Nickolai's Noel Read Free

something? Maybe I just want to see you.”
    “I’m sure you do. And I’d like to see you, too. But I can tell when you need something.”
    “Well, one of Paige’s sisters is getting married—”
    Noel couldn’t resist. “Last time I checked I was Paige’s only sister, and I can assure you there’s no matrimony on the horizon.”
    “Her
sorority
sister—mine too, when you get right down to it,
and
your grandmother’s.”
    Ah, yes. Phi Mus for three generations. How could she forget? After finding her craft, college had become unimportant to Noel, and she had never aspired to a ticket on the Phi Mu train. But it was still hurtful that she’d not been given the same opportunity as her older, prettier sister. “Of course,” Noel said sweetly. “I’m sorry. So there’s a wedding?”
    “Yes, and Paige needs a bridesmaid dress. And you’ll never guess! Constance is going to be the flower girl!”
    “Fabulous!” Noel said. “That should secure her place as a future Phi Mu!”
    “Exactly! And, Noel, these days you cannot be too sure. So anyway, we need to get their dresses ordered so they can be altered in time.”
    “I’m not sure what this has to do with me.”
    “They have to be ordered on the Internet. And you know we’re hopeless at that.”
    That was the truth. Noel could excuse her grandmother and, to a degree, her mother, but Paige was a different matter. She hadn’t finished college, but she’d gone to Belmont for two years before landing Webb. One could assume she’d had to be somewhat computer literate, but Paige insisted things had “changed so much” that she was incapable of even shopping online.
    “Ask Webb for help.”
    “Oh, Noel. We don’t want to bother him. He’s working on a big case.”
    No doubt. Noel had some sympathy for her brother-in-law. When, after a lavish wedding that had taken the last of Noel’s father’s life insurance, both families had learned that nobody had any extra blue-chip stocks lying around, Webb had moved right into what Noel secretly called the Debutante Den and worked like a fiend so that the Verden women could continue to pretend life was as they wished it were. And if he let Deborah Verden have ancient silk wallpaper restored while rusty water ran from the pipes, that was between him and his manhood.
    “So if, just this once,” Deborah went on, “you could cancel your little quilt thing and come home, I would be forever grateful.”
    “I’ll set aside some time to come there and alter the dresses once you get them, but I can’t come this weekend.” So that would be another weekend she’d have to be away from the shop in high tourist season. Ora Evans, who worked at Piece by Piece part time, was a competent quilter and more than capable of helping customers. But, though Noel still found it hard to believe, she was somewhat famous in her circle, and serious quilters tended to be disappointed when they made the trip to Beauford to find Noel absent from her shop. Oh, well. She’d just have to put on the website that she’d be gone. “Canceling on this festival is impossible.”
    “What if I died? Would you cancel then?”
    “Of course. But you aren’t dead. The need for dresses does not equate with death. Ask Webb to do it. It won’t take five minutes. He won’t mind.” That much was true. Webb loved Paige and worshipped Constance.
    “Well … ” Deborah said.
    “What?” Noel demanded. “What now?” Noel seldom lost patience but, like always, there was more to this.
    “Don’t speak to me like that, Noel.”
    “I’m sorry, Mother. Why can’t Paige ask Webb for help?”
    “These dresses are … shall we say … pricey? And this might not be the best time to let Webb know that.”
    “And why is that?”
    “You see,”—oh, the wheedling tone! The one Deborah used when she knew she was delivering information that was not going to foster sympathy—“this isn’t Margaret Rose’s
first
wedding, and Webb wasn’t happy with