Sugar Plums for Dry Creek & At Home in Dry Creek (11 page)

But Amanda was no longer there. She'd slipped her hand out of his and gone over to Lizette.

“We want you to come eat Thanksgiving with us,” Amanda said loud and clear. “And I'm going to help make the potatoes. Cousin Judd said I could. Bobby gets to help with the vegetables.”

“Oh, that's very sweet,” Lizette said as she looked over at Judd with a question in her eyes. “But I'm sure you'll be—”

Judd could see the excitement start to dim in Amanda's eyes. If he'd had his wits about him, he'd have given her some excuse about why they couldn't
invite Lizette. He knew it did a man like him no good to start dreaming about a woman like Lizette. He could never give her all that she de served. But he couldn't put his comfort ahead of Amanda's happiness, either.

“Please come,” he finally said.

“We're going to have dinner and then go to the candle service at church. Bobby and I get to take the candles we made up front. Cousin Judd said we could,” Amanda added.

“I'm sure you both have beautiful candles,” Lizette said as she put her hand on Amanda's shoulder.

“I made one for you, too,” Amanda said softly.

“Oh,” Lizette said, and then she looked at Judd.

Judd figured that was when she decided. He noticed she lifted her chin a little for courage.

“I'd love to join you for dinner,” Lizette finally said. “And church, too.”

Judd hadn't realized he was holding his breath again until he let it out. So, they were having company for Thanksgiving dinner after all. And then they'd all be going to church.

“I'm doing vegetables,” Bobby said as he stood up from the floor. “Mrs. Hargrove told me how.”

“Green beans in mush room soup topped with fried onion rings,” Mrs. Hargrove said from the side lines. “It's the simplest vegetable recipe I know, and it's good.”

“I could bring something,” Lizette offered.

Judd noticed the color was coming back to her cheeks.

“I think we have everything we need,” he said.

“You're sure? I could make a pie,” Lizette said.

“You can?” Charley said as he stood up from his narrator chair. “What kind of pies can you make?”

“Well, most kinds,” Lizette said.

“If that don't beat everything,” Charley said to no one in particular. “She can make pies.”

“I like apple,” Bobby said. “Can you make apple?”

Lizette smiled. “I'll need to run over to Miles City to get some apples, but I need to go later today anyway to get some flyers printed for the Nutcracker. I want to post them around.”

“You use real apples?” Charley asked. “It's not that canned filling?”

“Oh, no,” Lizette said. “There's nothing like real apple pie.”

“Hallelujah,” Charley said.

“I could make one for you while I'm making pies,” Lizette offered.

Charley nodded and sighed. “I'd sure be happy if you did.”

Judd figured Lizette had al ready made him happy even if she never made a pie.

“I've heard an apple pie is the way to a man's
heart,” Mrs. Hargrove said softly as she stood next to Judd.

Judd remembered Mrs. Hargrove was in a match-making mood. He wasn't so sure he wanted the whole countryside to know his heart was taken by Lizette. When the word got out about the pies, Judd figured he'd be one of a long line of bro ken-hearted men hoping for a kind word from the ballet teacher.

“Lemon's more my pie,” Judd said.

“Oh,” Mrs. Hargrove said in surprise. “I meant Bobby's heart.”

Judd smiled. “Of course.”

Judd wondered how he'd made it to adult hood with out understanding women.

“Although, now that you mention it,” Mrs. Hargrove said thought fully. She smiled at Judd. “That was a very un usual stage kiss.”

“I'm new to the stage stuff.”

Mrs. Hargrove smiled. “You're learning fast.”

Judd nodded. He was a marked man and Mrs. Hargrove knew it. His only consolation was that the older woman seemed to be kind. He hoped that she also knew how to keep a secret. Judd wasn't sure he could stand for the state of his heart to be come a topic of common gossip around Dry Creek.

L
izette put the lemon pie on the table. She could as well have laid a snake down in front of the man.

