Dry Creek Sweethearts

Dry Creek Sweethearts
Janet Tronstad

Back From The Big Time…She could scarcely believe her eyes. An enormous tour bus had arrived in Dry Creek, and from it stepped hometown hero Duane Enger, now a music celebrity. Linda Morgan, owner of the local café, had thought her ex-boyfriend had become too famous for the small-town life she loved. But something had pulled Duane back.Maybe he missed a slower, easier life. Maybe he sought to regain his faith. Or maybe it was the girl he'd left behind. Whatever it was, Duane was now finding life in Dry Creek–and Linda–just as intriguing as life in the fast lane.

“I thought you’d started doing your own cooking,” Linda said as she walked over to his table. “Coffee?”

“Please.” Duane smiled. “I’d be a fool to eat my cooking when you’ve got the café here.”

Linda smiled back.

Duane told himself that smiling was a good beginning for the two of them. That’s where they’d started back in junior high school.

“I’m sorry I’ve been gone.”

Linda looked at him cautiously.

“You needed your friends, and I wasn’t here.”

“It’s okay,” Linda said softly as she pulled out her order pad. “What’ll it be?”

Duane resisted the impulse to throw his heart at her feet. “Scrambled eggs and toast.”

JANET TRONSTAD

grew up on a small farm in central Montana. One of her favorite things to do was to visit her grandfather’s bookshelves, where he had a large collection of Zane Grey novels. She’s always loved a good story. Today Janet lives in Pasadena, California, where she is a full-time writer.

Dry Creek Sweethearts

Janet Tronstad

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

—Romans 8:28

This book is dedicated with love to my brother-in-law, Duane Enger. He has graciously allowed me to use his name for the hero in this book with the understanding that I would also include his dog, Boots. Boots plays himself in the book, but the only thing my Duane has in common with his namesake in this book is his love for his high school sweetheart, my sister, Margaret. Well, that and his affection for an old Silverton guitar that he sometimes brings out to play in the evenings.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

“I don’t care if he did grow up in Dry Creek, he’s still not one of us. Not anymore.” Linda Morgan struggled to keep her voice neutral as she flipped the sign in her café window to Closed and began to stack chairs on tables so she could mop the floor.

A neutral calm was the best she could expect of herself when it came to Duane Enger.

She should have refused to let her younger sister, Lucy, hang his old guitar on the wall of the café when the idea first came up months ago. Then she and her sister wouldn’t even be having this conversation now.

Lucy was too young to know there was no point in building a shrine to someone who had left everything behind so he could go off and chase his dream of becoming a rock star. Every time Linda looked at the guitar she remembered that the old six-string Silvertone hadn’t been good enough for Duane to take with him. The frets were worn down and it needed new strings. So he had left the Silvertone behind, just as he’d eventually left everything and everyone behind, even her.

The small Montana town of Dry Creek had not been big enough for Duane and his dreams.

Of course, Linda couldn’t tell her sister all of this—especially not in the tone of voice she was using in her head as she thought it. Lucy had a tender heart and Linda didn’t want her to worry that anyone around here held anything against the man Lucy had just started to idolize. A teenage girl needed heroes, and Duane was better than most who were out there.

Besides, Linda told herself, the whole thing with Duane shouldn’t bother her anymore. Lots of people were disappointed by their high school sweethearts. She wasn’t the only one. It wasn’t even worth talking about. It had been eight long years since Duane left Dry Creek. That was plenty of time for a broken heart to heal.

Right now, Linda had more important things to worry about anyway, like keeping the floor clean after all the rain they’d had this week. The road into Dry Creek was asphalt, but the parking area in front of her café was pure dirt. That meant mud and lots of it. She’d already mopped the floor twice today and she had to do it again tonight before she and Lucy headed home. A woman who needed to mop a floor that often didn’t have time to be thinking about some man who had left her behind to pursue his fantasy of stardom.

Linda lifted the last chair up. It was half her fault anyway. She never should have trusted a man who couldn’t even stick with the name he was given the day he was born. Duane had traded his name for a stage name before he left Dry Creek. That should have been her first clue about how much commitment the man had in his bones. He eventually started going by Duane again, but lots of people still knew him as the Jazz Man.

Linda set the chair down hard on the table and winced when she heard the soft slam. Okay, so Duane might still bother her a little more than she would like. Which was probably natural; she was only human. She might have grown closer to God since Duane left, but she still had a way to go. Her heart had healed, but her head still hadn’t totally forgiven him or herself for believing in him.

Linda thought Lucy had given up the argument until she saw her sister looking at her with reproach in her eyes.

“But we have to display these things. He’s famous.” Lucy held up the letter she’d framed to hang beside the guitar and gazed at it as if it were written in pure gold. “The Jazz Man is the only famous person to ever come out of Dry Creek—right here—and he remembers us.”

The Jazz Man is what Duane had started calling himself just before he left. All through high school, he’d played and sung his own arrangements, along with songs from the old jazz masters like Duke Ellington. Linda had sung with him, especially on the classics. Back then, Duane had been happy enough with himself and his jazz revival plans.