A Match Made in Dry Creek (16 page)

D
oris June thought she smelled pansies before she even opened the door to the church the next morning, but maybe it was the smell of the dirt around the pansies. Whatever it was, she took a deep breath. Aaron was walking beside her; her mother and Charley were walking together behind them. Even though Charley hadn't come for breakfast, he had stopped by so that he could walk her mother to church, which Doris June thought was kind of sweet.

Of course, Charley did admit he had enough of an appetite to eat one of Mrs. Hargrove's cinnamon rolls even though he'd already had breakfast at home. The fact that Charley had organized the teenagers last night so well that Mrs. Hargrove didn't have to go in early and finish getting the baskets ready made her more than willing to feed him.

Doris June looked behind her as she walked down the aisle just to be sure her mother and Charley had both made it up the stairs fine.

“You know, really, your mother needs to patent that recipe she uses to make her cooked oatmeal,” Aaron mumbled for the third time as he followed Doris June down one of the aisles. “There are people out there who will try to steal it from her if they get a chance. I've never tasted anything like those sugared chokecherries she puts in it. She could make a fortune with them alone.”

“I don't think that she wants a fortune,” Doris June whispered.

Aaron's eyes went big at that and then he looked around and seemed to realize where he was. “Oh, yeah, sorry. I forgot. That's not good church talk.”

“We don't have special church talk here, Aaron.”

Doris June sat down in a pew and laid Curt's jacket out to the right of her. She certainly wasn't someone to tell people what was holy enough for church. Her mind this morning was a mess and it was all over something as humble as a jacket. She knew she needed to return Curt's jacket, but she didn't want to be wearing it when she had to do that. It would be hard enough giving it back; she didn't want to have the memory of Curt taking if off her shoulders as well. Plus, she needed to find a way to apologize to him and that wasn't going to be easy.

Aaron sat down to the left of Doris June in the pew and then he picked up a hymnal from the rack in front of him.

“Songs, huh?” Aaron muttered, and then looked over at Doris June. “Sorry. I guess I'm just a little nervous. I haven't been to church very often.”

Doris June smiled at him. “We don't bite.”

“Good one,” Aaron said as he gave a little chuckle that seemed more a result of politeness than humor and put the hymnal back in the rack. Then he straightened the cuffs on the sleeves of his long shirt. And rubbed a bit of lint off his suit pants.

Doris June was glad when Pastor Curtis told everyone to rise and sing a hymn. There had been more chatter than usual this morning before the church service and her nerves were on edge anyway. The sound of the congregation here singing hymns always calmed her.

Doris June knew the minute Curt and Ben entered the church. She could hear their voices as they started singing before they even slid into a pew almost directly across from her. She was glad they were here. She hadn't been totally sure that Curt would come to church this morning since he used to avoid coming when she was on her visits home.

The sermon was about the importance of mothers and Pastor Curtis kept it brief so there'd be lots of time for presenting the pansy baskets. Doris June wondered if other people in the church were having as hard a time concentrating as she was because of all of the beauty in the front of the church. A tower of pansy baskets filled
the front wall with all different colors of bows poking out between the flowers and the leaves.

Mrs. Hargrove and Charley both went up to the front when it was time to begin handing out the pansy baskets. They each had some white cards in their hands which looked like speech notes, but the first thing Mrs. Hargrove asked was for Ben to come forward to sing his song and she didn't use notes for that.

No one made a sound as Ben played the guitar and sang his song about the country roads of Dry Creek and how they welcomed him home every time he walked them. Doris June almost cried. She knew just how he felt. She was missing those roads, too, and the people who lived beside them.

Instead of having the mothers all stand this year and just passing the pansies down the rows until each got one, Charley announced that some helpers were going to personally deliver the pansies this year. Most of the local teens who had been at the concert last night were there, and they went to the front of the church. Each teen took a basket from Charley and got whispered instructions from him based on his checklist. The teenagers took baskets to their own mothers first and delivered them with a kiss on their mothers' cheeks.

