You'll Always Have Tara

Book 2: Riches to Romance Tale

by Leah Marie Brown

Genres: Southern; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

A Southern socialite heads to an Irish castle in this modern take on Gone With the Wind —from the USA Today –bestselling author of the It Girls series. Television broadcaster Tara Maxwell enjoys a life of leisure in beautiful, historic Charleston, South Carolina. But luck, and family fortunes, have a way of running out. Suddenly Tara is left with only one place to turn—her late aunt’s country home in northwest Ireland. The catch: to claim her inheritance Tara must agree to live in Castle Tásúildun for three months. With two other potential heirs. And choose one to be co-owner of the estate. Tara sees right through her aunt’s matchmaking scheme and isn’t willing to share the castle with anyone. She’s desperate to drive out Aidan Gallagher and Rhys Burroughes. But as God is her witness, both men are infernally stubborn. Aidan, once her carefree childhood friend, is now an army veteran desperate for the peace the castle offers. Rhys, a smooth-talking businessman, plans to preserve the ramshackle property by transforming it into a luxury hotel. Tara, for the first time, is realizing that frankly, she does give a damn—about others’ happiness as well as her own. But is she ready to open her home—not to mention her heart—to the possibility of an epic adventure? Be sure to read about Tara’s sisters, Manderley and Emma Lee! Praise for Leah Marie Brown “Humor, heat, and a sexy Frenchman…a winner!”—#1 New York Times bestseller Helen Hardt on Dreaming of Manderley “Brown has a wily way of bringing her stories to life with sharp dialogue and drop-dead sexy characters.” — National bestselling author Cindy Miles on Faking It

Release date: April 24, 2018

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 259

Sample

“You are not classically beautiful, Tara.” Truman Barton holds his champagne flute aloft as if giving a toast, drawling his vowels as if they were drops of bourbon rolling around on his tongue. “You’re as pale as freshly peeled whiteleg shrimp, your bottom lip is too big, and you wear cowboy boots with your dresses.”

Truman and Tavish Barton, known around Charleston as Those Barton Boys (usually said in an exasperated tone), are two of my dearest friends, despite their shared predilection for keeping me humble.

“It’s true,” Tavish chimes in. “Now, that you have gone and dyed your hair that ridiculous shade of blazing nutmeg—”

“Warm cinnamon,” I correct.

“Whatever, dahlin’,” he says, sniffing. “Cinnamon. Nutmeg. All’s I’m saying is a girl shouldn’t dye her hair the color of a nut.”

I have been dying my hair a darker shade with more brown tones because I think it makes me look more sophisticated on camera.

“Cinnamon doesn’t come from a nut.”

“It doesn’t?”

Tavish frowns at his brother. Truman shrugs.

“No,” I say, laughing. “Cinnamon comes from the bark of a tree. You peanut brains would know that if you stayed in college long enough to graduate.”

“Don’t worry your pretty little tree-bark head about us, dahlin’. We’re not chained to the kitchen, forced to bake six zillion crab-filled puff pastries just so we can pay for our John Lobb loafers.”

“Hush,” I hiss, looking over my shoulder. “I don’t want Grayson to know I’ve been doing catering jobs.”

Grayson Calhoun is my usually, sometimes, not right now, but will be again soon, boyfriend. We have been on-again, off-again since he pulled my ponytail in Miss Treva’s third grade class. He is from one of the oldest, most respectable families in South Carolina. He just graduated from Harvard Law School, but one day he will be governor of South Carolina. I know it in my bones. Grayson’s momma and daddy have been grooming him for a career in politics pretty much since Miss Treva named him third grade class president (despite his deviant hair pulling). The Calhouns are obsessed with politics. I guess you could say it’s in their blood since they are related to John C. Calhoun, the seventh vice president of the United States. Only, Grayson is quick to point out he isn’t a direct descendant on account of John C. having been a slave owner and all. Third cousin, four times removed. We share ancestors, not ideologies.

“Don’t fool yourself, Tara. It don’t matter how many damn snowbirds build their nests out on Daniel Island and Cainhoy way, Charleston is still a small town. Grayson knows your daddy died owing the IRS a heap of back taxes. The whole town knows you don’t have a pot to piss in, dahlin’.”