“But you made apple pie,” Judd said.

They'd al ready finished their dinner of roasted turkey and mashed potatoes and green been casserole, and it was time to have pie. Lizette had kept the lemon pie in a box in the refrigerator while they ate because it needed to stay cool. She hadn't realized until now that Judd must have thought it was an other apple pie in the box.

Lizette had made two apple pies for Bobby. She'd delivered the extra pie wrapped in tin foil so he could freeze it for a later meal. She'd also made an apple pie for Charley. Charley and Bobby had been de lighted with their pies. Judd, how ever, looked horrified.

“You said you liked lemon pie,” Lizette re minded him. She tried to keep her voice calm. He was look
ing at her with questions in his eyes. What could she say? She'd made the man the pie because, well, “I had leftover crust.”

There. That should satisfy him that she wasn't attempting to lure him into a relation ship. The pie was simply a pie.

Lizette took a knife like the one she'd used to cut the apple pie and cut several small pieces of the lemon pie. “I made three pies with the crust I had, and there wasn't enough dough left to make an other apple pie because it takes double the amount of crust, so I made a single-crust pie. Lemon.”

“Oh.” Judd seemed relieved even though he didn't put his plate for ward for more pie like the kids were doing. “I wouldn't want you to go to any extra trouble. I mean, I like apple pie, too.”

“Besides, it's really for every one,” Lizette continued. She used a pie lifter to put a piece of pie on Bobby's out stretched plate and then on Amanda's plate. “I'm sure the kids like lemon meringue pie.”

Amanda nodded from her side of the table. “And choc o late. We like choc o late pie, too, with the white stuff.”

“Maybe next time, sweetie,” Lizette said as she put the pie lifter on the plate next to the lemon pie.

Amanda swallowed. “But what if my mother comes back be fore you make the pie?”

“I'm sure she'll wait long enough for you to eat a
piece of pie,” Lizette said, making a mental note to get the ingredients for a choc o late pie the next time she drove into Miles City. It wouldn't hurt to make a crust and keep it in the freezer so she could whip up a pie at a moment's notice.

Actually, while she was making crusts, maybe she should make several crusts. The people of Dry Creek seemed to like their pies. Well, except for Judd, of course. He was still just looking at the lemon pie.

Amanda nodded as she took up her fork. “My mom likes pies, too. She al ways made us a chocolate pie for Christmas.”

Lizette watched as Amanda set her fork back down with out taking an other bite. The girl's lower lip was beginning to tremble.

“What if my mom doesn't get back in time for Christmas?” Amanda asked.

“Oh, sweetie.” Lizette pushed her chair back from the table and stood up so she could go around to Amanda and give her a hug. Judd was al ready there by the time Amanda reached the little girl's chair.

And that was the way it was supposed to be, Lizette told her self as she stood and watched Amanda reach up to go into Judd's arms. Lizette supposed it was the kitchen table that had con fused her. The table was square and had a place for each of them—Judd, Amanda, Bobby, and her self, Lizette. The table had made her feel like she was part of their family.

But Judd was the one the children turned to for comfort. He was the one who was standing in for their mother.

“Don't worry,” Judd said softly to Amanda as he held her close. “I've al ready asked the sheriff to look for your mother, and he said he'll do everything he can to track her down.”

“Maybe she's hiding from our dad,” Bobby said from his place at the table. “Maybe she doesn't know he's in jail.”

“Maybe,” Judd agreed.

Lizette ad mired the way Judd was so honest with the children. He didn't pre tend that they were asking questions they had no right to ask. He didn't gloss over the fact that their father was in jail and that their mother hadn't returned when she'd said she would. He didn't promise them things that he couldn't de liver, either.

As a child, Lizette remembered her mother al ways being so cheerful about their difficulties that she had never really told Lizette what was going on. Lizette had never even known what disease her father had died of until just be fore her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Lizette had wondered if her mother finally realized all of the things she hadn't told Lizette over the years and was trying to make up for it by telling her everything she could be fore she died.
Lizette wished her mother had started really talking to her years be fore she did.

