Just South of Christmas Read online

  Just South of Christmas

  A Willow Beach Inn Novel (Book 4)

  Grace Palmer

  Contents

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  Also by Grace Palmer

  Just South of Christmas

  1. Georgia

  2. Tasha

  3. Drew

  4. Melanie

  5. Tasha

  6. Drew

  7. Georgia

  8. Melanie

  9. Georgia

  10. Tasha

  11. Melanie

  12. Georgia

  13. Georgia

  14. Tasha

  15. Melanie

  16. Drew

  17. Tasha

  18. Melanie

  19. Drew

  20. Georgia

  21. Drew

  22. Tasha

  23. Georgia

  24. Drew

  25. Melanie

  26. Georgia

  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 Christmas (Book 4)

  Just South of Christmas

  A Willow Beach Inn Novel (Book 4)

  Willow Beach might be a small coastal town, but its annual Winter Fest is a huge, joyous celebration. However, this year, wrapping presents isn’t the only problem the Baldwins have to face. A relationship reaching its “now or never” moment, a vandal causing chaos at the Inn, and—most heart-wrenching of all—a life-threatening accident that throws plans for a baby into question...

  Things look difficult for Georgia Baldwin and her children this winter, but one thing’s for certain: no matter what happens, they’ll always have each other.

  Christmas in Willow Beach is innkeeper Georgia Baldwin’s favorite time of year. What’s not to love? Lights on all the houses, the scent of peppermint lattes wafting from The Roast, and all the fun and festivities that come with the town’s annual Winter Fest. Home has never felt cozier.

  But not everything is sleigh bells and sweetness in the Baldwins’ world.

  Tasha and Eddie are going through a rough patch. With the whole town pressuring them towards marriage, Tasha starts to wonder what she has to do to get Eddie to finally pop the question.

  Drew, on the other hand, is desperate to get married--if only his girlfriend’s father will give him his blessing.

  Melanie’s baby fever is running hot despite the winter chill, though her boyfriend Colin isn’t quite as enthusiastic. But a horrific accident leaves their future--and Colin’s life--very much in question.

  Georgia is trying her best to hold her family together. But something ugly and mysterious is happening in town, and it’s forcing Georgia to face an impossible question: is it time to sell the Willow Beach Inn?

  Just South of Christmas is Book 4 in the Willow Beach Inn series, but can be read as a standalone. Whether you’ve already fallen in love with the town or are arriving for the first time, come on in--the cocoa is hot, the fire is burning, and everyone is delighted to see you.

  1

  Georgia

  Georgia rushed into the kitchen, basking in the sound of her friends’ laughter. She smiled to herself—this was her favorite sound. Well, one of them, anyhow. Frank Sinatra on the record player and songbirds on a summer morning were pretty good, too.

  As she entered the room, she looked around with gratitude. All of her friends were there to help her prepare for tonight’s party.

  Tonight was the first day of the annual Winter Fest. Each year, Willow Beach rang in Christmas with a two-week period chock full of events. There was a Christmas market in the Founders Park, a Christmas bake-off at the local coffee shop, The Roast, and a Christmas-themed bake sale, among much caroling and other events.

  Kicking off the special season was tonight’s annual Walkabout foot parade. Just about every resident of Willow Beach met on Main Street to stroll through the neighborhoods and admire the marvelous Christmas decorations.

  After the Walkabout, the revelers always congregated at the Willow Beach Inn for an afterparty that Georgia hosted with pride each year. Aside from the Memorial Day barbeque, the Walkabout afterparty was her biggest event of the year. To help prepare, all of her friends from the book club had gathered and were busy putting up decorations, baking, and cooking—along with drinking more than their fair share of wine to keep spirits high.

  Or at least, that’s what they had been doing—until the wine ran out.

  Gwen had been nice enough to dash back home and scrounge up a few bottles of chardonnay from her wine refrigerator, but somehow, the bottle opener had been misplaced amidst all the chaos. That’s what had sent Georgia out of the kitchen in search of a backup.

  She’d found one inside of the picnic basket she kept tucked away in the back closet. Triumphant, she rushed into the room, holding it high up in the air like the Olympic torch.

  “Success, ladies! I knew it was close by.”

  “Finally, darlin’. I thought I’d have to run back to The Duke to get one,” Alma Anderson laughed. “And you know I ain’t much for runnin’.” Alma was the proprietor of the local saloon and had been one of Georgia’s best friends for almost twelve years now. Sometimes, Georgia couldn’t believe how quickly time passed. It seemed like just yesterday that Alma’s booming Texan voice had rolled into town and started shaking things up.

  “Less chatter, more bottle opening,” Stella Pierce said with a grin as she brought over an unopened bottle of white, which Georgia took from her at once. With the cork out at last, she poured a glass for each of her friends.