“I have a pot!”

Truth is, I do have a pot. It’s just not a big pot.

Two months ago, my daddy and aunt died in a freak boating accident one hundred miles off the coast of Sullivan’s Island, leaving behind a mountain of debt and years of unpaid taxes we knew nothing about. If it weren’t for the trust fund my momma left me, and my job filming cooking segments with our local news station, I would be as broke as my little sister Emma Lee. I have been doing catering jobs to earn money just so I can keep up appearances. Otherwise, I would not have been able to afford the new floral silk Erdem dress I am wearing.

“Hey, Tara.”

I recognize the sweet-as-a-box-of-Moon-Pies voice and have to choke back a groan.

“Hey, Maribelle.”

Maribelle Cravath, my archrival in all things (including, occasionally, Grayson’s affections), has joined our little gathering beneath the branches of a knobby old live oak covered in twinkly fairy lights.

“Love the dress. Is it the Erdem I saw in RTW?”

“Yes.”

She widens her falsely lashed eyes and gasps, but I see right through her surprised routine. I know what she is going to say before she says it and I mentally brace myself.

“But, I thought RTW only carried that particular Erdem in size four?”

Bitch.

I smile through the former chunky girl pain.

“That’s right.”

She lets her gaze make a slow, deliberate journey over my gown, from the boat neckline to the full, frilly skirt.

“Oh,” she finally says, her lips forming a perfect pink O—the same shade of pink as the big, bold begonias on her Lilly Pulitzer skirt. “Good for you, sweetie. Good. For. You. We all know how hard you’ve struggled with your weight through the years.”

It doesn’t matter how many pounds and years separate me from my pudgy, fudgy middle-childhood, comments about my weight still sting something fierce. Beneath my size-four (unvarnished truth: six) designer dress, I am still an insecure, eating-for-comfort fat girl, hungry for love. Not that I would ever let anyone—especially Maribelle Cravath—know that. I am a Southern girl born and bred, which means I am an expert at artifice, from the application of cosmetics to the camouflaging of unpleasant emotions. So, I smile and keep up a steady patter of polite, meaningless chitchat until my best friend arrives.

Callie takes one look at my face and knows. She knows Maribelle has said something to hurt my feelings and that I am mentally gorging on a box of Fiddle Faddle, burying the pain beneath handfuls of buttery, toffee-flavored popcorn and peanuts because my need to be pleasing is greater than my desire to tell Maribelle what I really think of her. Callie has super-developed bestie intuition. She can read my thoughts and feelings across a department store or polo field.

“Hey, Maribelle.” Callie gives Maribelle one of those artificial Southern girl smiles. “Cute skirt. Lilly, right? My mom stopped wearing Lilly Pulitzer after they collaborated on a line of dresses for Target, but I love that you aren’t letting the porcelain-teapots-and-doilies set dictate your style. Brand loyalty. Good for you.”

Maribelle smiles as if she just took a bite of a biscuit made with curdled buttermilk, but doesn’t want anyone else to know; a tight, eye-crinkling kind of smile.

“Oh, look,” she says, pointing in the direction of the barn. “There’s Shelby Drayton. I haven’t seen her in weeks.”

“Better go say hello,” Callie says.

“By-ee.” Maribelle waggles her begonia pink lacquered pointy fingernails at us. “See y’all later.”

I want to waggle my own lacquered fingernails at her and say, By-ee. Don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split you, miserable viper in Lilly Pulitzer Kristen wedges.

But I don’t.

I don’t because I learned long ago that swallowing the pain of rejection is best done quickly and quietly, without artificial sweeteners. Smile, swallow, keep on smiling. People misinterpret my silences as arrogance, like I am impervious to slights and barbs because I think I am high and mighty. Believe me, I’ve never thought of myself as high or mighty.

Truth is, I’ve never liked Maribelle Cravath. She’s the Helen of our group. You know the beautiful, stylish, highly competitive antagonist in the movie Bridesmaids? Maribelle is a Helen. She silently circles, assessing the field, waiting for the perfect moment to swoop in and feed on the carcasses of weaker women. In the movie, Helen was transformed from a heinous, uppity antagonist to a moderately enjoyable sidekick before Wilson Phillips started singing the exit music. I am still waiting for Maribelle to have her character-redeeming scene.

