Just South of Sunrise

by Grace Palmer

  “That’s smart, Ms. Hall,” Ramon said. “I obviously want to get a great business in this space as soon as possible, but the demand for retail spaces in Willow Beach isn’t so high that you need to make any commitments right this very second. You have time to think about it.”

  That was great because Liza really did need time to think.

  She had come to Willow Beach to get out of her rut and look towards her future, but now that she was looking at staying in Willow Beach, she couldn’t help but wonder if she wasn’t just staying because it was easy. Because she’d already made friends and was comfortable here.

  Was it similar to the way she’d agreed to marry Cliff, assuming she’d fall in love with him eventually?

  She told herself it was different. Liza didn’t need to fall in love with Willow Beach; she already loved it. And it certainly didn’t feel like settling.

  Still, she worried she was falling back into old habits.

  Liza and Angela walked the two blocks down to The Roast for coffee, and when Liza walked through the door, her eyes landed on Ben standing at the counter.

  Speaking of old habits.

  He turned around and beamed, almost as if he’d been expecting her. “Liza. Fancy running into you here.”

  Angela gasped and then whispered, “Is that Ben? Is that him?”

  Liza ignored her and focused instead on the almond croissant in Ben’s hand. “Ben Boyd, how on earth did you get an almond croissant midmorning? They are usually sold out before nine.”

  “It is him,” Angela sighed, doing very little to keep her voice down. “He’s so handsome.”

  Ben shrugged slyly and handed Liza the croissant. “I came in and bought it this morning. Vivienne was kind enough to hold it for me.”

  Never one to turn down sugary carbs, Liza accepted the croissant. As she grabbed it, Ben pulled her close and gave her a quick yet passionate kiss on the mouth. Once they broke apart, Liza took a big bite of the croissant to hide how flushed she was. “How did you know I’d be here today? Did I mention it to you?”

  Before Ben could answer, Angela stepped forward, hand extended. “I’m Liza’s niece and business partner, Angela.”

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Ben said, tipping his head.

  “All good things, I hope?” Angela eyed Liza suspiciously, and Liza nudged her ornery niece towards a table in the corner.

  Angela and Ben hit it off great. Liza hadn’t realized how much Angela and Ben were alike, but now that they were together at the table, both lovingly teasing Liza and exuding a pure joy for life, Liza couldn’t unsee it.

  Suddenly, it made perfect sense why Liza had fallen for Ben twice and why she and Angela got along so well. The things that made Ben a great boyfriend were the same things that made Angela a good partner.

  “So, you’re the man who is stealing my aunt away from the big city?” Angela shook her head and sipped on her cappuccino. “I suppose I can understand why. If any man interested in me was this handsome, I’d also betray my family.”

  “I’m not betraying my family! You said it sounded like a good idea!”

  “It is!” Angela smiled at them both. “I think it’s great.”

  Liza’s phone buzzed in her pocket, but she ignored it. It was probably about work or Dora sending her yet another picture of her wearing a tank top in December with the message: “This could be you.” Either way, Liza wanted to give all of her attention to the two people sitting in front of her.

  “I’m not sure how long I’ll even stay, so renting the kitchen space feels a little premature.”

  “But where would you work from?” Angela asked. “You need a proper kitchen.”

  “I was going to cater Stacy’s wedding from the cottage’s kitchen just fine.”

  “And then the oven broke,” Ben reminded her.

  Liza elbowed him as her phone vibrated again. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Your side. Or whichever side means you and I end up in the same place,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender.

  Angela nodded approvingly. “Smart man.”

  “Well, I emailed Mrs. Albertson about house-sitting the cottage for the entire length of her trip, but she hasn’t messaged back. If she agrees, that gives me a place to live for five months.”

  “What about Ben?” Angela asked. “You’re not from Willow Beach, right?”

  “No, but I freelance. I can live anywhere with an internet connection.”

  “Like the cottage!”

  Liza’s eyes widened in warning, but her niece was too caught up in the moment to notice.

