As they worked through the items the girls selected, they narrowed in on what Stella liked.
“Clean lines and simple colors,” Melanie determined.
“Yes. Her style is…modern simplicity.”
“Timeless staples.”
“Boring,” Stella concluded through the door. “When you say it like that, I sound boring.”
Tasha threw a floral-patterned kimono over the door. “That’s why we’re here. We don’t want to change your style, but elevate it slightly. That’s all.”
The kimono was sheer and long, and Stella couldn’t tell if she looked ethereal or ridiculous. Maybe both. “I’m already going on a date with Sam, so that means he likes my style already, right? Do we need to elevate it? I’m thinking the pencil skirt might be the way to go.”
Tasha groaned. “No. No moving backward after we’ve come so far. Sam, like most men, does not care about fashion.”
“It’s true. We’ve known him our entire lives, and I’m pretty sure he is like a cartoon character with a closet full of the exact same outfit.”
Tasha cackled at her sister’s joke. “It’s so true. He wears blue jeans and a button-down shirt for a night out, and coveralls for work. That’s it.”
Melanie threw a pair of white linen pants over the door and gasped. “Do you remember when he showed up to Vivienne and Jayden’s wedding in jeans and Mom made him go home and change before the ceremony?”
“And then he spent all night groaning about how uncomfortable he was,” Tasha laughed. “Yeah, he’ll definitely wear jeans tonight, which means the pencil skirt is forbidden, Stella.”
“Your mom made him go home and change? How did she do that?” Stella knew Georgia was taken now, but her doubts refused to fade. How much sway did Georgia Baldwin have over Sam Warren?
“My mom can make anyone do anything. Tasha inherited that from her.”
“It’s true,” Tasha admitted. “It’s a lethal combination of passion and charm. Plus, Sam loves my mom.”
Her words seemed to slice straight through Stella. She was in the middle of pulling a shirt over her head, but she froze, arms in the air, a tube of fabric wrapped around her face. For a second, she considered never coming out.
If she had just spent all morning hyping herself up for a date with a man who was in love with another woman, she would have to leave town in shame. Forget the car. Stella would find a bus, make it to Boston, and buy a new car when she got there. It’d be worth the expense to never have to see Sam again.
She should have followed her instincts. From the very beginning, she’d suspected something was going on between Sam and Georgia. Stella had always told Jace to trust his gut, so why hadn’t she trusted hers?
Stella didn’t realize how long she had been quiet until Melanie knocked on the door. “Stella?”
She cleared her throat and pulled the shirt over her head. “Yeah?”
“I thought maybe you fainted in there,” she laughed. “You went quiet.”
She opened her mouth to make an excuse. Maybe she could tell them a migraine came on. She had been prone to them in her mid-thirties, though not as often anymore. That should work. She would just tell them she got a migraine, ask them to pass the message on to Sam, and then go hide in her room for the night. Tomorrow, she’d be gone without another look back at Willow Beach or Sam Warren. Easy.
Easy, but also cowardly.
Hadn’t Stella come on this trip, however unwillingly, to figure out what she wanted from life? To forge a new future for herself?
Did she want to be a coward, too afraid to ask for what she wanted? Or did she want to be bold?
The answer was obvious, but it still took a tremendous amount of effort to pull open the dressing room door and face the two young women standing in front of her.
“Can I ask you both something?”
Melanie’s easy smile slipped, her forehead creasing with concern, and Tasha nodded vigorously. “Of course.”
Stella took a deep breath. “Have Sam and your mom ever…” Finishing the sentence was difficult. Georgia and her husband, the girls’ father, had been together for a long time. More than that, Sam was a longtime friend of the family. Suggesting anything untoward could be offensive, but who else could she ask?
“What I mean to say is, has Sam ever expressed an interest in your mom? Beyond friendship, I mean? I know they are friends, but I just wonder if I’m walking into the middle of something here. It shouldn’t matter, of course, since I’m only in town for the weekend. If you don’t want to answer then you don’t have to. I just—”
“Whoa.” Tasha waved her arms, cutting Stella off before she could get too carried away. “Misunderstanding alert. Beep beep.”
“Oh my gosh, no.” Melanie jumped in and laid a friendly hand on Stella’s shoulder. “They are friends. Good friends, that’s it.”
“Mom and Sam knew each other first, actually.”
“She thought he was cute, but he wasn’t interested.” Melanie and Tasha were almost talking over each other in their eagerness to tell the story.
“They stayed friends and then Mom met Dad,” Tasha said with no lack of bitterness in her tone. “Recently, I’ve wished she and Sam could have worked out way back when. Maybe then things wouldn’t be so messed up now. But who knows? Things work out the way they’re supposed to, I guess, and Sam and our mom are definitely not an item. At all.”
“Tasha meant that Sam loves our mom like a sister. Seriously.” Melanie lowered her chin and looked up at Stella from under long lashes. “There is nothing going on there at all. I swear to you.”
“Mom and Joel are getting very serious. They’ve only been dating a few months, but who knows with those crazy kids?”
“They aren’t crazy,” Melanie said quickly. “They’re in love.”
Tasha held up her hands in surrender, clearly agreeing to disagree, and
