Page 39 of The Magical Tea Shop

When they left his building and crossed to the realty office on the corner of Hazard and Main, Derrick began chatting up the receptionist. He exuded fake charm and that just grated. Jaxon had liked selling his building better when he’d had no contact with the buyer. But his situation was unique. His buyer would be a new coworker at best and at worst, his boss.

Chapter Fifteen

“Ivy, dear, wouldyou be able to attend our next meeting for the Hazard Historical Society?”

“Wait. Why?”

Ivy’s aunt Lydia was seated in the tea shop with the rest of her cronies, as usual. Her hands neatly folded on the table, hinted at an effort to appear innocent. Ivy knew all four of the pillars disapproved of her idea of baking more cookies and using the charmed cookie press, but her aunt especially had been on a mission to keep her distracted from her plan by finding inane tasks for her to complete.

First, it was cleaning the new batch of flowers that arrived late one night at the shop—after the employees had gone home. No doubt it was all orchestrated, just so she would have to help. It certainly could have waited until morning. Ivy figured it might even have cost her aunt extra to have the flowers delivered in the evening.

Next it was helping her aunt find a new dress for the Hazard Historical Society fundraiser, scheduled for Memorial Day weekend. Her aunt already owned about twenty suitable frocks. But, no, they needed to drive to Newport on Ivy’s day off. And last had been putting up flyers to find Hazel’s missing cat, which at the end of the day turned out to have never been missing at all. All this to keep her distracted from baking cookies she actually had ready and waiting for the perfect moment to gift to Jaxon.

Ivy narrowed her eyes and waited for her aunt’s reply. It was Hazel who answered. “We need you to take notes this month.” She toyed with the bow on today’s kettle brim hat and wouldn’t quite meet Ivy’s eyes. When Ivy waited her out, Hazel opened her own eyes wide in practiced guilelessness. “You don’t mind, do you? It would be such a help.”

“Notes.” Ivy glanced at Marjorie, the historical society’s secretary, and raised an eyebrow.

With a soft sigh, Marjorie raised her right hand, thickly bandaged. “I had an incident at the tree farm and crushed my hand under a log.” At Ivy’s gasp, she added quickly, “Oh, not too badly, but I won’t be able to take the minutes this month. It’ll be fine in a couple of weeks. Really. Don’t fret.”

“You don’t mind, do you, dear?” Aunt Lydia spoke a bittoosweetly, which told Ivy they were all in cahoots. Certainly any of the others could take the notes. They didn’t need a fifth wheel. They’d managed perfectly on their own for years. Although, as Ivy paused to study each one in turn, she saw that they were getting up in years. In the last three months they had started hinting about bringing some young blood into the historical society to make sure it continued on. It was a little dramatic. None of them were all so old that they couldn’t do the work. All of them, except Hazel, still ran their own businesses, but Ivy supposed it was a legacy to pass onto their heirs. Ivy and Holly were included in that.

Whether or not the injury was real remained in question. Still, it probably was, as Marjorie was likely the most honest person Ivy knew.

She gave a nod. She could certainly help. “Will it be fun?”

Lydia gave her a bright smile. “So much fun. That’s my girl.”

“What time do you need me?”

“Six o’clock tonight. It only takes us an hour to go through the agenda.”

“At the town hall on the corner?”

“Oh, no dear, we’ve started meeting at the mansions. Tonight, we’ll be at Oleander House.”

Oleander House was a stately Georgian Colonial in the south of town. “All the way out there?”

“We’re working on the tours, and it’s so much more inspiring to meet in the proper setting. You don’t mind, do you, dear?”

“No, of course not.” Oleander House had belonged to her family for more than two hundred and fifty years. Her first ancestor to arrive in Rhode Island had built it for his long-lost love in the hope that she would one day join him, but she perished in the French Revolution. So, the house was named after a poisonous bush that only sounded pretty. The house itself was magnificent, or had been in its heyday. Her ancestor eventually married a local girl. Her aunt, generations later, had grown up in the house.

Ivy had never lived in it. By the time her parents moved here with their two daughters, the mansion had been under renovation. It had remained under repair as long as Ivy had lived here, until three years ago when it was added as one of the mansions in the Hazard Historical Society’s nonprofit, along with her aunt as a member. It was only recently that the historical society was able to afford the remaining renovations to restore the Georgian Colonial to its former glory.

It might be good, Ivy decided, to see its progress. She knew the new docent had begun giving tours, and she had yet to go on one, though, it sounded as though her aunt wanted to improve the script for the tours. It might be interesting to learn what she wanted to change.

At least she didn’t have any dates tonight, thank goodness. She was primed to accept defeat and lose the bet. After her last dating disaster, really, cleaning up the bakery for a month sounded routine. It wasn’t as if the one person she wanted to go out with would ask her.

Her eyes wandered to the glass jar where her latest batch of cookies waited. She needed the right moment to present them to Jaxon, when he was alone and might actually taste one. She glanced at the cookie press on the wall. The pillars must have noted her do it, because they immediately sought to draw her attention back to them.

“So, we’ll see you tonight at six. Excellent.” Lydia clapped her hands, and Ivy nodded. She left them to their plotting and returned to welcoming and serving the continual stream of customers pouring into her shop. At this rate, she might need to hire an employee.

As she was ready to clear out for the day, Holly popped in and startled her.

“Hey,” she said from right beside her ear. Ivy jumped a foot in the air.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?” Holly was all innocence. But she knew what she did. She did it on purpose. Holly loved stomping, but since losing twenty pounds in the last year, she delighted in stepping lightly. She switched to soft shoes that made no sound whenever she wanted to be sneaky. Ivy, used to her clomping, would have to adapt.

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