  The glasses were being swiftly passed around when a voice called out from the corner of the room.

  “Don’t forget me! You know, the one person actually working.” Liza Hall said with a wink. Georgia looked at her with some alarm, worried she might have offended the newest addition to their circle of friends.

  Liza, a caterer who’d moved to Willow Beach from Boston not long ago, was in the middle of creating a Christmas wreath out of choux pastries. It would serve as the centerpiece on tonight’s buffet table.

  “I’m sorry, Liza. Here. Double pour for you, doll.” Georgia rushed over with an alarmingly full glass.

  Liza took it with a thanks and a giggle. Flour from her fingertips immediately stained the outside of the glass as she took a sip. This would be Liza’s first Christmas in Willow Beach. However, just like Stella, another relatively new member of their group, she seemed as though she’d been a part of the group for years.

  It was one of the things Georgia loved the most about her town and her friends. Everyone was welcome, everyone was made to feel a part of the group, no matter where they were from or what their story.

  “It looks lovely, Liza.” She admired the wrea
th that had taken shape in the blink of an eye. While Georgia loved baking, she did not care for choux pastry, which always seemed to give her trouble. She preferred to stick to her staples like gingerbread, macaroons, and richly adorned shortbread—all of which were currently either in the oven or waiting to cool so they could be decorated. Doing all of those for one affair might’ve seemed like overkill, but Georgia knew from experience that the Walkabout afterparty was not a time to do things halfway. Folks always came in from the cold hungry and ready to eat.

  “I’m glad you like it. It took forever to get them right. The first few ended up straight in the barrel, but I got the hang of it eventually. Anyhow, thank you for including me today,” Liza’s Boston accent and expressions were as much a part of her as that Texan twang was of Alma.

  “Include you? I don’t know how I managed without you in years past!”

  “I agree,” chimed Gwen Powers in her sweet, sing-song voice as she joined them at the counter. “We can count ourselves lucky to have an honest-to-goodness caterer among us. This year’s afterparty will be the tastiest one ever, I’m sure of it.”

  “Alma!” Stella called out. “How’s the chicken coming along? Sam is asking.” She waggled her phone and shook her head in dismay at her husband Sam’s antics.

  Alma stuck her hands on her hips and sighed melodramatically—though, to be fair, she did just about everything a little melodramatically. “He’s phonin’ down and askin’ about chicken while he’s up on top of the house, decorating the roof?”

  Stella nodded with a chuckle. “There’s little he loves more than your chicken, Alma.”

  Alma nodded sagely. As a savvy businesswoman and proprietor of The Duke Saloon, she wasn’t shy about tooting her own horn when it came to what she had to offer. “Can’t nobody resist Alma Anderson’s fried chicken.”

  Georgia grinned, remembering the first time she’d taken Stella, then a brand-new arrival to town, to Alma’s place. Who would have thought she’d end up being a member of Georgia’s inner circle? In fact, Stella was all but family now after getting married to Sam Warren.

  Sam, a sweetheart if ever there was one, had been like a supportive uncle to Georgia’s children for most of their lives. And when her ex-husband, Richard, had abandoned the family two years ago, Sam had stepped right up to fill that vacuum, too. Her kids loved him, as did most everyone who had the chance to get to know him.

  Stella hadn’t meant to fall in love when she’d gotten stranded in Willow Beach not too long ago, but Georgia had no trouble understanding how that had happened. It warmed her heart to see the two of them so over the moon for each other.

  “Ah, that reminds me. How is the pecan pie coming along, I wonder?” Alma mused and headed straight for one of the three ovens. Switching on the oven light, she peeked inside and nodded. “Beautiful.”

  “Just don’t let Drew see it,” Georgia warned. “You know how he is with pecan pie.”

  “Do I ever!” Alma snorted.

  Drew Baldwin, Georgia’s middle child and only son, had a habit of attacking pies as soon as they were out of the oven. He still had the appetite of a ballplayer, even though he no longer played professionally.

  Georgia was about to start decorating the sugar cookies when she heard her name being called from the living room.

  “Georgia! Georgia, come quick!”

  She dashed across the hall to where two of her other friends, Barb and Cheri, had taken over the living room as a makeshift beauty salon. Each of the book club ladies was taking turns getting dolled up for the festivities.

  “What is it, Barb?” Georgia said as she burst into the room, expecting something awful to have happened. Being an innkeeper for most of her adult life, she’d faced down all manner of disasters—fires, floods, and everything in between. She was ready to confront everything short of Godzilla in her living room.

  As it turned out, though, the most alarming thing to be seen was melted butter dripping from the soft pretzel in Cheri’s hand and onto the freshly steam-cleaned carpet.

  “Do you have more spray? I’m all out!” Barb pointed at Cheri’s hair. Half was curled and set while the rest of her hair hung flat down her side.

