Lucinda nodded and smiled as she continued eating, although she hadn't been around enough miners to experience men's adoration in quite the same way Emeline had. Francis had always tried to keep her away from that sort of thing.

She couldn't imagine cooking for a bunch of dirty miners...and them proposing to her! The thought made her skin crawl! But even though she didn't find Emeline's statement quite as humorous as Emeline did, she could relate to one thing.

"You...you lost your husband, too? My Francis died last fall. I had to winter alone on our homestead. That's why I'm just starting to head back east."

As she spoke, Lucinda realized that she felt a connection with Emeline, the first one she'd felt with anyone in a very long time. Losing a spouse was a commonplace occurrence, even back east, but it was still a painful one, and she and Emeline were united in that pain.

She was seized with a strong reluctance to leave the diner and the town where this kind woman stayed. And she was also seized with the sudden need for advice. "Emeline...may I call you Emeline? Well...my husband had run up debts when he died. I paid them off, but I'm not sure I can get back home. You made yourself a new life here. Do you think I could, too?"

"It's been four years since I lost Andrew," Emeline explained, "we grew up together, been married four years when there was an accident at the mine he was working in." She hadn't really discussed this with anyone, it was still too raw, and honestly, she wasn't sure how to talk about it. Somehow, the pain was personal, and she didn't want to put anyone in that awkward position of thinking of what to say or how to react.

"It caught me off guard, as you can imagine. I'd never thought I'd have to make my own way, it can be daunting, but there wasn't time to think about it, really." They'd had a little savings, but she'd realized that she needed to start earning her own way before it was gone, and the best way to do that was to invest in a business.

"It wasn't easy, but at least a few of the men in the camp knew about my cooking, so it went pretty smoothly."

She felt sympathy and a kinship to the other young woman, she couldn't imagine being stranded here without at least a little foundation in the territory.

"Certainly, I'm sure you'd do fine in town, as long as you have a skill. Or you could see if anyone needs some help...a clerk at the mercantile, I could even use a little help around here, once I get married and move out to the ranch...my current waitress is newly married herself." She smiled and nodded. "You'll be just fine, and you may even find that you like it here."

Lucinda knew how painful losing her husband had been, but Emeline's loss, so much more sudden and presumably horrible, must have been worse. "I'm sure. With Francis it was consumption. I saw it coming and just had to watch him waste away. I don't know how I would have coped if it had been...sudden."

She sipped her tea, trying to avoid steering the conversation into more sensitive territory. It wouldn't do to ruin the beginning of her friendship with Emeline by making her relive her pain. Thankfully, Emeline was able to move on from the subject easily to one of more importance: employment, food, and the slew of marriages happening in Kalispell. Well, not a slew. Just Emeline and her waitress, but still that was a lot.

"Gracious, are you sure you don't put anything special in your food that lures men in? If both you and your waitress are getting married you must have some secret." Lucinda laughed and relished the feeling that the laughter awoke in her. It had been a long time since she had laughed.

Emeline's reassurance helped, but it also brought up a new problem. What skills did she have that would make her worth hiring? She was afraid the answer out west would be none.

"I'm afraid the only thing I might be good for is a clerk at the mercantile. I don't know anything about waitressing, but if you need the help and I need the job..." she paused, then shrugged and set her fork down on her now-empty plate. "I'll see what comes up." She looked around the diner with new eyes.

"In the meantime, is there a cheap place I could stay until I figure something out? I'm afraid a hotel is beyond my means at the moment, but a boarding house would do nicely."

"Of course, do come back here if you can't find any other employment." That might just solve her problem of what to do with the cafe. Clara could stick to the cooking and Lucinda could wait tables.

"There is a boarding house, run by the Wigfalls, just up the street. I've heard it's clean and the meals are good." There were other whisperings, but she refused to pass on rumor. "I believe Dr. Danforth's new nurse stays there."

"I believe I will walk up there later and see if they have a room free, then." Lucinda drank the last of her tea and sighed. She felt much better; a little rested and a little less like a maple leaf in an autumn breeze. She had a direction to go with her life now and a suggestion for a place to stay.

