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

the job description of the guy upstairs. So I suggest you pray to Him.” Micah shifted his gaze. “Looks like wedding guests are starting to arrive.”

Ashley turned, and sure enough, Brooklyn Huddleston, a vision of summertime loveliness in a pink sundress and straw hat, stood by the garden gate waving at Micah. The woman was at least half an hour early for this wedding. But then again, so was Micah.

And he was waving back at her with a gigantic grin on his face.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Ella took her place on the left side of the canopy and placed her music on the stand. She’d been practicing these selections for weeks now and had them mostly memorized, but the music was a good backup.

The music also provided a safe haven for her to hide behind. She could hold herself together and keep the loneliness and regret from overwhelming her by just focusing on the notes.

As long as she was lost in the music, she wouldn’t have to look at Dylan. She could put it off until the ceremony began. Once the processional was finished, she was supposed to put her violin down and join Mom as her maid of honor under the canopy. She wished to hell she didn’t have to do that because Dylan was Jim’s best man. There would be no way to avoid seeing him.

She’d been avoiding that for weeks now, ever since he’d left her table at Rafferty’s that night. Of course, she’d caught a glimpse of him once or twice downtown. And the other night she’d gone to Annie’s for dinner and he was there, so she’d turned around and gotten a burger on the boardwalk instead.

She needed to get out of town or she might make a fateful mistake that would send Mom back to the hospital or something. She just needed to get through today, and it would be smooth sailing after that.

She already had her bus ticket to Nashville.

But right now she was standing in the South Carolina sun as she prepared to begin the musical prelude to the marriage ceremony. The weather gods had sent a beautiful, but hot, day. Even the breeze off the bay seemed to be coming from a furnace.

She started with several Strauss waltzes as guests continued to arrive. In the middle of “The Blue Danube,” her stomach started to growl.

Damn. She’d grabbed a scone for breakfast this morning right before heading to the beauty shop. But she hadn’t eaten any lunch at all. Big mistake. What if her stomach rumbled in the middle of Mom’s ceremony?

Well, she couldn’t do anything about it now except file it under the heading of Murphy’s Law. If her stomach was growling already, it would growl midvow. Hopefully Mom would be so wrapped up in Jim she wouldn’t notice.

Damn, it was hot. She was starting to sweat along the fingerboard and chin rest.

She finished the Strauss waltz medley and then launched into Pachelbel’s “Canon,” which was a head fake for the wedding guests. So many brides walked down the aisle to “Canon,” but Mom wasn’t one of them. Instead, the piece was the cue for Dylan and Jim to take their places.

Ella didn’t look up from the music to see if that had happened. She was busy keeping an eye on the garden gate, waiting for Ashley’s cue that Mom was in place.

Ashley’s wave came, and Ella ended “Canon” and moved on to Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” which was Mom’s musical cue. Once the music started, Ella glanced up in time to see Mom come through the garden gate, pause for a moment, and gaze in Jim’s direction. She smiled and he returned the smile, his bright eyes adoring even from a distance.

Yeah. They were in love. And Ella was happy for them, even as her own heart was cracking in two.

She put all that emotion into her playing, making the violin soar through the Schubert. She must have found her groove despite the sweat dripping on the chin rest and the hollowness in her gut because Granny’s eyes were streaming by the time Mom reached the altar.

Ella ended the piece, put the violin back in its case, and grabbed the tissue she’d left there. She used it to dab the sweat on her chin, but when she straightened up, a rogue wave of dizziness hit her. Damn, this was a terrible time to have low blood sugar.

Or maybe heatstroke.

She breathed in, and the light-headedness ebbed away enough for her to join her mother under the shade cast by the canopy. Unfortunately, it was still three million degrees out here, and in a haze, she let herself glance away from Mom and Jim toward Dylan, who stood just beyond his father.

He was dressed in a gray suit and a blue striped four-in-hand tie. His slightly-too-long hair was doing its Lord Byron thing in the May humidity, the delicious curl falling over his forehead. She flashed on an image of that lock wrapped around her finger. She’d loved playing with his curl on those nights when they’d stayed up until the wee hours talking about nothing and everything all at once.

He was looking the other way, and she feasted on the sight of him until he turned and their gazes locked. Her stomach lurched, and her knees went watery, as if she’d just taken a ride on the Tower of Terror. She felt weightless for a moment until gravity reexerted its dominion over her body.

If she kept staring at him, she would faint, which would be too girlie for words. Not to mention embarrassing.

Worst of all, Mom would never forgive her. Ever.

She willed herself to look at Mom and Jim. I’m not going to faint. I’m not going to faint. I’m not going to faint.

Sheer willpower kept her knees locked and the little curlicues of blackness from edging too far into her field of vision.

“Dearly beloved, we have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man…”