Just South of Sunrise

by Grace Palmer

  Just South of Sunrise

  A Willow Beach Inn Novel (Book 3)

  Grace Palmer

  Contents

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  Also by Grace Palmer

  Just South of Sunrise

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Also by Grace Palmer

  Copyright © 2020 by Grace Palmer

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Also by Grace Palmer

  Sweet Island Inn

  No Home Like Nantucket (Book 1)

  No Beach Like Nantucket (Book 2)

  No Wedding Like Nantucket (Book 3)

  No Love Like Nantucket (Book 4)

  * * *

  Willow Beach Inn

  Just South of Paradise (Book 1)

  Just South of Perfect (Book 2)

  Just South of Sunrise (Book 3)

  Just South of Sunrise

  A Willow Beach Inn Novel (Book 3)

  It’s never too late in life to give love a second chance.

  When fate (and a stubborn niece) force fifty-something divorcee Liza Hall to take on a new catering client, the last face she expects to see is Benjamin Boyd.

  As in, the very handsome, very familiar Ben who broke her heart many years ago.

  That’s bad news indeed. Her quiet life in Willow Beach is just what she’s been searching for. Why give that up and invite the memory of heartbreak back in?

  But it’s tough for Liza to resist pressure from her young niece, the pleas of a desperate client, and the man who has always known how to tug on her heartstrings.

  And soon, Liza finds herself getting drawn closer and closer to a man she swore off for good.

  Can a second shot at love leave her better off than the first?

  Fate, family, and food all weave together in this heartwarming second chance romance women’s fiction novel from bestselling author Grace Palmer.

  Come back to your favorite seaside town, grab a cup of coffee with the Baldwin family at the Willow Beach Inn, and get ready to fall heads over heels for the later-in-life love story you’ve been craving.

  1

  Liza surveyed the boxes lining the walls of the storage unit. Hand-me-down dishware, school yearbooks and photo albums, wedding decorations. And above it all, looming over the wedding decorations box like the Ghost of Weddings Past, was a white wicker archway that Liza’s mom had insisted she buy for the wedding.

  “That’s something we can rent,” Liza had argued.

  “Your children will want to use it at their weddings one day. How can anything be an heirloom if you rent it?”

  So, Liza had bought the arch from a company listed in the back of a bridal magazine and then stored it for twenty years, well after her window for having children had slammed shut.

  So much for family heirlooms.

  No one would want any of this stuff, but Liza couldn’t seem to part with it. Even after her now ex-husband Cliff had told her to take or sell or burn whatever she wanted, Liza felt like she had to hold onto some part of their life together. If she didn’t, it would all feel like a strange dream. Like twenty years of her life had amounted to nothing at all.

  “Ma’am?” The storage facility attendant was a young man, barely twenty, and Liza could tell he was anxious to get back to the lobby and the episode of whatever anime show he’d been watching. She recognized the overdramatic sounds of the anime characters fighting and screaming from when her niece, Angela, stayed with her and tried to introduce her to the genre. Liza never got into the story lines, but it meant a lot to Angela, so she tried.

  “Did you want me to take the key from you now, or do you want to drop it off at the front desk?” he asked, impatience covered with a thin veneer of customer service. “If you need more time—”

  He glanced around the small space, and it was obvious he couldn’t imagine what she’d need more time for. Liza knew the storage unit looked like a pile of garbage to anyone who wasn’t her.

  “No, I’ll be ready in a moment.” Liza stepped into the dimly lit room and ran her hands over the faded permanent marker handwriting she recognized as her own, trying to look like there was a purpose to her delay.

  There wasn’t.

  She just wanted to spend one last minute in her old life.

  Angela would argue that Liza had already spent far too much of the last few years in her old life. She’d say it was high time to move on. Even though the divorce had been finalized three years earlier, Liza had been in a holding pattern since she’d signed the papers. She’d moved out of the house they’d shared together, but it was only because Cliff was long gone and she couldn’t make rent on her own. She had her own bank account, but it was only because Cliff had removed his name from the documents.

  Everything that had changed in Liza’s life had been done for her. She’d been like a wagon rolling down an incline, being pushed on by gravity, but the moment her wheels hit an obstacle and the slightest effort had been required to push past it, she’d stayed put.

  Much like their marriage, the divorce had been Cliff’s idea.

  In both instances, it seemed like the obvious thing to do. Both times Cliff proposed a change in their relationship status, Liza simply couldn’t think of a reason to say no.

  Cliff took Liza to an Italian restaurant.

