by Grace Palmer
Everyone laughed, and Liza spun around, taking in the space. “I can’t believe it.”
“I know I may have ruined things for you a bit,” Angela said, moving forward slowly. “But I really do think this town is the right fit for you, Aunt Liza. You seem so happy here, and I only want what is best for you. I shouldn’t have gone about it the way I did, but—”
Liza pulled her niece in for a hug and kissed the top of her head. “It’s okay. I forgive you.”
They hugged for a minute before Stella cleared her throat. “I actually do have to get back to my gallery, though. My show is about to start.”
“And we need to leave these two alone,” Georgia said, holding out a hand to Angela. “Come on, dear. Let’s walk over together.”
Just as fast as they appeared, the three women left, and Liza and Ben were alone again.
Liza felt warmth along her back as Ben drew close to her. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on the top of her head. “Do you like it?”
Liza spun around and looked up into his green eyes. “It’s perfect. I love it here.”
“I do, too,” Ben said. “I’ve never felt the urge to settle down before, but suddenly, it sounds nice. I think that’s because of you.”
“I hope not just because of me?”
“No, not just,” he admitted. “It’s also because of this town, and the people in it. They are kind and generous. I mean, look at what they did for you.” Ben gestured around at the storefront. “They care about people, and I want that in my life. I also want you in my life,” he added. “If you’ll have me.”
Liza bit back a smile. “Make me a s’more, and we’ll see how it goes.”
The s’more was a mess—too much chocolate and marshmallow for the graham crackers to hold—but it didn’t matter. Liza laughed when Ben got a string of melted marshmallow stuck on his nose, and he wiped chocolate off her upper lip. It was a mess, but wasn’t everything?
When they finished their s’mores, Ben pulled out his phone and played the Chicago song that seemed to belong to the two of them in some way. He pulled her into his arms and they danced. Liza laid her head against Ben’s chest, and after the tumultuousness of the last twenty-four hours, it felt like a dream.
It felt like fate.
Epilogue
One Month Later
“I can’t believe Mrs. Albertson is never coming back,” Sam said, shaking his head as he sliced into the roast beef Liza had just set in the middle of the long table.
“I know,” Georgia said, echoing his shock. “She has lived in Willow Beach her entire life. Her dad used to run an apothecary.”
“An apothecary?” Heather asked, one dark eyebrow raised. She looked so much like her dad it was jarring. “What is that?”
“An old-timey pharmacy,” Ben answered, passing a bowl of mashed potatoes to Stella.
“What did she say?” Stella asked, drawing all eyes back to Liza. “In the email?”
Liza had received the email the day before. She’d been waiting for weeks to hear back from Mrs. Albertson in regards to her first request to extend her stay as a house sitter. She never expected Mrs. Albertson’s counteroffer.
“She said she wanted to stay in the Philippines, and that I could have the cottage. Apparently, it belonged to her parents. It has been paid off for decades, and she doesn’t want to worry about selling it.”
Everyone seemed shocked she didn’t even want money for it, but from what Liza could tell, Mrs. Albertson was pretty well off. During an especially vigorous spider hunt Liza had gone on after seeing the world’s biggest spider crawl into her closet, Liza had found a few of Mrs. Albertson’s bank statements. Usually, she wouldn’t dare invade someone else’s privacy like that, but there were so many zeroes it was hard not to take notice. Whatever the cottage was worth, it was nothing compared to what Mrs. Albertson had in her bank accounts.
Liza shrugged. “I didn’t ask too many questions, honestly. She told me I could have an entire house for the cost of changing the title, so I accepted it.”
“Smart,” Heather said, tapping her temple with one finger. “Very smart.”
Heather was in Willow Beach to see her dad for Thanksgiving, and Liza had really enjoyed getting to know her. Heather had apologized for her role in setting Liza and Ben up, but as far as Liza was concerned, all had been forgotten and forgiven. Liza didn’t love the methods the two girls had used, but she was pleased enough with the results that she could let it go.
