by Lori Wilde
The same way I looked at John? I quickly glanced over at Rosalie and Buddy so he wouldn’t see the stark desire on my face for something I could not have. “Is Buddy Grass a bootlegger?”
“You’re not interested in him yourself, are you?” John sounded alarmed.
“No.” Couldn’t John see that I only had eyes for him?
“Stay away from the likes of Buddy Grass,” he growled. “He’s no good.”
Was he jealous? My heart flip-flopped and I couldn’t stop a smile from plucking at the corners of my lips.
Many of the spectators had gone home to their dinners, including the Fants and Bossiers. The bleachers were less than half full now and the dancers had dwindled to thirty-two couples. Rosalie and Buddy Grass were among them. We were still a long way from claiming the prize.
Twilight pushed the sun from the windows of the gymnasium. We were all moving slower now, shuffling instead of lively high stepping. The band members had changed out, bringing in fresh musicians at the last break. The Ladies’ League volunteers had switched out too.
“May I ask you a question, Millie?” John asked.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“What were your hopes and dreams for the future before your father died?”
I shrugged. “Same as anybody else, I guess. Get married one day, have children.”
“Nothing more?”
“What else is there?”
“No big dreams? No secret fantasy that you’ve never told anyone?”
Oh yes. “There’s dreams, Mr. Fant,” I said, “and then there’s reality.”
He looked amused. “We’re back to Mr. Fant? I thought we got over that a long time ago.”
“There’s only so many options for the daughter of a silver miner with seven kids. No sense setting yourself up for heartbreak.” Go ahead. Tell it like you believe it. Too late. It was too late not to set myself up for heartbreak. I was already there.
“You’re smart as a whip, Millie Greenwood, you could be anything you want. A teacher. A nurse. A shop owner.”
Smart. He’d called me smart. “Those things cost money.”
“If you wanted to go to school, I’d be happy to send you.”
“Mr. Fant, you don’t owe me just because my daddy died in your mine.”
“That’s not the way I’m looking at it.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.”
“I wouldn’t be here if the mine hadn’t caved in.”
He didn’t say anything. What could he say? It was true enough. I wished I hadn’t been so blunt, but I had to do something to make him hush. I couldn’t keep dreaming impossible dreams.
The promoter took the stage, brought that yellow megaphone to his mouth. It was ten minutes until the next break. “Attention, dancers. It’s time for the Runaround. When the band starts playing ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ grab your partner’s hand and start running clockwise around the gym. When the music stops, the last five couples will be eliminated, so you have to hurry, hurry, hurry.”
The band struck “Rhapsody in Blue.”
John looked at me and I looked at him and in unison we yelled, “Run.”
We took off, sprinting ahead of everyone else.
It was hard enough dancing in high-heeled shoes that were half a size too big for you, but running in them was a whole other story. But we’d beaten everyone else to the punch and we were leading the pack of runners sprinting around the gym. It was a wild and crazy free-for-all.
One girl tripped and went falling, breaking contact with her partner. A spotter from the sidelines blew a whistle and they were out. John tightened his grip on me. “If you go down, I go down.”
“I think my lungs are about to explode.” I chuffed.
“You can do it, Millipede.”
His nickname for me!
A couple was pulling up close behind us. John and I exchanged glances.
“You’re as competitive as I am, aren’t you, Millie Greenwood?” he asked.
“You bet.”
He winked. “Let’s show them how it’s done.”
I kicked off those high-heeled shoes and they went flying as John and I ran as fast as we could to outpace the couple behind us.
Just when I thought I could not take one step farther, the horn blew, signaling the break.
The last five groaning couples were disqualified.
Laughing, John and I collapsed onto the floor, along with everyone else.
We looked at each other and we could not stop laughing. It felt so good to laugh with him on the gymnasium floor. It was so unorthodox, so improper, but all for a good cause, so who could complain, right?
That’s when I realized my dress had risen up, exposing my knees and the garter holding up the stockings. There was a run in stockings as well, but John’s eyes were locked on my legs like they were the prettiest things he’d ever seen.
My cheeks burned and I yanked at the skirt of the dress, pulling it down past my knees. But it was too late. He’d already seen my knees. If my mother could see me now. She’d be shocked and give me a stern lecture about propriety.
“Your toes are bleeding,” John exclaimed.
And before I knew what he was doing, he got to his feet and scooped me up into his arms.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking care of you.”
“It’s not your place. Put me down.”
“Hush,” he said sweetly and carried me outside into the cool night air. Someone had held the door open for us and John marched straight for the first aid tent.
A nurse bustled over. “Set her down.”
John settled me onto a cot.
On the cot beside me, the girl that had tripped earlier was having Mercurochrome dabbed on her skinned knee by another nurse. It seemed a night for exposed knees.
The nurse clicked her tongue over my blistered toes and set about salving and dressing them.
“Do you want to call it quits?” John asked.
“No.” I shook my head vehemently. “How much time to do we have left in the break?”
He glanced at his pocket watch. “Five minutes.”
“Could you please hurry up?” I asked the nurse.
