Page 26 of Cowboy’s Christmas Baker

“This song is from A Charlie Brown Christmas,” she said to Katie. “My brother and I watched it every year.”

Katie nodded, but didn’t have anything to add.

Mal was dying to ask her if she had seen it, and about a thousand other questions, but she managed to keep her mouth shut. She was trying to meet Katie where she was.

The bells out front jingled again and Annie Williams poked her head in a moment later.

“Hey, Mal,” she said, then spotted Katie. “Oh. Who’s this?”

Mal waited a moment.

“I’m Katie,” Katie said at last.

“Nice to meet you,” Annie said.

“Katie’s helping me with some baklava,” Mal said. “You okay up front while we work?”

“Of course,” Annie said with a big smile as she headed back out.

Annie was a wonderful artist. She often sat at the counter sketching the town and its denizens if things got slow. And when things weren’t slow, she was an eager worker. Mal wasn’t exactly sure what she was going to do without her next Christmas.

“Ready to get into the cooking?” Mal asked Katie.

Katie nodded, her eyes flicking right to Mal’s.

“Okay,” Mal said. “Let’s do it.”

“Can we make enough to share?” Katie asked, her voice an unexpected, but bright note in the kitchen.

“Like just enough to bring a plate to school for your teacher?” Mal asked. “Or were you thinking about making enough to bring to Carla’s Place or the Heroes Center?”

“Both?” Katie said, her eyes down on her hands, like she was sure Mal would say no.

“Absolutely,” Mal told her. “That’s a really nice idea, and lucky for you I thawed out plenty of dough.”

Katie looked up with an expression that was almost a smile.

“But,” Mal said, “this means tripling the recipe we’ve got.”

“Okay,” Katie said, grabbing a pencil from the cup by the bulletin board before Mal could say another word.

Mal watched as the little girl swiftly adjusted every measurement and noted it down neatly in the margins, turning teaspoons to tablespoons without a second thought, and even getting the fractions right on the cups.

“Wow,” Mal said. “You’re really good at math.”

Katie shook her head, her energy pulling back into herself instantly.

“Of course you are,” Mal said. “Do you know any grownups who could triple three fourths of a cup to two and a quarter cups without even stopping to think about it?”

Katie’s eyes lifted to hers again.

“I don’t,” Mal said.

“It’s not the same at school,” Katie said softly.

Mal wanted to ask why, or encourage the girl, but she managed to keep her mouth shut and wait while Mariah Carey belted out what she wanted for Christmas over the radio.

“The teacher always wants you to go up to the board if you’re good at math,” Katie said after a minute.