Free One True Love (Cupid, Texas 0.5) by Lori Wilde Page A

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.
    Looking sadistically perky, the promoter took the stage and picked up the megaphone.
    I groaned aloud. Not again.
    “It’s time for another Runaround,” the promoter announced. “This time, the last six couples will be eliminated.”
    Half of us. Out.
    Part of me longed to throw in the towel, but the part that ached for a few precious hours to hold on to the Cinderella fantasy won out. As soon as the strains of “Rhapsody in Blue” leaked from the clarinet, I tightened my grip on John’s hand and we ran as if we were running for our lives.
    We made it. Just barely. Me stumbling along in my bloody, tattered bandages, John trying to bolster me without dragging me. We came in sixth out of twelve. Rosalie and Buddy Grass were still in the hunt, but they were bickering. The six eliminated couples looked grateful and staggered for the sidelines.
    The rest of us took a short break, then went right back at it.
    “Let’s not talk anymore,” I told John.
    He nodded and gathered me into his arms. I rested my head on his shoulder as dawn peeked through the gymnasium windows. Tears slipped down my cheeks and I turned my face into his chest so he could not see, but he felt my grief and tightened his arms around me.
    If it hadn’t been for the dance marathon I wouldn’t have had any of this in the first place, so I took what I could get, and in the midst of the exhaustion, weariness, pain, and suffering, a peaceful calmness settled over me.
    I told myself it was enough.
    Slowly, the spectators trickled back in. Volunteers brought in fresh food. The smell of bacon, eggs, and coffee made my stomach rumble. By eight A.M. two more couples had dropped out.
    Beau brought Penelope back to the gymnasium at ten A.M. During the ten-minute break, we went