  “You two could totally live in the cottage together. It’s free, big enough for the two of you, and it’s basically a vacation in a bottle. Right on the beach, within walking distance of the entire Main Street shopping and restaurant district. This place is so romantic.”

  “That is certainly something Ben and I will discuss later. Alone. When you are not here,” Liza said, placing special emphasis on the last two sentences.

  Angela backed down, but Liza heard her mutter “just saying” into her coffee mug.

  “I can rent a place downtown,” Ben added, trying to break the tension. “Or stay at the inn for a while longer. It’s pricier than a rental, but I have some good savings.”

  “Financially responsible, too.” Angela wagged her brows at Liza, and Liza was beginning to have regrets about introducing her niece to her beau.

  When a text message alert buzzed for the third time, Liza decided a text from Dora would be a welcome distraction, so she finally pulled out her phone.

  Immediately, she realized the phone wasn’t hers. It was Angela’s. Liza must have grabbed it off the counter by mistake in her rush to get out the door.

  She was about to hand it back when the phone buzzed a fourth time and she saw an unsettlingly familiar name flash on the screen: Heather Boyd.

  Just a couple of weeks earlier, Angela had acted like she had no idea who Heather was, and now she had Ben’s daughter’s number in her phone? That didn’t make sense.

  Liza knew she should just ask Angela about it, but curiosity got the best of her, and she swiped up on the screen. She’d been telling Angela for years to set a passcode on her phone—it was one of the few subjects where Liza was more tech savvy—but she never had, and suddenly, Liza was grateful.

  A string of messages appeared.

  Are you at the coffee shop yet? My dad should be there already.

  He’s going to leave if you don’t hurry.

  Are you getting these? Is the plan working?

  ARE THEY IN LOVE YET?!

  Liza read the messages once and then again, trying to think of any explanation other than the one already in her head. She didn’t want to think Angela and Ben would lie to her, but wasn’t this proof they had?

  Ben had spoken to Liza about fate…destiny. But this wasn’t destiny.

  Are they in love yet?

  Someone along the way had manipulated fate. Suddenly, Liza felt ridiculously naïve.

  20

  Whether Ben was scared away by Angela’s meddling or he sensed the tension in the air and decided it was safest to leave, Liza didn’t know, but she didn’t stop him when he said he should let them enjoy coffee on their own.

  Liza wanted to speak with Angela more than anyone.

  As soon as Ben walked out of the front door, the bell jangling to announce his departure, Liza turned to her niece.

  “He’s so handsome,” Angela said. “Tall and broad-shouldered and his eyes. Oh, Aunt Liza, his eyes. He’s a dreamboat! I can’t believe you didn’t send me pictures!”

  Liza slid Angela her phone, the screen opened to Heather’s string of unanswered messages. “I didn’t need to. I’m sure Heather already showed you one, right?”

  Angela blinked as the reality of the situation washed over her. Her eyes skimmed over Heather’s messages and then flicked back to Liza’s face. Her cheeks were pale.

  “Aunt Liza, I can explain.
”

  “Was this all a game to you?” Liza asked, struggling to keep her voice from shaking. “Did you think your aunt’s life was so miserable that you needed to treat her like she was on a game show? Did the two of you have fun laughing at me?”

  “No! That isn’t at all what happened. Let me explain.”

  “How much did Ben know?” Liza asked, but as soon as the question was out of her mouth, she shook her head. “No. I’ll ask him myself. I want him to explain his part in all of this to my face, but I wanted to talk to you first. Because I trusted you.”

  Angela’s face fell. “Trusted? Past tense? You don’t trust me anymore?”

  “How can I, Angela? You’ve been lying to me. I asked you if you knew Heather, and you acted like you didn’t.”

  “Okay, yes. I lied about that, but—”

  “And why is Ben in Willow Beach?”

  Angela bit her lower lip. “For his sister’s wedding.”

