"Take the pie," Margaret said. "And keep the lesson. Lord knows he needs both." She squeezed Walt's arm and drifted back toward Dale, who was pretending to be fascinated by a hay bale.
Walt felt heat in his neck. "She's not subtle."
"I noticed," Ruth said. "Do you want coffee? Or do you want to keep standing here looking like a man who plans to bolt for the frosted field?"
"Coffee," he said. "Coffee is safer."
They walked to the refreshment table. The coffee was the color of road tar and nearly as thick; Walt poured two cups and handed her one. Through the open barn doors the field shone under a thin moon, white with frost, the fence line a dark stitch against the pale. A few cars sat in the gravel lot, engines ticking as they cooled. Somewhere an owl called, and the sound felt like the night itself clearing its throat.