Page 91 of Midnight Valentine
“Oh. I’m so sorry.” Avoiding eye contact, I slink to the back of the line.
“Megan?”
When I glance up, I’m looking at a pretty brunette with piercing blue eyes.
“Hi. Colleen Elliott. We met at Sunday Anderson’s party, do you remember?”
Dear God. It’s Theo’s ex-fiancée.
I stammer, “Oh—uh—h-hi! How are you! N-nice to see you again!”
My voice is too loud. Colleen quirks an eyebrow, and her smile falters. The woman in line in front of her turns and gives me a snooty once-over, sniffing in disapproval.
I wonder if she saw my performance at church.
Colleen says, “It’s nice to see you too. I didn’t really get a chance to talk to you at the party. I think you left pretty quick after you came, right?”
The woman in front of Colleen leans in. “She does that.”
Yep, definitely a churchgoer. Goddamn small towns. I snap, “Mind your business, Nosey Parker!”
She turns around with another sniff, shaking her head.
Colleen now looks as if she’s sorry she said hello, but she’s trapped in line and can’t get away. Her smile goes brittle. “So how are you settling in? I hear Hillrise is working on the Buttercup?”
Boy, are they. I laugh. “Yep, oh yeah, Hillrise is working on the Buttercup, and man are those guys good!” I thunder it, unable to control my volume. I’m smiling so hard, my face might crack.
Eyes widening, Colleen takes a step back. “Yes,” she says faintly, hand at her throat. “Theo always does a wonderful job.”
A crystal-clear mental image of Theo, thrusting and groaning on top of me, forms in my mind. I produce another unstable laugh, because of course I would.
Nosey Parker shoots me a disapproving glare over her shoulder. I need to deflect the conversation away from me before I completely crack. “Anyway, how are you?”
Colleen’s face takes on a dreamy, secret expression. She looks down at the basket in her arms and smiles. “I’m good, thanks.”
I glance into her basket, see the pregnancy test kit, and want to vomit.
Colleen laughs softly, her cheeks going pink. “This is the fourth one I’ve bought. I have an appointment at the doctor in a few days to confirm what these things are telling me, but I just can’t seem to stop taking them.” She glances at me under her lashes, her blue eyes sparkling. “I’ve always wanted to be a mother.”
Me too. “Congratulations.” My voice has lost all its animation and now sounds dead.
Nosey Parker leans in again. “In my day, if a woman got pregnant without being married, it wasn’t a cause for congratulations.”
Colleen and I both whirl on her and shout, “Mind your business!”
When the woman turns around with her nose in the air, Colleen lets out an exasperated huff that tells me she expects this won’t be the first time she’ll be on the receiving end of narrow-minded judgment from the womenfolk of Seaside. It makes me feel kinder toward her, and a little protective.
I clear my throat and try to sound like anything other than a woman standing out on a narrow ledge. “How bad is your morning sickness?”
“Pretty bad,” she admits, making a face.
“That’s good.”
She blinks at me, surprised. “It is?”
“Yeah. It’s a sign your hormone levels are high. I had it really bad too.” Shocked by my admission, I bite my tongue.
Colleen draws her dark brows together into a quizzical frown. “Oh, I didn’t know you have children.”
