Lizette smiled. “I guess I could make doughnuts one of these days.”

Judd told himself that it was only his concern for the safety of the kids that made him worry about who was likely to be visiting the ballet school. He’d been in Dry Creek long enough to know about all the cowboys on the outlying ranches.

A woman like Lizette Baker was bound to attract enough attention without adding doughnuts to the equation.

Not that it should matter to him how many men gawked at the ballet teacher. He certainly wasn’t going to cause any awkwardness by being overly friendly himself. He was just hoping to get to know her a little better.

She was, after all, the kids’ teacher, and he was, for the time being, their parent. It was practically his civic duty to be friendly to her. And he didn’t need a doughnut to make him realize it.

JANET TRONSTAD

grew up on a small farm in central Montana. One of her favorite things to do was to visit her grandfather’s bookshelves, where he had a large collection of Zane Grey novels. She’s always loved a good story.

Today, Janet lives in Pasadena, California. In addition to writing novels, she researches and writes nonfiction magazine articles.

Sugar Plums for Dry Creek
Janet Tronstad

www.millsandboon.co.uk

I can do all things through Christ

which strengtheneth me.

—Philippians 4:13

This book is dedicated to my grandfather, Harold Norris, who shared his love of a good book with me.

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed reading about Judd and Lizette. When I was telling their story, I thought about what it feels like to go to a church for the first time. Their feelings of awkwardness are repeated many times each Sunday as someone visits a church and isn’t sure of what their welcome will be. During the Christmas season, you may see people in your church who do not seem to feel comfortable. Hopefully, you can help them feel like they are among friends.

May you have a blessed Christmas.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Lizette Baker wished her mother had worried less about showing her the perfect way to pirouette and more about teaching her a few practical things, like how to coax more warm air out of her old car’s heating system and how to put snow chains on tires so smooth they slipped on every icy patch she found as she drove east on Interstate 94 in southern Montana.

A colder, frostier place Lizette had never seen. Even with a wool scarf wrapped around her neck and mittens on her hands, she couldn’t stay warm. It was only mid-November and it was already less than ten degrees Fahrenheit outside. No wonder hers was the only car in sight as she drove along this road hoping to reach Dry Creek, Montana, before her heater gave out completely.

The attendant in the gas station she’d stopped at back in Forsyth had offered to call a mechanic to repair her heater. Another man, with a dirty blond beard and a snake tattooed on his arm, had made a different suggestion.

“Why put out good money for a mechanic?” he’d asked in an artificially friendly voice. Lizette hadn’t liked the way he was looking at her. “I’ll keep you warm if you give me a ride down the road a bit. I’m looking for my kids.” He’d reached into his pocket and pulled out a worn snapshot, which he’d then shoved at her. “Kids need to see their old man. You haven’t seen them, have you?”

Lizette would have rather given the snake on the man’s arm a ride than the man himself, but she hadn’t wanted any trouble, so she’d politely looked at the picture of his two children.

“No, but they’re beautiful children.” And the children probably would have been beautiful, she thought, if they hadn’t looked so skinny and scared. “Sorry about the ride, but I have a car full of boxes. Moving, you know.”

Lizette hoped the man hadn’t looked at her car too closely. If she’d shifted the boxes around a little, she could have cleared enough room in the front seat for a passenger.

The tattooed man hadn’t said anything more, but he’d put the picture back in his pocket.

After a moment’s silence, the attendant had finally asked, “So do you want the mechanic to come over to fix that heater? He doesn’t keep regular hours, but he can get down here in fifteen minutes flat.”

Lizette had shaken her head. “Thanks though.”

She barely had enough money left to get her ballet school going; she couldn’t afford to fix anything that wasn’t actually falling off the car. The heater was spitting out just enough warm air to keep her from freezing to death, so it would have to do for now.

She’d looked out her rearview mirror as she’d pulled away from the gas station and had seen the man with the snake on his arm watching her leave.

It wasn’t the first time since she’d left Seattle that Lizette had wondered if she was making a mistake.

Her whole life had changed in the last few months though, and she needed a new beginning. Besides, where else could she get free rent to start her own business? Lizette had learned to be frugal from her mother, Jacqueline. Indeed, it had been Jacqueline who’d found the ad for free space.

Lizette had not known until recently that her mother had saved for years with the hope that they could open their own ballet school someday. When Lizette’s father had died, years ago, Jacqueline had given up the fledgling ballet school she and her husband had started and had taken a steady job in a bakery. At the time, Lizette had not realized the sacrifice her mother was making to keep them secure, probably because Jacqueline never complained about giving up the school. When she’d first tied on her bakery apron, she’d even managed to joke. She said she wished her husband could see her. He’d say she was really a Baker at last.

Her mother had made the job sound as though it was exactly what she wanted, and Lizette had believed her back then. Maybe that was because Lizette herself was happy. The bakery was a playground to her. She loved the warm smells and all of the chatter of customers. The bakers even got into the habit of asking Lizette to try out their new recipes. They said she had a taste for what the customers would like.

Giving up that ballet school was only one of the many sacrifices Jacqueline Baker had made for Lizette over the years. Lizette hadn’t even known about some of them until her mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. That’s when she’d started giving instructions to Lizette.

“You’ll find fifteen thousand dollars in this safety deposit box,” Jacqueline told her as she handed Lizette a key. “I wanted it to be more, but it’ll get that school of ours started if we’re careful. Then there’ll be no need for you to work at the bakery—you’ll be free to dance. The money should cover everything for a year. We don’t need anything expensive—just something with good floors and lots of room for practice.”

Lizette was amazed and touched. So that was why her mother’d never spent much money on herself, not even after she became the manager of the bakery and started earning a better salary. Lizette could see how important it was to her mother to start what she was calling the Baker School of Ballet.

As the pain increased and Jacqueline went into the hospital, she talked more and more about the school. She worried that Lizette had not been able to find an affordable space to rent even though she’d gone out to look at several places. Jacqueline even asked the hospital chaplain to come and pray about it.

Lizette was surprised her mother was interested in praying. Jacqueline had shown little use for God over the years, saying she could not understand a God who took a man away in his prime. Unspoken was the complaint that He had also robbed her of her beloved ballet school at the same time.

But now, at the end, who did her mother want to talk to? The chaplain.

If they hadn’t been in a hospital when her mother asked to speak to a minister, Lizette wouldn’t even have known how to find one. She herself had never been to church in her life. Sunday was the one day she could spend with her mother, and Jacqueline made it clear she didn’t want to go to church, so Lizette never even suggested it.

Yet on her deathbed Lizette’s mother spent hours talking to the chaplain about her hopes for a ballet school. Lizette quietly apologized to the man one afternoon when the two of them had left the room so the nurse could give Jacqueline an injection. Lizette knew the chaplain was a busy man, and she doubted he was interested in ballet schools—especially ones that didn’t even exist except in a dying woman’s dreams.