  He’d just graduated college, so he couldn’t afford anything fancy, but the place had candles on every table, free baskets of bread, and a wine to pair with every dish. Even with the plastic red and white checkered tablecloths and cliché Italian instrumental music being pumped through the speakers, it was the nicest restaurant either of them had been to without their parents.

  Between the main course and the tiramisu they were going to split, Cliff swallowed the rest of the wine in his glass and then dropped to one knee.

  Liza forgot his speech as fast as the words came out of his mouth. Instead of soaking in the moment, she’d been wondering if she could accept. If she should accept.

  I don’t love him, she thought. But that couldn’t be true, could it?

  Liza knew how Cliff folded his boxers into thirds in his top dresser drawer. She knew that he hated cheese unless it was melted and that he had two cups of coffee every morning, the first with cream, the second with milk. And she knew that if he was proposing to her, it was because he’d weighed all of the pros and cons and determined this was the best path forward.

  With her catering company still in the early stages, she needed someone she could depend on. Liza had already nearly defaulted on a month of rent, but thankfully, she’d picked up an extra birthday party just in time to scrape by. What if that wasn’t enough one day? She needed a part
ner, someone to help carry the load.

  At one point, she’d dreamed of romance. Like so many young people, Liza imagined she’d fall in love and the path forward would unfurl before her like a red carpet, leading her into her future.

  And then, she lost her job, had her heart broken, and realized that dreams were for sleeping. Life was full of practicalities and problems that needed to be solved. Cliff could solve so many of them for her.

  “I love you, Liza,” Cliff said, a splash of red across his nervous cheeks. “I think we should get married.”

  He looked at her expectantly and it was clear Liza was expected to respond to his statement.

  In so many ways, it made sense to marry Cliff. But in the one way that truly mattered…

  She took a deep breath, shoved that thought deep down, and smiled at him. “I think we should get married, too.”

  Cliff slid the ring on her finger, kissed her cheek, and sat down as the waiter returned with their dessert. Liza’s new fiancé let her have the first bite.

  Love didn’t wash over people in a single wave. Love at first sight was rare and, in Liza’s honest opinion, most likely fake. People weren’t destined for one another. Fate didn’t play a part in every love story on the planet. For most of history, marriage had been about convenience and security. It was only in the last century that love had anything to do with it.

  Even still, love could happen slowly. Like water reaching a boil. Just because the surface of the water was smooth didn’t mean things weren’t happening below. It didn’t mean the water wasn’t gaining heat.

  It could be still one moment, and then, in one blink, boiling.

  Cliff and Liza had been on the stove for a while. Surely, their water would boil soon.

  The storage facility attendant sighed, and Liza blinked out of her reverie. She swiped her hand across another box and then turned to him and smiled. “I’m all done here.”

  The kid took her key and hurried back to the lobby. Liza took the back stairs to the parking lot, where Angela was waiting with the now-empty moving truck.

  “All squared away?” Angela asked, drumming the wheel.

  “I just have to return the van and drop off my apartment key at the leasing office. After that, I’m…”

  Ready? Is that what she was about to say? Because Liza didn’t feel ready. Far from it. She felt nauseous.

  Angela reached across the large bench seat of the moving van and laid a hand on Liza’s knee.

  “I just need you to remind me why I’m doing this,” Liza said, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head. “Tell me the plan one more time.”

  “The plan is twofold,” Angela said without hesitation. “For one thing, you need to get away. You need a change of scenery and to meet new people and experience new things.”

  “I’ve experienced a lot of new things the last three years,” she protested. Liza hated the bitterness in her own voice, but Angela didn’t pity her for even a moment.

  “You know what I mean,” her niece snorted. “Moving into a dinky apartment after selling your house cannot be the height of your excitement for the last few years. The kitchen in that place was microscopic, and the walls were thin enough that you could hear every time your neighbors exhaled. Plus, this trip is going to be good for our business, too.”

  Liza liked when Angela referred to the catering company as “our business.” Even though Angela was still in business school, it was nice to know she was excited about becoming a co-owner of the company. Liza had done well for herself over the years, booking a steady stream of weddings, parties, and banquets, but bringing in a young, passionate partner would only help her brand.

  She needed fresh ideas. And Angela had those in spades.

  “I wanted you to take a vacation, but seeing as that was impossible,” Angela said with a knowing eyebrow raise, “I figured a destination work trip was the only option.”

  “I’ve taken vacations.” Liza had taken vacations, but not since the divorce. Everything felt more manageable when she kept herself busy. Her personal and social life were a hot mess, but the work hadn’t changed. Liza liked that.

