“Make that twins, not stepsisters,” I said.

“Twins? Are you kidding? She’s got three inches on you and the nicest smile south of Dallas. Say, you doing anything later, Miss Kate Rose?”

Kate leveled him with a look that could have melted the cupid ice sculpture on the buffet table in the dining room. “You want me to join you and Courtney?”

Holt raised his hands and stepped back. “No crime to appreciate females. Happens to be a weakness of mine. And if you’re not interested, I respect that.”

The awkward silence that followed was broken by Travis’s appearance in the doorway.

He said, “Holt, we’re cutting the cake and you’re supposed to say something first.”

Holt nodded and flashed a GQ smile. “Ladies, it’s been a pleasure.”

I laughed when he was gone. “Does he like himself or what?”

“The nice thing about someone like him is that he doesn’t have much time to talk about anyone else. He’s too busy being consumed with himself.”

Since I’d seen plenty of cake cutting in my time, and Kate didn’t eat anything with white sugar, we stayed put. But I was as hungry as a goat on concrete, so I had a friendly waiter fill me a plate with boiled shrimp before he took the platter into the dining room.

Kate continued making the little net pockets and seemed to be doing a damn fine job, so I took my time peeling the shrimp and enjoyed every single one of those critters. About thirty minutes later Kate announced she was finished and went to the sink to wash her hands. Licking the remnants of cocktail sauce off my fingers, I followed suit, dodging several waiters on the way.

Kate told me she would arrange the little birdseed treasures in the crepe-lined basket Sylvia Beadford had provided if I wanted to find Megan and say hello. “And good-bye,” she added with emphasis.