A Match Made in Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

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      Charley nodded.

      “Here?”

      Charley nodded.

      Curt told himself he should have seen this coming. He knew Doris June didn’t usually come home for Mother’s Day, but this was a special Mother’s Day for Mrs. Hargrove if those pansies were anything to go by. He supposed Doris June would want to spend the day with her mother. He couldn’t begrudge her that.

      “I’ll be happy to lend my pickup to Mrs. Hargrove,” Curt said. “No point in two people making the trip to Billings.”

      Charley nodded. “I’m sure the two of you can work something out.”

      Curt looked over at his father. The man was innocently eating a second pancake and looking as if he hadn’t been anywhere around when the noose had been thrown around Curt’s neck.

      “Linda from the café might be able to drive Mrs. Hargrove to Billings—she can use my pickup,” Curt added. He’d be willing to pay Linda a prime wage to do just that. Doris June liked Linda. She’d be happy to have a ride back to Dry Creek with the young woman. Curt knew Doris June wouldn’t like to see him meeting her at the airport. In fact, she might stay on the plane rather than get in a pickup that he was driving.

      When Curt moved back to Dry Creek four years ago, he had assumed he would see Doris June again. He had even hoped they might have a nice, quiet conversation about what had happened all those years ago. He knew a hole had been burned through his world the day their elopement fell apart, and he couldn’t believe it hadn’t affected Doris June as well. There was no ignoring that hole, but maybe if they talked about what had happened, they could become friends again.

      At the very least, Curt would like to apologize. He’d been impatient back then when he had pressed Doris June to elope with him. He’d been wrong to pressure her and then wrong to run off and join the army when everything fell apart. He’d started to write her a letter many times, but he never found words that said how very sorry he was if he had hurt her.

      He knew he’d hurt himself with his hot-tempered actions. He’d lost the best friend he’d ever had in his life.

      Curt knew better than to hope that someday they could be more than friends. He was a man who believed in the power of prayer to heal things, but even he couldn’t believe Doris June would forgive him to that extent. He knew Doris June. She was a very organized woman, and if she had moved him to the “undesirable” section in her mind, she wouldn’t likely budge from it later. She had been furious with him when they parted twenty-five years ago, and her silence since then told him all he needed to know about how she felt.

      Of course, it hadn’t all been his fault. Curt often wondered if Mrs. Hargrove ever told her daughter how many times he had asked for Doris June’s address in Alaska and been refused. When he thought about it much later, he couldn’t believe that Doris June had forbidden her mother to give him the address, so he laid the blame squarely at Mrs. Hargrove’s feet.

      And the older woman was still at it. The fact that Doris June went out of her way to avoid seeing him when she came to Dry Creek was not lost on Curt. When she came to visit her mother, Doris June always seemed to know where he was—at least, he assumed she must know where he was because she was never at the same place as he was and, in a town the size of Dry Creek, that could only be intentional. Even if Doris June had not asked her mother back then to refuse to give him her address, she was certainly asking her mother to help her avoid him these days.

      It was too bad, Curt told himself as he pushed his chair back from the table and stood up to go get the rest of the pancakes that were in the warm oven. It was definitely too bad. There had been many times over the past twenty-five years when he could have used a friend like Doris June. He liked to believe that she missed his friendship as well. Even if she could never love him again, he wished she could forgive him enough to sit down with him and ask him how his life was going.

      Of course, for her to do that she would have to talk to him again and that didn’t seem likely. Once Doris June made up her mind about something, it stayed made up. She was one stubborn woman. Just like her mother.

      Chapter Three

      Doris June waited for the airplane to come to a complete stop at the Billings airport before she unfastened her seat belt. It was dark outside except for the lights on the runway. Other passengers had started to reach for their overhead luggage, but Doris June was content to live by the rules and stay seated. She had a bag of puzzles in the overhead compartment and she’d wait for the line of people to pass before she pulled it down. She’d gotten to the airport at six o’clock this morning anyway and she was tired.

      She could also use the few extra minutes to go over in her mind what she intended to say to her mother about the quite understandable possibility that her mother’s mental agility was compromised and that her mother might want to be open to receiving some help. Help that Doris June fully intended to give even if she had to pretend to take a series of short vacations to Dry Creek, Montana, to give it.

      In her checked luggage, Doris June had a whole packet of information about how to deal with what she had decided to call “senior confusion.” She hoped that “confusion” was a friendly, befuddled term that would not hurt her mother’s dignity. The one thing that stood out every time she read one of those brochures was that Doris June, being the primary caregiver in the event of anything, should realize her mother needed help and that it should be given as naturally as it would be if her mother had a physical limitation that meant she couldn’t walk or see or hear anymore.

      There was no cause for shame because a person faced a change in mental ability and Doris June intended to see that that message got through to her mother. Her mother was a proud woman and deserved to keep her pride.

      Doris June knew that she was limited in how much help she could give her mother from a distance and she was perfectly willing to spend more time with her mother if that was what was needed. Doris June’s job was going smoothly, and she could afford to take a week off every three months or so. She had already mentioned the idea to her boss, and she had his full support. He knew Doris June was all her mother had and he understood the importance of family obligations.

      There was nothing to prevent Doris June from flying back to Dry Creek regularly to help her mother with odds and ends—things like filling out the form for the state tourism board or maybe doing her taxes. Even if all she did was make pots of soup for her mother to freeze, Doris June would be happy to do it.

      She was even prepared to make the big move and leave her job in Anchorage so she could relocate to Dry Creek. She had thought about doing that anyway before he moved back—not that she was exactly staying away because Curt Nelson was back, but she sure didn’t want it to look like she was moving back home because he was there all single and available.

      If Doris June did move back to Dry Creek, she would want it clearly understood that she was moving back there to do her duty to her mother and for no other reason. The people of Dry Creek had a tendency to gossip about their own and Doris June didn’t want to have any speculation that she was coming back to ignite a love that had died decades ago.

      She’d had enough pity stares over the years to last her a lifetime. She didn’t know why the people of Dry Creek had been so interested in the breakup between her and Curt. People broke up all the time even in a small town in southern Montana.

      Besides, Curt had married that woman from Chicago. What was her name?

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