A Match Made in Dry Creek (13 page)

“S
o, do you think you'll ever forgive me?” Curt asked. He leaned back on his shovel and looked at Doris June. He couldn't figure her out. One minute she seemed fine with their past and the next she was going all prickly on him. He thought spending some time alone with her in the pansy patch would give him a better understanding of where she was at, but it hadn't and he was running out of time.

It was late afternoon, and Curt figured this might be their last chance to be alone to talk this through. Both of their parents were so afraid of what questions might come up at the concert tonight that they'd stayed at Mrs. Hargrove's place to bake cookies, leaving Curt and Doris June to do what they could to finish the pansy baskets. Curt knew he couldn't count on their parents leaving them alone once the concert was over.

“It all happened a long time ago,” Doris June slowly said as she used her shovel to lift a clump of dirt with a pansy sticking out of it and place it in the wheelbarrow. “I'd be foolish to still hold a grudge. Grudges only hurt the people who hold them.”

Curt noticed she wasn't looking him in the eye. Instead, she seemed very concerned with the pansy.

“That doesn't exactly answer my question.” Curt touched Doris June's arm to get her attention. He wanted to see the expression in her eyes. “I know it was hard for you.”

“How would you know that? You hit the stop sign and then you took off and left me sitting in the sheriff's office,” Doris June answered him calmly. She did finally look at him though and Curt shivered. She was mad at him, all right. She looked at him as politely as she would if he were a new specimen of the insect family.

“Here, let me take that.” Curt held out his hand for Doris June's shovel. She had started punching it into the dirt at her feet and he didn't think she even realized it. He was afraid she'd accidentally hit one of her feet with it. Or, maybe hit one of his feet, not so accidentally.

Doris June gave up her shovel without complaint and brushed her hair back from the side of her face. She did not seem to realize she had a little bit of dirt on her hand and was leaving a streak of prime farmland on her cheek while she did it. Curt resisted the urge to rub the dirt off or to get sidetracked by telling her about it. The
dirt made her look kind of cute anyway. Fortunately, she'd exchanged her white blouse for the old sweatshirt before they drove out to the farm.

“I left the sheriff's office that evening because I remembered the lights were still on in the pickup,” Curt said. “I didn't want the battery to run down.”

Curt remembered that night. How could he forget it? It had just become dark and the air was cool. Inside the cab of his pickup, however, things were warm and cozy. He had been a proud bridegroom heading off to get married, with Doris June snuggled close under his arm. He was claiming his future, his bride. And then in a minute, it all changed. Instead of being a bridegroom, he was being scolded as if he was a little kid. He was embarrassed in front of Doris June. “I didn't think you much wanted me around, anyway.”

At this Doris June's eyes blazed. “It would have been nice for you to stick around and answer the questions.”

“I thought we'd already been over all of the possible questions.” Curt figured it was good for Doris June to get angry with him and he was going to keep her going until she said it all. Maybe when she got it out of her system, she'd let it go. He pressed on. “I'd already told the sheriff what had happened. How many details did he need? It was almost dark and we hit the stop sign. I wasn't speeding. No one cut in front of us. I wasn't blinded by the sun. I was driving and should have been
more careful. I hit the sign. That was pretty much it. Nobody was even hurt.”

“They could have been.” Doris June pressed her lips together.

“I asked you if you were all right. Whether you had whiplash, or anything.”

Doris June glared at him. “How would I have known if I had something wrong? I'd never been in a car accident before. I didn't know what to expect.”

He hadn't known she'd been scared. Maybe if he'd known, he'd have hugged her instead of running away to hide.

“I didn't mean for it to happen,” Curt said softly. He made sure Doris June was looking at his eyes. He wanted her to know he was sincere. “I was stupid to get mad and walk off like that, but I never meant for any of it to happen. The sheriff was only doing his job. I was just a hothead back then.”

Doris June was still looking at him, but she blinked.

