Sugar Plums for Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

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      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 СКАЧАТЬ