My Kind of Perfect (Trillium Bay #3) - Tracy Brogan Page 0,2

any on the dress, and Brooke calmly took a sip of her own martini. Even Chloe didn’t react. They seemed not the least bit concerned, which was my first clue. Actually, it was the second clue, the puke being the first.

Emily gingerly picked up a towel from the kitchen counter and dabbed at her mouth before turning, slowly, back around to face me. Her expression was more sheepish than shocked.

“So,” she said. “Guess who’s pregnant?”

Half an hour later we’d gathered once more around the table. Emily had replaced her gown with fleece pajama pants decorated with sloths drinking coffee and an oversize sweatshirt bearing the image of the island’s own Imperial Hotel. “Of course Ryan and I are thrilled,” she said. “We knew we wanted to add to the family soon, like right after the wedding, but I guess we jumped the gun a bit. Turns out there’s no grace period after going off the pill. The only downside is that it took Dad almost fifteen years to forgive me for running off with Chloe’s dad, and now here I am, finally getting remarried to a wonderful guy, properly this time, in a church, with the veil and the dress and the priest, and now I have to tell him I’m already knocked up.”

“Harlan isn’t that observant,” Gigi said. “I don’t think we need to tell him.”

“You’ve been engaged for a while, so at least no one will think this is a shotgun wedding. And with that empire waistline, you picked the perfect dress. No one will even notice,” Brooke added.

“Unless she throws up in her bouquet,” Chloe murmured.

Emily, to her credit, chuckled. “The wedding isn’t for a couple of months yet. The morning sickness should be gone by then, but there will be no hiding my belly. Ah, well. Ryan and I figured we’d wait a few more weeks but then probably just tell everyone anyway. In the meantime, though, this is a secret.” She glared at Gigi because if anyone was going to let it slip, it would be our grandmother—except it wouldn’t be an accident. Gossip was social currency around here, and this was a valuable piece of intel. Family loyalty only went so far.

“Mum’s the word,” Gigi replied, twisting an imaginary lock over her pursed lips. “Or should I say, mom’s the word?”

“You’re funny.” Emily then turned to me and added, “A secret from everybody. No one outside of this room and Ryan knows about this baby. He hasn’t told his family yet. Got it?”

“I got it,” I said.

My sister rested her chin in her hand and said wistfully, “I sure wish I could have one of those martinis.”

A baby.

A wedding and a baby.

That was good news all the way around, and my sister deserved this for sure. I was so happy that she was so happy, but it threw my current situation even more firmly under the microscope. The news brought into focus the importance of creating the future you crave and not settling for less. Of course, not every relationship was meant to lead to marriage and children, but what if I was ready for those next steps? But my boyfriend had already been there and done that?

Last spring, when widower John Taggert showed up in Trillium Bay, we fell hard. It was instantaneous attraction, and we were all in, right from the start. But everyone said that at fifty-nine he was too old for me, and that at twenty-six I was too young for him. Emily had warned me that his family thought I was just after his money, and that he was only interested in my body. No one believed we were really in love. No one except for us.

So we’d taken our show on the road. Tag retired from his role as president of Taggert Property Management, and we headed off to explore the big, wide world. We trekked through the Saadian Tombs in Marrakech, went “black water” rafting in the Waitomo Caves of New Zealand, and gazed out over the Atlantic Ocean from a sun-dappled courtyard of the Monserrate Palace in Portugal.

It was a dream. A glorious dream full of sunshine and rainbows and good sex and delicious food, but like every wonderful dream, eventually you have to wake up. The constant travel left me feeling adrift, more of a voyeur than voyager in my own life, and let’s face it: once you’ve ridden one Moroccan camel, you’ve ridden them all.

After a few months of living from suitcases, work beckoned