vanished into funeral costs and debts.

Everything else was sold.

Mabel had taken her daughters west because Nathan had once spoken warmly of Cinder Creek.

“There are good people there,” he had said.

He had smiled strangely when he said it.

Mabel had remembered those words after his death.

She was beginning to wonder whether grief had made her remember them incorrectly.

That morning, she had visited the laundry, the hotel, the bakery, the schoolhouse, the livery stable, and both boardinghouses.

Every answer was the same.

No work.

No room.

No need.

At the general store, she stood before the counter while Mr. Bell avoided her eyes.

“I can scrub floors,” she said.

“No need.”

“I can sew.”

“My wife does it.”

“I can keep accounts.”

“Got a clerk.”

“I’ll work for meals.”

Mr. Bell glanced toward the window.

Someone outside laughed.

Mabel swallowed.

“Please.”

The old shopkeeper’s expression softened for half a second, but fear replaced it.

“Mrs. Harlo, I’d help if I could.”

Mabel followed his glance through the dusty glass.

Across the street stood Abel Voss.

The banker.