The chaplain waved Lizette’s apology aside, “Your mother’s talking about her life when she talks about that school. That’s what I’m here for. It’s important.”

In the last days, the soft sound of the chaplain’s praying was all that quieted Jacqueline. Well, Lizette acknowledged, toward the end it was also those expensive injections that kept her mother comfortable. Lizette never did tell Jacqueline that those injections weren’t covered by their insurance plan.

It didn’t take much money to open a ballet school, Lizette told herself when her mother kept asking about sites. By then, the extra hospital bills had used up the entire fifteen thousand dollars, and Lizette’s small savings account as well. Lizette said a prayer of her own when she promised to open the school in the fall.

“You’re right. Fall is the best time of the year to start a ballet school,” Jacqueline said as she lay in her hospital bed. “We can start our students right out on our simplified version of the Nutcracker ballet, and they’ll be hooked. Every young girl wants to be Clara. Plus we already have all of those costumes we made for you and the other girls when you were in dance school.”

Part of the deal in the sale of her parents’ ballet school had been that the new owner, Madame Aprele, would give Lizette free lessons. Lizette had studied ballet for years, and even though she didn’t have her mother’s natural grace, she still did very well.

“And you’ll be there to watch.” Lizette dreamed a little dream of her own. “You’ve always loved the Nutcracker.”

Her mother smiled. “I can almost see it now. I remember the first time I danced Clara as a five-year-old. And later, the Sugar Plum Fairy. What I wouldn’t give to dance it all again!”

Lizette vowed she’d find a way to open a school even without money. Then maybe her mother would get stronger and they could run that school together. With all of the praying the chaplain was doing, Lizette figured they were due a miracle.

Later that week Jacqueline claimed she’d found a miracle—right in the middle of the classified section of The Seattle Times. The ad offering free rent for new businesses had been buried in the used furniture section of the paper. Lizette called the phone number from the hospital room so her mother could listen to her end of the conversation.

Free rent would solve all of their problems for the school, and Lizette wanted Jacqueline to share the excitement of the phone call. Lizette hadn’t realized until she was halfway through the conversation that the free rent was in a small town in Montana.

Jacqueline kept nodding at her during the conversation, so Lizette found herself agreeing to take the town of Dry Creek up on their offer. She couldn’t disappoint her mother by telling her that the free rent wasn’t in Seattle.

Of course, Lizette had no intention of actually going to Dry Creek, Montana. She knew nothing about the place. Something about the phone call calmed Jacqueline, however, and she seemed truly satisfied. The chaplain said she made her peace with God the next afternoon. After that, nothing Lizette did could stop her mother from slipping away.

After Jacqueline was gone, Lizette remembered the small town in Montana. Seattle seemed the emptiest city in the world without her mother. Lizette couldn’t stay at the bakery, even though she’d worked there for the past six years. Lizette enjoyed the job, but she knew her mother would have scolded her for hiding away there.

Besides baking, the only other skill Lizette had was her expertise in ballet and there were no jobs for young ballet teachers in Seattle. Oh, Madame Aprele offered her a job, but Lizette knew the small school didn’t need another teacher, and she wasn’t desperate enough to take charity.

No, she had to go somewhere else, and she didn’t much care where.

So, here she was—moving to Dry Creek, Montana, and all because of a phone conversation with an old man and an offer of free rent. Lizette wasn’t sure the school would work. A small town in eastern Montana wasn’t the place she would have chosen to open the Baker School of Ballet.

Not that it was absolutely the worst place to start, Lizette assured herself. So few people appreciated ballet these days, and it gladdened her heart to remember the enthusiasm in the old man’s voice when she had called in response to the ad. The man she’d talked to on the phone was gruff, and she couldn’t always hear him because of the static, but he seemed excited that she was taking the town up on their offer of six months’ free rent. He kept talking about how large the area was that they could set aside for her.

The old man had mentioned tables and chairs and counters, so he might not be too familiar with ballet, but Lizette wouldn’t let that discourage her. It was the enthusiasm in his heart that counted. She’d be happy to educate this little town on the finer points of ballet.

Lizette was going to go ahead with a modified Nutcracker ballet. Her mother had been right that it was a great way to start. Lizette decided she would even make Sugar Plum pastries for a little reception after the performance. Stuffed with dried plums and vanilla custard, they were a Christmas favorite with many of the customers at the bakery.

The people of Dry Creek would like them as well.

Yes, Lizette thought to herself. A little music, a little ballet and a cream-filled pastry—the people of Dry Creek would be glad she’d opened her school in their town.

Chapter Two

Judd Bowman was standing at the back of the hardware store in Dry Creek counting nails. He figured he needed about fifty nails, but every time he got to thirty or so, one of the kids would interrupt him because they had to go to the bathroom or they wanted a drink of water or they thought they heard a kitten meowing. Judd sighed. Trying to take care of a six-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl was no picnic. Fortunately, the hardware store had a heater going, and it took the edge off the cold.

“Just sit down until I finish,” Judd said when he felt Amanda’s arm brush against his leg. He’d gotten to thirty-seven, and he repeated the number to himself. He knew the kids needed reassurance, so he tried to speak two sentences when one would have done him fine. “I won’t be long and then we can go over to the café and have some cocoa. You like cocoa, don’t you?”

Judd felt Amanda nod against his knee. He looked over to see that Bobby was still drawing a picture on the piece of paper that the man who ran the hardware store had given him earlier.

Amanda seemed to squeeze even closer to his knee, and Judd looked down. She was pale and clutching his pant leg in earnest now as she stared around his leg at the men in the middle of the hardware store.

Judd looked over at them, wondering what had stirred up the old men who sat around the potbellied stove. Usually, when he came into the store, the men were dozing quietly in their chairs around the fire or playing a slow game of chess.

Today, with the cold seeping into the store, the fire was almost out. There was wood in the basket nearby, so there was no excuse for anyone not to put another log in the stove.

But the men weren’t paying any attention to the cold or the fire.

Instead, they were all looking out the window of the hardware store and across the street into the window of what had been an old abandoned store that stood next to the café. The store wasn’t abandoned any longer. Judd could see the woman as she tried to hang what looked like a sign on the inside of her window.

Judd didn’t usually pay much attention to women, but he’d have remembered this one if he’d seen her before. She was tall and graceful, with her black hair twisted into a knot on the top of head. He could see why men would be looking at her.

“They’re just talking,” Judd said as he rested his hand on Amanda’s shoulder.