"Now, how much do I owe you for the meal? And are you short on help today? I could...well, wash dishes if you could use the help."

The diner was nearly empty and it seemed like business was slow at the moment, but there was no telling what was going on behind the scenes in the kitchen. Washing dishes wasn't the most ideal way to spend her time, but she would be helping Emeline and, to tell the truth, she wanted spend more time with just Emeline before going and meeting other new people.

"Oh, the meal is on the house for a newcomer, and for good conversation!" Emeline answered, and then she added, "I'd certainly be glad for help, Mr. Pike has been my dishwasher, but his heart is in his job as deputy, so he isn't here as much."

Standing, she started to gather the plates. "I'll be starting dinner soon, too, and would not turn down the company. Can you cook? Or wait tables?"

Emeline could put her to work for the evening, and pay her...anything was better than nothing!

Lucinda's first thought was that she couldn't accept Emeline's generosity. It had been drilled into her that she should never take charity from anyone and that she would never need to accept charity. But the thing was, no one who taught at finishing school had ever been stranded, practically penniless, out on the fringes of civilization.

"Oh, are you...well...thank you." She got up and watched Emeline gather the plates, in awe at her good fortune. "I'm sure I could wait tables passably...as long as no one proposes to me!" she added suddenly with a bright smile. "As for cooking, well, I can keep myself alive but I don't know that anyone else would want to eat what I cook!"

She unbuttoned the cuffs of her sleeves and started to roll them up. "Let me take the dishes. I know I can do that."

"Oh, of course!" Emeline stepped back to let Lucinda gather the dishes, then led the way to the kitchen, separated from the dining room by a swinging door that could be pushed open with a hip if one's hands were full of dishes. The kitchen was larger than a home kitchen, of course, since there were large meals prepared here, and even with signs of bread, pies and vegetables being prepared, it was neat and orderly.

"The sink is there," she nodded to the far wall, where there was a pump for water installed over the sink, and a window that looked out over the herb garden and trees, a peaceful view for whoever was relegated to washing.

"And that," she indicated the one-eyed ginger cat curled on a chair in the corner, "is Buster. He's harmless, unless you're a rat!"

Lucinda felt for the first time in over a year that she was somewhere where she belonged. She hadn't been raised to work in a kitchen, or even to be in a kitchen at all, but this just felt right. set the dishes in the sink, then primed the pump and started running water in the sink so she could begin washing the dishes.

Before she started, she went over to the corner to say hello to Buster, looking back at Emeline as she moved. "Oh, we used to have cats in the barn when I was younger. They were big mean tomcats, not like...oh!" She finally got a good look at Buster and made a surprised and slightly disgusted face.

It wasn't that the deformity was horrible, it was just unexpected. Her world had been perfect until she had come west and she was still shocked by her new world sometimes. "He only has one eye!" She looked back at Emeline worriedly. "What happened to him?"

"No one knows," Emeline answered, shrugging, "he''s just an old stray who doesn't exactly belong to anyone. I know he spends a lot of time at the Millegan Stage barn." She laughed. "I'm sure if you asked him, he'd tell you he lost it in a fight with a grizzly...and you ought to see the grizzly!"

Laughing again, she gave the cat a scratch on the ears. "It's amazing, though, I've heard of cats chasing off bears, wolves, cougars, even wolverines."

She moved to the sink to wash her hands, commenting, "Sprinkle some soap flakes into the water, then you can wash the dishes, just set them to the side until you're done, then you can rinse them...that's how I prefer it." She hoped she didn't sound bossy, she was just giving instruction, in case Lucinda didn't know the process.

"Anyway, it doesn't work every time." She started chopping carrots. "But attitude counts for a lot. Sometimes you just have to push back, yell and advance...it catches the other person off guard, and often they'll back down."

Then she wondered if the young woman knew anything of defending herself. She seemed a bit like a lost lamb, and this could be a rough place for an 'innocent'.

"Do you carry a weapon? A derringer, or something like that?"