Sugar Plums for Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

“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.