Still, every morning, her eyes would pop open at their usual time without fail.
Now, she’d accidentally slept most of the morning away.
A door on a squeaky hinge opened behind her, and she turned to see Georgia walking into the room with a small stack of pancakes in one hand and a bowl of fresh-cut strawberries in the other.
“There’s our weary traveler. I was wondering when you’d join us.” She set the plate and bowl on a table in the middle of the room and then turned around to fetch a glass bottle of syrup from under a cabinet along the edge of the room. “I kept your pancakes hot in the oven, so they might be a bit on the dry side, but the coffee is fresh. I brewed it only five minutes ago.”
“You kept this food hot for me?” Stella felt drawn to the pancakes like a sailor to a siren. They looked like a picture from a magazine—fluffy and perfectly golden with a yellow pat of butter on top.
“Breakfast ends at nine most mornings, but you had a hard day yesterday, and I wanted to let you sleep.”
“I haven’t slept in this late in years,” Stella said, grabbing nervously at the still-damp hair draped over her shoulder. “Decades, even. I can’t believe I just woke up. It’s very unlike me. I’m sorry I threw off your routine.”
“My routine is to make my guests comfortable and happy, so I’m right on schedule. Besides, it was really no trouble. I’m sorry to say all of the muffins are gone, but I saved you some pancakes before Drew ate them all. Twenty-seven years old and the man still eats like a teenager. It’s a medical wonder.”
“Still, you really didn’t need to do that for me. I could have found something in town to eat,” Stella said as she laid a napkin in her lap and reached for the syrup.
“Nonsense.” Georgia dismissed the thought with a flick of her hand. “It was no trouble at all, and I’m more than happy to do it. What I’m not happy to do, however, is all of the breakfast dishes. But alas, my children seem to have disappeared, so the task falls to me. Yell if you need anything.”
Drew was not exaggerating. Georgia did indeed make a mean breakfast. Maybe the pancakes were a bit dry from having sat out while Stella snoozed the day away, but they were flavored with brown sugar and cinnamon, so Stella really didn’t mind. The syrup was thick and rich, and the butter—goodness gracious, even the butter—seemed to taste brighter than any butter Stella had ever had.
From what she could tell so far, Willow Beach had all the makings of an untapped culinary gold mine. Between Alma’s fried chicken and Georgia’s pancakes, it felt like Stella had died and gone to greasy, carby heaven.
She’d nearly finished with her pancakes when she heard the coffee pot steam and sputter behind her and remembered she still hadn’t had a sip of caffeine yet. Usually, coffee was the first thing Stella fumbled for in the morning, but apparently, she’d slept so well she hardly needed it. That didn’t stop her from getting up and making a cup though.
Just as she sat back down at her table, the hinge squeaked again, and Georgia strolled back into the room, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Can I get you anything else? Seconds, maybe?”
Stella groaned contentedly. “I couldn’t possibly eat another bite. That was remarkable, Georgia. Thank you.”
“I’ve had so much practice over the years that making a big breakfast is second nature to me now. It’s practically a science.”
“You do all the cooking yourself?”
The sparkle in her eyes dimmed slightly. “I do now.”
Of course. Georgia’s husband. Stella shook her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Yes, you absolutely should have. You were curious, and I’m happy to tell you. It has been months, and really, I’m surprisingly fine with it all. Maybe I should have fallen apart, maybe I should still be a sobbing mess. Who knows? Maybe I still will be those things. But right now, I’m doing okay. I’m great, even.”
“You don’t have to be anything. Everyone deals with things differently. Take me, for instance,” Stella said, throwing her arms wide. “My son went off to college, and I took a spontaneous road trip to try and figure things out.”
“What things?”
Stella shrugged. “I haven’t the slightest idea. If you’d have asked me two days ago if I liked my life, I would have said yes. But now I’m not sure. I’ve had time to think about my life, and the more I think about it, the more I realize everything revolved around my son. I don’t regret that, but what it means now that he’s gone is that I don’t have very many friends or hobbies or any idea at all of how to fill my time. I also don’t think I like my job very much, but then I think, ‘How many people actually like their jobs? Am I supposed to like my job? It’s good enough, but is good enough enough?’”
Georgia reached out and laid a hand over Stella’s, and warmth flooded Stella’s face.
“I’m sorry. I’m paying you for a roof over my head, not to be my therapist. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”
Georgia actually looked offended. “You’re telling me because I asked. And because although you may only be paying me for a room, that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you and your problems.”
Emotion squeezed the back of Stella’s throat, and she felt pathetic. This near-stranger suggested they were friends, and here she was on the verge of bursting into tears.
“Do you want to know what someone told me after Richard left?”
Stella nodded, not trusting her voice.
“Someone told me that you have to experience the rain to
