A Wedding on Lilac Lane by Hope Ramsay (best book clubs .txt) 📕

had happened to the infuriating Doctor D? In the blink of an eye, he’d morphed into a sweet, kind man filled with compliments for her violin playing.

They chatted about not much at all until the waiter returned and made a big show of pouring the wine. Dylan played along with the ritual like a man skilled in the selection of fine vintages. She tried to imagine Cody doing the same, but it was impossible. When the wine was poured, she chose one of the shrimp pasta dishes while Dylan chose the greens and meatballs, which sounded totally unappetizing.

When the waiter departed, Dylan lifted his glass. “To your performance,” he said, giving her the slightest smile. It crinkled up the corners of his eyes in a really sexy way.

Wait. What? Noticing the sexiness of his manly laugh lines was not allowed. Was it? No, it was not. And she needed to stop comparing him to Cody.

She raised her glass and took a big gulp to steady her nerves. “It’s pretty good wine,” she said. Boy, as a conversation starter that was pretty lame, but her tongue had suddenly tied itself into knots.

“You might want to slow down there,” he said when she took another gulp of the vino. His tone sounded judgmental, but then again, maybe he was simply settling into the role of the bigger, wiser brother, even though they were almost the same age.

“So, tell me about your mother,” he said.

She wasn’t entirely sure, but she got the feeling he’d been waiting to spring this question on her. He wasn’t nice. She needed to remember that. He was trying to break up Mom’s romance with his father. She had to be careful not to let him charm her into revealing too much or giving him ammunition.

She stared him down. “You’re relentless.”

“Yeah. I’ve been accused of that before. But, you know, I need to know the lay of the land. She’s going to become my stepmother.”

He gave the word a twist, as if he were talking about Cinderella’s wicked stepmom. Good grief, did that make her a wicked stepsister? Thank you, Disney, for forever making the whole step thing complicated and fraught with emotional overtones.

“What do you want me to say?” she said, taking yet another swig of wine. The alcohol infused her nervous system, calming her down.

“Whatever I need to know.”

She drummed her fingers on the checked tablecloth. “For what? To use against her?”

“Of course not.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. He was not being honest. And she was so disappointed.

“I don’t trust you.”

The little twitch turned into a smile. “Probably a wise move on your part,” he said.

Whoa. Wait. He was admitting everything. She honestly didn’t know what to think about him.

“But…” he said with a charming gleam in his deep blue eyes. “I am going to become her stepson. So, you know, information would be good to have.”

“That’s true,” she said. And he did have a good point. When Mom and Jim got married, Dylan would have to negotiate his way around Mom. Otherwise there would be family drama more or less continuously. She didn’t have to divulge deep family secrets to give him a few pointers on dealing with Mom.

She took another sip of wine and considered her words carefully. “Well, if there is one important thing to know about Mom, it’s that she can sometimes be very hard to please.”

“Well, that’s a problem, isn’t it?”

She cocked her head. “I’m not going to let you probe my relationship with my mother, Dylan.”

He leaned back a fraction. “Oh, of course not. But, you know, we’ve got a party to plan, and if she’s hard to please, that means we are up a creek without a paddle. She’s nixed the yacht club already. Are we going to have nothing but headaches?”

Well, he did have a point there, but Ella wasn’t going to cede it. Instead, she drained her wineglass and nudged it across the table. “More, please. The wine’s good.”

He gave her another look, which she filed under the heading of big-brothers-can-be-annoying, but he did refill the glass.

“So,” he said, “has she told you what she wants? Aside from not wanting the yacht club, that is. Which she told Dad instead of us.”

“Well, I hate to say I told you so, but I did. I told you she would hate the yacht club.”

“So what would she like?”

Ella shrugged. “I have no clue. Something informal though. But that’s just a gut feeling. She wants us to figure it out.”

 “So she can find fault with what we do? Seems a bit passive-aggressive, actually.”

Ella blew out a breath that stirred her too-long bangs. “Your words, not mine.”

“Which means they’re true. She is passive-aggressive.”

Ella took another sip of wine, letting the buzz fill her head. She was drinking too much too fast, especially since she had a sordid relationship with booze of any kind. But getting buzzed seemed a lot easier than trying to deal with Doctor Determined-to-Diss-Her-Mother. In fact, the buzz was calming after a day filled with too many highs and lows. Where the hell was her middle ground, anyway? She was tired of living on a roller coaster.

“Are they?” he asked again, prodding her.

Okay, he’d asked for it. She stared him straight in the eye. “It’s not that she’s passive-aggressive. It’s more that she’s a perfectionist. And it’s hard to meet her expectations. She doesn’t mince words. When she’s not happy with your performance, she tells you straight-up.”

“Performance? Is that how you feel around her, like you have to perform?”

Ella’s face heated. Had she just exposed another crack in her brittle armor? “No,” she said. “That’s not what I meant. You simply don’t understand.”

“Try me. I’m listening.”

He was, but to what effect? So she said nothing and took another swig of wine.

“I get it. You still don’t trust me.”

“Of course I don’t. Why should I? But you know what? My issues with Mom are unique because we both play the violin. And she’s a brilliant musician. She should have