  “That’s why you were calling for me like that?” Georgia scolded, clamping a hand over her heart. “You nearly gave me a heart attack! And no, I haven’t got any more. I had a package ordered with spray, lotions and soap and someone must have stolen it right off the front porch.”

  “Criminals!” Cheri said before pushing the last of her pretzel into her mouth. Georgia watched as another blotch of butter dribbled to her floor.

  “Indeed,” she said and turned on her heels toward the kitchen to retrieve a cloth to clean the carpet before the butter set.

  However, when she returned to the kitchen, she found herself distracted from the task at hand. The group, now fueled by a fresh bottle of wine, was in high spirits. Someone had turned up the radio and half the ladies had turned the kitchen into a dancefloor as Bruce Springsteen crooned through the speakers.

  On the counter, Stella and Gwen were busy decorating the cookies, while Alma worked on her chicken wings and mashed potatoes. Liza, meanwhile, was finished with her impressive wreath and had moved on to making finger sandwiches, assisted by Pam.

  “What’s happening in the beauty salon?” Gwen asked as she looked up, her eyes narrowed in concentration.

  “Out of hair spray. Not exactly a missile crisis. Barb will have to figure it out.”

  Gwen nodded and went back to her artistically decorated peppermint cookies. “Did I hear you right? Something else was taken from the front porch?”

  Georgia sighed and nodded as she slid onto a chair and pulled a plate of Christmas-tree-shaped sugar cookies toward her to adorn them with green piping.

  “Yes, unfortunately. It’s the second time in two weeks. This one was all bathroom supplies, but the last one had my coffee order from The Roast. I let the supply run too low and Vivienne was good enough to arrange a rush delivery, only to have it taken from my porch! I ended up having to serve coffee from the Kash & Karry. The result was a bad review on one of the travel advisor websites.” She shook her head. “I should’ve known better.”

  “I saw it,” Liza replied. “I like to keep an eye on all of my friend’s business as well as my own. Something I got in the habit of doing back in Boston. Anyway, yours were excellent, but lately… Someone claimed they had their tires slashed? Is that true?”

  “I wish it wasn’t. Two guests had their tires slashed over the last month. Both left bad reviews. And there were a couple more two-star reviews that I didn’t even recognize.” Georgia swallowed as she thought about it. The reviews stung. She was used to the occasional three-star review—after all, you couldn’t make everyone happy, though she certainly did her best—but they were usually far and few between. She took pride in running a five-star establishment. Anything less than that felt as though it reflected poorly on her as a person, even though none of these incidents had been anything close to her fault.

  “Tires slashed?” Cheri said as she entered the room at the tail end of the conversation. Georgia looked up. The woman’s wispy blonde hair was now in a pretty bun, with the one curled and coiffed side having been used to create an elaborate frame for her face. She looked lovely, like a character from a Jane Austen novel.

  Georgia sighed. “Yes, they were parked out on the street. Some young kids up to no good, I suppose. Probably the same ones who keep taking my deliveries. It’s upsetting, to say the least.”

  “I wonder. I got a hunch it might not be ‘just some kids,’” Alma commented as she removed her huge pot of mashed potatoes from the stove. Her Texas twang was broader than usual, a sign she was talking herself into a bit of a state. “I wonder if it ain’t got something to do with that Nancy Friedman.”

  “Nancy Friedman? Who’s that?” Liza asked, glancing up from her sandwiches.

  “She owns a small B&B over in Inverness. Not the most pleasant of
women and her place is nowhere near as nice as Georgia’s,” Pam replied.

  “That Nancy is not a good host, just sayin’. I went to an open house last year and I felt about as welcome as a tornado on a trail drive. I would not put it past her to engage in a bit of good ol’ fashioned vandalism.” Alma shook her head as she spoke.

  “Now, Alma. That’s not kind. I can’t imagine that she would ever stoop so low as to have anyone’s tires slashed. Plus, she’s near seventy,” Georgia protested, unwilling to think the worst of people.

  “Could have sent her grandkids,” Gwen suggested.

  Georgia shook her head, uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going. She did not like negativity. One of the things she found most difficult after Richard’s sudden departure was fielding complaints from customers. Richard was usually the one to deal with all things related to customer service. He had what she liked to call the gift of the gab. He could talk anyone off a ledge, no matter how angry. Joel, her fiancée, had a similar talent, although he wasn’t involved in the running of the business.

  Sensing her discomfort, Stella stepped in. “Enough about Nancy Friedman, whoever she is. What is this drama I heard about at the hair salon about the ‘Winter Queen?”

  “Yes! I heard some rumbling about that as well when I was at the grocery store. Sometimes, it’s painfully obvious that I am a Willow Beach transplant. They ought to give out a guidebook whenever someone new moves to town.” Liza nodded as she sat down her wine glass.