A Match Made in Dry Creek by Janet Tronstad Page B

decided it needs emergency watering more than it needs to be put on the table where people are eating. I’m going to let it soak. That thing could have died in there and no one would have even noticed.”
    â€œI’m busy farming,” Curt defended himself with a grin. Now, this was the Doris June he remembered. She’d spent her life in jeans, half-scolding him for one thing or the other. He knew this Doris June better than the woman in a pressed suit that he’d picked up at the airport.
    â€œWhat kind of a farmer is it that lets his houseplants die?” Doris said. “You wouldn’t do that if it was a stalk of wheat.”
    Curt just kept grinning.
    Doris June sat down with everyone else at the table. She hadn’t realized how much everyone was worried about her and Curt until she noticed how they all relaxedwhen she and Curt started to tease each other. Doris June decided she could do this thing with Curt. She would just put a blanket over her feelings and treat him as if he were Ben. Yes, she could do that. If she was lucky, no one would even notice that she was forcing it.
    Charley said a blessing on the food and then Ben started passing the platter of food around the table.
    â€œGreat French toast,” Doris June said to Ben as she finished her first bite.
    â€œYou don’t think I waited too long to flip that one?” Ben asked her. “It’s kind of brown.”
    â€œNot a chance,” Doris June said. “It’s just crispy. My favorite.”
    Doris June told herself that it was an unusual event for her and her mother to come out and have breakfast with the Nelsons. If she moved back to Dry Creek, it wouldn’t happen often. It was just because of the pansies and all. She didn’t think she could pretend enough to do this sort of thing often, but she doubted she would need to do it more than once or twice a year. For one thing, her mother wouldn’t be up all night worrying and would usually be sound asleep at this time still.
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    Curt kept looking at Doris June. He was missing something and he didn’t know what it was. She was acting as if she had forgiven him and that everything was okay between them. The only problem was that she’dnever actually said she forgave him. She’d danced around the topic when he’d said something in front of everyone last night, but the Doris June he knew would forgive a person directly and not by implication.
    He looked at her again. She sure looked like she was okay with him. Maybe she’d changed a little over the years. He was the first one to recognize that age changed the way a person related to others. They’d been teenagers the last time they’d had an argument and needed to ask forgiveness of each other. It probably wasn’t fair to expect a woman in her forties to forgive someone the same way she had when she was seventeen.
    And then again maybe he was just imagining the lack. Maybe she had said she forgave him and he hadn’t heard it with the jumble going on in his own head. Was that even possible?
    Finally, he told himself he should just accept their truce as the gift that it was. She seemed happier around him so maybe she was.
    Doris June offered to do the dishes, but Charley and Mrs. Hargrove insisted that they would.
    â€œThe hot water’s good for my arthritis,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “And Charley doesn’t mind drying, do you?”
    â€œNot at all,” Charley said with a glance at Curt. “Besides, somebody needs to take a look at that old pickup to see if the kids are going to be able to use it in their concert and you can get down and see underneath it better than I can.”
    Curt supposed somebody did need to see if the pickup could be driven. “The battery’s probably dead. Nobody’s even turned the pickup on since I’ve been back. How long has it been, anyway, since you’ve driven it?”
    Charley shrugged as he