Free A Match Made in Dry Creek by Janet Tronstad Page A

disagree it can be painful for both people.”
    â€œThey don’t look like they’ve been fighting.”
    â€œWell, but if they had, I’m sure they’d both be sorry and want to say they were sorry. I know I’m sorry about what happened with us.”
    Curt had to admit his apology lacked any kind of flourish, but it was sincere.
    Doris looked up at him as if he was nuts. “What do we have to do with anything? Look at them.”
    Doris June pointed ahead of them and Curt decided he had no option except to look. Their parents were standing in the doorway to the café. Light was streaming out around them and they were standing sideways in the door. Their heads were close together and they were talking.
    â€œThey’re just old friends. That’s all,” Curt said. He couldn’t believe his father and Mrs. Hargrove would change the rules of their friendship after all these years. Besides, he had other things he wanted to talk to Doris June about now that they were alone.
    â€œYour father better not just be stringing my mother along,” Doris June whispered up at him fiercely. “That kind of thing runs in your family.”
    â€œIt does not,” Curt protested. “If you’re talking about you and me, you know I wasn’t stringing you along. I asked you to marry me.”
    Doris June snorted, but she did look up at him. “For ten seconds. Then you were off marrying someone else. You never said anything about your proposal expiring. It didn’t have the shelf life of a piece of cheese.”
    â€œNow, that’s not fair. It didn’t expire. You wouldn’t even talk to me. I didn’t know where you were. I couldn’t even get an address to write to you.”
    Curt knew his apology wasn’t going well. He probably should have reminded Doris June of the good times they’d had as kids before he talked about their separation, but he was running out of chances.
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” Doris June said. “It happened a long time ago.”
    Curt looked down at Doris June’s face. The smile she had on looked too much like the kind of smile a person reserved for a difficult customer who came into a store complaining about some milk that had gone bad. It wasimpersonal and polite. In fact, she wasn’t even focusing on him. She was looking at his chin.
    â€œIt wasn’t that long ago,” Curt said. He wished she would look at him. “And I think we still have issues to work out.”
    Now what had he done wrong? Doris June had stopped even looking at his chin. Instead, she’d turned around and was looking straight ahead at the café. Curt followed the line of her gaze and saw she was still looking at their parents. Curt frowned. His father seemed to be wiping a tear off Mrs. Hargrove’s cheek. He didn’t know whether he was more astonished that Mrs. Hargrove had shed a tear or that his father was tenderly wiping it away.
    â€œSee?” Doris June whispered as she looked up at him.
    â€œI’m sure there’s some explanation,” Curt said.
    â€œLike what?” Doris June demanded.
    Curt squirmed. Now she decided to look him in the eye. “Maybe your mother got a spot of sauce on her cheek from dinner.”
    â€œThere was no sauce at dinner.”
    â€œWell, then, maybe it’s the lipstick she was wearing,” he said.
    â€œShe doesn’t wear lipstick on her cheekbone,” Doris June answered as she started walking toward the doorway of the café. “And what do you know about lipstick anyway?”
    â€œWhat is that supposed to mean?” Curt asked, butDoris June was already walking away from him. The doorway to the café was empty. The two older people and Ben had all gone inside. Only he and Doris June were outside and he was wasting his chance to talk with her privately. At the moment, he didn’t care if Mrs. Hargrove was crying and his father