Judd had little use for idle conversation, but even he had heard a week ago that a new woman was moving to town. Several months ago the town had placed an ad in The Seattle Times inviting businesses to move to Dry Creek. The town had sweetened the deal by offering six months of free rent. Even at that, the woman was the only one to actually agree to come, so the town had given her the best of the old buildings they owned.

Judd squeezed Amanda’s shoulder as Bobby walked over to stand beside them as well. The boy had become attuned to his sister’s moods, and it never took him long to know when Amanda was frightened.

Judd spoke softly. “They’re just talking about the new woman who moved here.”

“Remember I told you about her?” Bobby added as he leaned down to look his sister in the eye. “She’s going to make doughnuts.”

“I’m not sure about the doughnuts,” Judd said. He worked hard to keep his voice even. Amanda picked up too easily on the emotion in men’s voices, and even though Judd was angry at the man who had made her so sensitive and not at her, he knew she’d think he was upset with her if he let his voice be anything but neutral.

Getting involved in the problems of Dry Creek was the last thing Judd wanted to do, but if that’s what it took to help Amanda realize all anger wasn’t directed at her, then that’s what he’d have to do. “Let’s go see what it’s all about.”

Judd walked slowly enough so Amanda could keep her fingers wrapped around his leg. She had her other hand in Bobby’s small hand.

“How’s it going?” Judd asked when they arrived at the group around the stove.

Judd had seen these men a dozen times since he’d rented the Jenkins farm this past spring, but he’d been so busy all summer with farm work and then with the kids that this was the first time he’d done more than nod in their direction.

Fortunately, the men were all too steamed up to wonder why he chose to talk now.

“Charley here is going deaf,” Jacob muttered as he leaned back with his fingers in his suspenders.

“I am not,” Charley said as he looked up at Judd through his bifocals. “I had a bad connection on that new fangled cell phone. Don’t know what’s wrong with it. Some of the words don’t come through too clear.”

“That’s when you ask the person to repeat themselves,” Jacob said.

The two men had obviously had this conversation before.

“I was being friendly,” Charley protested as he stood up and looked straight at Judd. “Everyone kept telling me to be friendly if anyone called. Now, do you think it sounds friendly to keep asking someone to repeat what they’ve just said?”

“Well, I guess that depends.” Judd hesitated. He didn’t want to get involved in the argument. He just wanted Amanda to hear that it wasn’t about her.

“You know, I got that phone because everybody said people would be calling about the ad at all times of the night and day,” Charley complained as he sat back down. “I even carried it to bed with me. And this is the thanks I get.”

“So you’re all angry because of the phone.” Judd nodded. There. That should satisfy Amanda that the argument had nothing to do with her.

“It isn’t the phone,” Jacob said as he shook his head. “It’s what he was supposed to do with the phone. He was supposed to make sure that businesses were suitable for Dry Creek.”

“He said she was a baker!” another old man protested.

“I had my mouth all set for a doughnut,” Jacob admitted. “One of those long maple ones.”

“Well, she kept saying Baker,” Charley defended himself. “How was I supposed to know that was just her name? Dry Creek could use a good bakery.”

“But she’s not a baker. She runs a dance school!” Jacob protested.

“And that’s the problem?” Judd tried again. He could feel Amanda’s hold on his leg lessen. She was listening to the men.

“Of course that’s the problem,” Jacob continued. “She doesn’t even teach real dancing, like the stomp-and-holler stuff they have at the senior center up by Miles City. This here is ballet. Who around here wants to learn ballet? You have to wear tights.”

“Or a tutu,” another old man added. “Pink fluffy stuff.”

“It isn’t decent, if you ask me,” still another man muttered. “Don’t know where she’ll buy all that netting around here anyway.”

“The store here started carrying bug netting since the mosquitoes were so bad over the summer. They still have some left. Maybe she could use that,” the first old man offered.

“She can’t use bug netting,” Charley said. “Not for ballet. Besides, she probably wants it to be pink, and that bug netting is black.”

“Well, of course it’s black,” another old man said. “Mosquitoes don’t care if it’s some fancy color.”

“Netting is the least of her worries. She isn’t going to have any students, so she won’t need any netting,” Jacob finally said.

There was a moment’s silence.

“Maybe she will take up baking—to keep herself busy if she doesn’t have any students,” Charley offered. “I heard she was trying to make some kind of cookies.”

“They burnt,” another man said mournfully. “The smoke came clear over here. I went over and asked if maybe a pie would be easier to bake.”

“She’s not going to be making pies. She’s going to go around trying to change the people of Dry Creek into something we’re not. It’s like trying to turn a pig into a silk purse. I say just let a pig be a pig—the way God intended,” Jacob said.

Judd looked down at Amanda. She’d stopped holding on to his pants leg and was listening intently to the men. He was glad she was listening even if she wasn’t talking yet. In the three months that Judd had been taking care of the two kids, Amanda occasionally whispered something to her brother, but she never said anything to anyone else, not even Judd.

Amanda leaned over to whisper in Bobby’s ear now.

The boy smiled and nodded. “Yeah, she is awfully pretty.”

Bobby looked up at the men. “Amanda thinks the woman looks like our mama.”

Judd’s breath caught. Both kids had stopped talking about their mother a month ago. Barbara was his second cousin, but Judd hadn’t known her until she showed up on his doorstep one morning. She’d paid an agency to find him because she wanted to ask him to take care of her kids while she got settled in a place. She was on the run from an abusive husband and had the court papers to prove it.

Judd had refused Barbara’s request at first. Sheer disbelief had cleared his mind of anything else. Judd had never known his mother, and the uncle who had raised him had been more interested in having a hired hand that he didn’t need to pay than in parenting an orphan. The stray dog Judd had taken in earlier in the summer probably knew more about family life than Judd did. Judd wasn’t someone anyone had ever thought to leave kids with before this. And one look at the kids showed him that they were still in the napping years.

“You must have taken care of little ones before—” Barbara had said.

“Not unless they had four feet and a tail,” Judd told her firmly. He’d nursed calves and stray dogs and even a pony or two. But kids? Never.

No, Judd wasn’t the one his cousin needed. “You’ll need to find someone else. Believe me, it’s best.”

“But—” Barbara said and then swallowed.

Judd didn’t like the look of desperation he saw in her eyes.

“You’re our only family,” she finally finished.

Judd figured she probably had that about right. The Bowman family tree had always been more of a stump than anything. Ever since his uncle had died, Judd had thought he was the last of the line.

Still, he hesitated.

He thought of suggesting she turn to the state for help, but he knew what kind of trouble that could get her into. Once children were in the state system, it wasn’t all that easy to get them out again, and he could see by the way she kept looking at the kids that she loved them.

He might not know much about a mother’s love himself, but he could at least recognize it when he saw it.

“Maybe you could get a babysitter,” Judd finally offered. “Some nice grandmother or something.”

