The Little Maverick Matchmaker

Another wide smile dimpled Dillon’s cheeks. “Yeah. But I call him Gramps. Bet you know him, don’t you? Everybody knows Old Gene. He has lots of friends.”

“No. I’ve heard of him, but I’ve never had the opportunity to meet him,” she said, trying to follow his conversation while a girl with brown braids stood a few steps away, waving frantically to attract Josselyn’s attention. “Now we’d better see about finding you a fishing book. Follow me, Dillon, and I’ll show you.”

“Miss Weaver, I need help, too!” the young girl wailed.

“I’ll be right back, Chrissy,” she assured her. “You might want to look at the new-arrival section until it’s your turn.”

Clearly disappointed, the girl gave Dillon a glare before she stomped off in the opposite direction.

“Chrissy needs to learn her manners,” Dillon muttered.

Josselyn certainly agreed, especially since it wasn’t the first time the girl had tried to push her way to the front of the line.

“Or maybe she don’t understand,” Dillon said with a shrug of one shoulder. “Maybe she don’t have a mother. Like me.”

The boy’s empathetic remark made Josselyn desperately want to stop in the middle of the aisle and hug him tight. It also had her mind whirling with even more questions about Drew Strickland. But now wasn’t the time or place to talk to the boy about personal matters. And even if they had been somewhere other than school, Josselyn certainly wasn’t about to pump the child for information.

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it, Dillon. She’ll get her turn. Right now, let’s find you a fishing book. Maybe one with a grandpa in it. How would that be?”

He grinned up at her. “Oh, that would be super! I’ll read every word, Miss Weaver.”

* * *

“Looks like school is rubbing off on little Dillon,” Melba commented, as she eased her frame into an armchair.

Drew lowered the medical journal he’d been reading to look at his grandmother, who’d finally found the time to sit down. Since he and Dillon had come to live at the boardinghouse, he’d learned one thing. His grandparents were always busy and appeared to have the energy of a pair of teenagers. Where they found such get-up-and-go Drew could only wonder.

“What are you talking about?” Drew asked her.

The gray-haired woman inclined her head to a spot on the opposite side of the sitting room. Drew glanced over his shoulder to see Dillon cozied up to his great-grandfather. The boy was holding an open book in his lap and appeared to be reading the story to Old Gene.

“I never noticed Dillon liking books before. Did he do a lot of reading back in Thunder Canyon?” Melba asked.

Drew should’ve been encouraged to see his son take an interest in reading. Books opened up a whole new world to a child and generally made them better students. Yet he couldn’t deny that it hurt to see Dillon happily reading to his great-grandfather. Drew had been here in his grandparents’ living room for the past half hour, but instead of sitting on the couch, close to his father, Dillon had chosen to ignore him.

The move from Thunder Canyon to Rust Creek Falls was supposed to have drawn Drew and Dillon closer together. At least, that’s what Drew’s parents had believed. Jerry and Barbara had certainly used that particular argument to persuade their son to take the temporary job at the clinic. But as far as Drew could see, his parents had been wrong. The move had actually pushed Dillon closer to his gramps.

“I think reading is something new for Dillon,” Drew said to Melba, while telling himself he was being childish to resent his son’s relationship with Old Gene. The two of them were good for each other and that was the most important thing.

Melba pulled a piece of knitting from a sewing basket sitting next to her chair. “That’s good. Maybe he’ll decide he wants to be a doctor someday. Like his dad and uncle Ben.”

A cynical grunt erupted from Drew. Dillon never talked about wanting to become a doctor, or even be like his father. “I seriously doubt Dillon will want to go into the medical field, Grandma. He thinks being a horseman like his uncle Trey or a rancher like his grandpa Jerry would be more fun.”

Focused on her knitting stitches, Melba smiled knowingly. “Nothing wrong with that. Most little boys like the idea of being outdoors and living the rough, tough life of a cowboy. But give him a few years. He might set his sights on something altogether different. Like a businessman or a lawyer.”

During the first year of Dillon’s life, Evelyn had often talked about their son’s future and the dreams she had for him. She’d always summed up her wishes in one word. Happy. That was the main thing she’d wanted for Dillon. To live a full and happy life. Since her death, Drew had fallen short in the dad department. But he was determined to change. To make certain Evelyn’s vision of their son’s future came true.

“Sometimes I wonder, Grandma, if becoming a doctor was the wrong path for me. I was raised a rancher—a cowboy. Things might have been better if I’d never left that life.”

Frowning, Melba lowered her knitting and studied him over the rim of her reading glasses. “How could you think such a thing, Drew? You studied so long and hard. Babies are a family’s hopes and dreams and you help them come true by seeing those new little lives safely enter the world. It’s an admirable profession.”

Along with all consuming, Drew thought ruefully. Even now, as he sat quietly here in his grandparents’ living room, his evening could change in a split second with an emergency call. Babies didn’t wait for a convenient time to arrive.

“Yes, but I might still—”

He stopped abruptly and Melba’s keen eyes were once again studying him closely. “Might what? Still have Evelyn? Is that what you were going to say?”

Drew silently cursed, knowing the perceptive woman was going to hound him until she got an answer.

Claire had started in on him this morning and now his grandmother this evening. Both women ought to know he didn’t want to talk about his late wife. Anyone in his family should understand that just speaking her name was like swallowing shards of broken glass. Yet they had to bring up the whole tragedy, as if talking about it was going to make all the pain and loss go away. Damn it, why couldn’t they see that nothing was going to make things better for him?

Releasing a heavy breath, he closed the journal and laid it aside. “Something like that.”

Melba’s lips thinned to a disapproving line. “You’re thinking like a fool, Drew.”

He couldn’t help but bristle at her unkindly observation. “Am I? Well, it was an emergency medical call that sent me to work instead of taking my son to day care. It was my job that put Evelyn in that car. If I’d been working on Dad’s ranch, the accident would’ve never happened.”

“You think so, huh? Well, I don’t.” She leveled a pointed gaze at him. “Things in our life happen for a reason, Drew. Until you realize that and accept it, you’re never going to be happy.”

Happy. That was a condition Drew never expected to experience again, he thought bitterly. His happiness had died beneath that oak tree.

He was trying to gather the words for a reply when a buzzer sounded, alerting his grandparents that someone was at the office at the back of the boardinghouse.

Frowning, Melba glanced at the clock on the wall. “Now, who could that be at this hour? All the boarders are paid up.”

“Could be a new tenant, Ma.” Old Gene spoke from his spot on the window seat.

Sighing, Melba laid her knitting aside and rose from the comfortable armchair. “I’ll go see.”

“I’ll go with you,” her husband said.

She started out of the room. “No need for that. We have a vacancy. I’ll take care of the registry.”

“Just the same, I’m going with you,” Old Gene insisted, as he left his seat next to Dillon and joined her at the door.

“But, Gramps, I haven’t finished the story yet!” Dillon complained.

Old Gene cocked a bushy eyebrow at his great-grandson. “You read the rest of it to your dad.”

Dillon scowled. “But he don’t like fishin’!”

“He might if you give him a chance,” Old Gene said as he followed his wife out the door.

Dillon stared sulkily at the floor, a reaction that surprised Drew. It wasn’t like his son to be crabby.

“Bring your book over here, son,” Drew invited.

His bottom lip pushed petulantly forward, Dillon snapped the book shut. “I don’t want to read anymore,” he muttered.