“Ride or die Carrigan’s,” Noelle repeated wryly. She wished she could believe that Miriam actually felt that way, and it wasn’t just a cute catchphrase. “We should put that on a T-shirt. I bet the Bloomers would buy them.”

“I’ll be right back,” Cole said, startling her. She’d forgotten he was standing there. “Gonna call my T-shirt guy.”

With two days before the event, the barn had become a sparkly, shining gala venue. Hannah and Miriam had their heads together in Hannah’s office, printing pamphlets to advertise Carrigan’s All Year, selling family reunions and girls weekends. Cole had been pushing the event across social media, reaching out to his parents’ contacts with more money than they knew what to do with. Even Tara, when she saw the hype on Twitter, offered to get her network watching.

Everyone had a job to make this auction a success—this auction that had been Noelle’s idea—except for Noelle. She didn’t know anyone with money; most of her friends were broke alcoholics. She didn’t think the party needed bad coffee and dirty jokes, which was their primary skill set. No one needed Christmas trees, except the ones she’d already grown. Miriam was working herself to the bone, as if she somehow thought she could fix all this if she just never sat still (what was it with the Rosenstein girls?), and Noelle couldn’t step in to make her rest, because that wasn’t her place anymore. So she hauled things for Mr. Matthews, kept everyone caffeinated, and tried to talk Cole out of bad decisions.

“Okay,” he began, bursting into her room that afternoon, “I know Elijah vetoed the assassin thing but I don’t think we can take killing Richard Blum off the table.”

“Look, we all want to do him bodily harm,” Noelle agreed, “and I have more right to be angry than anyone. He’s trying to take my life’s work away. He broke the girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with—”

Cole started to interrupt, and she held out a hand.

“Do not tell her I said that, and I’m not going to talk about it with you. What’s important is that Miriam is entirely capable of winning this fight. We need to give her the chance to be in the lead on this. So we will provide the help she’s asked for, and no help she has not asked for. Including assassins.”

Noelle understood how Cole felt, the fierce protectiveness, the urge to hurt anyone who hurt Miriam. Except she’d hurt Miriam, too. Was hurting her right now. But she couldn’t stop herself from rooting for Miriam, wanting to see what she could do when she fully came into her own. She did think Miriam could win this fight, and any other one she chose.