“You know someone like that?”

Judd had to admit he didn’t. He’d only moved to Dry Creek this past spring. He’d been working long and hard plowing and then seeding the alfalfa and wheat crops. He hadn’t taken time to get to know any of his neighbors yet.

He wished now that he had accepted one of the invitations to church he’d received since he’d been here. An older woman, Mrs. Hargrove, had even driven out to the ranch one day and invited him. She’d looked so friendly he’d almost promised to go, but he didn’t.

What would a man like him do in church anyway? He wouldn’t know when to kneel or when to sing or when to bow his head. No, church wasn’t for him.

Now he wished he had gone to church anyway, even if he’d made a fool of himself doing so. Mrs. Hargrove would probably help someone who went to her church. She wasn’t likely to help a stranger though. Who would be?

“Maybe we could put an ad in the paper.”

Barbara just looked at him. “We don’t have time for that.”

Judd had to admit she was right.

“Besides, this is something big—the kind of thing family members do to help each other,” Barbara said with such conviction that Judd believed her.

Not that he was an expert on what family members did to help each other. He couldn’t remember his uncle ever doing him a kindness, and the man was the only family Judd had ever known. His uncle had lost all contact with his cousin who was Barbara’s father.

He had to admit he had been excited at first when Barbara had come to his doorstep. It was nice to think he had family somewhere in this world.

He looked over at the kids and saw that they were sitting still as stones. Kids shouldn’t be so quiet.

“Are they trained?” he asked.

Barbara looked at him blankly for a moment. “You mean potty-trained?”

He nodded.

“Of course! Amanda here is five years old. And Bobby is six. They practically take care of themselves.”

Barbara didn’t pause before she continued. “And it might only be for a few days. Just enough time for me to drive down to Denver and check out that women’s shelter. I want to be sure they’ll take us before I drag the kids all that way.”

Barbara had arrived in an old car that had seen better days, but it had gotten her here, so Judd figured it would get her to Denver.

Still, if she had car trouble, he knew it would be hard to take care of the kids while she saw to getting the thing fixed. He supposed—maybe—

“I guess things will be slow for the next few days,” Judd said. He’d finished putting up the hay, and he had enough of the fence built so his thirty head of cattle could graze in the pasture by the creek. He meant to spend the next few days working on the inside of the house anyway before he turned back to building the rest of the fence. He supposed two trained kids wouldn’t be too much trouble.

Judd didn’t exactly say he’d keep the kids, but he guessed Barbara could tell he’d lowered his resistance, because she turned her attention to the kids, telling them they were going to stay with Cousin Judd and she’d be back in a few days. That was at the end of August. It was mid-November now.

Judd still hadn’t finished all of the fencing, and it was already starting to snow some. If he waited any longer, the ground would be frozen too far down to dig fence holes. That’s why he was at the hardware store today getting nails and talking to the old men by the stove.

Judd watched the old men as they smiled at the kids now.

Jacob nodded slowly as he looked at Amanda. “I saw your mama when she brought you and your brother here. She stopped to ask directions. You’re right, she was pretty, too.”

“My mama’s going to come back and get us real soon,” Bobby said.

Jacob nodded. “I expect she will.”

Judd gave him a curt nod of thanks. Barbara had asked for a few days, but Judd had figured he’d give her a week. By now, she was at least two months overdue to pick up the kids.

Judd hadn’t told the kids he’d contacted the court that had issued the restraining order their mother had flashed in front of him and asked them to help find her. Fortunately Barbara had listed him as her next of kin on some paper they had. The court clerk had called every women’s shelter between here and Denver and hadn’t located Judd’s cousin.

Judd had had to do some persuasive talking to the clerk, because he didn’t want to mention the kids. He figured his cousin needed a chance to come back for them on her own.

“She’s just hurt her hand so she can’t write and tell us when,” Bobby added confidently.

“I expect that’s right. Mail sometimes takes a while,” Jacob agreed, and then added, “but then it only makes the letter more special when you do get it.”

The older men shifted in their seats. Judd knew they were all aware of the troubles Amanda and Bobby were having. They might not know the details, but he had told his landlady, Linda, back in the beginning of September that he was watching the children for his cousin for a couple of weeks. By now, everyone in Dry Creek probably knew there was something wrong.

Even if he was a newcomer, he would be foolish to think they hadn’t asked each other why the kids were still here. Of course, the old men were polite and wouldn’t ask a direct question, at least not in front of the kids, so they probably didn’t know how bad it all was. They probably thought Barbara had called and made arrangements for the kids to stay longer.

“Speaking of letters, maybe we could write a letter to the new woman and tell her we all want a bakery more than a ballet school,” Charley finally broke the silence with a suggestion.

“We can’t do that,” Jacob said with a sigh. “You don’t write a letter to someone who’s right across the street. No, we need to be neighborly and tell her to her face. It isn’t fair that we let her think she’ll make a go of it here with that school of hers.”

“Well, I can’t talk to her,” Charley said. “I’m the one who promised her everything would be fine.”

“Too bad she wasn’t the one who was deaf,” one of the other men muttered.

“I’m not deaf. I had a bad connection is all,” Charley said. “It could happen to anyone.”

“Maybe he could go talk to her,” the other man said, looking up at Judd. “He seems to hear all right.”

Judd felt his stomach knot up at the idea. “I got to count me out some nails. I’m building a fence.”

He walked back to the shelves that held the boxes of nails. Amanda and Bobby trailed along after him. Judd looked down at Bobby. “Why don’t you take your sister and go across to the café and put your order in for some of that cocoa? Tell Linda I’ll be along in a minute.”

The Linda who ran the café was also his landlady. She was renting him the Jenkins place, with an option to buy come next spring. Judd had saved the few thousand dollars the state had given him when it settled his uncle’s estate and added most of the other money he’d gotten to it for the past six years.

He’d started out working as a ranch hand, but the wages added up too slowly for him, and so he’d spent the next couple of years on the rodeo circuit. He’d earned enough in prize money to set himself up nicely. Right now, he had enough money in the bank to buy the Jenkins place, and he’d already stocked it with some purebred breeding cattle. He could have bought the place outright, but he wanted to take his time and be sure he liked it well enough before he made the final deal. So far, the ground had been fertile and the place quiet enough to suit him.

Judd watched Amanda and Bobby leave the hardware store before he reached into the nail bin and pulled out another nail. Fortunately, the older men had given up on the idea that he should talk to the new woman. They probably realized he’d botch the job.

Outside of talking with Linda at the café and smiling politely when Mrs. Hargrove had delivered the books the school had sent him when he’d decided to homeschool the kids, Judd hadn’t had a conversation with a woman since his cousin had left the kids with him. Well, unless you counted the court clerk he’d talked to on the phone.

