Sierra's Homecoming. Linda Miller Lael

an education, the very best medical care. We’re willing to make a place for you, too, obviously. If you won’t come home, at least tell us you arrived safely in Arizona.

      Sierra sat, wooden, staring at the stark plea on the screen. Although Allie and Adam had been raised in relative poverty, both of them had done well in life. Adam had been a photojournalist for a major magazine; he and Sierra had met when he did a piece on San Miguel.

      Allie ran her own fund-raising firm, and her husband was a neurosurgeon. They had everything—except what they wanted most. Children.

      You can’t have Liam, Sierra cried, in the silence of her heart. He’s mine.

      She flexed her fingers, sighed, and hit Reply. Allie was a good person, just as Adam had been, for all that he’d told Sierra a lie that shook the foundations of the universe. Adam’s sister sincerely believed she and the doctor could do a better job of raising Liam than Sierra could, and maybe they were right. They had money. They had social status.

      Tears burned in Sierra’s eyes.

      Liam is well. We’re safe on the Triple M, and for the time being, we’re staying put.

      It was all she could bring herself to say.

      She hit Send and logged off the computer.

      The fire was still flourishing on the hearth. She got up, crossed the room, pushed the screen aside to jab at the burning wood with a poker. It only made the flames burn more vigorously.

      She kicked off her shoes, curled up in the big leather chair and pulled a knitted afghan around her to wait for the fire to die down.

      The old clock on the mantel tick-tocked, the sound loud and steady and almost hypnotic.

      Sierra yawned. Closed her eyes. Opened them again.

      She thought about turning the TV back on, just for the sound of human voices, but dismissed the idea. She was so tired, she was going to need all her energy just to go upstairs and tumble into bed. There was none to spare for fiddling with the television set.

      Again, she closed her eyes.

      Again, she opened them.

      She wondered if the lights were still on in Travis’s trailer.

      Closed her eyes.

      Was dragged down into a heavy, fitful sleep.

      She knew right away that she was dreaming, and yet it was so real.

      She heard the clock ticking.

      She felt the warmth of the fire.

      But she was standing in the ranch house kitchen, and it was different, in subtle ways, from the room she knew.

      She was different.

      Her eyes were shut, and yet she could see clearly.

      A bare light bulb dangled overhead, giving off a dim but determined glow.

      She looked down at herself, the dream-Sierra, and felt a wrench of surprise.

      She was wearing a long woolen skirt. Her hands were smaller—chapped and work worn—someone else’s hands.

      “I’m dreaming,” she insisted to herself, but it didn’t help.

      She stared around the kitchen. The teapot sat on the counter.

      “Now what’s that doing there?” asked this other Sierra. “I know I put it away. I know for sure I did.”

      Sierra struggled to wake up. It was too intense, this dream. She was in some other woman’s body, not her own. It was sinewy and strong, this body. She felt the heartbeat, the breath going in and out. Felt the weight of long hair, pinned to the back of her head in a loose chignon.