Wicked Stitch Read Online Free PDF Page A

Stitch. Reggie, Tallulah Falls’s librarian and wife of chief of police Manu Singh,also has short gray hair. Unlike Nellie’s, however, Reggie’s is always elegantly styled to fit her refined persona. This morning Reggie wore a mint green tunic over matching slacks.
    Angus, who’d not acknowledged Nellie’s presence, hurried over to greet Reggie.
    She laughed as she rubbed the dog’s head with both hands. “And a good morning to
you
, Angus! Hi, Marcy . . . Nellie.”
    “Reggie, it’s so great to see you,” I said.
    “I’ll go now so you can wait on your customer,” Nellie told me. She opened her mouth as if there was something else she intended to say, but then she closed it again. With a curt nod, she left.
    My body sagged with relief. “I was serious about how glad I am to see you.”
    “I know. I was actually on my way to MacKenzies’ Mochas and saw Nellie come into your shop. I found a parking space as quickly as I could and came to rescue you.”
    “Thank you. You don’t know how much I appreciate that. It’s certainly not up to MacKenzies’ Mochas’ standards, but I’ll be happy to get you a cup of coffee.”
    “That sounds nice,” Reggie said. She went over and took a seat in one of the red club chairs.
    I poured us each a cup of coffee and arranged the cups, spoons, packets of sweetener, and individual cream pitchers on a tray and took it out to the sit-and-stitch square. I put the tray on the coffee table and sat on the sofa facing the window.
    “I heard about Clara moving in next door,”Reggie said as she emptied a packet of sweetener into her coffee. “How’s that going?”
    “It shouldn’t be such a big deal,” I said. “And I even resolved last night to extend an olive branch to Clara and Nellie. But before I could come up with a way to do that, Nellie went on the offensive and came over here to run down my shop.” I sighed. “I have no idea what I ever did to those women to make them despise me so.”
    “With some people, the only thing you have to do to make them dislike you is to be different from them.”
    I smiled. “Then, in that case, I’ll take their dislike of me as a compliment.”
    Reggie sipped her coffee. “Just don’t let them get to you. When they see that they can’t bully you, they’ll leave you alone.”
    “I hope so,” I said.
    *   *   *
    After Reggie left, I took out my latest embroidery project. I’d ordered white poet’s shirts in several sizes and was adding blackwork to the collars and cuffs. I would be selling the shirts at the Renaissance Faire. I’d already made several ruffs and cuffs to sell to Faire-goers, and I had finished quite a few shirts. I was even teaching an Elizabethan blackwork class on Tuesday nights, and given the interest in the upcoming Ren Faire, it was full.
    I used a unique border on as many of the poet’s shirts as possible. On this particular one, I was embroidering a pomegranate border. Traditionally, the pomegranate was the symbol of Spain,with a crowned pomegranate being the personal insignia of Catherine of Aragon. The pomegranate border would appeal to a buyer who wanted to appear to be of royal or noble birth . . . at least, if the buyer was familiar with Renaissance customs and traditions.
    I outlined the pomegranate with thick black floss and then filled in the outline with a lighter-weight thread. I’d completed one pomegranate on the shirt’s right cuff and was filling in the leaves connecting the pomegranate to the next one when Ms. Fields, the customer for whom I ordered the tambour embroidery and the eighteenth-century embroidery books, came into the shop.
    “Hi, Ms. Fields,” I said brightly, setting my embroidery aside. “Welcome back to the Seven-Year Stitch. What can I do for you today?”
    She twisted her hands together. “I . . . I’m sorry to do this. . . .” She lowered her eyes. “But I need to cancel the order I placed with you yesterday.”
    I stood, wiped my hands on