Liza had the cottage, Ben had a rental house close to the inn, and her kitchen space on Main Street was almost ready for business. At the very least, it was finished enough that she could host a lot of her friends there for Thanksgiving dinner. Alma was in Texas visiting family, and Cheri, Pam, and Barb were on a couples cruise with their husbands, but everyone else had been able to make it.
“Thanks for making all of the food,” Katie said, holding up a caramelized brussel sprout on the end of her fork and pretending to kiss it. “This is so good that I might not save room for dessert.”
“Blasphemy!” Stella shouted. “The turkey cupcakes you brought are divine, and everyone should eat one. I know because I already did.”
“I also had one while I was helping out in the kitchen,” Ben admitted sheepishly. “And I can confirm they are delicious.”
“By ‘helping,’ he means taste-testing,” Joel joked.
Liza and the book club ladies had all become close in the last month, and Ben had also connected with all of their significant others. In all her years in Boston, Liza had never had a large friend group, so she relished in it now. They got together regularly for pot luck meals and beach trips—which involved a lot of blankets and fires this time of year—and movie nights. It felt like a small, chosen family.
Dora was so jealous of Liza’s large group of friends that she’d stopped telling Liza that she should move to California and, instead, was wondering if she should move back east.
“I hate the cold, but I love drinking with a large group of friends,” Dora said. “It’s a tough decision.”
Liza knew Dora would never leave California, and part of her was glad. Dora gave Liza a reason to head to the land of sunshine—and a place to sleep when she got there. In fact, Liza and Ben already had a trip planned for February. Dora was anxious to see Ben after so long.
Once everyone was done eating, despite their groans of being too full to even look at food, they all had one of Katie’s cupcakes. As Stella and Ben had said, they were incredible. Hazelnut cupcakes with salted caramel frosting and small candied turkeys stuck in the top.
As Liza was wiping frosting off her chin, Georgia stood up. “Well, everyone, this was a top-notch Thanksgiving get-together, but I’m afraid we have to get going.”
“What about our gift exchange?” Joel asked.
Georgia turned to her boyfriend, face screwed up in confusion. “What gift exchange? It’s Thanksgiving. You’re a month ahead of schedule, buster.”
Then, she saw him, and her mouth fell open.
Joel was down on one knee behind her, a black velvet ring box open in his palm.
“I just wanted to get you a little something,” he said, his voice watery with unshed tears.
Georgia looked around the room, clearly in shock, and then her eyes found Joel again. They were like magnets, drawn together despite the murmur of excitement going through the room.
“Georgia Baldwin, you are the greatest woman I’ve ever known. Every day I spent not married to you is a tragedy. Will you marry me?”
Joel’s proposal was simple and to the point—perfect for Georgia.
If Liza had learned anything about Georgia in the last two months, it was that Georgia knew what she wanted.
It was clear by the happy tears streaming down her face that she wanted this, too. She threw her arms around Joel’s neck, nearly knocking him backward. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
Everyone cheered, and Joel slipped the ring on Georgia’s fi
nger. She held it up to everyone, beaming from ear to ear…and then her smile wobbled.
“What is it?” Joel whispered in her ear.
She turned to him and said something Liza couldn’t hear. At that, a smug smile crossed Joel’s face, and he tipped his head towards the front door. Everyone looked in that direction.
Standing in the doorway were Georgia’s three children, Drew, Tasha, and Melanie, who had tears streaming down her face.
“Get it together, Mel,” Tasha teased, wiping at her own cheeks.
Georgia’s smile returned full force, and she pulled her kids in for a hug. It was a precious moment for everyone to witness.
Hugs and congratulations were shared, and Georgia pulled Liza aside before the evening was over.
“You’re staying in Willow Beach for the long haul, right?” she asked.
“Of course! This kitchen will be up and running in another week, and I’ll be ready to book new appointments.”
Georgia elbowed her. “That’s good to hear because I may have a wedding you can cater soon.”
