Love, Life and Cupcakes

By Natalie-Nicole Bates

Lyle Chaplin is a single dad new to town. He wants nothing more than to raise his six-year-old daughter Lila in a quiet, safe environment.

But one day Lila vanishes from beside him on the street and Lyle goes into panic mode. It turns out that Lila had spotted a tray of cookies and cream cupcakes in the window of the local diner and couldn't help but wander inside where she is greeted by the owner, Marley James.

 

It's then that Lila decides that Marley would be a perfect mother for her!

 

Lyle is grateful for the care and joy that Marley lavishes on his little girl. Still, he tries to avoid the café and his growing attraction for its proprietor. To Lyle, Marley is too young and free. But no matter how much distance he puts between himself and Marley, Lila is always there to reunite them!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paperlate Press
• Release date: Sep 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223503644

Natalie-Nicole Bates

Natalie-Nicole Bates is a book reviewer and author. Her passions in life include books and hockey along with Victorian and Edwardian era photography and antique poison bottles. Natalie contributes her uncharacteristic love of hockey to being born in Russia. She currently resides in the UK where she is working on her next book and adding to her collection of 19th century post-mortem photos.    

Book preview

Natalie-Nicole Bates

Love, Life, and Cupcakes

A Cupcake Shop Novella

First published by Perfectly Poisoned Press 2022

Copyright © 2022 by Natalie-Nicole Bates

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Natalie-Nicole Bates asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Natalie-Nicole Bates has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

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Contents

1. Chapter 1

2. Chapter 2

3. Chapter 3

4. Chapter 4

5. Chapter 5

6. Chapter 6

7. Chapter 7

8. Chapter 8

About the Author

Also by Natalie-Nicole Bates

One

Chapter 1

Chapter Separator

There was something so special about the look on a child’s face when they stared into the diner’s window at an arrangement of freshly baked cupcakes, cookies, and assorted cakes and pastries.

The wonderment in their bright eyes and smiles made owning a diner with a bakery worth it for Marley James.

And today was no exception.

Just as she finished unloading a tray of her best-selling cookies and cream cupcakes, the most beautiful little girl with skin the color of crème caramel and gorgeous brown eyes, stood plastered against the front window of the diner.

When Marley smiled, the little girl smiled back and it caused her heart to turnover. She loved kids of all ages and even worked at a daycare center when she was a teen. Even though she was still in her early twenties, Marley couldn’t wait to be a mom.

After giving the girl a little wave, Marley returned behind the counter. It was passed the lunch rush now, and the diner was fairly quiet. Just a few regulars hanging around at the counter talking or reading the daily newspaper. She went along the counter with a pot of freshly brewed coffee and topped up everyone’s cups.

Owning a diner wasn’t what Marley ever expected to do or even wanted to do. The Gingerbread Diner was willed to her by her late grandmother whose name was Marney James. She was the mother of Marley’s father.

Whether he made an error on Marley’s birth certificate and she was supposed to have been named Marney, she would never know.

Even if her name wasn’t a mistake, the grandmother and granddaughter’s names were very similar, but Marley didn’t really know Marney, and Marney didn’t care to know Marley.

And that was such a shame.

Marley’s parents married young and had different goals in life. When Marley was about four years old, they divorced, and each went their separate ways. Though her father did make an attempt to stay in touch, he eventually moved hundreds of miles away for work and then married a woman with three children of her own, and Marley’s visits to her father became less and less until their contact was limited to the obligatory birthday and Christmas cards, and a very occasional phone call.

Now her father was deceased.

It was a sad situation, but Marley made the best of it. As she got older, she understood more how some relationships were just not built to last. That some marriages, friendships, and relationships simply could not stand the test of time. For Marley, she made it her mission to appreciate the relationships in her life, because she never knew when they would end.

Sometimes parting ways was inevitable. People argued, moved away, and had their values change. Worse, some people were forced apart by death.

But it also taught her to be very careful when choosing a life partner, and that it was okay to be choosy, too! After all, she wanted a love for the ages. A man who she could grow old with, and a family to adore and spoil.

Marley turned away from the coffee pot that she had been shining with a damp cloth when the little bell above the front door of the diner rang out, signaling a customer entering.

She saw the same adorable little girl who had been admiring the cupcake display just a few minutes earlier, struggling with the heavy glass door. At once, Marley tossed aside the damp cloth she’d been using and hurried out from behind the counter to help the girl through the door before she got closed in it and possibly injured.

The girl was even cuter than she looked through the glass!

She was wearing bright pink trousers with a matching top. Over her shoulders was a sequin jacket, looped over her wrist was a pink purse. Her pink sneakers completed the look.

She looked like a little rocker chick!

But as cute as she was, and she was really, really cute, she was also alone. She couldn’t be more than five or six years old. She was definitely not old enough to be on her own.