Curt decided he should keep on with it. “I've changed since then, though. I'd like to prove it to you. Isn't there something I can do to make it right between us? I'm so sorry.”

“You broke my heart,” Doris June said as she reached out and picked up her shovel again. “I learned my lesson with you that night.”

Curt forced himself to take another breath. “And what lesson might that be?”

Doris June ignored his question. “I think the wheelbarrow is about full. I can work on the baskets inside the house now.”

And, with that, she walked away and took the wheelbarrow with her.

Curt decided that Doris June had, indeed, learned a lesson from him that night twenty-five years ago. She'd walked away when things were getting interesting, just like he had back then. The only difference was that she didn't look as if she regretted it one little bit and he would do anything for the chance to make changes to that night.

 

Doris June couldn't wait to park the wheelbarrow on the porch and slam the door behind her as she stomped into the house. The sound of the door shutting should let Curt know their conversation was ended. She didn't understand why Curt couldn't just let things be between them. She had actually started to enjoy being around him. And then he had to bring up the elopement. You would think they had been planning to commit high treason the way everybody seemed to want to keep talking about that particular day from the past.

Well, Doris June thought as she picked up a basket, she was going to forget there even was such a thing as an elopement. She slammed the basket down on the kitchen table and yanked a precut section of yellow ribbon off the spool where her mother had rewound it. No one could say it had been her idea to elope anyway.
She poked at the ribbon until it became a bow and then she pushed a couple of pansies into the basket. If she got a chance to talk to the kids at the concert tonight, she was going to be sure and warn every one of them to never, ever elope.

Doris June looked at the basket she had just made. Something about it didn't look right. She frowned. Her mother had made those bows look so easy. Maybe there would be time to put the bows on the baskets tonight after the concert. Ben and Lucy had volunteered to help with the baskets when the concert was over. Lucy would be good with bows. One way or the other, every Mother's Day basket would have a perfectly formed bow on its handle on Sunday morning.

Curt kept his eye on the house while he finished digging up the rest of the pansies. He decided to put the clumps of dirt he'd just dug up in the plastic containers Doris June had left on the hillside. He didn't want to rush her by going down to get the wheelbarrow so he could move the pansies, but he couldn't wait forever. He looked up at the sun. It was about four o'clock and he still had to do some chores at his own farm before he went in to the concert, unless, of course, his father remembered to go out to the farm and do them.

 

At that same time, back in Dry Creek, Charley looked at the clock in Mrs. Hargrove's kitchen and thought about
evening chores. Nelson men had been thinking about their chores at that same time for over a hundred years.

“I wonder if that son of mine will remember the chickens,” Charley muttered as he carefully used a spatula to slide a row of chocolate-chip cookies from the baking tray to the cooling rack. “And the horses will want more hay.”

“Maybe he has other things on his mind besides chores,” Mrs. Hargrove said a little smugly. “We left them alone together, you know.”

Charley grunted. “One of them's probably dead by now.”

“Oh, you.” Mrs. Hargrove waved a cookie spoon in the air. She was making another batch of dough. “I don't think things are going so badly. They're talking at least.”

Charley shrugged as he scooped the last cookie off the tray and flipped it into his hand. “Well, we've done all we can, that's for sure. It's up to God now.”

Charley took a bite out of the warm cookie.

Mrs. Hargrove frowned. “You make it sound like leaving it up to God is a bad thing. God isn't a last resort.”

“I didn't mean it that way exactly,” Charley said, and then hesitated. Mrs. Hargrove didn't take kindly to people as old as he was criticizing the Lord. She figured they should know better. But Charley was never going to get any younger so he figured he might as well say his piece now. “Didn't you ever wonder why God didn't answer our prayers better back then?”

“Well, goodness, what do you mean?”

“Don't you remember? We stood in this very living room with my wife and your husband and asked God to help us. Begged Him to help us. Doris June was up in her room crying and we didn't even know where Curt was then. You suggested that maybe some coffee and prayer would help us figure out what to do about everything.”

