Page 3 of Finding New Dreams

He nodded and smiled, tipping his drink toward me, completely unaware that I was full of shit.

The people of Tangled River, especially my family, would not be so easily fooled. At least my parents would be out of town until the wedding. But then again, any good opinion they’d had of me died a quick death a long time ago, when I announced I was dropping out of college to go to art school in California.

Feeling skittish again, I headed over to the balcony railing while Cal went back to charming his dates.

I gazed down at the rippling dance floor. It was mesmerizing, watching those people under the lights with their glowing paint. Like they were a swarm of strange fish in the depths of the ocean.

My eyes caught and held on one figure near the middle of the dance floor. She was short and thin, almost elfin, with chin-length dark hair that flared out in spikes. Like a girl from the anime I used to watch as a kid.

I couldn’t see her face, but no matter how many times I forced my eyes to wander away from her, they kept coming back.

My usual type of woman was all curves and no waiting. But this little sprite intrigued me. Her lithe movements. The tight, joyful spins she kept doing, like a cheerful ballerina. The colorful dress she wore. Unlike so many of the body-hugging dresses around her, hers flared outward with each spin.

“Show me your face,” I murmured to myself, sloshing my drink as I leaned further over the railing to see her better. “Look up. Just look up.”

And then she did.

She lifted her face to the ceiling with her eyes closed and laughed as paint splattered on her cheeks. Just like I had.

My heart thundered in my chest as if I were standing right next to the wall of speakers. I abandoned my drink and Cal without a word and hurried down the stairs to the dance floor.

I needed to find her.

2

ROSE

One hour earlier…

“Are you really going to eat all that?”

My smile stiffened as I looked across the candlelit table at my date. He was picking leftover appetizers from his teeth and eyeballing my plate of penne alla vodka.

“Yes, I am,” I said evenly. “Would you like to try some?”

He rolled his eyes in an overly dramatic way. “Absolutely not. It doesn’t even have meat in it. I’m just surprised a tiny thing like you can put away that many carbs.”

My smile dropped a few more degrees. If he’d read my online dating profile, he would’ve known that I was a vegetarian. And I’d always hated comments about my size. Being the “runt of the litter,” as a few of my foster families had called me, had usually led to me being bullied or ignored.

While Zane dug into the bloody carcass on his plate like a rabid coyote, I managed to eat a few forkfuls of pasta. My water glass was nearly empty from how much I’d drunk trying to keep my throat from drying out to the point where my voice would catch. It was a humiliating effect of my nerves.

Zane’s blond hair stuck straight up from his head as if he’d hung upside down to gel it. I swore if I flicked water at it, the droplets would probably bounce off. His pink face was much pouchier than his profile picture, but that alone hadn’t deterred me.

When I’d first walked into the fancy Italian restaurant in downtown Minneapolis, his nose had wrinkled as he’d given me a once-over. Apparently, he’d found fault somewhere in my short black hair and wide eyes. Or maybe my outfit—a multicolored swing dress, capri leggings, and my favorite black ballet flats.

Pale eyes lingering on the tiny diamond stud in my nose, he hadn’t stood to shake my hand and had ordered an oyster appetizer for us without asking my opinion. He’d started our conversation by asking my age, guessing twenty-one, and grimaced when I said thirty—also something that was on my profile.

And apparently, that was the extent of his curiosity about me. Other than my food intake, of course.

In short, not a gentleman.

Definitely not the kind of man I dreamed of. Like the ones who lit up the pages of the romance novels I read and the movies I watched. The ones I drew and painted when inspiration struck.

My exact dream guy varied, but he always had stunningly beautiful eyes that could see into my soul. He would woo me with romance via long conversations or letters or even art. He would be tall and strong and not put off by my lack of curves and height. And if he looked like a cover model, with a billowing shirt undone over tight pants…well, I might swoon.

A throat cleared across the table, and my daydream shattered.

“Did I tell you I own a loft just a few minutes away?” Zane asked, wiping what looked disturbingly like blood from his mouth.

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