“You must miss your mother very much,” Lizette said.

Amanda nodded, her head against Judd's shoulder. “She's not going to be here for her candle.”

“Amanda made her a candle,” Bobby said quietly from where he still sat at the table. “I told her there was no need to make one. Mom won't be home in time to light it in church to night.”

“We can light it for her,” Judd said.

“But she won't be able to say what she's thankful for—” Amanda lifted her head away from Judd's shoulder and pro tested. “You have to say what you're thankful for when you light the candle. That's what Mrs. Hargrove says.”

“I know what your mother's thankful for,” Judd said. “The two of you.”

“Will you say the words?” Bobby asked. “Amanda and me want to light the candle, but we want some one else to say the words.”

Judd nodded. “I'll be happy to say them for your mother.”

Amanda had stopped crying by now. “Do you think she'll be able to hear when we say the words? No matter where she is?”

Lizette held her breath. She wondered if Judd would lie to the children.

Judd thought for a minute. “If she doesn't hear them, I'm going to remember them so I can tell her what they were when she gets here.”

Amanda nodded. “I'm going to remember them, too.”

Lizette vowed she would remember them as well, even though it was absolutely unnecessary. She knew she wouldn't have much of a chance to talk with the children's mother when she came back into town, and if Lizette did get a chance to talk to her, Lizette thought she'd probably have something else to discuss with the woman.

For starters, Lizette knew she'd like to ask Judd's cousin how she could have left her two children for such a long time. Didn't she know they would worry? Lizette knew if
she
was lucky enough to have children like the ones in front of her now,
she
wouldn't be able to leave them with some one else.

“This pie's real good,” Bobby said. He'd taken a bite of the lemon pie.

Amanda squirmed to be let down from Judd's arms, and he settled her back in her chair.

“Let me taste it,” Amanda said as she took her own bite of the lemon pie.

Lizette couldn't believe that was it. One minute the children had been in tears, and the next they were smiling because of pie. Even Judd was looking happier than he had a few minutes ago.

“Lemon pie has al ways been my favorite,” Judd said as he helped him self to a piece of the pie. “Maybe that's what I'm going to say I'm thankful for to night in church. Lemon pie.”

Amanda giggled. “You can't be thankful for pie. You have to be thankful for people. Mrs. Hargrove says that's the most important thing.”

Lizette felt a sudden dart of alarm. People? She was supposed to be thankful for people? “Can't we be thankful for other things, too?”

Amanda thought for a moment and then nodded. “But they have to be big things.”

“And you can't be thankful for dragons,” Bobby added. “The Curtis twins told me that. One year they told every one they were thankful for dragons, and every one said they were cute. Some of the women even pinched their cheeks. I don't want to get my cheeks pinched.”

“I could be thankful for my dog,” Judd said. “He's turned out to be a fine watchdog for a stray.”

Amanda nodded. “A dog would be a good thankful.”

Lizette wondered if she could be thankful for a whole town. She was beginning to feel like she had a home among the people of Dry Creek, even though she hadn't expected to feel that way when she moved here.

“I don't know,” Judd said as he helped him self to
another small piece of lemon pie. “This is aw fully good pie. Maybe I could be thankful for the pie
and
my new dog.”

Judd smiled at Lizette be fore she started to eat the piece of pie on her plate. “I haven't even said a proper thank-you yet for the pie. It's excellent. I don't think I've ever had such good lemon pie.”

“Lemon pie's not that hard to make,” Lizette said. “You just have to use real lemons.”

“Any pie is hard to make in my opinion,” Judd said. “I'm not much of a cook.”

“I wouldn't say that. The meal today was wonderful.”

When Lizette had arrived, Judd had a dish towel wrapped around his waist and he was mashing potatoes with an old-fashioned masher he said he'd found in the pan try. There had been things left in the house, he explained, from when the Jenkins family lived here.

