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

Boy, that would turn some heads on Harbor Drive, wouldn’t it?

“How do I stay on this thing?” she asked.

“There are handles, but if you want, you can hold on to me.”

“And where is this caterer?”

“On Harbor Drive. Down on the East End.”

“Are we tempting the fates by riding right through the middle of town?” she asked.

“Uh, well. No. Maybe. But you can hold on to the handles if you want.”

She didn’t. Instead, she wrapped both arms around his middle and snuggled even tighter against his back. It was perfect. He wished they were taking a long drive up the coast to find a deserted beach. Although making love in the sand wasn’t all that much fun, really.

He fired up the bike and looked over his shoulder. “Lean through the turns like you would if you were on a bicycle.”

“Right,” she said in a breathless tone, her hands a little restless where they gripped his chest.

He took off at a moderate speed. He’d intended to give her a different kind of thrill this evening, but unfortunately, an accident snarled downtown traffic, and they inched along. Some idiotic tourist hadn’t been paying attention and made a turn into oncoming traffic at the intersection of Harbor Drive and Magnolia Boulevard. No one was hurt, thank goodness, but every few feet he had to stop and put his foot on the pavement.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t having a few thrills though. Ella had developed a death wish or something. Or maybe she had gotten tired of hanging on tight when they were going slower than a pedal bike. She quit clutching his chest, and her hands strayed down to his inner thigh. His riding leathers suddenly felt hotter than normal.

“So,” he said half turning, unable to see her because of the helmet. “Are you trying to get caught with your hands in the cookie jar?”

She moved her hand back to his chest. “Uh, well, um. Sorry. I guess my mind started wandering.”

“I wasn’t complaining,” he said.

“No?”

She moved her hand down slowly across his abs on its way back to other places when, out of nowhere, they were hailed.

“Ella, is that you?”

She straightened as if she’d been hit with a taser. Her sudden move, withdrawing her hands from his body, upset their balance. Good thing they were going only two miles an hour. Dylan was able to stop the bike and rest his foot on the ground before they toppled.

“Granny?” she said in a strangled tone that carried even through the muffling helmet.

Dylan glanced toward the sidewalk in front of A Stitch in Time. Sure enough, there stood Ella’s grandmother, shading her eyes against the late-afternoon sunlight. “My word, Dylan, I had no idea you had a motorcycle,” she said in a voice that was surprisingly loud for Nancy Jacobs.

In fact, several other people turned and glanced their way, including Milo Parker, one of Dylan’s patients, who was walking down the street carrying a bag from Annie’s Kitchen—precisely the kind of eatery the man should have been avoiding. Milo grinned at him sheepishly.

“Isn’t it fun?” Ella said to her grandmother.

“Well, that’s debatable. Where are y’all off to?”

“A Night to Remember,” Ella hollered.

“What?” Nancy’s mouth almost fell open just as the traffic moved forward several feet, taking them farther down Harbor Drive.

“It’s a catering place, Granny,” Ella yelled, but Nancy didn’t hear her. The woman cupped her hand around her ear and frowned at them. There was a certain resemblance between that frown and the one Ella referred to as her mother’s frown-of-death.

Before Ella could explain the caterer’s name again, Ethan Cuthbert, a deputy with the Magnolia Harbor Police Force, who was on the scene directing traffic, waved them forward past the smashed-up Chevy in the middle of the road.

“Hey, Dylan,” the deputy called, “y’all out for a little evening ride?” Ethan squinted. “Is that you, Ella?”

“Yes, it’s me. And no, we’re off to A Night to Remember.”

Ethan’s mouth dropped.

“Hang on, Ella,” Dylan shouted, right before he hit the gas. Her arms came around his middle again as they shot forward past the accident.

“I hope you do have a night to remember,” Ethan hollered after them.

Five minutes later, they arrived at the caterer and divested themselves of their helmets. They stared at each other for a long, serious moment.  People were going to gossip about them. Of course, they could explain the confusion, given the name of the caterer.

So maybe that explained why they both cracked up laughing so hard that tears fell from their eyes.

“You know,” she finally said as they walked toward the caterer’s office, “my grandmother is going to grill me about what she thinks she just heard. Which was innocent enough, but not really.”

He stopped at the caterer’s door. “We could always tell the truth.”

“And what is the truth?” she asked, her face sobering.

Good question. Was this a fling that would be over in a week or two when she got ready to move on? Or was it something more?

Or maybe it didn’t matter what it was.

*  *  *

After church on Sunday, Ella rode back to Granny’s house with Mom. She’d brought her fiddle with her because they intended to practice the Mozart duet and get the engagement party invitations addressed.

The mailed invitations were unnecessary since Dylan had set up an Evite and had already gotten half a dozen RSVPs online.

But Mom didn’t trust the internet, or Dylan for that matter. So to keep the peace, Ella had borrowed her mother’s car yesterday and gotten cards with matching envelopes printed up at one of those quick-print places in Georgetown. Granny had volunteered to address envelopes because her handwriting was so much better than Brenda’s or Ella’s. And since they’d cut the invite list down to forty guests, it wasn’t a big deal.

Ella was just a tiny bit nervous about rehearsals with Mom. Many years ago, they had played this piece together. She’d been fifteen, and it had been a difficult piece for her then. She was a better violinist now. But she was still rusty