“He’s…interesting,” she said at last. This was met with a chorus of enthusiastic oohs.
“And he must be interested in you,” Ellie said excitedly, “to buy a cupcake every single day.”
“It’s just because I’m running this promotion—”
“What man buys a cupcake three days running?” Harriet demanded.
“I don’t think he eats them himself,” Olivia interjected. “He said as much, really.”
“Then who does he give them to?”
“Maybe his poor, widowed mother?” Ellie suggested helpfully.
“Or a homeless person?” Alice added.
“There aren’t any homeless people in Wychwood-on-Lea,” Harriet protested, and then fell silent, looking slightly abashed. Alice had been homeless before she’d landed a job taking care of Lady Stokeley, her husband’s great-aunt, until she’d died a year ago.
“Maybe he buys them for his girlfriend or his wife,” Olivia broke into their happily-ever-after musings. “Or his adorable little child. Honestly, everyone. It isn’t like that.”
“But it must be a little like that,” Ellie persisted, “for you to have mentioned it at all.”
“I shouldn’t have—”
“There must have been a little bit of flirting,” Ava added shrewdly. “A little banter over the buttercream? Cosying up with the cupcakes?”
“Oh, honestly.” Laughing, Olivia tossed a throw pillow at her, and Ava caught it, smiling. “Maybe a tiny bit,” she allowed, and was subjected to another chorus of excited squeals. “But nothing much.”
“Do you know his name?”
For some reason Olivia didn’t want to reveal Simon’s name. He hadn’t actually introduced himself, after all. It felt a little stalkerish, to say his name when she’d got it from his debit card. “No.”
“Well, that’s your goal for tomorrow,” Harriet announced. “Learn Mystery Man’s name.”
“I’ll try.” Saturdays were a bit hit or miss; sometimes she got a boatload of walkers and day-trippers, other times the shop stayed empty all day. As for Simon Blacklock? Would he show up on a Saturday? Did he even live in Wychwood? She realised how little she knew about him; in fact she knew nothing about him except perhaps that he was a bit clumsy.
“What’s everyone doing for Christmas?” Olivia asked in a blatant bid to shift the attention from herself. “Will you all be in Willoughby Close?”
Thankfully the conversation moved on; Harriet was going to her parents for Christmas, and Alice and Henry would be at the manor, with at least a dozen guests coming from London. Ellie was heading up north, and Ava and Jace were having their first Christmas with baby William.
“What about you, Olivia? Would you like to come to ours?” Alice asked.
Olivia shook her head. Christmas at Willoughby Manor would be lovely, with roaring fires and a table for twenty groaning with food, but she already had plans. “I’ll be in Witney, with Mum.” She always had Christmas with her mum—a present each in the morning, a roast dinner for two, and a glass of sherry while listening to the Queen’s speech.
“How is your mum getting on in her new flat?” Ava asked.
“Okay, I think.” Olivia visited her mother every Sunday afternoon, and so far Tina had seemed to like it well enough, but sometimes she worried that her mother’s retirement at age seventy-three had doused some spark inside her. “I’m hoping she gets more involved with all the things they have on. It’s quite a community—there’s bridge, tennis, even salsa dancing.”
“I can see Tina enjoying that,” Harriet said, and Olivia smiled. A few years ago, perhaps, she could have seen her mum throwing herself into those sorts of things, but she lived a much quieter life now—just as Olivia did.
By the time she left Willoughby Close, feeling slightly tiddly after two glasses of wine, Olivia’s good humour was mostly restored. Her friends were wonderful, and so what if they had husbands and houses and all the rest? Olivia had always maintained that if she’d really wanted to get married, she would have done.
She’d had a few boyfriends over the years, but no one she’d felt like going the distance with, and if marriage and babies had been that important to her, she suspected she would have put a ring on it regardless.
As it was, she’d always liked her own company, as well as her freedom, although running Tea on the Lea had kept her in one place, precluding holidays, for the last few years. She’d told herself that once she got the shop on steady financial footing, she’d close it for a week and go away somewhere tropical and relaxing, but she hadn’t managed that yet.
Olivia breathed in the frosty night air as she turned down the road towards Wychwood’s high street. The sky was full of stars, the air clear and cold. A huge Christmas tree had been erected in the middle of the village green, now a dark, hulking shape under the moonlight; the official turning on of its lights would be on Wednesday, and Olivia was planning to keep the shop open, with some extra Christmas goodies available, and invitations for her mince pies and mulled wine evening the following week to be handed out.
As she turned down the high street, she noticed the Christmas lights that had been strung between the ancient buildings, and the star of Bethlehem on top of the parish church, all waiting for the official ceremony on Wednesday.
Everything felt expectant and hushed, just as it must have been two thousand years ago. Olivia smiled at the thought, the last of her restlessness banished.
She had a good life here, even if it wasn’t the same kind of busy as her friends’. Still smiling, she unlocked the door to the shop and headed to the stairs in the back, her cosy flat, and the ever-changing affections of Dr Jekyll.
*
“Oh, Olivia, you shouldn’t have.”
Tina James took the scarlet poinsettia Olivia presented with a pleased smile and a slightly fretful air. “I wasn’t thinking to decorate all that much really, but a plant is always nice.”
“Not decorate!” Olivia planted her hands on her hips in not-so-mock outrage as she glanced around the compact open-plan living area of her mother’s retirement flat. It was Sunday afternoon, and she’d spent