About that time, Doris June realized she wasn't the only one with tears in her eyes. Of course, with some of the mothers, it might have been tears from the shock at seeing their teenage sons doing something as senti
mental as passing out flowers in church. The kids kept at it until every mother in the church had a basket overflowing with pansies.

And then Ben stood at the pulpit again. “We have a couple of special presentations to people who mean a lot to us, but who aren't mothers.”

Ben then took two baskets from the front and walked down the aisle until he reached the aisle where Doris June sat.

“First, this one is for Aaron,” Ben said as he held out a basket to the man. “Because he worried over us more than any mother would when we had our concert last night and we owe him for that.”

Aaron chuckled as he reached out for the basket. “I'll remember this.”

Doris June wasn't sure if that was a promise or a threat or both. Ben just laughed it off.

“And the other one is for Doris June,” Ben said as he held out a basket. He looked a little shy, but he kept going. “We want her to know we appreciate her letting us go forward with the concert even though it meant she had to kiss my dad.”

A ripple of chuckles greeted this.

Doris June took the basket anyway. “I'll remember, too.”

Ben blushed a little at that.

“Me, too,” he said, and unlike Aaron's earlier words, it didn't sound like a threat.

Once everyone had their baskets, the noise level in the church rose as everyone remarked on the velvet colors of the pansies and the shiny brightness of the bows and how beautiful the baskets were and what a wonderful Mother's Day it was.

“I should have had a picture,” Aaron said as he looked around at the baskets in excitement. “I left my camera in my suitcase. Doesn't somebody have a camera?”

Pastor Curtis dismissed everyone with a special blessing for the mothers in the group. Aaron muttered something to Doris June about seeing the strap of a camera bag on someone's shoulder and he was off to see if he could persuade his target to take a picture of some of the baskets.

Doris June saw her mother walking over to her and she sat back down in her pew. She knew her mother and Charley often straightened the hymn books in the racks after the church service and she suspected her mother was going to sit and wait a bit before she did that job today.

“Happy Mother's Day,” Doris June said to Mrs. Hargrove as her mother came and sat beside her.

“It's been one of the best,” Mrs. Hargrove said with shining eyes. “Did you see? All of those young people came by and gave me a kiss when they were passing out their baskets. They didn't have to—I wasn't even the one they were giving their baskets to.”

“I think you're a mother to more children around here than you realize.”

“I used to feel bad that I wasn't a grandmother,” Mrs. Hargrove admitted sheepishly. “I never realized God has given me all the grandchildren a woman could ever love.”

Doris June smiled. “Certainly all she could ever feed.”

Mrs. Hargrove arched an eyebrow. “That's not to say, I couldn't love more children if you were to—”

Doris June shook her head. “You're incorrigible.”

“I'm just saying if,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “There's nothing wrong with dreaming.”

The crowd in the church had thinned out so Mrs. Hargrove stood up and went to the front of the church to begin straightening up things. She left her pansy basket on the pew.

Doris June kept hoping there would be some reason to put off returning Curt's jacket, but he seemed to be waiting around just as she was, so finally she picked the jacket up and crossed the church to where he still sat.

“I wanted to thank you for lending me this last night,” Doris June said as she held out the jacket. “I should have known it would get cold enough to need a jacket.”

Curt stood up. “That old jacket takes you back, doesn't it?”

Doris June smiled. “It sure does. Thanks again for letting me wear it.”

Curt still didn't take the jacket, even though she was holding it out to him. Finally, he cleared his throat. “I was kind of hoping you'd like to keep it for a while.”

“Really? I mean, I have a jacket at Mom's. I just wasn't wearing it last night.”

“Well, yes, but that one at your mom's is not
my
jacket,” Curt said softly. “I was hoping you would wear my jacket.”

Doris June looked up at him. “What?”