Mrs. Hargrove nodded. “I remember.”

“Well, what happened?”

There was silence for a minute.

“I think
I
happened,” Mrs. Hargrove confessed in a rush. “That's why I've felt so bad about this whole thing. I don't think I even tried to wait to see what God would do. I knew what I wanted to do and that was lock Doris June up until she turned thirty.”

Charley nodded. “Well, she's turned thirty, now what?”

“She tells me she still dates,” Mrs. Hargrove said a little sadly. “But I don't think she does. I mean not really. Her heart's not in it.”

“Well, maybe she doesn't want to get married. Not everyone does.”

Mrs. Hargrove looked up at Charley. “She wanted to get married back then. A woman doesn't change that much between seventeen and forty.”

“Of course they do,” Charley said. “They change in all kinds of ways.”

“How do you know that?”

“I read magazines. I keep informed about what the younger generation thinks.”

“I thought maybe Curt has said something to you about Doris June. I thought maybe they'd talked about whether either one of them wants to get married. I mean, just in general.”

Charley grunted. “No, he hasn't said a thing about what they've talked about. I've been meaning to ask him, but—”

Mrs. Hargrove nodded. “We've already butted into their business enough.”

“This time I think we really do need to leave it in God's hands,” Charley said softly.

Mrs. Hargrove sighed and took one of the warm cookies, too. “God keeps me day by day. I've got no doubt about that.” She sighed again. “It's just—”

Charley nodded. “It's hard to accept, I know, but they might not want to get married again after all of these years.”

Mrs. Hargrove nodded as she put her cookie on a scrap of napkin so she could turn around and pull the next pan of cookies from the oven. “I know Doris June likes her independence. She's a great organizer and she's a wonder when she's in charge. Boom. Boom. Things get done.”

“She takes after her mother,” Charley said as he took a sudden interest in his shoe. He felt a little cowardly asking the question when Edith had her back to him and was bent over pulling the cookie sheet out of the oven.
“Makes me wonder if you've ever thought about getting married again.”

“Me?” Mrs. Hargrove stood up so fast she dropped the cookie pan on the floor. “Oh, dear. Look what I've done.”

“You didn't hurt yourself, did you? Those burns can be nasty.” Charley grabbed a towel from the counter so he could help pick up the pan.

“Fortunately, the pan landed right-side up,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “The cookies are all okay.”

“That's good,” Charley said as he helped Mrs. Hargrove lift the pan of cookies to the counter. She had hold of one end of it with a pot holder and he had hold of the other end with the towel. Charley decided he should wait to ask any other sensitive questions until there was nothing hot flying around to burn one of them.

“We'll keep those cookies to the side,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she frowned at the cookies on the pan. “They didn't fall on the floor or anything, but we can't be too careful.”

Charley nodded. “We can never be too careful.”

It was odd, Charley decided. It didn't matter what age they were—the Nelson men always had a tendency to shy away from pressing for a commitment when there was the least sign of trouble. He wondered if it was in their genes. He could only hope that Ben would have better sense, but the boy was the shyest of them all.

Mrs. Hargrove had the next batch of cookies baked when Charley heard Curt's pickup pull up outside.

“That'll be Doris June,” Charley said. “And Curt bringing her back.”

Mrs. Hargrove nodded. “She'll want to change for the concert.”

Charley brightened. “I don't suppose you two are going to wear those pretty dresses again?”

“We'd freeze to death,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “Those things don't have a shred of warmth to them.”

“Yeah, I suppose not.”

“That's one reason my ginghams are so good. They keep a person's bones warm at least.”

“Nothing wrong with your ginghams,” Charley said as he stood up. “I should go help Curt with the chores. Ben is still over at the café practicing away and I can guarantee he hasn't given any thought to the chores.”

Mrs. Hargrove looked up from her cookies. “If you think of it, talk to Curt about—you know.”