“Have you got something for me to try?” Mallory asked with pseudo-nonchalance, still sometimes trying to play the cool kid even though Olivia knew her far too well for that. During the two years since she’d moved to Wychwood-on-Lea, she’d become good friends with Mallory’s mother, Harriet, as well as the other three residents of Willoughby Close, a courtyard of converted-stables cottages on the grounds of Willoughby Manor. Harriet and her neighbours Ellie, Ava, and Alice regularly came in to the shop for coffees and chat, and more often than not Olivia pulled up a chair and joined them.

It had been a lovely surprise to find unexpected friends in a village where a single woman pushing forty was considered a bona fide spinster, someone who should invest in a plaid wheelie bag and a tabby cat. Although now, thanks to her mum moving into retired housing two months ago, she was in possession of the latter—a massive, marmalade, and monstrous beast aptly named Dr Jekyll.

“Indeed I do have something for you to try,” Olivia told Mallory. “Another cupcake.” Since Mallory had started secondary school a little over a year ago, she’d been coming into the shop every so often and hanging out for an hour or so before heading home. She’d even started bringing friends along on occasion, so that Tea on the Lea was turning into Wychwood-on-Lea’s cool destination for tweens, not that they had many options.

Besides a couple of pubs and a charity shop, the village nestled next to the Lea River in England’s rolling Cotswolds had very few retail possibilities. Teenagers tended to hang about the village green or the skate park, looking vaguely menacing in their dark hoodies, phones practically pressed to their faces. Far better for them to be in here, scoffing scones and fizzy drinks, which Olivia now stocked in a chilling cabinet for expressly that purpose.

It had been a steep learning curve, taking over her mother’s tea shop six months ago, after having helped her out for a year and a half before that. Tina James was a fantastic baker and a not-so-good business owner, by her own cheerful admission. She simply hadn’t cared about money, never had, preferring to bake and chat, to listen and love, running the shop like her own kitchen, and relying on a double mortgage to keep her afloat.

Olivia had been working tirelessly, trying to boost the little shop’s custom as well as the services and goods it offered. Hence, the cupcakes, as well as the new website, the made-to-order wedding cake service, the venue-for-hire option, and the Mums’ Morning Out she offered once a week, with a box of toys in the corner, and a special two-for-one offer on muffins.

Now Olivia took out her latest creation, made early that morning, when the world had still been pitch black, the winter dawn hours in the offing, the little shop freezing as the pipes clanked and the heat slowly began to kick in.