Just South of Perfect

Just South of Perfect
A Willow Beach Inn Novel (Book 2)
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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Contents
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Also by Grace Palmer
Just South of Perfect
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
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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 Perfect
A Willow Beach Inn Novel (Book 2)
An unplanned stop in Willow Beach turns into an unexpected romance.
Being a single mother was hard. But Stella Pierce did a good job, and now that her only child is off to college, she can sit back and relax.
Except that these things never work out the way you’ve planned. Turns out that the empty nester life just makes her anxious. So when her friend Brenda suggests she take a vacation down to Boston, that’s exactly what Stella does.
Too bad she never makes it that far.
When her car breaks down in the small seaside town of Willow Beach, Stella finds herself stuck. And the sweet, handsome mechanic down at the car shop, Sam Warren, doesn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry to send Stella on her way.
Fortunately, the Baldwin family at the Willow Beach Inn is there to welcome her with open arms.
Maybe starting fresh is exactly what Stella has been looking for.
Take off your shoes and stay awhile at the Willow Beach Inn in Book 2 of this heartwarming series. You’ll see Willow Beach through a newcomer’s eyes and fall in love all over again with the Baldwin family.


1
When it rains, it pours. Fortunately for Stella Pierce, it wasn’t actually raining. But that was just about the only thing that was going right. Otherwise, the situation in which she’d suddenly found herself was pretty much a perfect disaster.
Cell phone reception? Non-existent.
Car trouble? Oh heavens yes. Her vehicle was currently billowing smoke from under the hood and making an extremely worrying groaning sound like a dying animal.
Signs of life on the side of the highway? Absolutely none. Not a single living soul in sight to help her get out of this mess.
She was utterly and completely alone.
She tried to breathe. Calm down, lady, she said to herself, using the same jokey cowboy tone that her dad sometimes used to talk her off the ledge whenever the demands of life started to feel overwhelming.
But Stella’s heart rate wanted nothing to do with calm. It felt like it was about to beat its way out of her chest.
How had things gone so wrong, so fast? She thought back over all the things that had brought her to this horrible moment. Only one thing was certain: this was all Brenda’s fault.
A FEW HOURS EARLIER
Things changed fast.
Just a little while ago, Stella Price had been working on a craft project for her mom’s flea market booth. Meanwhile, on the television, soap opera star Marjorie was in the midst of learning that her long-lost twin sister was actually a con artist with access to Hollywood-level special effects makeup. Stella was only slightly ashamed that she’d been tearing up at the shocking twist. Poor Marjorie.
A voice cut in. “If you complain about missing the end of your ridiculous program again, I’m going to stage an actual intervention.” Stella’s friend and coworker Brenda sat down on the end of the bed and tucked her legs up underneath her. She had kicked off her heels by the front door the moment Stella let her in but was still in the pressed gray dress and pantyhose that constituted her usual work attire. Stella’s lounge pants had never felt more repulsive.
“Please don’t call it my program again. It reminds me of my mom. That’s what she calls Matlock. I bought her all the seasons on DVD last Christmas, but she still waits for it to come on cable every day.”
Stella sighed. “And this isn’t an actual intervention?”
Brenda looked at Stella over the tops of her thick-framed blue glasses. “Believe me, you’ll know when it’s a real intervention, deary.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work? It’s the middle of the afternoon.”
“Mark can spare me. This is more important.”
Stella and Brenda had worked together at the same design company for ten years. Brenda was a copywriter, while Stella was a designer, so they worked together on aspects of projects, but their friendship had mostly been formed in the break room. Even still, there was no precedent for Brenda showing up at Stella’s house unexpectedly. And there was certainly no precedent for her forcing Stella off the couch and on a vacation she never asked for.
Stella threw her tennis shoes into the suitcase and then slumped forward with a sigh. “I don’t know about this. I mean, where am I going to sleep? I don’t have a room reserved.”
Brenda batted away her friend’s concerns with long red fingernails and jangly bracelets. “That is the beauty. You don’t need a plan. Drive until you get tired. Eat when you want to eat. Listen to what you want to listen to. None of Jace’s fantasy football podcasts or headbanger music.”
That was a little unfair. Jace, Stella’s eighteen-year-old son, who had recently departed for college, did not play fantasy football or listen to headbanger music. “Jace and I usually listened to