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“Thanks, I hate it,” Hannah grouched.
“Hey, you asked.”
Hannah threw a pillow at her.
“I know I already kind of recommended this, but I feel like you might need a friend who’s not at Carrigan’s to talk to about this, and I know you and Tara are buds now because you’re both like…”
“Deeply anxious, control freak blondes with complicated families?” Hannah supplied.
“I was going to say more competent than the normal person, but sure,” Miriam said. “Anyway, not that I won’t talk to you about it, but, you know, the more friends the better!”
Miriam left her alone again, but now she was done turning over rooms and she didn’t feel better. Because she was feeling raw that Levi was off having friends, even though she’d told him he needed friends, and because she desperately didn’t want to deal with the Davenport bachelorette party, she called Tara.
“Sugar,” Tara drawled, “I’m so glad you called. I was about to call you. I need you to do something for me.”
Tara was a dyed-in-the-wool Southern belle who never asked for anything without twenty minutes of circular small talk, so Hannah knew she must be desperate.
“I’m a little swamped right now, Tara, with the huge-deal celebrity events and the prodigal husband thing,” Hannah pointed out.
“You know that I would not ask for your help right now if this were not an emergency,” Tara told her, “but you have got to get this whiny man-child off my couch and up to Carrigan’s. I can’t handle him right now. I need Miriam to take custody of him.”
“Wait,” Hannah said, “Cole’s in the country? Does Miriam even know that? Why is he on your couch instead of at his house?”
The last Hannah had heard, Cole was in New Zealand working on a top-secret cybersecurity contract or something. She knew Miriam hadn’t heard from him in months because she complained about it every day.
Tara sighed dramatically. “That is all information you will have to ask him. I cannot have a gigantic man living in my home. He smells weird and I’m dating again, and women look askance at him, understandably. He keeps trying to get me to have long, emotional conversations about our childhood. I’m pulling my hair out.”
Cole and Tara had grown up together since birth. They had shared baggage that put hers and Levi’s to shame, although of a much less romantic and much more felonious variety.
“I’m not sure having him here is the best idea. He’s kind of a chaos Muppet, and we’re already pretty full up.”
“Don’t you have something he could do?” Tara sounded exhausted.
Colewasexhausting. Like an enthusiastic puppy, if the puppy were six and a half feet tall. “Some of Mr. Matthews’s repair work, for instance?”
“Do you think it’s a smart idea to give Nicholas Fraser III a power tool?” Hannah asked, skeptically.
“Well,” Tara said, “he is good with a sailboat. It’s not like he’s never held a tool. But perhaps if you need anyone’s financials hacked or a global banking system taken down?”
“I’m fresh out of hacking needs,” Hannah said. “Maybe Noelle will have an idea. I could make him take tourists on boat tours, I guess. I don’t know. Why did I become responsible for him? He’s your and Miriam’s friend.”
“It takes all of us to keep Cole alive, Hannah, and you’ve been drafted,” Tara said. “Get him off my couch. I’ll call you later to hear about whatever is going on with Levi, and I do want every single sordid detail.”
“I’m not going to forget you said the words ‘dating again,’ Tara Sloane,” Hannah warned instead. “Is it the hot redhead at the cafe who Miriam told me about?” She heard Tara choke on her drink.
“Miriam needs to stop telling tales out of school,” Tara said primly.
“Okay, I’ll plot a heist for youifyou do a favor for me.”
Tara hummed. “I cannot agree without knowing what the favor is.”
Always the lawyer. Hannah sat down on the bed she’d just finished perfectly making, wrinkling the sheets. “I need some advice. I have to throw a bachelorette party for Delilah Rose Davenport.”
“What’s the problem? Is she awful?”
“She’s not, actually. She’s great. That’s what I need you to help me figure out. I don’t know why I’m so stressed about this. I’m good at event planning. I’ve planned several larger parties with bigger stakes at Carrigan’s.”
“That’s true. At New Year’s, you threw a party that saved the entire farm,” Tara reminded her.