“You’re going back in there?” She gave me a disapproving look.
“I am.”
“Wrap her feet up good,” John instructed.
“There’s no time for that,” I said. “I need a ladies’ room break.”
“You go for that,” he said. “I’ll grab us some sandwiches and meet you back on the dance floor.”
Hobbled by my bandaged feet, I barely made it back to the dance floor in time. One second more and we would have been out. Eight hours in and we were down to twenty-six couples.
We danced and ate sandwiches—peanut butter this time—not even bothering with dance steps, just moving our feet. I couldn’t believe we had another sixteen hours to go.
“I’m beginning to think your sister is a sadist,” I said.
“I’m inclined to agree.”
“Do you think she fell down the stairs on purpose to avoid this torture?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“I think she got the better of the deal. She’s riding around in a wheelchair.”
“Prima donna,” he teased.
A spasm grabbed the calf of my leg. “Ouch, ouch.”
“What is it?”
“Charley horse.”
“Which leg?”
“Left one.”
He eased his hand down the back of my leg, found the offending muscle, and rubbed it.
The feel of his fingers on my leg blotted out anything else. The charley horse was a minor inconvenience in light of the fact that John was leaning over, his face dangerously near my breasts as his long fingers massaged my leg. I darted a glance to see who was watching. A couple of older women in the stands were staring at me with narrowed eyes and pursed lips. Ladies’ League biddies. That had to be it.
“
It’s good,” I said, shamed by their disapproving stares. I was acting unseemly. Not just for a maid, but for any young lady.
“The muscle’s still cramping. I can see it twitching.”
“John,” I said, through gritted teeth. “Stop rubbing my leg, we’re being glared at.”
He raised his head. “Oh.” He straightened. “That’s the Baptist minister’s wife.”
“She looks like she’s got a bee in her bonnet.”
“Ignore her.”
John put an arm on my shoulder and we swayed together to “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” in no way keeping time to the beat.
We talked during those long hours. About everything under the sun. I told him what it was like to grow up the eldest of seven children with a mother who tended toward poor health. We talked of holidays spent with family, favorite Christmas gifts we’d received. Mine was a cornhusk doll, his a gold-plated kaleidoscope.
John regaled me with stories of his childhood, including the time his father had put him on a horse when he was nine and took him to the top of the Cupid water tower and said, “As far as your eye can see, Johnny, all this land is yours. You’re a Fant. People will look to you for direction. When I’m gone, it’s all up to you to guide the town to its destiny.”
“I can’t imagine it.”
“I remember being completely overwhelmed,” John said.
“You shouldered the responsibility like a prizewinning ox.”
He laughed.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Not at all. I love your idioms.”
That word made me feel like a hick. It sounded a whole like “idiot.” “What’s an idiom?”
“An idiom refers to the way a person phrases things.”
“Oh,” I said. But that word underscored the differences between us. He was an educated man of the world and I was an apple knocker.
By midnight, my legs felt as if they were set in cement, heavy hunks that couldn’t move. The biddies had left, as had most of the spectators. Twenty couples and twelve hours remained.
At the next break we downed two cups of strong coffee with extra sugar stirred in. The caffeine and sugar jolt carried us through fifteen minutes before we were back to hanging on to each other and swaying to keep each other up.
“Stamina,” I murmured at one point.
“What?” John blinked, bleary-eyed.
“You’ve got lots of stamina.”
“So do you.”
We grinned at each other and that pepped us up for another few minutes.
By four in the morning, every part of me ached and it felt as if someone had thrust cactus in my eyes. Fresh blood from my blistered toes had oozed through the bandages and dried.
John didn’t look much better. His tie was askew and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbow. His hair was mussed, lying every which way. But he looked rakishly handsome with his guard down. I’d seen so many facets of this man—the somber businessman gently breaking bad news, the earthy cowboy who worked the land, the adoring uncle, loyal brother, and now this charming madcap dancer. John Fant was perfect.
My throat clutched. I didn’t care about the aches and pains. In fact, they were a badge of honor. I was glad I had blisters. John and I were here together. I would never have an opportunity like this again and I was determined to enjoy every miserably wonderful second of it.
All around us, dancers wilted like hydrangeas in the desert. One couple fell asleep on the dance floor, started snoring and stopped moving. A sideline spotter blew a whistle and the couple were out. Forty-two down, thirteen to go.
By five A.M. another couple threw in the towel. Now it was an even dozen. The stands were completely empty, except for one man stretched out sleeping, a fedora cocked over his face.
Only the diligent spotters looked alert.
We were so exhausted. I wasn’t thinking straight. I just wanted to stop dancing, but at the same time dreaded the end.
“You can rest your head on me,” John invited, and patted his shoulder.
All the other couples were doing it, but John and I weren’t really a couple. He was my employer’s sister and the owner of the mine where my daddy had been killed. There were some lines that shouldn’t be crossed, even in this intimate environment where we’d quickly learned so much about each other.
