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“You make time for what you love.” He smiled. “But speaking of my children, I think it’s time for them to join the photos. I’m going to make sure neither of them has gotten cookie crumbs on their clothes.”

Holly looked around. “There are cookies?”

“Where Mrs. Matthews is, cookies also are,” Elijah informed her.

She went off in search of Mrs. Matthews, who gave her pfeffernuesse and left Holly alone with her thoughts so that she, too, could join the pictures. Everyone, it seemed, was being photographed as part of the wedding, except for Holly. She was pretty sure they hadn’t asked her to be in the photos because, even if they believed she and Tara were dating, they didn’t believe she’d be around long enough to have her in the pictures.

The buzz of an incoming call pulled her out of staring forlornly at the blue delft kitchen tiles, mouth full of cookie, feeling sorry for herself that she couldn’t grow old with someone like Tara. Holly twisted on the kitchen stool to fish her phone out of her purse, which she’d dumped unceremoniously on the floor beneath her.

“Fucking dress,” she mumbled, falling off the stool and landing, hard, on her ass as she managed to snag the phone, only to find an unknown number calling. Because she was still flustered from falling off a chair onto the Carrigan’s kitchen floor in her most expensive outfit, she answered instead of sending it to voicemail.

“Holly Delaney speaking.”

“Miss Delaney. This is Mrs. Chadwick.” On the surface, Tara’s mother sounded a great deal like her daughter. Polished old money accent, familiar cadence. People who didn’t know Tara well would have trouble telling them apart. Holly didn’t. Tara’s voice had a million facets underneath the top layer of ice.

Her mother’s voice was ice all the way down, and Holly was pretty sure Mrs. Chadwick was calling to try to freeze her out of Tara’s life.

“I hear from my dear friend Cricket that you are attending an event with my daughter. Naturally, since Tara told me nothing about this, I found myself curious and looked you up. Your Instagram seems to suggest that you may be more than friends. This is, of course, unacceptable. You will stop seeing her immediately, or I will make you unemployable anywhere in South Carolina.”

The call ended before Holly could respond or fully process what Mrs. Chadwick had said. It was like waking up in the middle of an earthquake and wondering why the floor was shaking, only to put the pieces together once the rumbling had stopped. Which was, Holly thought, not a bad metaphor, since Tara’s mom was the equivalent of a natural disaster. She pushed the phone across the floor, instinctively backing away like it was a coiled snake. God, her butt was going to bruise so bad.

Had she just been daydreaming about a world where she and Tara could be together? How had she let herself forget that Tara’s world, the world she’d chosen, would poison Holly? Not slowly and accidentally, but swiftly, intentionally, with malice. Unless Tara agreed to become estranged from her family and leave her law practice, them being together would always be a daydream.

Holly rested her head back against the island and closed her eyes. Yep.

She’d met a girl who made her want to try for the real thing again, after all this time, but she couldn’t have her. Fucking amazing.

Her phone buzzed again and she reached for it, finding a text from her own mother.

Mom: OMG Caitlin showed me more pictures of your new lady! Why aren’t you bringing her home for Christmas, again?

Leaving aside the important questions of whether she was going to kill her sister and who needed to pay for teaching her mom to say OMG (probably Caitlin, so yes, either murder or glitter through the mail), she didn’t have the energy for this. She dropped her head onto her knees, trying not to mess up the makeup she’d spent an hour on. The door swung open, and she looked up to find Tara sitting down in front of her. In her beautiful, outrageously expensive vintage dress. On the kitchen floor.

“Hey. You okay?” Tara’s voice, so often sharp as a knife, was so soft. Holly wanted to tell her the truth about the phone call from Tara’s mom, and how torn up inside she was about it.

About them.

But Tara was here to be part of an event that mattered to her, and she didn’t need to go nuclear on her mom right beforehand. And maybe a small part of Holly was afraid that if Tara heard that her mother knew they were dating (fake as it was), she would freak out and cut off their dalliance early.

So Holly did what she’d been training at for a decade, and what she’d promised Tara she wouldn’t do as long as they were together: she put on her mask.

Smiling, she put a hand in Tara’s.

“It’s so embarrassing! I tried to grab my phone and fell right over! And now I’m stuck, because I can’t get up in this dress. Help?” She forced herself to make her voice light, to laugh, to make it a joke.

Tara must have been distracted because she bought it. She tugged on Holly’s hand, hauling her up. They ended up pressed against each other, and their eyes caught. The ice blue in Tara’s was so warm, Holly didn’t want to look away. She flushed, heat pooling between her legs but also, worryingly, in her heart. Finally, Tara pressed their foreheads together, only for an instant, then pulled back.

“Ready to go watch these goofballs become wives?”

Chapter 23

Tara

In the barn, Sawyer was saving seats for them in a row with Ernie and Lawrence (who both gave Holly a thumbs-up), Collin from the diner and his wife Marisol, and the Greens. They slipped in, Holly’s fingers loosely tangled with Tara’s in a way that felt natural, as if they’d been holding hands for much longer than a long weekend. Once they were seated, Sawyer put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed, leaving it there in a casual gesture that said he assumed they were already friends and would only become closer as time went on.

Historically, Tara didn’t love being touched by people she didn’t know well, but this seemed right. She settled their still-laced-together hands on Holly’s thigh and felt her shiver with pleasure.

When the barn doors opened, the assembled crowd turned as one to watch Noelle head to the front to stand under the chuppah, followed by Cole, then Levi and Hannah. Hannah stood on Noelle’s side, with a woman Tara had been told was Noelle’s AA sponsor. Cole and Levi stood on Miriam’s side, their heads—one bright and one dark—bent together as Levi whispered to Cole and Cole grinned back.