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

and turned toward him. He was so much taller than she was, and they stood so close together she could count his amazing eyelashes. No man should have lashes like that. It was unfair.

“Sometimes the truth can hurt people,” she said.

“I know.”

“So, really, I should have figured out what you were trying to do. You know? Sparing Mom the truth about what Jim did.”

“Or maybe your mother needed to hear the truth.”

“Why? So she could fight with your Dad?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t plan it that way, Ella.”

“And now you think you are so smart. You think she’s going to get all up in your father’s face and blame him for a bunch of things. You think she’s that kind of person, but you know what? You’re wrong. She doesn’t blame people for things. She simply has incredibly high standards. Sometimes they are so hard to meet.”

“So you’ve said before, and I heard the conversation at the table about those violin pieces. Your mother kept warning you away from the ones she considered difficult.”

Ella shrugged and turned back to the last casserole dish, but he gently took her by the upper arm and pulled her back toward him. His fingers were warm against her bare skin and gentle despite the force.

“We don’t need to blame anyone but Dad for today’s debacle, okay? And I was only trying to get your mother to accept Grace Church as a locale for the party because finding a venue has taken over my life. Why don’t we give ourselves a little break in the blame department?”

She met his gaze. “Okay, but we still need to find a place for the party.”

“One that will meet your mother’s standards?”

“You know, we should listen to Granny. She’s wise. Let’s have the party on the beach. I know for a fact that Mom likes that idea.”

“It might rain.”

“Let’s get a tent.”

She waited for Dylan to argue with her, but he kept his mouth shut.

“So you’re okay with this idea?”

“I don’t know. I guess we don’t get hurricanes in April.”

She snorted.

“What beach were you thinking?” he asked.

“Paradise Beach, right in front of Cloud Nine. It’s lovely. We could do it at sunset.”

“Prime thunderstorm time.”

“Are you always so negative? Sunset is romantic.”

He shrugged again. “I don’t know.”

“I tell you what, why don’t I pack a picnic and we can check it out tomorrow evening at sunset.”

*  *  *

Brenda reached her car, parked in one of the condo’s guest spots, just as Jim rounded the corner in a lope. “Stop,” he called.

Ignoring him, she yanked open the car door, got inside, and locked herself in. Or maybe she’d locked Jim out. Either way, her heart was pounding so hard it made her whole body shake.

She expected Jim to bang on the door or yell, but she wouldn’t even have cared if he had. Instead of yelling, though, he bent over and stared at her through the passenger’s side window. “Please open the door,” he said in that voice—the one that wormed its way into her core and made her heart stop doing its tap dance on her sternum. How the hell did he do that? No doubt he was a born healer.

“Brenda, honey, don’t sulk.”

Well, that was a tiny bit annoying because she wasn’t sulking. She was crying and having some sort of panic attack. She turned toward him, tears smearing her vision. “It’s my party and I’ll sulk if I want to.”

“If you’re talking about that old Lesley Gore song, I think the title is ‘It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To,’ and it looks like you’re crying. Honey, don’t cry. Unlock the door. Let me explain.”

She brushed the tears from her cheeks. “How could you?”

“Honey, there’s an explanation. But you’ll have to let me in to get it. Open the door.”

She pressed the unlock button, and Jim climbed into the car.

“I’m listening.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, it’s kind of a long story.”

“I have nothing else to do.”

“Well, it started when Grant Ackerman and I arrived at the church office at the same moment.”

“And why were you at the church office?”

“Well, I’ll be honest. I was there to see if the room was available. It gets booked up fast because it’s the only party room big enough to host a sizable event.”

“And you did that because you didn’t trust the kids?”

“Well, no. To be honest, Dylan has been trying to sabotage us, and Ella doesn’t know the lay of the land. So I thought I’d jump in to have a fail-safe, you know?”

“Okay. So you booked the room.”

“Well, not exactly. You see, Grant was there, and he wanted the room for Jim Miller’s party. He’s retiring from the volunteer fire department. And Mrs. Walsh, the church secretary, wasn’t in that day because her mother is ill. And Reverend Pasidena was not above making Grant and me compete for the room.”

“Oh my goodness. Really?”

“Yeah. He was trying to get help from the volunteer fire department for some fundraising for the playground equipment, and I might have piped in that I would try to convince you to become the choir director.”

“You did not.”

“I did. And I’m sorry. But you know, there are worse things in the world. The Grace Church choir is twice the size of the choir at Heavenly Rest. And besides, I didn’t commit you to coming over to the Methodists, I just said I’d raise the topic with you.”

“I’m furious with you.”

“Well, I should have told you about it, but I was hoping the kids would come up with some other plan. But it looks like they’re stumped.”

“They aren’t working very well together.”

“So it would seem,” he said on a sigh. “But you know, Brenda, you might consider the idea of becoming the choir director at Grace Church.”

Her heart started pounding again. Was this that important to him? Until this moment, she hadn’t considered that him being a Methodist and her being an Episcopalian would create problems. This was a second marriage for both of them. They weren’t going to be