  Liza raised one brow in an unspoken threat. “Why did you choose Willow Beach as the place where I should come to relax? Why did you book me as the caterer for Stacy’s wedding?”

  “Because you’re a talented caterer, and I knew you’d kill it.”

  “Angela!” Liza yelled, slapping the table and drawing the attention of Vivienne behind the counter. She quickly realized something serious was going on and turned away, pretending to go back to her work, though Liza was sure she was eavesdropping. Liza couldn’t blame her. If this wasn’t happening to her, she would be listening in, too.

  “I’m sorry.” Angela folded her hands around her half-empty coffee mug and sighed. “Heather found your name in a letter or something when she was in her dad’s office. She looked you up online, saw a picture of me in your photos, and she reached out. We pieced together a bit of your history from everywhere we could, and it seemed like a really romantic story. Heather wanted her dad to be happy, and I wanted you to be happy, and we thought maybe we could solve both problems at the same time. Her aunt was getting married, my aunt is a caterer—it seemed like fate was on our side.”

  “This isn’t fate,” Liza grumbled. “It’s manipulation.”

  “You agreed to come to Willow Beach and do the wedding.”

  “Under false pretenses, Angela. If I’d known Ben was going to be here, I would have refused to come.”

  Angela clenched her fists and went wide-eyed. “Don’t you see? That’s why I didn’t tell you. You did come to Willow Beach, you did reconnect with him, and now the two of you are happy. I didn’t want your stubbornness to get in the way.”

  “My stubbornness?” Liza asked, standing up so quickly her chair nearly tipped over. “This isn’t about my stubbornness; it’s about my pride. My self-respect. I’m capable of finding my own partners and satisfying my own romantic needs. I don’t need to be tricked into it.”

  “But it wasn’t a trick!” Angela exclaimed. “The only thing we did is make sure the two of you were in the same place at the same time. You did the rest.”

  Liza pointed to Angela’s phone. “It sounds like maybe today’s meeting was arranged?”

  Angela chewed on the corner of her lip nervously, and Liza shook her head. “How am I supposed to trust you if you keep lying to me? How am I supposed to trust anything anyone has said to me?”

  “You can trust Ben!”

  Liza snorted. “Oh, can I?”

  “Yes. He knew you were going to be the caterer, but that’s all.”

  Liza wanted to believe Angela. She wanted to believe that Ben was as innocent a bystander in all of this as she was, but it became harder and harder to believe that.

  Just within the last ten minutes, she’d point-blank asked him whose side he was on.

  Your side. Or whichever side means you and I end up in the same place.

  There it was. He’d as good as admitted it…right? He’d been willing to set this whole romance up while Liza was completely in the dark. He’d waxed on about fate and destiny and the universe, all the while knowing that their reunion had been arranged. All the while knowing what his end goal was.

  And if Ben knew all along that he wanted to try and get Liza back—even before he knew her as a fifty-four-year-old rather than the twenty-something she’d been when they met—wouldn’t that sway the results? It’s the same reason researchers often don’t tell research subjects the nature of the study. They don’t want to corrupt the results.

  Well, the results of this experiment had been corrupted from the jump.

  Ben had gone into this hoping to win, hoping to gain Liza’s trust and her love, and he’d succeeded. Swimmingly.

  Unfortunately, Liza no longer knew what was real and what was simply his attempt to complete his objective.

  Liza couldn’t trust anyone, and after this experience, she didn’t know if she ever would again.

  “Let me fix it,” Angela said desperately, tears in her eyes. “I screwed up, but you don’t have to blow everything up. Let me talk to Ben and explain things to him, and then he can explain things to you and…just, please, let me fix it.”

  Liza shook her head. “There’s no fixing this.”

  Liza turned off her phone, locked her front door, and hid away in the bedroom of the cottage she’d come to call home, however temporarily.

  For a minute, she’d thought she had it all figured out, but once again, the rug had been ripped out from underneath her. But you can’t fall down if you don’t stand up.

  So, Liza stayed in bed the rest of the day and the rest of the night.