“Don’t tell me,” Callie says. “She brought up your weight?”

“Yes.”

“Forget Maribelle Cravath,” Callie says, slipping her arm through mine. “We all know you were more than a few RC Colas away from being able to kick it in Paula Deen’s knickers.”

Say what you want about Paula, but I love any woman clever enough to think of six dozen different ways to prepare macaroni and cheese. Granted, it is a shameful, secret love—like my love for boiled peanuts and Goo Clusters—but it is abiding.

“Tell her, Truman,” Callie says, nudging the twin with her elbow. “Tell Tara she is a beautiful slender goddess.”

Truman chuckles.

“You are beautiful, Tara.”

“Classically?” I tease.

His lips quirk.

“Maybe not classically, but you could run a whole mess of circles around Crawdad Cravath, even in those godawful boots.”

I laugh.

Truman started calling Maribelle “Crawdad” a few years ago, but he refuses to tell me what she did to earn such an unfortunate moniker. Callie and I have spent more than a few brunches at Poogan’s Porch, sipping mimosas and thinking up devilish, delightful stories about how it might have happened. With her long, pointy fingernails and round bug eyes, it’s an apt nickname.

“Damn skippy,” Travish says, nodding his head so hard his thick, slicked-back chestnut curls fall over his eye. “Maribelle is just jealous because she knows half of Charleston would close their doors to her if she weren’t Beau’s sister.”

Beauregard Cravath III—B. Crav to his friends—is a member of Charleston’s ancient elite. The Cravaths are an influential political family with roots going back as far as the seventeenth century. In fact, B. Crav’s ancestor was a relative of one of the Lords Proprietors—overseers appointed by King Charles to colonize Charleston. B. Crav is an enthusiastic polo player. His Whitney Turn Up is the social event of the polo season, a raucous, Moët-fueled party with a guest list comprised of bluebloods from all over the world. B. Crav has serious connections that stretch far beyond our magnolia shaded borders.

He’s also a philandering playboy who has tried to bed or wed practically all of the women under thirty from the Mason-Dixon to the Florida-Georgia line, including my baby sister, Emma Lee.

“Beau is a dirty dog,” Callie mutters. “So it’s no wonder his sister is a b—”

“Callie!”

“Let’s change the subject,” she says, brushing an imaginary fleck of lint from her dress. “Talking about the Cravaths always riles me up.”

Talking about the Cravaths riles her up because she was sweet on Beau, and she thought he was sweet on her, too, until he tried to get her liquored up and suggested they have a three-way with his Swedish masseuse. (B. Crav has a live-in masseuse he met at a ski resort in Vail.)

“How is Manderley?” Callie asks.

Manderley is my big sister. She is the perfect Southern lady: calm, clever, generous, reliable, and terribly responsible. She’s my polar opposite and everything I strive to be.

“She’s fine.”

“Is she still in France?”

“Manderley is in Cannes with her best friend, Olivia Tate, the famous screenwriter. Olivia’s movie, A Quaint Milieu, was nominated for the Palme-d’Or. A glamourous job in Hollywood. Summers in the south of France. My big sister is efficiently and admirably directing her destiny. I am happy for her. Honest, I am. I just wish her destiny wasn’t leading her farther and farther from Charleston.”

“Yes.”

“Has she seen Matthew McConaughey yet?” Callie asks. “Never mind! I don’t want to know the answer to that question. If you tell me little old Manderley Maxwell is sipping champagne with Matthew McConaughey I will just die. I will! I will keel over right here at the Whitney Turn Up. They would haul my body to the coroner’s office, he would do an autopsy, and say I died from an overdose of toxic putrid green envy.”

Truman snorts.

“You don’t still have a crush on that old dog, do you?” Tavish asks.

“He’s not old!”

“Alright. Alright. Alright,” Tavish says, mimicking the actor’s Texas drawl. “Whatever you say.”

“He’s not old.”

“He’s ancient. When was he born?”

“1969.”

“1969!” Tavish whistles. “Lawd, he’s as old as Moses.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Jealous? Of Grandad McConaughey?” Tavish clucks his tongue. “Please, girl. That old man ain’t got nothing on me.”

