“I’m the kids’ dad,” Neal said as waved his gun around. “You must be that cousin of Barbara’s? You look a lot like her.”
Judd felt his smile tighten. “You’ve seen Barbara?”
Neal nodded. “Tracked her down. I told her she had no right to leave the kids off some where. I’m their dad. I say where they’re supposed to be.”
Judd knew he shouldn’t argue with the man, but he didn’t like the scared look Amanda was giving him.
Judd took a casual step closer to the kids. “Bobby and Amanda are with me for now. They’re no trouble. No need to bother your self with them.”
“You and Barbara would like that, wouldn’t you?” Neal sneered. “You’re two of a kind. Bowmans both of you. You’re spoiling the kids.”
So that’s what family is, Judd thought. Hearing your name coupled with some one else’s in a sneer and not even minding it because it meant some one else was in the thick of it with you. What do you know? He did have a family.
“They’re good kids.” Judd took an other step closer to Amanda and Bobby. He figured the gun could go off at any minute, but if it did he had some things to say to some people be fore he died. “I’m not nearly good enough for those kids of yours, but if they were mine, I’d be proud of it. They’re part of my family and I love them both.”
Judd half expected the gun to go off when he said he loved the kids. Maybe Neal Strong didn’t hear him. The words echoed in Judd’s own ears, but that might be because he’d rarely even said he liked anyone in his life. He’d certainly never admitted to loving any one. Love had never been for a man like him. Judd wasn’t sure what love was, so he couldn’t say for sure that’s what he felt when he looked at those two kids holding on to Lizette’s legs, but it must be. He was willing to die to protect them. That had to be something close to the love that made a family a family.
All three pairs of eyes—Lizette’s and the two kids’—looked up at him.
Judd blinked. He wondered what was happening to the air around here that a man’s eyes could tear up just looking at some one.
Judd took the final step that brought him next to Lizette and the kids.
“Now ain’t that touching,” Neal drawled as Amanda and Bobby left Lizette’s legs and wrapped them selves around Judd.
Judd resisted the urge to bend down and lift the children into his arms. Instead, he gently guided both children to the back of his legs so that there would be less of them to be tar gets if Neal was as un settled as he looked.
Judd forced him self to shrug. “It’s still cold in here. They just like to wrap them selves around something warm. That’s all.”
Neal snorted. “You don’t fool me. I don’t let go of what’s mine all that easy. Just ask Barbara.”
“I’ve been wanting to talk to Barbara,” Judd said casually. “Do you know where I can reach her?”
Neal just laughed. “You ain’t get ting nothing out of me.”
“I’d be willing to pay,” Judd said smoothly.
“I’ve got money.”
“I wasn’t thinking of cash,” Judd said. He hoped the police speculation that Neal had been going through drug withdrawal was correct. “I’ve got some white stuff out in the pickup that might interest you.”
“What is it?” Neal said.
Judd saw the look in Neal’s eyes and knew he had him. Hook, line and sinker. “Not something you’d want me to announce right out here in the open.”
“Bring it in.”
Judd shrugged. “If you were interested in it, I’d throw in the pickup, as well. You might want to get out of here be fore any one knows you’re here.”
Neal took a few steps closer to the door, turning as he walked so that every one was still in his range of vision.
“I need your keys.”
Judd tossed him the keys to his pickup.
“Where’s the stuff?”
“In the back of the pickup, along side the hay bales I have in there. I’m not sure what side it’s on.”
“What? You can’t be too careful with the stuff, man.”
“I’m sure you’ll take care of it.” Judd watched as the man walked even closer to the door.
“Is it good?” Neal asked when he had his back at the door.
“Pure as snow,” Judd said as he watched the other man open the door and slide outside.
Judd counted to two. He figured it would take the man that long to get off the steps. “Everybody out the back window.”
Pete was already with him on this one and had opened the back window already. The cold air swept across the barn, but no one noticed.
Judd rushed over to the door and locked it from the in side. It would take the man a while to find the key that had let him into the barn in the first place.
“The little ones first,” Madame Aprele said as she lifted Amanda into Pete’s arms.
Pete lifted the little girl out the window. Then he lifted Bobby.
Charley brought over a chair for the women, and one by one they climbed up to it and then slid out the window with the men’s help.
There was a banging on the door to the barn just as Lizette slid over the window’s edge.
“What did you have in your pickup?” Pete finally turned to Judd and asked. “I didn’t figure you for a user.”
“I’m not. I told him what the white stuff was. It’s snow.”
“Oh, man, he’s going to be mad,” Pete said with a grin on his face.
The gunshot echoed through out the barn.
“Charley, the kids need a guard,” Judd said as he and Pete over ruled the older man’s objection and lifted him out the window. “Get them all some place safe.”
Another gunshot echoed. This one sounded as if it struck metal, which meant Neal had hit the lock.
“Now you,” Judd said to Pete.
But the cow boy was al ready building a barricade of metal chairs. “The others need a few minutes to get away from the window. There’s no cover out this way.”
Judd moved chairs, too. “I can be as distracting as any two men. No sense in both of us being in here.”
Pete flashed him a grin. “I’m the Rat King. I don’t run away.”
