A Match Made in Dry Creek by Janet Tronstad Read Free Book Online

twenty-five years ago. Back then, she’d thrown an old flowered duffel bag in the back and given him a knee-bending kiss before climbing into the passenger side of the old Ford pickup his father used to have for hauling small amounts of feed around.
    Curt had been granted the use of that pickup when he turned sixteen and he had planned to drive it to Las Vegas with no hesitation. As he recalled, he hadn’t even known the thing had no insurance. Not that something like that would have stopped him and Doris June back then. They were in love and impatient to be married. Practical concerns like insurance and finishing high school hadn’t entered into their minds.
    Curt could still remember the intensity of the feeling though it had been twenty-five years ago. The only time he had come close to that overwhelming feeling of love was the first time he’d held his son in his arms.
    Curt couldn’t help but wonder if Doris June remembered the feeling like he did. He swore they could have lived on that feeling for the rest of their lives if things hadn’t gone so bad so fast.
    After he’d hit the stop sign while trying to steal another kiss from Doris June, everything had changed. The only part of it that he had ever been able to make right was to pay for the repairs to the fender of his dad’s pickup. He had sent the money home from the first pay he had received in the army. He knew his father might not use the money to fix the fender, but Curt felt good knowing he had paid for it anyway. He only wished the other problems of that accident had been as easy to resolve.
    â€œCurt was kind enough to drive me in to get you,” Mrs. Hargrove chirped as Curt stepped down from the cab of the pickup and walked around the front of his vehicle. He wondered what made the older woman try so hard to be cheerful. The Mrs. Hargrove he knew never put on an act and he couldn’t help feeling that her upbeat voice was forced.
    â€œI could have rented a car at the airport,” Doris June said stiffly. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to bother.”
    â€œIt was no bother.” Torture maybe, Curt thought, but bother? No.
    If it was just him and Doris June in the pickup, Curt would have used the darkness of this ride to tell her that he was a hundred kinds of sorry. But, as sorry as he was, he wasn’t about to bare his soul in front of Mrs. Hargrove. A man had to have some dignity.
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    Mrs. Hargrove had about run out of things to say and the pickup hadn’t even passed the sign that signaled the exit from the airport. It was a bonus that the pickup only had the one seat and Doris June was forced to sit between her and Curt, but Mrs. Hargrove did admit that it made the conversation somewhat strained as Doris June insisted on looking straight ahead. On her lap, Doris June kept the large shopping bag that she’d carried off the plane, so it was almost impossible for Mrs. Hargrove to look over and see Curt’s face.
    Charley would have been much better at this part of it, Mrs. Hargrove fretted as she remarked for the second time that the night was unusually dark and that it looked like the moon was covered with clouds so maybe it would rain tomorrow. Unfortunately, Charley was back at his ranch playing a board game with his grandson and so the conversation fell to Mrs. Hargrove.
    Mrs. Hargrove was never one to shirk her duty, no matter how unpleasant, but it was very difficult to keep a conversation going all by herself. If it wasn’t so important to set the tone for Doris June’s visit home, shewould have been content to let her daughter and Curt sit there without a friendly word between them.
    â€œCurt has been helping me with the pansies,” Mrs. Hargrove finally said. “I don’t know what I would have done without him.”
    â€œIt’s no problem,” Curt mumbled.
    â€œI wish you would have let me come earlier,” Doris June said with a quick smile to