Page 39 of The Paradise Plan

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Lauren Keller ignored her phone as she guided the minivan off the freeway.She wasn’t sure how she’d been designated the driver from the airport to Hilton Head, but she sat behind the wheel.

She had plenty of work emails to answer, and she could’ve gotten something done on this hour-long drive.She told herself she didn’t have to work when she was out of town, on vacation.Yes, she had a busy job, but that didn’t mean she had to work it all the time.

Those were the things she’d been trying to tell herself this year, and now that six months of the year had passed, the anxiety over not having her phone in her hand for an hour could easily be reasoned with.

Lauren was keenly aware of the passing of time, and she wished she wasn’t.Now that she’d turned forty-five, she’d started the acceptance process that she wouldn’t be able to have children.

She’d started seeing a counselor, and she really liked Lindsey.She asked hard questions, and she posed scenarios for Lauren that kept her up at night.She paid to go every week, though, and she’d been slowly finding some answers to some of the questions and situations posed.

She’d always wanted children, but she’d never found the right man to marry.Her mantra of not having a man if he wasn’t the right one stuck with her, and while Lauren hadn’t been ready to start dating a year or two ago after her second failed relationship with an ex-boyfriend, she’d told Lindsey only two days ago that she felt ready now.

She drove across the bridge that led them to Hilton Head, and her thoughts moved to a man she’d met two July’s ago.

Blake Williams.She barely knew the man, but she’d sat with him at the Fourth of July celebrations here on the island for two years in a row.

She knew men at work too, but she really didn’t want to date someone she worked with.Lauren had never been in a relationship that had lasted longer than a couple of years, and that would make things awkward at work once they broke up.

A sigh slipped from her mouth, and Joy, who rode shotgun, looked over to her.“You okay?”

Leave it to Joy to hear the smallest of sounds.“Yes,” Lauren said.“Just tired.That flight was so hot.”

Joy reached up and ran her hand down the back of her neck.“Yes, it was.”

“I’m sleepy.”Lauren gave her a smile and tuned into the conversation happening between Bessie and Sage in the row behind them.

“…my grandmother’s peach pie recipe,” Sage said.“I think you guys should try it at The Bread Boy.It would sell like hotcakes with the pie shells.”

“I can talk to Cherry,” Bessie said.“Oh, I was going to talk to y’all about her too.”She leaned forward as Joy twisted to look at her.Lauren looked up into the rearview mirror for a moment.“I think she’d be an amazing addition to the Supper Club.”

“Who?”Lauren asked.

“Cherry Forrester,” Bessie said.“Her family owns Sweet Water Falls Farm.You know, the Coopers?She got married a few years ago, and she’s older like us.She might be as old as Sage even.”

“You make me sound ancient,” Sage said.

“No.”Bessie looked at her.“That’s not what I meant.”She shook her head while Joy gave a light laugh.“I’m just saying she’s not in her thirties.”

“I know her,” Joy said.“She and Jed bought that rescue ranch from Betty Jones.”

“Yes,” Bessie said.“She said she knew Lauren, because your firm did something for the Forrester’s corn maze over the holidays?”

“Oh, right,” Lauren said.“Sybil was on that project, not me.But yes.”

“She and Jed don’t have kids.She works at The Bread Boy as our general manager, and she’d be perfect.”

“Does she cook?”Joy asked.

“Is that a requirement?”Lauren glanced over to her.

Joy met her eyes quickly before Lauren had to look back to the road.“I guess not.”

“I cater almost every month I have to host,” Lauren said.

“Cherry can cook,” Bessie said.“She brings in jams all the time for our customers to taste with the bread samples.They’re so good, she’s started selling them from the cash register.”

“She makes jam?”Sage asked.“We should definitely at least ask her.”

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