Judd only grunted. He was a family man now. He didn’t run away, either.
Something crashed against the barn door, and both Pete and Judd dived be hind their shelter of metal chairs.
“Where are you?” Neal demanded as he swung the door wide open and stepped into the barn. “You think you can fool me. I’ll show you.”
It was silent for a moment. Then Neal said, “I see where you are. Think you can hide be hind a pile of old chairs—now who’s the fool?”
Judd grabbed one of the chairs. Neal would have to come close to them to actually have any hope of shooting them, and when he did, Judd intended to bash him over the head with one of these chairs. It wasn’t much, but with God’s help it might work.
Now, where did that thought come from? Judd wondered. It must be all this church he had been going to that gave him this nagging sense that he should be praying.
A loud creak sounded from the middle of the barn floor. Neal was walking this way.
Oh, well, Judd told him self, if he was going to die on his knees any way, huddled be hind a twisted mess of metal, he might as well figure out if God had any interest in him.
“Come out with your hands up!” The sound of the bull horn made every one jump.
Judd blinked. For a moment there, he’d thought that was God’s voice answering his first feeble at tempt at a prayer.
“What’s going on?” Neal stood in the middle of the room and demanded.
“Come on out now with your hands up!” the voice on the bull horn repeated. “We’ve got you surrounded.”
“Ah, man,” Neal said as he started walking to ward the door. “All I was trying to do was get a good night’s sleep.”
Judd and Pete waited for the door to the barn to close be fore they stood up.
“Well,�
� Pete said.
Judd nodded as he held out his hand to the other man.
Pete shook his hand. “Well.”
Judd nodded.
Then they turned to walk out of the barn together.
Chapter Seventeen
Lizette wondered how she’d be able to hold the ballet with out a Nutcracker. The Friday edition of the Billings newspaper had arrived on the counter in the hard ware store, and the men hadn’t stopped laughing since. On the first page was Edna Best’s lead news story about the shoot-out in the Dry Creek barn. Gossip had circulated that story be fore the paper could, so the only real news was that the police officer who Neal had hit over the head was doing fine.
No, it was the side bar to the story that was gathering every one’s interest this morning. The side bar led to a human interest piece Edna had also writ ten on the ballet that was tucked away on page twelve. The head line read, “Ballet Instructor Teaches Local Rancher, Judd Bowman, How to Kiss Like a Movie Star—Diagram Included.”
Lizette’s heart had stopped when she read the head line. Her ballet performance was doomed. Judd would never show up.
Even more important, her friend ship with him was doomed. He wouldn’t want to be seen with her if people teased him about it, and no doubt some of those ranch hands at the hard ware store were al ready thinking up clever things to say if they saw Judd and her together.
One thing Lizette knew about Judd was that he was a private person. He’d told her he hadn’t talked to the people of Dry Creek for the first six months he’d lived here. She figured that was his way of warning her that he wasn’t the cozy kind of person most women look for in a male friend. She had received the message and decided to ignore it. She didn’t care if he was cozy or not. He was Judd.
She liked Judd and she wanted him to just be who he was. She’d wanted to get to know him better. She’d hoped maybe their friend ship could grow into something more—maybe even the kind of love that people get married over.
But those hopes were all gone. Judd was probably home now planning how he could avoid the town of Dry Creek—and her—for the rest of his life.
It was hard to dream of a future with some one who never wanted to see you again.
Lizette couldn’t exactly blame him, and she figured if he wasn’t going to show up for the rest of her life, then he wasn’t going to show up to night either, so she’d best stop being sentimental and get on with the problem at hand. It was time, she told her self with a mental shake, to go with Plan B. Her heart hadn’t been bro ken. Cracked maybe, but not bro ken. If she pulled her self together, she could think of a way to salvage the ballet performance to night. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it?
It was funny how the answer to that question was not as clear as it had once been.
In fact, after looking at the gun in Neal Strong’s hand two days ago, Lizette had done a lot of thinking about what exactly her dreams were. She’d never been as scared for any one else as she had been for those two children who were clinging to her legs.
Maybe it was time that ballet wasn’t her only dream.
Madame Aprele had been staying in Mrs. Hargrove’s spare room and helping with the last-minute prep a rations for the ballet performance. She could play the Nutcracker part if need be.
Lizette her self, she realized, had more important things to do right now.
There weren’t many places in Dry Creek where a person could sit in silence and think. Lizette told her self that was why she headed for the church. It was as good a place as any, she reasoned, to take the things in her life and add them up so she’d know what she had.
Lizette wasn’t half way across the street be fore she heard the sound of a vehicle starting up be hind the church. Somebody had al ready been there to see the pastor. Lizette wondered if a person was supposed to make an appointment. She’d have to ask.
Glory Curtis, the pastor’s wife, was walking down the center aisle when Lizette stepped in side the church.
“Oh, hi,” Glory said.
Lizette noticed the other woman didn’t seem surprised to see her. “I don’t have an appointment or any thing.”
Glory smiled. “You don’t need an appointment. Most folks just know that my husband has office hours from nine to noon every day be fore he goes over to work the counter at the hard ware store.”
