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

“Sugar, you should not spend one minute of your time trying to please that man. Just be yourself. Wear what you wore to Easter dinner. That was a very pretty dress on you.”

“I can’t wear that one. It’s…at the cleaners.” She prayed that Granny didn’t have a BS detector.

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Well…” Granny’s voice had a funny ring to it when she finally spoke again. “If you’re asking me where you should go for a wardrobe update, I’d suggest Daffy Down Dilly. Kerri will fix you up with the perfect outfit for a champagne cruise.”

“Thanks. That’s exactly what I needed.”

“Sugar?”

“What, Granny?”

“Be careful, okay?”

Ella paused. Had she said too much? Had her grandmother figured out that she had a crush on Doctor D? Oh, good grief. She should never have consulted with her. She reached for the first, lame thing that came to her mind. “Of course I will be. I bet they have life jackets on the cruise. Don’t you worry. I’ll be fine.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Love you.” She disconnected the line before Granny said another word.

Thirty minutes later, she walked into Daffy Down Dilly and found the collection of sundresses in the corner. Unfortunately, most of these dresses were not funereal. They were adorable and completely inappropriate because they showed way too much shoulder and cleavage.

She pawed through the rack, jettisoning one cute dress after another, until she finally found a boring navy dress with white polka dots, a crew neck, and short sleeves that probably wouldn’t have worked for a funeral. But Ella could see some DAR-type wearing it to a baptism.

Ella left the store an hour later with the conservative garment and a pair of boring navy ballet flats. She couldn’t wear her Doc Martens with this dress. That would just be weird. With her boho dresses, the Docs made a statement.

So she felt completely out of her element when she stepped through the doors to meet Dylan. She hated the way she looked in this dress, and she hoped he hated it too. But she was still insanely happy to see him, at the same time she dreaded the moment of first contact.

Would it be awkward? Or hotter than she could bear? It could go either way. She was hoping the dress, which was uncomfortable as hell, would throw cold water on the whole affair.

Dylan was looking down at his phone, checking messages as she approached the car in the circular drive. That was a bit of a disappointment, really. She’d kind of wanted him to be anticipating her arrival.

When he finally did look at her, his gaze was cool and unreadable. But what should she have expected? She’d told him to cool it. He was following instructions.

And he didn’t seem to be having any trouble with his emotions either. In fact, he seemed like his normal self, wearing his usual uniform: navy jacket, white button-down, and a bow tie. He was living large today; his noose was made of yellow and blue silk.

He continued to coolly assess her as she slipped into the passenger’s seat. “You should probably bring a sweater,” he said.

That was the absolute last thing she’d expected him to say. A little part of her wanted him to ask her why she was wearing this dress from hell. An even larger part of her wanted him to grab her by the shoulders and kiss her senseless. Which would have been stupid because she’d asked him not to do anything like that.

“I don’t have a sweater,” she said truthfully.

“A jacket?”

“I’m fine,” she said, tearing her gaze away from him and reaching for the seat belt. The top of the dress cut her armpits as she moved, as if the sleeve openings were just a tad too small. Thank goodness she would never have to fiddle in this straitjacket.

“Suit yourself,” he said.

She settled back for the ride to the marina, watching his long fingers on the steering wheel, having flashback memories that really needed to be excised. She forced herself to look away, and the silence in the car became charged and uncomfortable.

Synchronicity Too was berthed at the end of the marina’s long pier because of its sheer size. So the walk down the pier seemed interminable, especially since they weren’t talking or touching.

She ought to be grateful that Dylan had taken her seriously and not shown up ready to play games or engage in verbal banter. But now, suddenly, she realized that she liked the games. Sparring with him was fun.

They stepped up a gangplank to reach the yacht, which was huge—at least a hundred feet long, with several masts and a dozen portholes marching down its sides. The sun gleamed off the boat’s brass work and the high shine of the wooden decks.

“Oh my goodness, it’s beautiful. And romantic. Dylan, why didn’t you think of this from the start?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty, but it’s not perfect for a party. What if the weather’s crappy? The party would have to be postponed. And we still have to convince Dad and Brenda to cut back the guest list. We can only invite a max of forty. I checked with Jude about that.”

Boy, he was in a sour mood. “Stop trying to rain on the parade,” she said, her voice brittle.

She turned away from him and took three steps up the ramp, but the damn skirt was narrow, and the shoes were a tiny bit too big. She slipped on the aluminum decking and might have taken a serious tumble if Dylan hadn’t been Johnny-on-the-Spot, catching her before she face-planted. The slide of his warm palms against her upper arms made her insides reach critical mass.

When his hands lingered, she almost melted down. She needed to get away from him. Even in a sour mood, he was disrupting her thought patterns.

“I’m fine,” she said, pulling away. If only she could walk in this dress. She gave the skirt a little tug