“I figure that's where we went wrong. I should have asked you to be my steady girlfriend instead of my wife. So, I'm asking you to wear my jacket. I would have asked you to wear my class ring, but I couldn't find it.”

“You went looking for your class ring?”

“I thought it was in my sock drawer, but it's not.”

“But why?” Doris frowned.

“I figure I pushed you to be something you weren't ready to be back then.”

“That's not true. I wanted to be—”

Curt put his fingers on her lips. “It's okay. It was my fault.”

“No, it wasn't,” Doris June whispered. “I realized last night that it was all my fault. I'm the one who made us crash into the stop sign. I'm the one who said we had to report it to the sheriff. I'm the one who got our parents involved.”

Curt opened his arms to her at this and she leaned into them. The jacket fell to the pew between them. He smoothed back her hair. “It's okay, I knew you did those things so you wouldn't have to go to Las Vegas with me.”

“You knew?” Doris June lifted her head off his chest so she could look him in the eye.

Curt nodded. “I thought you knew, too. I thought I'd scared you away for good.”

Doris June shook her head. “I swear I didn't know. I just thought things were happening and then you ran out of the sheriff's office and left and— You knew then, didn't you?”

Curt nodded. “I wasn't mad at the sheriff. I thought you weren't interested in me. Not like I was interested in you.”

“But how could you
think
that?”

Curt's shoulder shielded her from a sudden flash, but Doris June knew what it meant anyway. She looked around Curt's shoulder and saw Aaron taking their picture.

“We don't have anything to do with Mother's Day,” Doris June snapped at Aaron. “So you don't need a picture of us.”

Aaron shrugged. “I'm just surprised you can do things like that in church. Kissing and all.”

“We weren't kissing,” Doris June said.

“Well, give me some time here.” Curt grinned. “I'm getting around to it.”

Curt looked over Doris June's head and straight at Aaron. “Just so you know, people kiss all of the time in the church here.”

“Well, maybe in weddings,” Aaron conceded. “And like today, but that's kids kissing their mothers. And I suppose—”

Aaron stopped when he realized no one was listening to him. Curt was kissing Doris June. Aaron looked around
and noticed that two other people seemed as interested in the kiss going on as he was. Mrs. Hargrove and Charley had both stopped arranging the materials in the pew racks and were standing there smiling at their children.

Since no one was watching him anymore, Aaron decided to take one more quick picture. He figured Ben might like it if he put together one of those history videos for his dad's wedding reception. Of course, Aaron was just speculating about the wedding. But then, he told himself as he turned and walked back down the aisle, he was very good at speculation.

 

It was the next Wednesday night before the Nelsons came to the Hargroves for dinner again. This time they had lasagna with garlic bread. It was almost eight o'clock and Mrs. Hargrove and Charley were in the kitchen. They had finished doing the dishes and were sitting at a small table by the back door trying not to strain to hear what was being said in the living room. Which, as they both knew, wasn't that easy to do even though they had purposely left the dining room empty between the kitchen and the living room just so anyone in the living room would know they had privacy.

“Too bad we finished that state form,” Mrs. Hargrove finally said just for something to say. She and Charley had mailed their form to Aaron yesterday. It had been much easier to write once Doris June and Curt were both happy to have the stop sign be the center of attention.

Charley grunted. “With all the worrying we did beforehand, we spent enough time on it.”

Mrs. Hargrove nodded. “Worry isn't always bad, though.”

They sat together for a few more minutes.

“I wonder how Ben is doing over at the café,” Charley finally asked. He kept wondering if it would hurt to sneak into the dining room. Maybe he could hear something of what was going on.

“Ben and Lucy have counted their money so many times already, I don't know why they bother,” Mrs. Hargrove said.

“Well, it gives them something to do where they can be together.”

“At least Linda's there to chaperone them.” Mrs. Hargrove found that, ever since Ben had said such nice things about her, she was starting to fret over him just like a grandmother would.