Lizette had heard the pastor partially supported him self by working in the hard ware store. “I don’t need to talk to him for long.”
“Take your time.”
The pastor him self didn’t seem to be in any more of a hurry than his wife had been.
“I’ve never been to see a pastor be fore,” Lizette confessed.
The pastor nodded. “Sometimes when people have been through a traumatic event like having a gun pointed at them, they want to talk to some one. That’s what I’m here for.”
“I should be able to handle it my self. It’s just that it sort of shook me up.”
The pastor nodded. “Shook you up in what way?”
It seemed that the gun pointing at her had shaken her up in more ways than Lizette had thought. Her worries and concerns poured out of her. She’d even signed up for more meetings with the pastor. They were going to study the book of John together.
When Lizette left the church an hour later, she realized she’d completely for got ten about the ballet that was happening this evening. Even more amazing, she didn’t start worrying when she did think about the ballet. She and the pastor had prayed, and God, she reasoned, would pro vide a Nutcracker.
The barn smelled like Christmas. Mrs. Hargrove and Charley had spent the afternoon bringing pine boughs down from the mountains and spreading them around the barn. The other scent was the warm smell of the sugar-plum pas tries that Linda had baked this afternoon in the café ovens.
Lizette had gone back and forth between the café and the church doing last-minute things and being increasingly grateful for her friends. The Nutcracker performance might not live up to its ballet potential, but it was certainly living up to its friend ship potential.
“Here, let me help you with that,” Madame Aprele said as she walked alongside Lizette and offered to carry one of the trays Linda was lending them to display the pastries.
Lizette gave her the lightest of the trays. “If nothing else, people will like the pas tries to night.”
Madame Aprele chuckled. “It’ll all work out fine. You always used to make yourself sick worrying before any of your performances as a child. Remember, I used to say ballet is for fun.”
Lizette grimaced. “It wasn’t for fun in our house.”
“I know,” Madame Aprele said as they both stood on the cement area outside the barn. “I blame myself for not thinking of a way to bring your mother back into the ballet her self. Then she might not have demanded you do it for her.”
“Oh, but she—” Lizette stopped her self. She’d never thought about the fact that her mother could still have danced. She might not have been able to do it professionally, but she could have danced in the productions at Madame Aprele’s. She could have danced the ballet for fun.
Lizette opened the barn door and stood to one side so the other woman could enter.
“With your mother, it was all or nothing,” Madame Aprele said. “If she couldn’t be the star of the show, she didn’t want to be in the show.”
Lizette nodded as they walked down to the end of the barn where the refreshment table was. “She used to say the same thing her self. Well, al most the same. She’d say if I wanted to dance, I should dance the main part.”
Madame Aprele nodded as she put her tray on the table. “Ballet was never for the joy of it with your mother.”
Lizette nodded as she set her tray down, as well. No, ballet was never for the pleasure of it with her mother. She wondered what her mother would do if one of her principal dancers didn’t show for a ballet the way Lizette was expecting would happen to night. Jacqueline would never for give the dancer who didn’t show, Lizet
te knew that much for sure.
For the first time in her life, Lizette didn’t want to be like her mother.
Chapter Eighteen
The first group of people arrived in a noisy car a van of pick ups from the Elkton ranch bunk house. It was snowing slightly, and the men stomped their feet on the cement out side the barn to knock any loose snow off their boots be fore they re moved their hats and went in side the barn.
The Christmas tree in the stage area was lit with hundreds of tiny lights and all of the ornaments that Mrs. Hargrove generally hung on her tree. There were an gels and red birds and golden sleighs. Someone, Lizette thought it had been Charley, had put a small wooden nativity set under the Christmas tree.
Lizette had all of the dancers, except for the Mouse King and the Nutcracker, up in the hayloft so that the audience wouldn’t see their costumes until it was time for the ballet to begin. She had hung a blanket in a corner of the loft so they had a changing room, and all of the children were in their costumes. The children had peeked over the edge of the loft and whispered about how many people were in the audience. Even Mrs. Hargrove and Charley were standing near the edge of the loft.
They all saw Pete come in with his friends.
“We’re up here,” Lizette called, and Pete looked up to where she stood at the top of the stairs leading to the hay loft.
“I’m coming right up,” Pete said as he left his friends.
“We still have a few more minutes,” Madame Aprele said as she, too, walked to where the others stood and put her hand on Lizette’s shoulder. “The children said Judd was coming. That he just had an errand to run in Miles City, and that he’d be back in time.”
Lizette supposed she should be grateful that Judd had brought the children into town at least. “We’ll have to go on with out him if he’s not here.”
Mrs. Hargrove nodded. “There’s still time for him to get here.”
Lizette wondered if she could demand that everyone give her their copy of the diagram she’d drawn of how to stage a kiss. In all of the confusion, she’d left hers on the chair next to Edna. The re porter probably didn’t even realize Lizette didn’t want the diagram published. It had just been an image to go with the text Edna had writ ten. There were now thousands of that image between here and Billings. Some of them were going to be in the barn to night.
Sugar Plums for Dry Creek & At Home in Dry Creek Page 15
