My Groom Walked Out, So His Brother Took His Place novel · Chapter 17 of 32

Chapter 17: Founders' Day

The Gillespie County Fair ended every August with a dance in the big exhibition barn.

There was a fiddle band on a hay-bale stage, a hundred strings of lights, and a floor of plywood chalked with cornmeal.

Everyone came.

I had been coming since I was three.

This year they came to look.

I walked in on Jude's arm in a green cotton dress and my good boots, and I felt the room turn.

"Don't mind them," Jude said at my ear.

"I'm not."

"Your hand is crushing my elbow," he said.

"I'm very calm."

"You're vibrating."

I loosened my fingers.

He led me to the edge of the floor.

The band slid into a slow waltz.

He took my hand in his left and put his right at the small of my back.

"I don't dance," he said.

"You're doing fine."

"I'm standing still," he said.

"That's most of it."

He moved.

He was stiff for the first eight bars, and then something in him let go.

He was a good dancer.

He led without pushing, with his palm warm through the cotton.

Every time I started to look at the faces around us he turned me.

There was only his shoulder and the string lights.

"Where did you learn this?" I asked.

"Oma. When I was eleven. She made me waltz with a broom."

"A broom," I said.

"It never stepped on my feet."

I laughed against his chest.

I felt his own laugh, a rumble in his ribs, and I thought: I could stay like this.

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