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

right, of course. But he wanted to do it again. Hell, he’d hoped to do it again before dawn. “What about our plans for this evening?” he asked.

“What plans…Oh, you mean the picnic?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s no reason to cancel that. I mean, you wanted to check out the beach, right? Or do you want to concede the point and agree to a beach party?”

He squeezed the steering wheel. He should probably concede the point, but he didn’t want to. “I’ll pick you up at six.”

Chapter Sixteen

What had Ella been thinking?

She’d gone to bed with Dylan, and now she was foolishly trying to prove something to him with this damn picnic. She should have picked up the phone and called Annie Robinson the moment she read Granny’s fried chicken recipe and realized that she didn’t have the first clue how to actually fry a chicken.

She should have gotten this damn picnic catered.

But no. Some stupid part of her female brain wanted to cook for Dylan, when she knew good and well that whatever had happened last night was over. Done. Never going to happen again.

So here she stood in Ashley’s kitchen, feeling a little sleepy, working up the courage to fry the chicken she’d bought at Miller’s Market but also boiling potatoes for homemade potato salad while getting ready to chop cabbage into slaw.

She was on the brink of making a total hash out of it when Jackie came sailing through the front door wearing his school uniform, which consisted of navy-blue pants and a white polo shirt with a stain on the front that might have come from ketchup. He hopped up onto one of the kitchen stools, planted his face in his hands, and asked, “Whatcha doing?”

She needed the kid like she needed a hole in the head. “Making coleslaw.”

“Why?”

“I’m going on a picnic tonight.”

The kid hopped down from his stool and headed to the gigantic Sub-Zero refrigerator, where he pulled out a can of diet Coke. Then he strolled over to the stove. “Your pot’s about to boil over.”

“Oh, yikes.” Ella turned and reduced the heat on the potatoes.

“I think they’re done,” Jackie said. “Maybe overdone.”

She turned the heat off. The potatoes did look a bit overboiled, which would have been great if she was making mashed potatoes. Well, better overdone than underdone.

She drained the potatoes into a colander and went back to chopping cabbage.

“The captain likes your music,” Jackie said, returning to the stool, where he eyed her every move like a hawk. The kid had probably watched his mother for years, but when Ashley entered her kitchen, she was like a captain of a great ocean liner, totally confident and in charge. Ella was neither of those things.

“I’m glad the captain likes my music,” she said to the kid, while she measured out mayo and mustard.

“So when are you going to go out to the tree and play the violin for him again?”

She looked up at the kid. “The captain could come in on Saturdays if he wants to hear me play.”

“I don’t think he can leave the tree…” Jackie paused. “Well, not unless it’s super important. He was able to go to the library once, but that was important to him. Music, maybe not. He says you should play more jigs and reels and less of that sad stuff. He doesn’t like sad stuff.”

“And everyone’s a critic,” she muttered as she poured some vinegar into the coleslaw dressing.

“Jackie?” Ashley’s voice came from up the back stairway.

The kid turned on his stool. “Hi, Mom,” he said in a perfectly angelic voice.

Ashley entered the kitchen and gave him a motherly look. “Stop bothering Ella. It looks as if she’s busy right now.”

“Okay.” He slipped from the stool, picked up his book bag and soda can, and headed for the stairs, but before he got to the first step, he turned. “You should come out to the tree and play some jigs and reels. It would cheer him up.” Then he turned and raced up the stairs, ignoring his mother’s frown.

Ashley turned around. “I’m sorry he was bothering you.”

“He wasn’t,” Ella said, eyeing the slightly mushy potatoes. “I think I was managing to screw this up well before he arrived.”

“What’s the occasion?”

Ella’s face flamed hot. Ashley had already given Ella one serious woman-to-woman talk about Dylan Killough. Had she heard her come in at three o’clock this morning? Had she seen Dylan’s car in the drive? And now here she was making a picnic for him. It wouldn’t take a genius to connect the dots. But she couldn’t flat-out lie about things. She just had to spin the truth the way they did in Washington these days.

“Well, you know Mom has asked Dylan and me to plan an engagement party for her and Jim, so I’m trying to prove that a picnic on the beach would be perfect. Dylan is skeptical. And I have this feeling that I’m not going to win him over to my point of view when he sees this mess. Granny told me the way to convince him was with excellent food. This is going to be an epic fail.” She sighed. Maybe by focusing on her less-than-competent kitchen skills, she could distract Ashley from this truth.

“So all this is for Dylan, huh?” Ashley asked, dashing any hope Ella had of fooling her.

“Oh, absolutely,” she said. Maybe if Ella admitted it, Ashley would buy her line about convincing Dylan with food. “He’s so skeptical about a beach party, and I had this idea about a fried chicken and champagne reception that I got from Martha Stewart’s webpage.”

“Fried chicken and champagne?”

Ella nodded.

“Need help?” Ashley asked, glancing at the soggy potatoes.

“Oh, that’s not necessary. I can—”

“It’s no trouble. And besides, this is for your mom, right?”

Ella let go of a little breath. Had she bought the line? Maybe. “Right.” Ella nodded vigorously because it was for her mother. Not Dylan. At all.

“So, have you ever fried chicken before?”

“Uh, no, but I’ve got Granny’s recipe and—” Oh crap.