Page 28 of Hers for the Weekend

This last sounded like it was a joke, although Holly wasn’t sure what the joke was. The man, who she recognized as Levi Matthews from both Instagram and the several magazines he’d recently graced the cover of, turned to her. “You must be Holly! Hi!” He stuck out his hand.

“It’s great to meet you,” she told him. “I hear you also recently had a wedding.”

He grinned, and his face turned from interesting to breathtaking. She didn’t watch food TV, or find men attractive, but she suddenly thought she might be wrong on both fronts. No wonder his cooking show was such a runaway hit.

“Which Tara did not make an appearance for. My wife may never forgive her,” he joked. “Speaking of unforgiving, dinner is almost served and my mom does not look kindly on people who are late. Do you want to head down with me?”

Holly looked at Tara, who shrugged under her cat scarf.

“We’ll finish the other discussion later,” Holly promised with a wink, and she heard Tara draw in a sharp breath.

To Levi, Tara said, “You told me about the wedding less than twenty-four hours before it happened.”

“More than enough time to hop a flight,” Levi observed, and Tara huffed. From around her neck, Kringle huffed, too. Her huff turned into a squeak when Levi hugged her. “I’m glad you’re here. Hannah’s really glad, and, you know, Hannah’s happiness is priority number one.”

Tara pulled back and gave him a Lawyer Look, one that Holly suspected compelled many people to tell her the truth.

“Now,” he amended. “Hannah’s happiness is priority one now.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Matthews,” Tara said. “I like the show.”

Holly wouldn’t have guessed that those two would get on well together, since from everything she knew about Levi he was pure unbridled chaos and Tara was the dictionary definition of Lawful Good, but they seemed to enjoy one another, walking arm in arm down the stairs, chatting about a recent episode of Living Bold that Levi had done featuring knishes.

There was not an empty chair in the dining room, and diners were spilling over into the high-ceilinged great room across the hall. Cole was acting as a waiter, and a short brunette who vaguely resembled Miriam was directing traffic.

“Who is that?” Holly whispered to Tara. She didn’t recognize the person from the Carrigan’s Instagram feed.

Tara looked puzzled. “I’ve never met them. Levi?”

“Oh, that’s Gavi,” he said. “They’re a Rosenstein cousin we poached from B and P.”

“Bread and Pastries,” Holly told Tara, who seemed confused. “That’s a real Davenport insider thing to call it.” To Levi, she said, “I grew up about half a mile from the home office.”

“For me it’s a ‘married into the family and it’s confusing that my in-laws and their business have the same name’ thing,” Levi countered. “But let’s chat about old B and P recipes sometime. I bet you grew up eating some things I’d love to be able to reproduce.”

Rosenstein’s Bread and Pastries, begun in the 1800s by a Ukrainian immigrant, was a nationwide chain of bakeries focused on traditional Jewish recipes, but it was also her hometown business success story. She’d have to ask if Gavi had been at the home office and see if they could bond about Iowa. Not that Holly had a lot of positive feelings about Davenport, personally, but it wasn’t a bad town for other people, and the Rosenstein’s flagship store was one of the best things about it.

Tara nodded, her face clearing. “The new guest services manager!”

If Holly remembered correctly, Hannah had previously been in charge of both guest services and event planning, so they must have hired on extra help.

“Holly, I’m going to leave you with Cole to find a place to sit, and take Tara to say hi to my mom,” Levi told her.

Tara’s eyes widened and she mouthed, Help me, at Holly, but Holly was not going to save her from being well-liked by very lovely people.

She was, however, going to use the cover of being a loving girlfriend to get some more kissing in.

Before she could be drawn away, Holly swung an arm around Tara’s neck and kissed her hard. “Come back to me soon, babe,” she said before releasing Tara and watching her walk off. Maybe it was Holly’s imagination, but she did look a little disoriented. Good.

Meanwhile, Cole slung an arm around Holly’s shoulder and led her toward a table, where he introduced her to Sawyer, who might or might not be his boyfriend.

Holly wasn’t sure what she’d expected from the man who had—according to Tara—made Cole realize, with one handshake, that he was gay, but somehow she was unsurprised that he was the opposite of the typical Charleston bro. Slight, with a waxed mustache and long hair in a French braid, he looked like he had a lot of thoughts about whiskey and might own a pocket watch.

Years of waitressing had made her very good at talking to strangers, which stood her in good stead as she was seated next to a family that told her they had been visiting Carrigan’s for generations. The grandparents, in fact, had gotten engaged at Carrigan’s one Christmas. Holly learned that, every year, on December 23, the Christmasland hosted a special anniversary dinner for all the couples who’d been engaged or married at Carrigan’s over the years. It was supposed to be good luck.

Holly, who was as interested in either good luck or marriage as she was a hole in the head, found herself immensely charmed by all of it regardless. Still, she kept one eye out for Tara to return from the kitchen.

Cole leaned over Sawyer to stage-whisper to her. “Okay,” he said, gesturing with a roll. “I hate to plot against my oldest and dearest friend, who is basically my sister—”

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