Sugar Plums for Dry Creek & At Home in Dry Creek by Janet Tronstad

five dozen.”
    Amanda took an apple dough nut and Bobby took a maple one.
    Judd was still standing, but Lizette turned the platter to ward him any way. “I know you’re not a student, but you’re working, too.”
    Lizette gave him a small, hopeful smile. Judd would have taken a burnt stick off a platter if she’d offered it to him with that smile. As it was, he picked up the first dough nut he touched—it was a cruller.
    â€œDon’t you need a ma chine or something to makedough nuts?” Judd said after he ate his first bite of pure heaven. “I didn’t know regular people could even make dough nuts like these.”
    Lizette laughed. “All you really need is something to make the holes. Oh, and a Dutch oven, of course, un less you have a deep fryer.”
    Charley took a bite out of his dough nut and started to purr. “I could put in an extra practice session this afternoon if you want.”
    â€œI don’t think that will be necessary,” Lizette said. “But if that’s a hint that you’d like a second dough nut, you can have one any way.”
    â€œAh, well, then,” Charley said as he took an other bite out of his dough nut. “Too bad the boys over at the hard ware store don’t know you’re giving these to your students. They’d be signed up in no time.”
    Judd stopped eating his dough nut. He’d just looked out the window and had seen several of the ranch hands from the Elkton place go into the hard ware store. He supposed it was too optimistic to think they’d come to town to buy nails.
    â€œWell, I could take the tray over to the hard ware store,” Lizette said as she looked out the window in her studio and into the big window in the hard ware store. “We certainly won’t be able to eat all of these dough nuts, and we do need a few more dancers to do the Nutcracker.”
    â€œJacob would appreciate a dough nut,” Charleysaid. “He’s been eating his own cooking for weeks now.”
    â€œWhy don’t you go get Jacob and invite him over,” Judd suggested. So far the hard ware store door was still shut. Maybe the cow boys really had come in for nails. “Just don’t tell him there’s dough nuts here.”
    â€œI know how to keep a secret,” Charley said as he slowly stood up. “Although the pastor might want a dough nut, too, and I wouldn’t feel right over looking those two little boys of his if they’re there.”
    â€œOh, please invite the children,” Lizette said. “I heard the pastor had two boys. I just haven’t had a chance to invite them to ballet class yet.”
    â€œI’m not sure you’ll want them in your class,” Charley said doubt fully. “They have a tendency to be hard on the furniture.”
    â€œThat’s perfect then, because I don’t have any furniture—at least not in the practice area,” Lizette said. So far she had just fixed up the main room in her building. The building had been a grocery store years ago, and it had a nice back room with a kitchen area that she was using as a small apartment for her self. “And if they’re the kind of boys that like to move a lot, I’ll just make them be mice.”
    Amanda giggled. “You can’t turn boys into mice.”
    â€œOh, yes, I can,” Lizette said as she tousled Amanda’s hair. “If I can turn a little girl into the Sugar PlumFairy, I can turn little boys into mice or snow flakes or flowers.”
    â€œI’d rather be a mouse than a flower,” Bobby said.
    â€œWell, we’ll see,” Lizette said as her hand rested on Bobby’s head, too. “Maybe you can even be something more exciting than either one.”
    Judd wasn’t so sure about Lizette’s powers to turn little boys into mice, but watching her casual affection with the children sure turned him into something