Liza clapped and jumped once in excitement. “I would be absolutely honored. I will start planning a menu immediately. This is going to be so fun. We’ll have so many taste-testing sessions you’ll be sick of my cooking.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Georgia laughed.
All of a sudden, Katie appeared behind Georgia and cleared her throat pointedly.
“Relax, Katie. Of course, you’re going to make my cake.”
Katie wrapped her arms around Georgia’s neck, and the two women mixed back in with the crowd.
Liza stood back, though, watching her friends.
Three years ago, she was finalizing her divorce, and even though Liza never would have admitted it, it felt like her life was over.
She couldn’t imagine herself dating again or meeting new people. It didn’t seem possible.
Even two months ago, she never imagined Willow Beach and the people who lived there would mean so much to her. She certainly never imagined she’d be moving there, expanding her business, and dating the love of her life.
Warm, familiar arms wrapped around Liza’s waist, and she tipped her head back and kissed Ben’s cheek.
“What are you thinking?” he whispered. “You have your thinking face on.”
“I was thinking you’re the love of my life.”
He chuckled. “Liar.”
Liza turned in his arms and rested her hands on his chest. “I’m serious. That’s exactly what I was thinking. You are the love of my life, and I’m lucky to have so many amazing people in my life.”
The smile that spread across Ben’s face was luminous. Liza loved the laugh lines around his mouth and the wrinkles that fanned out from the corners of his eyes. She loved that she got the chance to see what this man looked like grown up. That even though she hadn’t been there for every part of his life, she’d be there for the rest.
Gratitude overwhelmed her like a rogue wave, and she had to fight back tears as she looked into Ben’s bright green eyes.
He bent down and pressed his lips to hers, cupping the back of her neck and tilting her back to deepen the kiss. It made her legs turn to jelly, and when he stood her back up, she clung to him for support.
“We are all lucky to have you,” Ben said, pressing his forehead against hers. “Me most of all.”
Someone shouted behind her, drawing everyone’s attention. Stella had knocked over a bottle of wine, and it was soaking into the tablecloth and dripping on the floor. Stella, Georgia, and Katie all turned to grab a towel and ran into one another, sending Georgia sprawling onto her butt. Joel laughed, Georgia threatened not to marry him if he didn’t help her up, and Ben wrapped his arm around Liza’s shoulders so they could watch the whole event unfold from the corner of the room.
Things rarely went to plan in life, but with the right people and the right attitude, Liza had learned everything could still turn out perfectly.
Thanks for reading JUST SOUTH OF SUNRISE! If you loved the Baldwin family and Willow Beach, you’ll fall head over heels for the Benson family in my beloved Sweet Island Inn series, set on the gorgeous island of Nantucket. Take a sneak preview below of Book 1 in the series, NO HOME LIKE NANTUCKET.
NO HOME LIKE NANTUCKET:
A Sweet Island Inn Novel (Book 1)
Nantucket was their paradise—until reality came barging in.
An unexpected pregnancy.
A marriage on the rocks.
A forbidden workplace romance.
And a tragedy no one could have seen coming.
Take a trip to Nantucket’s Sweet Island Inn and follow along as Mae Benson and her children—the Wall Street queen Eliza, stay-at-home mom Holly, headstrong chef Sara, and happy-go-lucky fisherman Brent—face the hardest summer of their lives.
Love, loss, heartbreak, hope—it’s all here and more. Can the Benson family find a way to forgive themselves and each other? Or will their grief be too much to overcome?
Find out in NO HOME LIKE NANTUCKET.
Click here to start reading now!
Chapter One: Mae
Mae Benson never ever slept in.
For each of the one thousand, two hundred, and eleven days that she’d lived at 114 Howard Street, Nantucket, Massachusetts, she’d gotten up with the dawn and started her morning the second her eyes opened. It wasn’t because she was a busybody, or compulsive, or obsessive. On the contrary, snoozing for a while was tempting. Her bed was soft this morning. The first fingers of springtime sunlight had barely begun to peek in through the gauzy curtains that hung over the window. And she was in that perfect sleeping position—warm but not too warm, wrapped up but not too tightly.