Lizette figured that the curtains had been one of the things left in the house by Mrs. Jenkins. They had to have been hung over the sink by a woman. They were white thread bare cot ton, and they had tiny embroidered pansies on the bottom of them. The pansies were lavender, pink and yellow.

The kitchen was a comfort able room that had seen its share of family meals over the years. Lizette had noticed that the door way from the kitchen to the liv
ing room had a series of old cuts in the side of it and two new cuts. The wood of the old cuts was gray, but the color of the newer cuts was golden.

Judd had noticed her looking at the cuts. “Kids' growing marks. I thought I should add Amanda and Bobby. It took me long enough to figure out what the other cuts were there for—I figured some fancy exercise ma chine or maybe some one just standing there who had a new knife and wanted to try it out. But the marks were too deliberate for either of those.”

Lizette had smiled. She knew enough about Judd's child hood to understand how be wildering it must have seemed to mark a child's growth. It was a homey thing that spoke of love and attention.

Lizette wondered if she could list as her grateful the fact that she was a guest in this house today for Thanksgiving dinner. She had expected to have a cup of canned soup in her studio. Of course, some of the other families in Dry Creek had invited her home with them for Thanksgiving dinner. She'd re fused all of the other invitations. She didn't want to be with a family that was whole. In a family like that she would be extra. But in this little make shift family she felt like she had a place, even if it was only for the day.

“I have lots of eggs,” Judd said. He'd finished his piece of pie, and he pushed the plate away from him. “If you want any eggs for your baking, just let me know. You're welcome to all you need. I got
some chickens after the kids came, so we have lots of eggs.”

“Thanks. That's helpful.” Lizette figured it was the Montana way to give small gifts like that to your neighbors. “And if you want any baked goods, let me know. Doughnuts. Pies. Anything.”

Lizette figured that would be the best gift she could give any of the men around here. After she'd agreed to make dough nuts for the one cow boy, she'd got ten five more orders for closer to Christmastime. It was apparently going to be a merry Christmas in the bunk houses around here.

“You don't need to pay me with baked goods,” Judd said as he stood up from the table. “You're still welcome to the eggs.”

“Well, I have to do something for you,” Lizette said as she stood up, too. “You've invited me to dinner and offered me eggs and—”

Judd walked over to the kitchen sink. “If you're set on paying me back, you can help with the dishes. I'll wash if you dry.”

“Yes, but doing dishes isn't enough.”

“You haven't seen how many dishes we have,” Judd said as he turned the faucet on and let the water start to run in the sink. “And I'm including the pots and pans.”

In the end, Lizette didn't dry many of the dishes. Bobby and Amanda both wanted to help dry dishes,
so Lizette found her job involved more reaching the tall shelves to put the dishes away and handing clean towels to the two children and scratching Judd's back.

“Maybe you should see a doctor,” Lizette said the second time Judd asked her to scratch between his shoulder blades. “Maybe you have a rash.”

“That's the place,” Judd said with a sigh as her fingers gave a gentle scratch to the area next to his right shoulder blade.

Lizette let her fingers settle into the lazy circles the man seemed to like. “Maybe there's some cream that would stop the itch.”

“No, it'll be fine,” Judd said lazily, and then seemed to remember something. “Not that it's a rash. I'm a perfectly healthy specimen. No rashes. No long-term medical problems at all. Good teeth.”

“He's got a funny toe,” Amanda whispered as she leaned over to Lizette. “Have him show you his funny toe.”

Judd figured he might as well give up and declare him self a freak of nature. He sure didn't know much about how to make a woman want to date him. Not that there was much chance that Lizette would want to date a man like him any way, even if his health was reasonably good. No, she'd go for some one ten years younger, some one more her age. Someone about the age of Pete.

“I think Pete has a rash though,” Judd offered. “Nothing serious. Something to do with the cattle.”

“It's not mad cow disease, is it?”