Judd never had been much good at talking to women, at least not women who weren’t rodeo followers. He had no problem with women at rodeos, probably because they did most of the talking and he always knew what they wanted; they wanted a rodeo winner to escort them around town for the evening. That didn’t exactly require conversation, not with the yelling that spilled out of most rodeo hangouts in the evening.

As long as his boots were polished and his hat on straight, the rodeo women didn’t care if he was quiet. He was mostly for show anyway—if he was winning. If he wasn’t winning, they weren’t that interested in talking to him, or even interested in being with him.

The few temporary affairs he’d had with rodeo followers didn’t leave him feeling good about himself, so eventually he just declined invitations to party. By then he was counting up his prize money after every rodeo anyway, with an eye to when he could leave the circuit and set himself up on his own ranch.

In those years, Judd hadn’t known any women outside of rodeo circles, and he thought that was best. Judd never seemed to know what those women were thinking, and he didn’t even try to sort it all out. He liked things straightforward and to the point. The other kind of women—the kind that made wives—always seemed to say things in circles and then expect a man to know what they meant. For all Judd knew, they could be speaking Greek.

Judd had a feeling the new woman in Dry Creek was one of that kind of women.

No, he wasn’t the one to talk to her about what she was doing here, even though he had to admit he was curious. She sure knew how to hang a sign in that window.

Chapter Three

Lizette shifted the sign with her left hand and took a deep breath. It had taken her the better part of three days to get the practice bar in place along the left side of the room and the floor waxed to a smooth shine. She still had the costumes hanging on a rack near the door waiting to be sorted by size, but she’d decided this morning it was time to put the sign she’d made in her window and start advertising for students.

She could still smell the floor wax, so she’d opened the door to air out the room even though it was cold outside. At least it wasn’t snowing today.

Lizette had bought a large piece of metal at the hardware store yesterday and some paint so she could make her sign. The old men sitting around the stove in the store had obviously heard she was setting up a business, because they were full of suggestions on how she should make her sign.

Of course, most of the words centered on the Baker part of the school’s name, but she couldn’t fault them for that. She was heartened to see they had so much enthusiasm for a ballet school. If this was any indication of the interest of the rest of the people in the community, she just might get enough students to pull off a modified Nutcracker ballet for Christmas after all. She’d even assured the men in the hardware store that no one was too old to learn some ballet steps. In fact, she’d told them that lots of athletes used ballet as a way to exercise.

The old men had looked a little dismayed at her comments, and she wasn’t surprised. At their age, they probably didn’t want to take up any exercise program, especially not one as rigorous as ballet. “You’d want to check with your doctor first, of course,” Lizette added. “You should do that before you take up any new exercise program.”

The men nodded as she left the hardware store. All in all, they’d been friendly, and she wasn’t so sure she wouldn’t get a student or two out of the bunch. And if she didn’t get any students, at least she’d gotten some good neighbors. One of them had already been over to check on the smoke coming out of the small kitchen off the main room when she’d been baking some cookies earlier and had forgotten they were in the oven. He’d even offered to bring her over some more flour if she was inclined to continue baking. He’d expressed some hope of a cherry pie.

The chair Lizette stood on gave her enough height so she could lift the sign and hook it into the chain she’d put up to hang it with. The sign had a white background with navy script lettering.

Lizette planned to take a picture of the sign later and send it to Madame Aprele. She wasn’t sure she’d tell her old teacher that she didn’t have any students yet, but she could tell her that the school was almost ready for classes now that the practice bar was in place. Lizette had planned to use a makeshift practice bar at first, because she couldn’t afford a real one. Madame Aprele had surprised her by sending her one of her own mahogany bars. Her old teacher had shipped it before Lizette left Seattle, and Linda, next door in the café, had kept it for Lizette until she arrived.

Lizette had called Madame Aprele, thanking her and insisting that she accept payment for the equipment. It would help enough, Lizette explained, if she could just pay for the bar over time. She didn’t add that she had no need of charity. Madame Aprele agreed to let Lizette make payments if Lizette promised to call her with weekly updates on her school.

At first Lizette was uncomfortable promising to call Madame Aprele, because she knew her mother would disapprove. But then Lizette decided that whatever problem there had been between her mother and Madame Aprele, there was no need for her to continue the coldness.

Twenty years ago when Madame Aprele had bought the school from Lizette’s mother, the two women had been friends. But, over the years, Jacqueline spoke less and less to Madame Aprele until, finally, her mother wouldn’t even greet the other women when she picked Lizette up after ballet class.

At the time, Lizette didn’t understand why. Now she wondered if her mother didn’t look at Madame Aprele and wish her own life had turned out like the other woman’s.

Not that there was anything in Jacqueline’s life to suggest she wished for a different one. Madame Aprele had been born in France in the same village as Lizette’s mother. Both women had studied ballet together and had left France together. Lizette’s mother had become more Americanized over the years, however, especially after she’d started working in the bakery.

As Lizette’s mother became more conservative in her dress, Madame Aprele became more outrageous, until, in the end, Lizette’s mother looked almost dowdy and Madame Aprele looked like an old-fashioned movie star with her lavender feather boas and dramatic eye makeup.

Lizette stepped down from the chair just as she saw two little children cross the street from the hardware store. The sun was shining on the window so Lizette could not see the children clearly, but she could tell from their size that they were both good prospects for ballet.

Lizette didn’t know how to advertise in a small town like Dry Creek, but she supposed she could ask about the children at the hardware store, find out who their parents were and send them a flyer.

When the children passed her door, they stopped. The little girl was staring at something, and it didn’t take long for Lizette to figure out what it was. The sunlight was streaming in, making the Sugar Plum Fairy costume sparkle even more than usual. Lizette’s mother had used both gold and metallic pink on the costume when she’d made it, and many a young girl mistook it for a princess costume.

“If you go ask your mother if it’s okay, you can come in and look at the costumes,” Lizette said. She doubted things were so casual in Dry Creek that parents wanted their children going into strange stores without their knowledge.

The girl whispered something in the boy’s ear. He nodded.

Lizette had walked closer to the children and was starting to feel uneasy. If you added a few pounds and took away the scared look in their eyes, those two kids looked very similar to that snapshot she’d seen several days ago. She looked up and down the snow-covered street. There were the usual cars and pickups parked beside the hardware store and the café, but there were no people outside except for the two children. “Does your mother know where you are?”

Both children solemnly nodded their heads yes.

Lizette was relieved to know the children had a mother. Their father hadn’t looked like much of a parent, but hopefully their mother was better.

“Our mother won’t mind if we look at the dress,” the boy politely said after a moment and pointed inside. “That one.”

