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

during his sunset cruises. But I don’t think we could have a party with a hundred guests there.”

“Good. Because a hundred guests has always been ridiculous. Tell me more about this boat.”

She leaned into the doorframe, giving him a momentary reprieve. So he gave her the whole rundown on Synchronicity Too, the new schooner Jude had purchased last year. “Dad and Brenda cruised on the boat during the Festival of Lights last Christmas. Now that I think about it, that was sort of their first date.”

She rolled her adorable eyes. “Now you tell me this. We need to check this boat out.”

“Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

He should probably go, but he didn’t want to, and the guests in the library showed no interest in leaving. Dammit, he was not leaving without some small token of his affection.

So he leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek that hardly satisfied. When he pulled away, she stood there, wide eyed and breathing hard. He’d much prefer to take her home, but leaving her like that wasn’t a bad second option.

*  *  *

“Brenda said Dylan was wearing her favorite beach towel and not another stitch of clothing when they walked into the living room,” Nancy Jacobs said, looking up from her plate of blackberry jam cake. As always, her voice was pitched low and quiet, which was probably a good thing, seeing as Ella was upstairs giving Jackie tin whistle lessons.

Which Ashley devoutly wished the young woman hadn’t chosen to do. Her son had been practicing the dang thing since he got home from school, trying to play the “Sailor’s Hornpipe” but missing every other note. Jackie had informed Ashley that he wanted to learn the whistle so he could entertain pirate ghosts all on his own.

Maybe the boy would make so much noise—and Nancy would speak so quietly—that Ella wouldn’t discover that she’d become topic number one among the Piece Makers.

“You don’t say,” Donna Cuthbert said, placing her empty plate on the kitchen counter and helping herself to a second slice of cake.

“But Jim said the boy had chigger bites all over him. Ella didn’t have a one.”

“That’s odd. You don’t think she set him up, do you?” Karen asked.

“Ella wouldn’t do something like that. She was putting lotion on his back when Jim and Brenda walked into the room.”

“That sounds very suspicious,” Patsy said.

“Why? He had bites all over his back,” Nancy countered.

“Nancy. Those kids aren’t…you know.”

Nancy blinked behind her glasses as Patsy turned toward Ashley. “Are they?”

Now, that was a loaded question. On the face of it, Ashley could argue that this was a classic case of bugs ruining a picnic. On the other hand, she had eyes, and she’d seen Dylan watch Ella play. And she had ears, and she heard the way Ella said Dylan’s name.

If she was a gossip like Donna, she could probably turn this episode into something hot and racy. But she wasn’t a gossip, so she shook her head. “As far as I know, it was a picnic. Ella wanted to convince Dylan that an engagement party on the beach would be nice. I helped her fry some chicken, if that matters.”

“Did my granddaughter share my secret recipe with you?” Nancy asked in a hard voice.

“Now, Nancy, I was going to talk to you about that.” She glanced around at the rest of the Piece Makers. “In private. She did share your recipe because she had no clue how to fry a drumstick. And I promised her that I’d reciprocate by giving you my hummingbird cake recipe.”

Nancy folded her arms over her chest. “That’s mighty nice of you, Ashley, but I need you to promise never to divulge the secret ingredient in my fried chicken recipe.”

“I swear on my grandmother’s grave, Nancy.”

“All right, then.”

“I don’t know,” Patsy said. “Him being naked troubles me.”

“He says he took a shower,” Nancy said.

“Good thinking,” Karen commented. “Those no-see-ums are sneaky.”

“So there’s nothing going on between them?”

“No,” Ashley said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. She didn’t know for certain that love was blooming in the most unlikely of places. She did know two things: first, Ella had come in early on Monday morning, and second, Dylan had given Ella a kiss at the door on Monday evening. On the surface, that kiss might have looked like a simple peck on the cheek, but their body language said otherwise.

“Well, just in case there is something going on, I think you should have a word with her,” Patsy said in the dictatorial tone that had worn thin over the last few years. “And, ladies, we all have to help Nancy out. We can’t let Dylan and Ella ruin Jim and Brenda’s relationship. Donna, you Methodists have been trying to find Doctor Jim a new wife for years. And we Episcopalians are thrilled that he found Brenda and transformed her. Without Jim insisting on her directing the Christmas Chorale last year, I don’t think Brenda would ever have started a choir at Heavenly Rest. We need to make sure Ella and Doctor D behave themselves.”

She turned toward Ashley with a raised eyebrow when she got to the last sentence, as if it was Ashley’s job to keep Ella in line.

Ashley pretended she didn’t understand. “Excuse me, Patsy, but how has Ella not behaved herself? She packed a picnic. It wasn’t her fault that Doctor D ran into a nest of chiggers.”

“You know what we mean, Ashley. Ella is a musician who’s used to who knows what kind of life living on the road. I don’t think any of us expect her to stay here permanently or to ever settle down and get married. So we don’t want her playing with Dylan’s emotions.”

“I don’t think Ella’s playing with anyone’s emotions, Patsy,” Ashley said. She didn’t say that the situation might be the reverse. Besides, what else could she do? Ashley had already given Ella a couple of friendly warnings about getting too close to Dylan. But if Ella and Doctor D were