You're welcome to try one. Clara's smile thinned. I don't think so. She turned and walked away, and her friends followed. And one of them murmured something that Margaret didn't quite catch, and they all laughed again at a volume designed to travel.
Margaret looked out at the crowd. She saw across the market Nathan Brooks standing near the livestock pens, talking to another rancher. He was too far away to have heard. He wasn't looking in her direction. She straightened the cloth on her table.
She waited. 15 minutes later, he made his way across the market in that unhurried way he had like a man who knew where he was going and didn't feel the need to announce it. He stopped at her table, looked at the available pies. "Morning," he said. "Good morning," Margaret said.
He pointed at the apple cinnamon. That one. She wrapped it. He paid. And then instead of taking the pie and nodding and leaving the way he always did, he paused.
You make these yourself? He asked. It was the first question he'd ever asked her. "Yes, sir," she said. "From scratch, the crust, too."
"From scratch. The crust, too." He looked at the pie in his hands for a moment like he was considering something. Then he looked up at her. "My daughters talk about these pies every Sunday from the moment they wake up."
He said, "Emily, she's the older one. She told me last week that whoever makes them must be the best cook in the county." "Margaret didn't know what to do with that." She said, "That's very kind of her. She's 10."
He said, "Like that explains something. She means what she says. Kids that age usually do. He nodded once, the same nod as always, and walked away. Margaret stood behind her table and felt something strange happen in her chest.