The rack was very close to the door and Lizette decided she could leave the door open so the children’s mother could see them if she looked down the street. Really, if she moved the rack closer, the children could touch the costumes while they stood outside on the sidewalk.

Lizette pushed the costume rack so it was just inside the door. “The pink one is my favorite, too.”

Lizette watched as the little girl reached out her hand and gently touched the costume.

“That’s the dress for the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker ballet,” Lizette said.

“What’s a ballet?” the boy asked.

Lizette thought a moment. “It’s like a play with lots of costumes and people moving.”

“So someone wears that dress in a play?” the boy asked.

The boy and Lizette were both seeing the same thing. The little girl’s face was starting to glow. One moment she had been pale and quiet, and the next her face started to show traces of pink and her eyes started to sparkle.

For the first time, Lizette decided she had made the right decision to come to Dry Creek to open her school. If there were more little girls and boys like this in the community, she’d have a wonderful time teaching them to love ballet.

Chapter Four

Lizette heard a sound and looked up to see a half-dozen men stomping down the steps of the hardware store and heading straight toward her new school. She wasn’t sure, but she thought every one of the men was frowning, especially the one who was at the back of the group. That man had to be forty years younger than the other men, but he looked the most annoyed of them all.

“The children are still just on the sidewalk,” Lizette said when the men were close enough to hear. While she hadn’t thought anyone would want children to go into a building alone, she certainly hadn’t expected there would be a problem with them standing on the sidewalk and looking at something inside. If the citizens of Dry Creek were that protective of their children, she’d never have any young students in her classes.

Lizette braced herself, but when the men reached her, they stood silent. Finally, one of them cleared his throat, “About this—ah—school—”

“The children will all have permission from their parents, of course,” Lizette rushed to assure them. “And parents can watch the classes any time they want. They can even attend if they want. I’d love to have some older students.”

The younger man, the one who had hung back on the walk over, moved closer to the open door. He seemed intent on the two children and did not stop until he stood beside them protectively. Lizette noticed that the young boy relaxed a little when the man stood beside him, and the girl reached out her hand to touch the man’s leg. She knew the man wasn’t the children’s father because she’d met that man already. Maybe he was their stepfather. That would explain why the father hadn’t known where the children lived.

“Well, about the students—” The older man cleared his throat and began again. “You see, there might be a problem with students.”

“No one has to audition or anything to be in the performances,” Lizette said. She wasn’t sure what was bothering the men, but she wanted them to know she was willing to work with the town. “And public performance is good for children, especially if it’s not competitive.”

“Anyone can be in the play,” the boy said softly.

The men had all stopped talking to listen to the boy, so they all heard the next words very clearly.

“I’m going to be a Sugar Plum Fairy,” the girl said, and pointed to the costume she’d been admiring.

Judd swallowed. Amanda never talked to anyone but Bobby, and then only in whispers. Who knew all it would take was a sparkly costume to make her want to talk?

“How much is the costume?” Judd asked the woman in the doorway. He didn’t care what figure she named—he’d buy it for Amanda.

“Oh, the costumes aren’t for sale,” the woman said. “I’ll need them for the performance, especially if I want to have something ready for Christmas. I won’t have time to make many more costumes.”

“About this performance—” The older man said, then cleared his throat.

Lizette wondered what was bothering the old man, but she didn’t have time to ask him because the younger man was scowling at her.

“So the only way Amanda can wear this costume is if she’s in your performance?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t say it was my performance.” Lizette felt her patience starting to grow thin. “All of the students will see it as their performance. We work together.”

“About the students—” The older man began again and cleared his throat for what must have been the fourth time.

“I’ll sign Amanda up,” the younger man said decisively. “If she signs up first, she should get her pick of the parts, shouldn’t she?”

“Well, I don’t see why she can’t be the Sugar Plum Fairy,” Lizette agreed. After all, Lizette herself would be choreographing the part for the children’s ballet, and could tailor it to Amanda’s skills. She’d just gotten her first student. “She’ll have to practice, of course. And we’ll have to have a few more students to do even a shortened version of the Nutcracker.”

The younger man squeezed the boy on his shoulder.

“I’ll sign up, too,” the boy offered reluctantly.

“There—I have two students!” Lizette announced triumphantly. “And I only just hung up my sign.”

The older man cleared his throat again, but this time he had nothing to say. All of the older men were looking a little stunned. Maybe they were as taken aback as she was by the fierce scowl the younger man was giving them.

“You might want to see a doctor about the cold you’re getting,” Lizette finally said to the man who had been trying to talk. “Usually when you have to clear your throat so often, it means a cold is coming on.”

The older man nodded silently.

“And you might ask him about taking up ballet while you’re there,” Lizette said. “Just to see if the exercise would be all right for you. Now that I have two students, I can begin classes, and you’d be more than welcome.”

Lizette decided the older man definitely had a cold coming on. He had just gone pale. He even looked a little dizzy.

“You’ll want to wait until you’re feeling better before you start though,” Lizette said to him. That seemed to make him feel better. At least his color returned.

“I’ll think about it,” he mumbled.

Lizette nodded. She knew she couldn’t manage for long on the income she’d get from two students, but just look how much people wanted to talk about her school. With all of that talk, she’d get more students before long.

Lizette smiled up at the younger man. He might scowl a lot, but she was grateful to him for her first two students. “Your wife must be happy you take such good care of the children.”

The young man looked down at her. “I don’t have a wife.”

Lizette faltered. “Oh, I just thought that because their father showed me their picture that—”

“You know the kids’ father, Neal Strong?”

If Lizette thought the men had been quiet before, they were even more silent now.

“No, I don’t know him. Some man just showed me their picture in Forsyth when he asked me to give him a ride out this way. He said they were his kids and he was trying to find them. He probably didn’t know the address or something.”

Judd felt Amanda move closer to his leg, and suddenly he had as great a need to be close to her as she had to be close to him, so he reached down and lifted her up even though he had his heavy farm coat on and it probably had grease on it from when he’d last worked on the tractor.

“Don’t worry,” Judd whispered into Amanda’s hair when she snuggled into his shoulder.

Judd reminded himself that the papers Barbara had shown him when she left the children with him included a court order forbidding the children’s father from being within one hundred yards of them.

Judd knew the court clerk well enough now that he could ask for a copy of the court order if he needed one. Of course, that would mean the clerk would guess that the children were with him. No, there had to be another way. Besides, he didn’t actually need a copy of the order for the court to enforce it.

“You’re sure it was him?” Judd turned to ask the woman. He didn’t know how the children’s father would even know where they were unless Barbara had told him.

“He had a picture and he said he was their father,” Lizette said. “He had a snake on his arm.”

Amanda went still in Judd’s arm. The kids had told him about the snake.

