“We haven’t worked out any of the details yet,” Emily said. “It’s brand new.”

“But you’ve been dreaming about this for years,” Amy added.

Emily frowned. Marriage, yes. That had been something she’d wanted for a long time. But she’d never pictured the way her life would go. The love she had with Daniel was unique and unexpected. Their wedding ought to be the same. She needed to rethink everything to make it perfect for them, for this specific relationship, this life.

“Can you at least tell us the date?” Jayne asked. “Our calendar is packed.”

Emily stammered. “I don’t know.”

“Just the month will do for now,” Jayne pressed.

“I don’t know that either.”

Jayne sighed with exasperation. “What about the year?”

Emily grew frustrated. “I don’t know!” she cried. “I haven’t worked any of this out yet!”

Silence fell. Emily could just imagine the scene: her friends exchanging a glance, sitting in leather office chairs at a huge glass table, the sound of her outburst emanating from the phone in between them and echoing around the vast conference room. She cringed with embarrassment.

Jayne broke the silence. “Well, just make sure it doesn’t turn into one of those engagements that goes on forever,” she said in a matter-of-fact way. “You know what some men are like; it’s like they didn’t realize that once they proposed you’d be expecting an actual wedding. They do the whole overblown engagement thing and then once they’ve lured you in with a fancy ring they think they can rest on their laurels and never actually sign on the dotted line.”

“It’s not like that,” Emily said tersely.

“Sure,” Jayne said flippantly. “But to be certain, you should tie him down to an actual date. If it looks like he’s going to drag the engagement out, run.”

Emily squeezed her hand into a fist. She knew she shouldn’t let Jayne – a commitment-phobe who’d never even had a proper long-term relationship – dictate the way she ought to feel about the situation, but her friend had a talent for putting doubt into her mind. As ridiculous as they were, Emily could already tell she was going to ruminate on Jayne’s words for days to come.

“I have an idea,” Amy broke in, playing the diplomat. “Why don’t we come up to toast you? Have a visit? Help you plan a few things?”

Despite her irritation with Jayne, Emily liked the idea of her friends coming to stay and getting involved with the wedding preparations. Once they were here, on her turf and in her domain, they’d be able to see the love she and Daniel shared with their own eyes. They’d see how happy she was and start being a little bit more supportive.

“That would be really great actually,” Emily said.

They found a date that worked for everyone and Emily ended the call. But thanks to Jayne, her head was swimming and the flame of excitement inside of her dulled just a little. Her feelings were compounded by the fact she still needed to make the dreaded call to her mom, which would certainly go less well. She’d tried to invite her mom to Thanksgiving but the woman had acted like it was an insult. Nothing Emily did was ever good enough for Patricia Mitchell. If she’d felt grilled by Amy and Jayne, she would feel downright set upon by her mom.

And that was just her family! When she added Daniel’s into the mix, her niggling fears intensified. Why did the rest of the world have to exist? Everything in Sunset Harbor felt perfect for Emily. But outside there were disapproving friends and problematic moms. There were absent fathers.

For the first time since the proposal, Emily thought of her dad, who’d been missing for twenty years. She’d recently discovered a stash of letters in the home that proved he was still alive. Then Trevor Mann, her next door neighbor, had confirmed seeing Roy at the house just a few years earlier. Her dad was alive, yet even with that knowledge nothing had changed. Emily still had no way of contacting him. The chances of him being there to walk her down the aisle were practically nonexistent.