But his shoulders were so broad and tempting. I glanced around. All the other dancers were engrossed in their own discomfort. No one was watching us except for the two spotters, and the promoter had brought them in so they didn’t know us. No clothesline gossip.
Caution flew out the door and I laid my head on his shoulder, resting my weight against him as I’d done that day on horseback. My knees were trembling and he probably thought it was because my legs were about to give out from all the dancing. He slipped his arm around my waist and whispered, “Steady.”
But I wasn’t trembling from fatigue.
I made no conscious decision to do so, but my arms slipped around his neck and it seemed as natural as breathing.
“Millie,” his lips expelled my name on a soft whoosh of air.
“Mmm,” I whispered, my eyelids drooping closed. Sleepy. So sleepy. Sweet dreams.
His thumping heart bounded from his chest into mine and they beat together in one throbbing rhythm that zoomed through my blood, pounded loudly in my ears until I could hear nothing more.
John turned his head. His jaw, barbed with beard stubble, grazed against my cheek. Instinctively, I curled into his soothing warmth and nuzzled my face into the hollow of his neck.
I’m not sure how it happened. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was John. Most likely it was both of us. Our lips were so close and we were clamped together, holding each other and swaying to keep going. Moving my head forward just a quarter of an inch felt so natural.
John’s chin lowered.
Our lips brushed.
A bolt of energy shot through me, but instead of pulling away, I pressed closer, wanting more. Oh! Wrong. Wrong. I know. I know. It seemed so unreal, but at the same time sharper and clearer than anything I had ever experienced.
Suddenly, I was hyperaware of everything.
The band was playing “Why Did I Kiss That Girl?” Irony or inspiration? John’s scent mingled with mine, a pleasing musky smell. The texture of his lips, firm but yielding, like the flesh of a ripe plum. The heat between us. The snap, crackle, sizzle.
His mouth captured mine in a kiss so stunning I could not breathe. My head spun, my heart catapulted into my throat. The whole world tilted out of control.
Just as abruptly as he kissed me, John pulled back. “No. We can’t do this.”
Why? I wanted to beg, but I knew. I wasn’t worthy of him.
I blinked away the fog of bliss, looked into his dark chocolate eyes, saw pain and conflict there. He might not want to want me, but he did.
“John,” I whispered, not knowing what else to say or do.
He loosened my arms from around his neck, but took my hand. “Millie … I have something I should have told you a long time ago, but I thought I could control myself. I never counted on your devastating allure or how this dance marathon would affect us.”
I gulped. Hope. Stupidly, I clung to hope. “What is it?”
Anguish carved furrows in his face. “I am betrothed.”
Chapter Seven
BETROTHED.
John was engaged to marry another.
But of course. Why was I so shocked? He was twenty-six years old. The head of his family’s empire. He required a wife befitting his station and heirs to pass his fortunes down to.
My stomach churned. Why hadn’t I known that he was engaged? Why hadn’t someone mentioned this woman to me? Mabel loved to gossip sure enough, and yet I hadn’t heard a peep about John’s betrothal. Why hadn’t I ever seen him with this mysterious fiancée? Why was I so dumbly in the dark?
I yanked my gaze from his, stared unseeingly across the dance floor.
“Her name i
s Elizabeth Nielson,” he went on. “We’ve been betrothed since I returned from the war, but she was too young to get married at the time. Our family advocated the marriage.”
“You don’t love her?”
“I’m fond of her. You have to understand that a man in my position—”
“I get it,” I said. “A man like you could never end up with someone like me.”
“I’m so sorry it came to this. I guess I assumed you’d heard about it somehow. Elizabeth has been away at finishing school and then later her aunt fell ill and she stayed in Baltimore to be with her until she recovered. But she’s coming home next week. We’re getting married on Christmas Eve.”
I wanted to tell him to shut up. I didn’t care about Elizabeth Nielson. All along I had known that my dreams were folly, but some romantic part of me had spun a fairy-tale world where John and I could somehow carve a future in this bold, brave, more tolerant decade. But it had been nothing but the wild imaginings of a foolish country girl come to town for the first time.
Instinct urged me to flee, to get out of here and take the next train back home, but stubborn pride held me pinned to him, shuffling my battered feet in time to the music. I was not going to let him see how hurt I was. I wouldn’t give him that much power over me.
“I didn’t expect that you and I would develop feelings for each other,” he said. “It was never my intention to mislead you.”
I couldn’t allow him to keep talking. My stumbling heart could not take it. I threw back my head and laughed. “Oh, John, I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about. I have no feelings for you other than respect.”
Yet even I could hear the lie inside my brittle laugh.
“Millie …” He looked so utterly wretched that I was almost happy for his pain, but at the same time something inside me tore loose. I loved him too much to want him to suffer.
I closed my eyes. Clenched my jaw. Fought back tears. This was what I got for trying to be something that I was not. “Please,” I begged. “Please do not say another word.”
He did not.
I could have run away then. Maybe I should have. But if I stayed, if I kept dancing until we were the last couple on the dance floor, I would have a few more precious hours with him before I turned him over to Elizabeth Nielson forever.