Judd nodded. He should have figured something like this would happen. He wondered if his cousin had gotten back with her husband, after all. Generally, Judd was a supporter of married folks staying together. But some of the things Bobby had let slip while he was at Judd’s place would make anyone advise Barbara to forget her husband.

The one thing Judd knew was that he didn’t want that man to come within shouting distance of the children.

“You have a lock on this place, I suppose,” Judd said as he looked inside the building the woman was going to use for her school. If he brought the kids to the lessons and then came back to pick them up, they should be safe.

“I could put a lock on,” one of the older men spoke up. “It’s no trouble. They have some heavy-duty ones over at the hardware store.”

“And it wouldn’t hurt Charley here to come over and sit while the kids have their lessons,” another older man offered. “He always complains that the chairs at the hardware store are too hard anyway. Now that he’s got his fancy phone, he can call the sheriff any time, night or day.”

Judd nodded. It felt good to have neighbors, even if he hadn’t been very neighborly himself. He wasn’t sure what he could do to repay them, but he intended to try. “I’ll be watching, too.”

“Is something wrong?” Lizette looked at the men’s faces.

“Their father isn’t fit to be near these kids—even the court says so,” Judd said quietly. He could see the alarm grow on Lizette’s face. “Not that you have to worry about it. We’ll take care of the guarding. You won’t even know we’re here. We can even sit outside.”

“In the snow?” Charley protested.

“Of course you can’t sit outside in the cold,” Lizette said. “I’ll put some chairs along the side of the practice area. And I’ll be careful about who else I accept as students. I’ll check references on any grown man who wants to join the class.”

Charley snorted. “Ain’t no grown man hereabouts that’ll sign up. Not if he wants to keep his boots—”

One of the other older men interrupted him. “I thought you was gonna sign up yourself, Charley. You can’t just sit and watch everyone else practice. That wouldn’t be right.”

“Why, I can’t do no ballet,” Charley said, and then looked around at the faces of his friends. “I got me that stiff knee, remember—from the time I was loading that heifer and it pinned me against the corral?”

“The exercises might even help you then,” Lizette said. “We do a lot of stretching and bending to warm up.”

If Judd hadn’t still been thinking about the children’s father, he would have laughed at Charley’s trapped expression. As it was, he was just glad Charley would be inside with the children. For himself, Judd thought, he’d set up a chair outside the door, so he could keep his eyes on who was driving into Dry Creek.

Judd didn’t trust the children’s father and was determined to keep the man as far away from Dry Creek as possible. First thing in the morning Judd decided he’d tell Sheriff Wall all about the court order.

Judd had only met the sheriff once, but he trusted the man. Sheriff Wall might not be one of those big-city sheriffs who solved complicated crimes, but he had the persistence and instincts of a guard dog. And the man knew every road coming near Dry Creek, even the ones that were just pasture trails. The kids would be safer with Sheriff Wall on the job.

“I can pay in advance for the lessons,” Judd announced. He didn’t like the sympathetic look the ballet woman was giving the kids now that Charley had accepted his fate. Judd didn’t want the woman to think they couldn’t pay their way, especially not when she’d have to give special attention to the security of her classroom.

“There’s no need to pay now,” the woman protested.

But Judd already had two twenty-dollar bills in his hand and he held them out to her. “Let me know if it costs more.”

“That should cover their first couple of lessons,” Lizette said as she took the money and turned to a desk in a corner of the large room. “Just let me get a receipt for you.”

Judd watched the woman walk over to the desk. He couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t just walk—she actually glided. He supposed that was what all of that ballet did for a body.

Judd tried not to gawk at the woman. The fact that she moved like poetry in motion was no excuse for staring at her.

Judd heard a soft collective sigh and turned to see all the old men watching the woman as if they’d never seen anyone like her before. Charley had obviously forgotten all about his reluctance to be in the class.

“There’s no need for a receipt,” Judd said.

The woman looked up from the desk. Even from across the room he could see she was relieved. “But you should have one anyway. Just as soon as I get all my desk things organized, I’ll see that you get one. I could mail it to you, if you leave me your address.”

“I’m at the Jenkins place south of town. Just write Jenkins on the envelope and leave it on the counter in the hardware store.”

It had taken Judd two weeks to figure out the mail system in town. The first part was simple. The mail carrier left all of the Dry Creek mail at the hardware store, and the ranchers picked it up when they came into town. The second part still had Judd confused. For some reason, if he wanted to get his mail sooner rather than later, he still had to have it addressed to the Jenkins place even though no one by the name of Jenkins had lived on the ranch for two years now.

When Judd finally bought the Jenkins place, he told himself he’d get the name changed. He’d asked the mail carrier about it, and the man had just looked at him blankly and said that’s what everyone called the place.

Judd vowed that once he had the children taken care of and the deed to the place signed, he’d take a one-page ad out in that Billings paper everyone around here read. He’d make sure people knew it wasn’t the Jenkins place anymore.

But, in the meantime, he didn’t want to have the woman’s envelope returned to her, so he’d go along with saying he lived at the Jenkins place.

The woman nodded. “I know about the hardware store. I’ve been meaning to post an announcement about the school so everyone will know that we’re currently taking students.”

“About the students—” one of the old men said and then cleared his throat. “You see, the students—well, we’re not sure how many students you’ll have.”

“Of course,” Lizette assured him. She knew she needed a few more students to do the ballet, but surely three or four more would come. “No one knows how many people will answer the flyer I put up. But I need to start the classes anyway if we’re going to perform the Nutcracker ballet before Christmas.”

Lizette figured the students who came later could do the parts that involved less practice.

“Christmas is only five weeks away,” Judd said and frowned. He knew when Christmas was coming because he figured his cousin would surely come for the children before Christmas.

Judd had gone ahead and ordered toys for the kids when he’d put in a catalog order last week, but he thought he’d be sending the presents along with them when their mother picked them up. Thanksgiving was next week, and it was likely the only holiday he’d have to worry about. He figured he could cope with a turkey if he could get Linda to give him some more basic instructions. She’d already told him about some cooking bag that practically guaranteed success with a turkey.

“I don’t suppose you have a real nutcracker in that ballet?” one of the older men asked hopefully. “I wouldn’t say no to some chopped walnuts—especially if they were on some maple doughnuts.”

“You know there’s no doughnuts, so there’s no point in going on about them,” Charley said firmly as he frowned at the man who had spoken. “There’s more to life than your stomach.”

“But you like doughnuts, too,” the older man protested. “You were hoping for some, too—just like me.”

“Maybe at first,” Charley admitted. “But I can’t be eating doughnuts if I’m going to learn this here ballet.”

Lizette smiled as she looked at the two men. “Well, I do generally make some sort of cookies or something for the students to eat after we practice. I guess I could make doughnuts one of these days.”