But force of habit could sometimes be awfully hard to break. So, being careful to make as little noise as possible, she slid out from underneath the comforter, tucked her feet into the fuzzy slippers she’d received for her sixtieth birthday last year, and rose.
Her husband, Henry, always called her his little hummingbird. He’d even bought her a beautiful handblown hummingbird ornament for Christmas last year from a glassblower down by the wharf. It had jade-green wings, little amethysts for eyes, and a patch of ruby red on its chest. She loved how it caught and refracted the winter sunbeams, and she always made sure to put it on a limb of the tree where it could see the snow falling outdoors.
“Flitting around the house, are we?” Henry would say, laughing, every time he came downstairs from their master bedroom to find Mae buzzing from corner to corner. She would just laugh and shake her head. He could make fun of her all he wanted, but the fact remained that each of the little projects she had running at all times around the house required love and care from the moment the day began.
She ran through the list in her head as she moved silently around the bedroom getting dressed for the day. She needed to water the plants on the living room windowsill, the ones that her daughter, Sara, had sent from her culinary trip to Africa and made her mother promise to keep alive until she could retrieve them on her next visit. Crane flowers, with their gorgeous mix of orange- and blue-bladed leaves; desert roses, with their soft blush of red fading into the purest white; and her favorites, the fire lilies, that looked just like a flickering flame.
She had to check on the batch of marshmallow fluff fudge—a Mae Benson specialty—that she’d left to set in the freezer overnight. Her friend Lola, who lived down the street, had just twisted her ankle badly a few days prior and was laid up at home with a boot on her leg. Mae didn’t know much about ankle injuries, but she had a lot of hands-on experience with fudge, so she figured she’d offer what she knew best.
She should also start coffee for Henry—lots of cream and sugar, as always. Henry had an outing planned that morning with Brent to go check on some fishing spots they’d been scheming over for the last few weeks. Mae knew he was excited about the trip. He’d been exhibiting trademark Happy Henry behavior all week long—eyes lighting up with that mischievous
twinkle, hands rubbing together like an evil mastermind, and the way that he licked the corner of his lips, like he could already taste the salt air that hung on the wind and feel the bouncing of the boat as it raced through the waves.
Just before she turned to leave the bedroom and start her day, she looked over at her husband. He was sleeping on his side of the bed, snoring softly like he always did. It was never enough to wake her, thankfully. Not like Lola’s ex-husband, who’d been a snorer of epic proportions. Henry hadn’t bothered a single soul in the six and a half decades he’d been alive on this earth. Matter of fact, she couldn’t think of a single person who disliked him—other than Mae herself, whenever he took the liberty of dipping into the brownie batter, or when he insisted on sneaking up behind her while she was cooking, nipping at the lobe of her ear, then dancing away and laughing when she tried to swat him with a spoon and inevitably sprayed chocolate batter all over the kitchen.
But the truth of the matter was that she could never bring herself to stay irked at him. It wasn’t just his physical looks, although he certainly wasn’t hurting in that department. The same things she’d fallen in love with at that Boston bar forty-plus years ago were still present and accounted for. The long, proud nose. Full lips, always eager to twitch into a smile. Bright blue eyes that danced in the sunlight when he laughed, cried, and—well, all the time, really. And that darn shock of hair that was perpetually threatening to fall over his forehead. She reached over and smoothed it out of his face now. Time had turned his sun-drenched blondness into something more silvery, but in Mae’s eyes, he was all the more handsome for it.
But, even more than his good looks, Mae loved Henry’s soul. He was a selfless giver, an instant friend to every child who’d ever come across his path. He loved nothing more than to kneel in front of an awestruck five-year-old and present him or her with some little hand-carved trinket, one of the many he kept in his pockets to whittle whenever he had an idle moment. She loved that he laughed and cried in all the wrong places during romantic comedies and that he knew how to cook—how to really cook, the kind of cooking you do with a jazz record crooning through the speakers and a soft breeze drifting in through an open window.