When I was eleven, the age my daughter is now, I spent hours during summer in my grandmother’s shop, tucked in the cool nook beneath her office desk. Mostly, I read there, but if I’m honest, when Grandma Butterfield wasn’t looking, I’d peek inside the desk drawers. I don’t know what I was looking for. Grandma Butterfield had no secrets that I knew of—not then, anyway—and I believe she’d have been happy for me to take any interest at all in the business she’d built after Grandpa Butterfield died and left her a young widow: Butterfield’s Boutique, the beloved jewelry and fine art store in tiny Rosin, Texas.

Maybe seeing my daughter, Ellie, seeking refuge under the office desk during our visit to the boutique brings back memories I don’t want to think about. Grandma Butterfield always had a cold glass of lemonade and a few well meaning words about doing more to fit in after she found me reading under her desk. Her advice sank into my stomach as icy as the lemonade, but her words were always tempered with sweetness.

I’d always thought her reminders to consider my place in the community were directly aimed at me, but now I’m not so sure. Before she moved to Rosin so long ago, Evelyn Butterfield been in Leicestershire, England, where she met her husband during the Second World War. Grandma Butterfield never talked about her service, though her endless tinkering with new technology gave me a pretty good idea about what she might have done. Grandma Butterfield was fascinated by the cutting edge. (Maybe that’s why I ended up working in Information Technology?)

Ellie leaves the space beneath the desk to check on Grandma Butterfield’s quarreling cats.

It’s hard for me to resist peering inside the old desk. Slowly, though, I slide open the drawer just above the reading nook, the drawer in which Grandma Butterfield kept her paperclips and the creamy white correspondence cards on which she’d write thank you notes and words of encouragement and congratulations. I turn my hand to explore along the rails, the metal cold under my fingertips. What would she say to me now? She wanted me to have the boutique, now that she’s gone. Well, she wanted me to split the boutique equally with my cousin Veronica, her only other grandchild.

I learned from Grandma Butterfield the value family and home. I learned from her the need to support community. What I’m learning from her now is that all is not what it seems. I thought I knew my dear late grandmother quite well; I could tell you her favorite flower, her least favorite food, and what she thought about most people in Rosin, even if she never gossiped. What I’m still learning from her is that maybe I didn’t know everything there was to know about Evelyn Butterfield. And maybe there’s a lot I still need to learn about the rest of my family and myself, too.

THE WING OF A BEE
Series: A Butterfield’s Boutique and Computer Repair Mystery, Book 1
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: July 2026
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

Leslie had expected her grandmother’s funeral to buzz. Everyone who was anyone would be at the service for Evelyn, late owner of Butterfield’s Boutique and queen bee of Loblolly County.

What Leslie hadn’t expected was reuniting with her free-spirited cousin, Veronica. Or that they would inherit the coveted boutique.

When an influencer wearing jewelry from Butterfield’s is robbed, Leslie concludes the theft is a publicity stunt. But when the boutique’s window is smashed in violently, the cousins begin to investigate before worse happens to the shop—or to its clients.

With the help of reunited family, new neighbors, and old friends, Leslie and Veronica brave the swarm of suspects who all want the boutique, the jewelry, and their revenge.

Meet the author
Tammy D. Walker writes contemporary cozy mysteries that have roots in Texas. Her most recent novel is The Wing of a Bee. The author of four poetry collections and the Daw County Sisters Mysteries series, she loves weaving clues into her books that draw on her experiences as a software developer and English teacher. When she’s not working or spending time with family and friends, she’s most likely to be found in her garden, somewhere near a radio, or at her desk writing letters. Find out more at www.tammydwalker.com.