“You mean you can bake doughnuts?” Charley asked. “I didn’t know anyone around here could bake doughnuts.”

Lizette nodded. “I’ll need to get a large Dutch oven, but I have a fry basket I can use.”

“Hallelujah!” Charley beamed.

“And, of course, I’d need to have some spare time,” Lizette added.

“And she’s not likely to have any time to bake now that she’s starting classes,” Judd said, frowning. It would be harder to guard the kids if every stray man in the county was lined up at the ballet school eating doughnuts.

Judd told himself that it was only his concern for the safety of the kids that made him worry about who was likely to be visiting the ballet school. He’d been in Dry Creek long enough to know about all the cowboys on the outlying ranches.

A woman like Lizette Baker was bound to attract enough attention just being herself without adding doughnuts to the equation.

Not that, he reminded himself, it should matter to him how many men gawked at the ballet teacher. He certainly wasn’t going to cause any awkwardness by being overly friendly himself. He was just hoping to get to know her a little better.

She was, after all, the kids’ teacher, and he was, for the time being, their parent. He really was obligated to be somewhat friendly to her, wasn’t he? It was his duty. He was as close to a PTA as Dry Creek had, since he was the almost-parent of the only two kids in her class right now. If Bobby and Amanda were still with him in a few months, he’d have to enroll them in the regular school in Miles City instead of homeschooling them. But, until then, it was practically his civic duty to be friendly to their ballet teacher. And he didn’t need a doughnut to make him realize it.

Chapter Five

Lizette worried there was something wrong with her. She thought she had been working through the grief of her mother’s death, but maybe she was wrong. After all, she hadn’t had that much experience with mourning, and the chaplain at the hospital had talked about going through different stages of grief.

Lizette wondered if one of those stages of grief was twitching.

Here she was wrapping up the day’s dance lesson, and her mind wasn’t concentrated on the three people who were her students or the five more students she needed if she was going to pull off even a modified version of the Nutcracker ballet. Instead, she was all jumpy inside, and her gaze kept going to the window, where she could see Judd sitting on the steps of her school and looking out to the street with a scowl on his face.

If she didn’t get a firm hold on herself, she’d be actually twitching when she looked at that man.

Lizette had had three days of lessons now, and for the better part of all of those days Judd had had his back turned toward her and the students. The first day she didn’t notice his silence and his scowls. The second day she noticed, but she didn’t feel the need to do anything about it. Today, she felt obsessed by the man.

She kept fighting the urge to go out and talk to him—and that was after she’d already been outside five times today to ask him questions. She didn’t have much to talk about either, except for the weather, and how many times could she ask if it looked like it was going to snow? He’d think she was dim-witted. There wasn’t even a cloud in the sky anymore.

She kept expecting each time she went out and asked the man a question that she would then be able to move on with her lessons with a focused mind.

She was still waiting for that to happen.

The really odd thing was that nothing had changed in those three days.

She didn’t need to see his face to know he wore the same scowl he’d worn every day so far. Every time today she’d found an excuse to slip outside and ask him a question, she’d known he’d have the same fierce look on his face even before she opened the door.

Lizette wondered if Judd thought his look would keep strange cars off the street in front of the school. Actually, he might be right about that one. That scowl of his would stop an army tank from approaching him.

With all of the frowning, Lizette knew there was no sane reason she should feel drawn to go up and talk to him. But she was.

She thought it might be his shoulders. For as hard as his face scowled, his shoulders told a different story. It wasn’t anger he was feeling, but worry. Anxiety hung on his shoulders. It was there in the way he angled his head when he heard a sound and the way he stood to take a look down the road every half hour or so.

Judd was taking his duty seriously, and he was worried.

That’s it, Lizette thought to herself in relief. She found him compelling because he was protecting the children. She’d just lost her mother, and the man was obviously doing everything he could to guard the children in his care. That made him an unconscious picture to her of her mother, she told herself. She’d be as attracted to a chicken if it sat there guarding its eggs. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was a man. He was simply a concerned parent.

Lizette felt better having figured that out. Not that she would have been opposed to finding the man attractive as a man, she just didn’t have time for that kind of distraction right now. She only had three students—Amanda, Bobby and Charley. She needed to worry about getting more students instead of thinking about some man’s shoulders.

And, yet, she let herself walk over to the doorway. Bobby and Amanda were sitting on the wooden floor untying their dance shoes. Since Charley wore socks instead of dance shoes, he didn’t have to worry about ties. Instead, he was pulling in his stomach and admiring himself in the mirror she’d hung behind the exercise bar. None of her students needed her immediate attention.

“They’re almost done,” Lizette said as she walked out on the porch and crossed her arms in the chill. At least she wasn’t asking about snow this time, even though the air felt cold enough for it. She always wore black tights and a black wrap-around dress when she practiced. Unfortunately, the dress was sleeveless. “Aren’t you cold out here waiting for the kids?”

Judd looked up at Lizette and forgot to frown. He almost forgot to breathe. She was standing in front of the sun, and although the temperature was low enough outside to make his fingers ache if he didn’t keep them in his pockets, the sun was shining brightly and she looked as though she was rimmed with gold. Her black hair was pulled back into a bun, and the smooth lines of her head made him think of an exotic princess. Her face was smooth and, even without lipstick, she looked like a picture he’d once seen of Cleopatra. The flimsy black thing she had draped over her made her look as if she was in constant motion. No wonder there had been so many wars fought back in Cleopatra’s day.

Judd was outclassed and he had sense enough to know it. All he asked was that he not embarrass himself around her. “It’s not that cold. Forty-six, last I checked.”

“Yes, well.” Lizette smiled.

“And no snow,” Judd added.

He’d already figured out that it wasn’t snow she was worried about. The few clouds that had been in the sky this morning were long gone. No, it was the kids’ father she was fretting about. She didn’t know Judd well enough to know that she didn’t have to worry about him leaving his post.

Not that he minded her coming out to check on him. He knew he hadn’t been around many women in his life, but he didn’t remember women being this naturally beautiful. He almost smiled in return. “So the kids are almost finished? Did they do all right?”

Lizette smiled even wider. “You do make a good mother.”

“What?” Judd choked on the smile that didn’t happen. Had he heard her right? She thought he made a good mother? A mother?

“I mean with all of your concern and all,” Lizette continued.

Judd grunted. He’d known he was out of her class, but he hadn’t realized he was that far out of it. A man didn’t get further away from date material than having a woman think of him as a mother.

“I used to ride rodeo.” Judd thought he owed it to himself to speak up. “Won my share of ribbons, too. Bronc riding and steer wrestling. They’re not easy events. I placed first in 2003 in bronc riding at the state fair in Great Falls.”