Page 7 of Hers for the Weekend

Tara’s smile blossomed. “And here I thought you were a mannerless Yank.” She moved forward to hug Holly, but hesitated. Her smell, magnolias and star jasmine, like a steamy garden party, drifted forward and pulled Holly in, until she completed the hug.

She kicked off her shoes in the foyer, unwilling to risk Tara’s perfect heart pine floors with her heels. Tara led her back, through a showcase of a living room, toward the kitchen. Like most homes of the type (or at least, so Holly had gleaned from reading back issues of Southern Living), there was ornate crown molding and hand-painted wallpaper, but unlike many people who layered intense patterns and dark colors, Tara had opted for washes of pale yellow against white, washed out greens in the plush carpets, varieties of cream in the china she displayed in the antique cabinet, white embroidery on white pillows piled up on her chaise. It should look sterile, compared to the careful clutter of many of her peers’ homes, but Holly loved it immediately. Although she was very worried she was going to spill something on a throw pillow.

“I hope you don’t mind that I ordered in,” Tara drawled, her voice sounding even more South Carolinian in this quintessential Charleston setting. “I have to admit that I can’t cook at all, fancy pizza oven or not. My mother despairs of me, but I never learned.”

Her ears got red when she said this, and Holly stored away the knowledge that ice queen Tara could blush. And also that Tara deflected criticism by preemptively acknowledging any perceived faults, with a breezy self-deprecating shrug that made it seem as if being imperfect didn’t bother her.

“Please, there’s no shame in a woman not being able to cook, even a perfect Southern belle. You’re highly accomplished enough.”

Tara’s hands twitched where they were folded on the marble countertop, and Holly could tell she was digging her nails into her skin. Apparently there was some shame in it, if you were a Chadwick. Maybe it made Tara uncomfortable to be told she didn’t have to be good at everything.

Food arrived, a selection from Hank’s because of course, when Tara ordered, she ordered the best seafood in the city. Tara arranged it impeccably on plates that probably cost more than Holly had ever made in a month. It was the most beautifully displayed platter of shrimp she’d ever seen. She immediately bit one of the little sea bug’s heads off. You didn’t waste good shrimp where she came from—hell, you never even got good shrimp where she came from.

“I think we should drive,” Holly said, and watched Tara freeze.

“To New York?” she said, her voice appalled.

“It’s only a couple of days,” Holly pointed out, dunking another shrimp in sauce. “It will give us an opportunity to go over our story, make sure we know what we’re telling people. Memorize important details. Miriam will notice if I don’t know anything about your family except what I can Google, even if she is distracted by the wedding. Besides, there’s some beautiful country up there. We could drive up the whole coast!” And make out the whole time.

Tara’s shoulders were up by her ears. Oh, sweet Jesus, Holly wanted to make this woman come apart at the seams. Preferably all over Holly’s face. She should probably get her thirstiness under control.

Tara bit her lip, and Holly imagined biting it for her.

She would definitely get her thirstiness under control… at some point.

“I’m already expected to be up there for days, missing work to do a bunch of random pre-wedding crap,” Tara said, lining up objects on her granite counters in a gesture Holly suspected was nervous, though Tara kept her face completely calm. “I don’t think I can add any more days away to that. I have too much work. We should fly. We have a couple of weeks before we have to leave—we can get our stories straight then.”

“You want to fly into JFK that close to Christmas, get on a train for five hours, then take a shuttle to Carrigan’s?” Holly made a gagging face. She’d researched how to get to Carrigan’s so that she would have ammunition for this argument. “We’ll lose an entire day each way, it will be miserably stuffed with holiday travelers, and you won’t be able to get any work done. Driving, it will be two comfortable days in a car. You can sit in the passenger seat with your laptop. Billable hours, Chadwick. I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist. If we do this, we do it as a road trip.”

“We haven’t even agreed for sure that we’re going to pretend to be dating,” Tara hedged, dragging her shrimp slowly through a puddle of butter on her plate, like she was painting with it instead of eating it.

Holly piled fried seafood high on her plate. Could she get a to-go box? she wondered. “You keep talking about dating and a girlfriend, but couldn’t we just be, like, sleeping together and keeping each other company on a long weekend in the mountains? We could even really sleep together. You know. For veracity.” She winked.

Tara didn’t respond to this offer. Instead she said, “We need to be seriously dating because I only date seriously. I would never sleep with someone I wasn’t considering marrying, much less bring them to a wedding at Carrigan’s.”

There had to be quite a story there.

“Anyway,” Tara continued, “what would be in it for you? I feel like I’m taking advantage of your goodwill.”

Holly laughed. “Hey, you’re really not. You’re taking me along on an adventure, something I desperately need, you’re paying for a vacation, and I’m going to have a great time. Besides, my mom is putting on the pressure hard for me to come home for the holidays, because she’s decided to set me up with my ex. Having a wedding to go to, and a fake girlfriend to go with, would solve several problems for me. If it makes you feel better, you can upgrade my hotel rooms to the best suites on the road.”

Tara studied her, and Holly thought she was going to call the whole thing off, but instead she poured them both a little more of her much-better wine and motioned Holly over to the couch, where they settled on opposite ends, looking at each other.

“If we’re going to consider doing this, believably, I need to know as much about you as you do about me. Maybe more.” Tara managed to gesture with a glass of red wine over a pale pink velvet pillow without ever threatening to spill it.

It was very impressive, but Holly set her own glass down on a coaster on the coffee table, out of the way of her arms in case she gesticulated. She tucked her legs beneath her.

“I’m an open book,” she said, spreading her arms wide. “What do you want to know?”

“Where are you from? Do you have any siblings? What did you study in college? Anything! I don’t know anything about you.” Tara’s diction got more monied and her posture got more stiff the more uncomfortable she was. Holly knew other people thought she was an insufferable snob, but Holly personally thought she was a very charming, socially awkward snob.

“I’m from Iowa, the Quad Cities area. I’m a middle child between an older sister and a much younger brother, my sister and I are close, while my brother… he’s still figuring out being human. I didn’t go to university. I went to welding school because I thought it sounded like good money, but I kind of hated it. Lotta dudes not thrilled to share professional space with me.”

“Oh!” Tara exclaimed, somehow managing to sit up even straighter. “I shouldn’t have assumed about college.”

As much fun as it was to ruffle Tara’s feathers, Holly realized she was supposed to be putting Tara at ease about this whole situation, so Tara would agree to take her. How do you put a generations-deep Southern belle at ease about a girl who grew up in the Midwest on food stamps?

“You’re so smart, though. Is there anything you’d want to go back to school for? There are lots of scholarships for returning students, opportunities to finish at your own pace…”

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