This Can't Be Love (Whispering Bay Romance 5)

“I hate to break this up,” Lauren said, “but it’s getting late and we need to get down to business.” She snapped her fingers at Sarah. “We need you to stand in the middle of the room.”

Sarah suddenly found herself the focus of eleven hard and appraising gazes.

“What size are you?” Pilar asked.

“Four, I think.”

“How tall?” asked Kitty.

Sarah cringed. “Five-three. And a half,” she added because, let’s face it, that half-inch was important.

“Shoe size?” asked Shea. “And is that hair natural?”

“Seven, and yes.”

“Is that your real eye color or contacts?” asked another woman.

“Real, but…what does that matter?”

Lauren interrupted the flow of conversation. “Ladies, I think that’s enough information to get started.” She pointed toward a hallway. “Mimi and Kitty, can you two bring out all the dresses?”

The two women came back a couple of minutes later, their arms overflowing with brightly colored satin and crepe and silk. They laid everything down on an empty couch behind Sarah, then smoothed out the material to reveal a dozen formal dresses.

“I guessed you were about a four,” Lauren said, “So we all combed through our closets and this is what we came up with.”

Sarah blinked, feeling overwhelmed.

“Which one jumps out at you?” Mimi asked.

She stood back and studied her choices. There were three black dresses and one white dress that she immediately crossed out. Since she wasn’t the bride, she didn’t think white was appropriate, and since it was an evening wedding, there were probably going to be a number of women wearing black, and it would be nice if she could stand out. In a good way.

That left a cream-colored dress, three dresses in various shades of blue, a brown satin dress that had lots of ruffles on the bottom (she’d probably look like a chocolate ice cream cone in that) and…a gold shimmery number that looked as if it belonged on the Oscar runway. “This one,” she said automatically.

The women all murmured in approval.

“You have good taste,” Lauren said, “considering that dress used to belong to me.”

“Used to?”

“It’s yours now. If you’d like it.”

“Oh, I couldn’t take it. Even borrowing it is a lot to ask.” Sarah reached out to touch the shimmery gold fabric. It was a beaded, off-the-shoulder mermaid gown and it was absolutely gorgeous. Sarah didn’t know a lot about couture fashion but she knew enough from her stint working on a cruise ship that this was a designer gown and probably cost more than she made in a month. Maybe even two months.

“It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?” Lauren agreed with a sigh. “I bought it for a big, fancy medical fund-raiser that Nate and I went to after we first got married. But that was about thirty pounds ago and, honestly, while I loved the dress, I don’t really have the right figure for it. Even when I’m not pregnant, my boobs are just too big for this style so I’d never wear it again anyway.” She took a long look at Sarah’s chest. “You need to try it on, but I can already tell that it’s going to fit you perfectly, except in the chest. I’ll have to take it in a few inches on both sides, but that’s not a problem. I have my machine all set up in the guest room, so let’s see how it fits.”

A chorus of “Try it on! Try it on!” came from the room, making Sarah laugh. “Okay. Here I go!” She went to the guest room and quickly stripped down to her bra and panties. Other than it being too big in the bust and too long, of course, the rest of the dress fit perfectly.

She picked up the hem so that she wouldn’t step on it and carefully walked back to the living room to show the women. She’d expected a continuation of raucous laughter and positive shouts, or at the very least, a “Gee, that looks nice.” But instead, the entire room went quiet, which couldn’t be good.

And here she’d really loved this dress.

“Should I try on another one instead?”

Mimi was the first one to speak. “Don’t you dare wear anything to this wedding but that dress!”

The rest of the room suddenly came alive. Someone shoved a pair of gold sandals with at least a four-inch heel on her feet, making the length now perfect as well. There was just the matter of that bust…

“If I only had the boobs to fill out this dress,” she said, looking down at the gap in the gown’s bodice.