Well-Offed in Vermont

loved most: baking. Expanding her repertoire of cookies and cakes to include breads, pies, and pastries, she quickly discovered that not only did she enjoy working with flour, sugar, eggs, and yeast, but she seemed to possess a natural talent for it.

The universe must have agreed, for several months into her great baking experiment, Alma received word from her brother, Raymond, that Grandma’s Donut Hole, their hometown coffee shop, was closing after thirty years of business. Seizing a chance to start life anew, Alma moved back home and, with Raymond’s help, converted Grandma’s into Alma’s Sweet Shop.

Using the freshest ingredients from local farms, Alma’s menu featured muffins, scones, cakes, breads, tarts, pies, quiches, and, of course, coffee and doughnuts from Grandma’s original recipe. The business was an immediate success. Six mornings a week—Alma’s was closed on Sundays—one could find its retro chrome-trimmed counter lined with everyone from truckers and construction workers to schoolchildren and senior citizens. However, one occupant of its red upholstered swivel stools remained constant.

From the moment that Alma’s Sweet Shop had opened its doors for business and for every morning afterward, Sheriff Charlie Mills had been the first customer of the day. Waking in the wee hours of the morning and driving fifteen miles out of his way in all sorts of weather, Charlie ensured that, Monday through Saturday, he was outside Alma’s door the moment she unlocked the deadbolt and flipped the Closed sign to Open.

Although the painted lettering on the Sweet Shop door designated seven am as the official start of business, there had been occasions when Alma, knowing that Mills would be waiting in knee-deep snow or the subzero winds of a Vermont winter, had unlocked the 19