Sugar Plums for Dry Creek & At Home in Dry Creek by Janet Tronstad Read Free Book Online Page A

mother.”
    â€œWhat?” Judd choked on the smile that didn’t happen. Had he heard her right? She thought he made a good mother? A mother?
    â€œI 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.
    â€œI used to ride rodeo.” Judd thought he owed it to him self 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.”
    â€œIs that where you got your scar?”
    Judd had for got ten he had a scar on the right side of his fore head. The scar hadn’t made any difference to his life, and he no longer even really saw it when he shaved. “No, I got that in a fight.”
    Judd didn’t add that it had been a snow ball fight when he was eight years old. He’d been dodging a snow ball and hadn’t seen the low-hanging branch of the tree. He wasn’t going to admit he had got the scar playing, how ever—not when he was talking to a woman who thought of him as a mother.
    â€œI’ll bet you’re strong,” Lizette said, and al most shook her self. That was the most obvious come-hither line a woman had ever uttered, and she felt foolish saying it. Unfortunately, it either wasn’t obvious enough for Judd, or he was just not interested. It didn’t even make his scowl go away. “I mean, of course you’restrong. You’d have to be with the way you swing Amanda around.”
    Lizette had watched the way Amanda ran to Judd after classes. The little girl would run straight at him, and he’d bend down to scoop her up. While Amanda giggled, he’d gently toss her up in the air.
    â€œYou don’t need to worry about Amanda and Bobby’s father. I can take him in a fight if need be,” Judd said. He figured that was what all the talk about how strong he was came from.
    Neither one of them heard the two kids come out on the porch.
    â€œHe has a gun—my dad does,” Bobby said.
    â€œYou don’t need to worry about your father either,” Judd said gently as he put his hand on the boy’s head.
    It had taken Judd a full month to calm the nightmares that woke Bobby up. The boy still wanted to sleep in a cot at the bottom of Judd’s bed. Judd had figured he might as well let him, since Amanda was al ready sleeping on a cot on the right side of his bed. If he wasn’t worried about them rolling out of his bed, Judd would have let the two children share it, and he would have rolled his sleeping bag out on the floor. But the cots were closer to the floor, and the kids seemed to like them.
    â€œBut if he has a gun,” Lizette said, “shouldn’t we let the sheriff know?”
    â€œThe sheriff al ready knows.”
    Judd had given a complete re port. He had even given the sheriff a photo of the kids’ father that had been in one of the suit cases Barbara left with them.
    That photo had given Judd many an un easy moment. The photo was a picture of the two children, Barbara and her husband. He knew it had been taken a couple of years ago because a date was hand writ ten at the bottom of the picture. It had been one of those pictures from a photo booth like the kind you find in an amusement park. Judd had a feeling the family didn’t have many photos. The fact that Barbara had left it for the kids might mean she knew she wasn’t coming back.
    But, right now, the photo was the least of his worries. Judd didn’t like the pale look of both of the kids’ faces. Of course, that might be because they were out side with out their mittens on.
    â€œWhere’d you put your mittens?” Judd asked them as he stood up and herded the two children back into the warm