“You said you liked lemon pie,” Lizette re minded him. She tried to keep her voice calm. He was looking 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 living 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?”
Judd groaned. He wanted to scare Lizette away from Pete, not away from the whole town of Dry Creek. “No, I think it was just a little poi son ivy he got in one of the cattle pastures on the Elkton ranch.”
It was this past summer when Pete had stepped into some poi son ivy, but Judd didn’t think he needed to be that specific. The hard ware store had been buzzing with the news the whole week last summer. Apparently poi son ivy was rare in these parts of Montana. But, for all Judd knew, the cow boy still had the occasional itch from the experience.
“I don’t have any poi son ivy on my place,” Judd added just to be on the safe side. “No rashes. No poi son ivy. No mad cow disease.”
“Yes, but—” Lizette stopped scratching and leaned side ways so she could smile at him. “You do have that funny toe.”
Judd didn’t know what had possessed him to try to tell the kids the story of the little piggies. He’d seen a woman in a supermarket once playing the game with her baby’s toes while they sat on a bench be side the bakery. Judd had been so taken with the singsong way the woman had re cited the nursery rhyme that he’d stayed and listened to her for half an hour.
When the kids were so scared that first night they were at his place, Judd had remembered that nursery rhyme. It was the only thing he knew to do to quiet little kids, and Amanda made him tell the rhyme again and again even after she stopped being afraid. Unfortunately, she wanted to use his toes to rep re sent the little piggies, and not her own.
“Amanda thinks my little toe is too big,” Judd finally admitted.
Amanda nodded emphatically. “It’s not the little-piggy toe at all. It’s supposed to go wee-wee all the way home and it’s not wee at all.”
Lizette smiled. “So it’s not bro ken or anything?”
“Nope, just too big,” Judd said.
Lizette smiled at him again, and suddenly Judd felt ten years younger. Maybe he could hope, after all. Maybe she hadn’t noticed he was that much older than she was. Maybe she didn’t care if he had a big little toe. Maybe she wouldn’t even care that he didn’t know much about family life and was a poor prospect as a husband and an even poorer prospect as a father.
Maybe—Judd stopped him self. He would have been safer thinking that he could turn his little toe into a squealing pig than that he could turn him self into some one worthy of Lizette.
Judd brought his dreams to a complete halt. He didn’t know much about family life, but he had learned a few things from the kids while they’d been staying with him, and one thing he did know—it didn’t pay for a man to have dreams that out reached any re al is tic hope he had of grabbing hold of those dreams. He’d miss the kids when their mother came back, but he could live with that pain.
What he couldn’t live with was get ting him self to thinking he could make a home of his own with Lizette. When that dream came crashing down, he’d feel the pain for the rest of his life.
Chapter Twelve
The steps to the church didn’t look as hard to climb at night as they had been on Sunday morning. Maybe it was because Lizette knew there were friendly faces in side. At least she knew what was going to happen this time when she went through those double doors at the top of the stairs.
The kids had given her and Judd complete de tails on what to expect. They’d mentioned that every one sat in the pews and different people went up to set their very own candle on the table next to the pulpit. Then the person would light their candle and tell every one what he or she was thankful for during the past year. Then the person went back to their pew and sat down.
Essentially, Lizette told her self, it was up, candle, thanks and down. She could handle that even in unfamiliar territory like a church.
Lizette had to admit to her self, how ever, that she no longer felt as much like a stranger as she had expected. The people from the church weren’t as critical of her as she had imagined they would be. No one seemed to care if she wore a hat when no one else did or if she had to read the words to the hymns from the song book when every one else knew the words by heart.
So, she told her self, she should relax. Besides, to night there wouldn’t be any les sons on how people should treat each other, so there would be nothing that could cause her any awkward tears. She didn’t want to risk ending up on Judd’s shoulder again. Not after that kiss.
That kiss had been superb acting. She had felt the Nutcracker’s passion all the way down to her toes. But it was the mistake of a novice to imagine that the person acting a role next to you on stage actually meant those feelings for you. That’s what made a play a play. It was pre tend. Lizette thought of all of the actors who had played Romeo and Juliet over the years. Did they get married to each other after the play? No. What happened on stage was pre tend.
Sugar Plums for Dry Creek & At Home in Dry Creek Page 10