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Binkman emerged from the cookbook nook with a customer in tow. “Thank heavens you’re back,” she whispered to Olivia. “My goodness, it’s been busy.” Bertha had been the full-time, live-in housekeeper for Olivia’s late friend Clarisse Chamberlain. When Clarisse died, she left Bertha enough money to retire, but Bertha, who was in her sixties, was too full of energy to “sit on the porch and knit,” as she’d put it. Besides, now that she and the widowed attorney Mr. Willard were an item, Bertha preferred to be in town.
    While she asked Bertha to keep an eye on Spunky, Olivia heard the front door open behind her. She put on her customer-friendly smile and turned around. Her petite mother, Ellie Greyson-Meyers, floated across the sales floor wearing a long pink sweater over black harem pants.
    “Mom, have you been belly dancing again?”
    “So good for one’s flexibility,” Ellie murmured.
    “And you’ve done something to your hair,” Olivia said. “I like the effect; it brings out your eyes. That isn’t a ribbon, is it?”
    Ellie’s wavy gray hair, which hung below her shoulders, had a navy blue streak down the left side. “Thank you, dear. I was inspired by my belly dancing teacher, who has the loveliest pale lavender streak through her black hair.”
    “Has Allan seen the new you?” Olivia’s meat-and-potatoes stepfather, Allan Meyers, was so different from his ever-active wife that the marriage shouldn’t work. But somehow it did.
    “He was speechless, poor dear,” Ellie said. “He, too, asked if it might be a ribbon, but I assured him it is quite permanent, unless I decide to let it grow out. I don’t think that’s what he wanted to hear.”
    “How is Allan’s new Internet business going?”
    “Oh, you know how Allan is when he starts a new venture,” Ellie said.
    “Barely communicative?”
    “Exactly. I leave coffee and plates of food next to his keyboard, and I remove them when empty. It’s probably just as well, since I’m so busy with the gingerbread houses. I am worried he’ll freeze into that hunched-over position, though. Once our schedules have settled down, I’m taking him to yoga with me.”
    “Does Allan know this yet?”
    “Of course not, Livie. Yoga terrifies him. The very thought would make him start traveling again, and I want him home more.”
    A customer entered the store, and Bertha hurried to help her. Olivia glanced at her watch. The lunch hour would arrive soon, which meant another influx of cookie-cutter enthusiasts. With Maddie hard at work on gingerbread houses for the weekend celebration, Olivia would be busy.
    “I’m heading for the community center,” Ellie said, “and I promised to pick up a few items for the gingerbread house project.” Ellie extracted a torn scrap of paper from a deep pocket in her harem pants and handed it to Olivia. “But first tell me, how did your visit with the Chatterleys go? Really, Karen had no right to order you to talk to them, but since you did…”
    “You want to be the first to know?”
    “I have my reasons,” Ellie said. “I’m concerned about Paine. And about Karen.”
    “Karen? Really? And Paine?” Olivia’s astonishment caught the attention of Bertha’s customer, who turned to stare.
    Ellie cupped Olivia’s elbow and guided her into the store’s cookbook nook, a semiprivate area that was once a dining room. “I knew Paine when he was young, you know. He was…complex. In fact, I was never sure I really did know him, despite the many afternoons I spent at Sadie’s house, learning to embroider.”
    “You spent…why did I not know this?”
    “Possibly because you weren’t born yet, Livie.” Ellie’s gaze wandered to a display of gel food coloring for icing. “You do carry rolled fondant, don’t you? I’ll need several packages.”
    “Fondant is easy to make, and it would be much less expensive.”
    “I know that, Livie, but we are running out of time.”
    It was unusual for her mother to