  Angela didn’t even dignify Liza’s retort with a response. She just kept going as though Liza had never spoken. “It will be great. You’ll be house-sitting at this little cottage in this cute seaside town—literally getting paid to water plants and lounge at the beach—and when the relaxation gets too much for your workaholic brain to bear, I’ve also lined up a wedding for you to cater. It will be perfect.”

  When Angela had first approached Liza about the plan, Liza shot it down immediately. Moving into someone else’s house to cater one small-town wedding? No way. But Liza persisted.

  “Heather’s aunt is getting married in this cute town called Willow Beach. I looked it up, and it’s gorgeous. Like one of those cheesy Christmas movies you like to watch, but with a beach.”

  “The business is stationed in Boston. I can’t take on a client in Maine.”

  “Yes, you can,” Angela argued. “Isn’t that why you’ve asked me to join the business when I graduate? To help you expand.”

  “Yeah, but I thought you’d help me…I don’t know…hire another chef or something.”

  Angela shook her head. “The two of us can handle the cooking for now, but we’re missing out on a lot of weddings by not being more mobile. Plus, your laid-back style of cooking is very well-suited for the beachy wedding crowd. I think it will be a good opportunity.”

  “I can’t move—”

  “You don’t have to.” Angela pulled out her phone and showed Liza a picture of a small cottage surrounded by greenery and rocks and sand. The wooden porch was covered and a hammock hung from two of the posts. “I looked on a few message boards online and found this house. The owner is taking an overseas sabbatical for six months, and she is looking for someone to take care of her house for her. I’ve got you scheduled to be there for at least a month, rent-free. You just have to pay for food. It’s perfect.”

  Angela had been saying that for the last month. It’s perfect. It will be perfect. Even now that Liza’s apartment was rented out, the storage unit was full, and her bags were packed, nothing about this temporary move to Willow Beach felt perfect.

  It felt like a headache.

  Angela must have been able to see the stress on her aunt’s face because she grabbed Liza’s shoulders and twisted her so they were facing one another. “Aunt Liza, you need to get out of this town and get over Uncle Cliff—er—Cliff.”

  “I am over him. It’s been three years.”

  Angela tipped her head to the side. “You might be over him, but you aren’t over the relationship. You’re holding on to this memory of what you had. You aren’t thinking about what you could have. You aren’t thinking about the future.”

  Liza didn’t have a good argument for that. Angela was right.

  Admitting it didn’t feel great, but Liza had been in a holding pattern for years. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d deluded herself into thinking this was temporary. As much as she knew it wasn’t possible, she couldn’t help but think that one day, she’d wake up and everything would go back to the way it had been.

  The crazy thing was that Liza didn’t even like the way things had been that much. She and Cliff weren’t happy. She didn’t have a perfect life. It was simply all Liza had ever known, and figuring out a new way to live in her mid-fifties sounded much too hard.

  Now, however, Angela wasn’t giving her a choice.

  “You took a big risk when you started your catering business. This isn’t any different.”

  It’s entirely different, Liza wanted to say. This time, she had a choice. But she stayed quiet. Angela knew a lot, but she didn’t know everything about Liza’s past. There were some things better off being left unsaid.

  “It will be perfect,” Angela said, not leaving any room for opposing opinions. The moving truck started with a loud rumble. “Fate has big plans for you, Aunt Liza, and I can�
��t wait to see what they are.”

  It seemed to Liza like Angela was the one who had big plans for her, not fate. Either way, she knew her niece well enough to know there was no sense in arguing. So, she buckled up and let Angela lead the way.

  2

  “This is perfect!”

  Angela stood in the center of the small living room, hands on her hips, and a wide smile on her face. Within half an hour, the two women had unpacked all of the belongings Liza had deemed most important—mostly clothes, books, and several boxes of kitchen tools and gadgets—but the next two-and-a-half hours had been spent deep cleaning the cottage. The owner kept a cute house, but based on the stash of pictures Liza had found in the hallway closet and the overpowering stench of mothballs, she was elderly, and the house needed a good airing out.

  Angela took down all of the curtains and threw them in the washer while Liza swept and mopped and dusted. The first cold front of fall had set in, so the air coming through the open windows was frosty, but after all the physical labor they’d been doing, it felt nice.

  “It’s certainly better,” Liza admitted. She stood against the wall, still too uncomfortable in a stranger’s house to sit down on the sofa, regardless of how exhausted she felt.