“He’s rich.”

“So am I.”

“He’s famous.”

“Who hasn’t heard of the Barton Boys? We’re notorious in three counties.”

“Damn skippy,” Truman agrees.

Callie rolls her eyes.

“He’s married to a model.”

“I’m sorry for him.”

“Sorry?” Callie narrows her gaze. “He’s married to a beautiful woman and you’re sorry for him?”

“Sure,” Tavish says, crossing his arms and leaning back against the oak. “I don’t care how beautiful the cow is, why would I buy her when I can get the milk for free? Grand Daddy McConaughey is stuck drinking milk from the same tired old cow when there are millions of cows out there.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“I’m serious,” Tavish argues. “Do you know how many breeds of cattle there are?”

“Eight hundred,” Truman interjects.

“Eight hundred breeds of cattle?” Tavish cries. “That’s a lot of milk to enjoy.”

“I can’t even deal with your”—Callie puts her hand up to stop Tavish from saying anything else—“just hush.”

Tavish laughs. He isn’t the chauvinist in expensive loafers and fashionably rumpled linen suit he makes himself out to be. He likes riling Callie up. I think it is because he is in love with her.

“I saw Emma Lee chatting up some woman on my way over,” Callie says, changing the subject. “How did you get her off the couch?”

“Do you really think Emma Lee Maxwell would miss the social event of the season?”

If my baby sister were dying of tuberculosis, she would use her last ragged breath to drag herself to a party. She is the most social and popular girl in Charleston, but ever since we received the news of our father’s death and deep debt, she has taken to spending her days on my couch watching crap reality television shows and eating Raising Cane’s chicken combos. I swear if I find one more Cane’s special sauce container on my salvaged wood coffee table, I am going to—

“Has she decided what to do with her life?” Callie interrupts my musing.

“Nope,” I say, twirling the stem of my champagne flute between my fingers and watching the liquid spin around my glass like a golden tornado. “She was all fired up to be a fortune cookie writer until she binge-watched Below Deck, and then she was positive she would make a brilliant stewardess on a super yacht. Last week, she caught a segment that ran before my review of that new French-influenced, low-country fusion place on King Street. It was an interview with a woman who works as a professional stand-in bridesmaid.”

“I saw that interview!” Callie cries. “The woman actually gets paid to be a bridesmaid for brides that don’t have enough friends. Can you imagine?”

“I can’t, but Emma Lee could. She emailed Manderley and asked for a loan to buy bridesmaids dresses and build a website.”

Truman chuckles.

“Uh-oh,” Callie says. “What did Manderley say?”

“You know Mandy. She asked Emma Lee if it was a growth industry and whether Em thought she had the initiative and discipline to run an entrepreneurial business.”

Callie laughs. “That sounds like Manderley.”

“Then she lectured Emma Lee on the need to be fiscally responsible, now more than ever, and rattled off a checklist of things Emma Lee needed to do, like find health insurance, call Clemson’s professional development center to speak to a counselor about grad school, make a budget . . .”

“Poor Emma Lee,” Truman says, shaking his head.

“Poor Emma Lee? You mean poor Tara!” I exhale at the memory of the days following Manderley’s practical response, Emma Lee’s tantrums, and the flurry of emails that flew back and forth between them. “Do you know what Mahatma Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Václav Havel have in common?”

“No, what?” Truman says.

“Who is Vatzel Hovel?” Tavish asks.

“Seriously?” I roll my eyes. “Writer, philosopher, first president of Czechoslovakia.”

“Czechoslovakia? Petra Némcová,” Tavish fires back. “Czechoslovakian model.”

“Yes, brother,” Truman says, raising his fist for Tavish to bump. “Sports Illustrated, 2003.”

“Fun in the Sun!” Tavish says. “Hottest Models—”

“Coolest Places—” Truman chimes in.

“Around the World,” they say in unison.

Callie rolls her eyes. “Go on, Tara. What were you saying about Eleanor Roosevelt and Václav Havel?”

“I was going to say they dedicated their lives to bring peace, love, and harmony to the world, but they were never awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

“Robbed,” Truman cries in mock outrage.