  When someone knocked on the front door, she pulled the blanket over her head and went to sleep.

  She didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  21

  Liza stayed inside the next day, too.

  She didn’t know if Angela had gone back to Boston or if Ben was trying to call her. For all she knew, he’d left Willow Beach. Maybe now that the plot had been revealed, he wouldn’t be interested in her anymore. Maybe her knowing about the plan would ruin his good time.

  It didn’t seem fair to judge him so harshly based on what little information she had, but then again, Liza wasn’t in the mood to be fair to anyone.

  She’d put herself out there. After the way he’d hurt her in the past, Liza had pushed away all of her doubts and insecurities and trusted him, and now she was paying the price.

  As a form of comfort or self-punishment—Liza couldn’t be sure—she ordered pizza the night before, ate cold pizza for breakfast, and then reheated the last of the pizza for lunch. By dinner, she felt bloated and miserable, but she was still thinking about ordering another pizza.

  Maybe a veggie pizza, she thought. As though that would make much of a difference.

  Instead, she finally got out of bed, put on some real clothes—if leggings and a long sweater can be called “real clothes”—and went into the kitchen. She didn’t make anything fancy, but she whipped together a quick vegetable soup and a grilled cheese. It made her feel a bit more human, which was a step up.

  On her way back to the bedroom, Liza caught a glimpse of her reflection in a mirror in the hallway, and it was bleak. Shocking, really.

  Her face was oily from not washing off her makeup the night before, her hair was sticking up in eighteen different directions, and she looked years older. She knew that wasn’t possible, but the lines around her mouth seemed more pronounced, and there were bags under her eyes.

  It was pathetic.

  She was pathetic.

  Yes, she’d been betrayed for the second time by the man she loved—and love him she did, despite her unwillingness to admit it—and now she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life.

  Except, maybe she that wasn’t quite true.

  Even if Ben wasn’t in the picture anymore, didn’t Liza still love Willow Beach? Did she still want to be close to the beach and attend book club meetings with Georgia and Stella and the rest of the women?

  Yes to both. Liza didn’t need to throw away her entire plan because of o
ne act of betrayal.

  The realization provided a slight boost to her morale, and Liza marched into the bathroom and took a shower. She lathered and rinsed her hair twice, scrubbed her face free of makeup, and brushed her teeth for the first time all day. By the time she was finished, she felt marginally better. Still not good enough to rejoin society, but good enough to go for a walk.

  She towel-dried her hair and then tucked the damp locks up into a hat, shoved her socked feet into a pair of boots, and pulled on her long puffy coat. Then she set off down to the beach.

  Thanksgiving was only a few weeks away, and the wind off the ocean was icy. It seemed to slice through Liza’s clothes, but she didn’t hate the sensation. In fact, she liked the harshness of it. The weather matched her mood, and Liza plopped right down in the sand, close enough that she was in danger of getting wet from the tide.

  She would stay in Willow Beach.

  The decision came to her easily. It’s what she wanted. Part of the sadness she’d felt over the last twenty-four hours was at this perfect little town being stolen away from her, but it didn’t need to be. The only thing that had really been stolen from her was the future she’d imagined with Ben.

  As soon as Ben had reappeared in her life, Liza worried she was regressing. She’d promised herself Willow Beach would be a fresh start, but here she was thirty years later dealing with the same devastation she’d dealt with at twenty-four.

  Liza considered herself to be a rational, logical person, yet she couldn’t seem to be rational or logical when it came to Ben. For reasons Liza would never understand, he had a direct line to her heart, and she couldn’t resist.

  That was what made the betrayal so much worse.

  Liza thought, naively, that the way she was naturally drawn to Ben must be fate. Maybe it was the universe’s way of whispering to her, This one. He’s the one. Love him.

  Now, Liza likened it to the decision-making skills a drunk person has. Ben intoxicated Liza, and she couldn’t think clearly. That wasn’t a good thing. It was a dangerous thing.