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

Rev. St. Pierre began the ceremony in the slowest drawl ever. Ella willed him to talk faster.

He seemed immune to her silent pleas. Time slowed to a crawl. She started counting breaths, and her hands started to shake. If they didn’t stop soon, she would be unable to play the recessional.

Her stomach growled as the minister said, “Into this holy union, Brenda and James now come to be joined.”

Mom didn’t appear to have heard the noise, but a glance from the minister suggested that he may have. He appeared to be a little concerned, but he continued. “If any of you can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now or else forever hold your peace.”

The minister paused. Time crawled.

“Excuse me,” someone interrupted in a soft voice.

Ella knew that voice. She turned to find Granny standing up in the front row.

“Nancy, do you have an objection?” the minister asked. He didn’t sound all that surprised. What the heck was going on? The black dots swam a little further into her field of vision.

“Well, maybe,” Granny said.

“Maybe?”

“I’m concerned is all.”

“Momma, what are you doing?” Mom asked, her eyebrows folding down into the frown-of-death. Oh boy. Ella’s hands were starting to get cold and clammy.

I will not faint. I will not faint. I will not faint.

“Hush now, Brenda. I’m not concerned about you and Jim. Y’all are in love, and he’s a great catch, and I guess there is no legal impediment, but…”

“Okay then, why in the Sam Hill have you objected?” Mom’s voice cut through Ella’s increasingly fuzzy head like a paring knife.

“Nancy, you can raise legal or moral objections to Brenda and Jim’s wedding. Not anything else. So maybe after the ceremony we can—”

“No.” Granny shook her head. “We have to talk about this now.”

The minister glanced at Ella. No. He wasn’t a little concerned. He was a lot concerned. “Um, maybe we should adjourn to the inn and have a conversation.”

“Yes, that would be a good idea,” Ashley said from her station at the garden gate.

Rev. St. Pierre shot the innkeeper a killing look, and the members of the family who had gathered started to mutter.

“Well, I suppose,” Granny said. “But whether I say it here or inside, folks aren’t going to like what I have to say. But here it is. Jim and Brenda, if y’all get married, I’m afraid y’all will be destroying the happiness of your children forever.”

Ella’s knees gave out, and the little swirls that had been dancing in front of her eyes for the last five minutes won the battle of wills. She didn’t remember hitting the ground.

*  *  *

“Quick, Dylan,” Rev. St. Pierre said, “we need to get her inside. I think she spent too much time in the sun and hasn’t had a thing to eat.”

Dylan didn’t need the minister to issue any directives. He was at Ella’s side before she even fainted, checking her pulse, which was rapid. She looked deathly pale except for two red splotches on her cheeks, but her skin was cold and clammy.

Heat syncope was his immediate diagnosis. She was probably dehydrated, and she’d been standing for a while playing the fiddle in a sunny spot. It was a classic case of not enough blood to her brain.

 But while the rational, doctor part of his brain was assessing the medical emergency and knew all the steps to treat the problem, his emotions went on a full-out Tilt-A-Whirl ride.

He scooped her up from the lawn and carried her right through the garden gate, following Ashley, who opened the inn’s front door for him. He took Ella to the library and settled her onto the aptly named fainting couch and put the rolled pillow under her feet.

“Do you have Gatorade or maybe a piece of watermelon or something like that? If not, water will do,” he said to Ashley, his voice wobbling with the emotions churning in his gut.

Ella moaned and blinked her eyes. She was coming back.

“Ella?”

She groaned again, and Ashley was Johnny-on-the-spot with a bottle of Gatorade and a straw. He couldn’t have had a better nurse.

He put the straw to Ella’s mouth. “Drink this.”

She tried to bat the straw away.

“Dammit, stop fighting me and listen.”

Her eyes fluttered open, big and wide and beautiful.

“Drink, dammit,” he said in a quieter voice.

She took the straw in her mouth and did as she was told. But she stared up at him with such a look on her face. He didn’t know whether to yell at her or hug her or scream out his frustration.

“Don’t you ever do that again, you hear?” His voice got stupid and emotional, and he had to bat away a tear that escaped his eye. His heart was racing too.

“I can’t lose you,” he whispered, a tourniquet squeezing his chest. “I don’t want you to move away or join some stupid band and go back on the road. I want you to stay in one place. I want you to be okay with someone boring and ordinary like me. And I know all the things you said to me that night in the hospital are probably right. But I don’t care. I don’t care about Dad or your mother. I care about you. And I don’t want you to ever faint again from something dumb like heatstroke, you hear?”

But this time, the tears were streaming out of his eyes and dripping off his chin.

“See what I mean, Reverend St. Pierre? This is why I had to stop the wedding,” a voice said from behind him.

Oh, great. He’d been professing his love to Ella with an audience. He glanced behind him. The whole family, Rev. St. Pierre, and Ashley Scott were standing there with funny looks on their faces.

Ella spit the straw out. He was pleased to see that she’d drained the bottle of Gatorade dry while he’d professed his undying love. He was such a fool sitting here crying like a sissy. Or maybe like his own father had cried that night in