“I know their pain,” I say, sniffing. “Lawd, how I know their pain! I’ve spent most of my life brokering truces between my sisters. People laud Gandhi for his efforts to promote nonviolence, but that’s only because they’ve never watched me trying to negotiate peace between Manderley and Emma Lee!”

“You’re a saint, Tara,” Callie says.

“Yes, I am.”

“That’s one of the reasons Grayson loves you so much,” Callie says. “Do you think tonight is the night? Is that why you pulled out the Erdem?”

Truman and Tavish exchange confused glances.

“Grayson asked me to meet him at our spot after the Turn Up. He said he has something important he needs to say to me.” Our spot is a rickety old dock on Horlbeck Creek, halfway between his parents’ home and the home where I grew up. We used to sneak out at night and sit on the end of the dock, dangling our feet over the water, talking about nonsense while the breeze rustled the swamp grasses. “I am pretty sure he is finally going to ask me to marry him.”

“You know I love you”—Truman grabs my hand—“despite your freakishly large bottom lip, and Lord knows I would give up my entire collection of bow ties if you would promise to run away with me, but Grayson Calhoun is not going to ask you to marry him.”

“Nope.” Tavish shakes his head. “Never gonna happen.”

“Hush, Tavish,” Callie hisses.

“I’m just sayin’—”

“I’m just sayin’,” Callie mimics. “You don’t know what you are saying, so just hush.”

Truman is still holding my hand. I look up at his face and my stomach does an anxious little flip. Even in the dim glow of the fairy lights I recognize the smudge of pity in his eyes.

“How do you know Grayson isn’t going to ask me to marry him? Did he say something? Is he seeing someone else?”

“I don’t know if Grayson is seeing another girl. I just know he isn’t going to ask you to marry him. Not tonight.” He squeezes my hand gently before letting it go. “Not ever.”

“Why not?”

The air between us is heavy with humidity and thoughts Truman does not wish to express, thoughts my friends and neighbors have only shared in low whispers after I left the room.

“Don’t make me say it, dahlin’.”

“I’ll say it,” Tavish says. “Grayson isn’t going to marry you because your daddy owed so much money to the government they seized your family home and all of his assets. He won’t want to attach himself to your family’s scandal.”

“Scandal?” I cry. “I hardly call my daddy’s minor financial difficulties a scandal. Besides, what politician hasn’t been involved in some scandal or other? Thomas Ravenel, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Teddy Kennedy, and what about Anthony Weiner, the congressman from New York who resigned after being involved in several sexting scandals?”

“Yes, but those scandals happened after the Weiner was elected, not before. South Carolina is the seventh most conservative state in the country. Grayson knows if he marries you, he won’t even be elected to the Charleston County Mosquito Control Board.” Tavish smiles sadly. “No offense.”

“I hate it when people say that.”

“Say what?”

“No offense.” Heat flushes my cheeks. “It’s the verbal equivalent to stabbing someone and then slapping a Band-Aid over the wound.”

“I wasn’t trying to—”

I wave my hand. “I think you’re wrong about Grayson. He isn’t the sort of man who would let his heart be ruled by public opinion.”

Tavish and Truman give each other the twin look and I want to reach over and knock their identical chestnut heads together. I don’t know why I am letting them get under my skin. What South Carolina’s most sophomoric bachelors don’t know about love could fill the Charleston Harbor. Truman is more committed to his prodigious bow tie collection than he has ever been to a woman and Tavish is too busy high fiving himself over his latest one-night stand to think about settling down.

“I am hardly about to let two prep school dropouts educate me on matters of love.”

“You don’t need to graduate magnum cum laude to know a man as obsessed with his image as Grayson Calhoun isn’t going to marry the daughter of a tax evader.” Tavish makes the sign of the cross. “God rest your daddy’s soul.”

If common sense was measured in dollars, the Barton Boys would be hard-pressed to scrounge up fifty cents worth. They could look under the seats in their matching Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolets and through the cushions on their sofa, and between them, they might make it to fifty-two cents. Might.

“You don’t know Grayson the way I do,” I say, tossing my hair over my shoulder. “And it is magna cum laude, not magnum. You would know that if you had spent more time in classes and less time. . .