Coming Home to Maple Cottage: The perfect, cosy, feel-good romance

by Holly Martin

  She didn’t think Leo fully appreciated how it would disrupt his life too. Leo was wonderful with Elliot, taking him out, playing with him, explaining things in ways that Isla never could. He seemed to have endless patience, but there was a big difference between being the fun uncle figure and being a permanent live-in dad.

  And what of her friendship with Leo? Would that continue just as it was now? Would they be friends who slept in separate bedrooms? Nothing had ever happened between them apart from that one and only incredible night they’d spent together before Elliot’s christening. The next day at the christening, she’d heard him talking to some girl he’d slept with the night before he’d been with Isla, and she had realised she was just one of many. She had returned to her life in London and tried to forget how utterly spectacular the evening had been. She had started dating Daniel and that had lasted two and a half years. Leo had probably continued shagging anything that moved. When she had visited Matthew, she’d seen Leo too of course, and they had chatted and been friendly as always, but it had never progressed beyond friendship. Even now, after a year of living in Sandcastle Bay, their relationship remained strictly platonic. It was tactile sometimes, a hug, a kiss on the cheek, and she got the feeling that he wouldn’t mind a round two, but they had never talked about it. Would they suddenly go from being just friends to having sex every night purely because they were married?

  ‘You’d sell this place and come and live with me,’ Leo said, simply. He was so practical about this, there didn’t seem to be the slightest hint of romance about this particular proposal. Nor had there been with any of the others.

  ‘Honeymoon?’ Isla teased, but at the same time wanting to test the waters.

  For the briefest moment, there was a flash of lust and need in his eyes. He did want her like that.

  He cleared his throat. ‘If you want.’

  God, she wanted to ask him what that honeymoon would be like, whether they’d spend the entire time lying in bed having crazy, wonderful sex.

  She dismissed that thought before she could get too carried away with thoughts of what that amazing holiday could be like. Elliot would probably come with them anyway, which would certainly put a stop to the two-week sexathon.

  She glanced over into the conservatory where Elliot was occupied with building a castle out of Lego that was almost as big as the room. Another project that Leo had started with him. It was going to be so big that Elliot intended to sleep inside it with their puppy, Luke, who was currently curled up in the corner of the room, like a black furry dragon, one golden eye keeping apprised of what was going on. She smiled at Elliot as he played happily by himself. She couldn’t imagine leaving him behind just so she could have hot passionate sex with Leo Jackson for a few weeks. Her heart ached even at the thought of not seeing him every day. If they were to have a honeymoon, it would probably have to be to somewhere like Disneyland.

  She turned her attention back to Leo, who was still watching her carefully.

  ‘Why do you want to marry me?’ Isla said. She asked him this occasionally, always half hoping that, after months of being very close friends, of seeing each other and spending time together for most of the day, that one day his answer would change.

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘Remind me.’

  Leo paused. ‘Because…’

  For a moment she wondered if he was gearing up to say those three all-important little words.

  ‘Because this situation with Sadie and the house worries me. Because the fact that she still has a parental claim on Elliot, despite abandoning him when he was only one, scares me to death. If she comes back, I can’t do anything about Elliot, other than bundle you both in the back of my car and go on the run together for the rest of our lives. But I can do something about the house.’

  This was a different answer to the ones he’d given before. Normally he stopped at, ‘I want to take care of you and Elliot.’ She had no idea he worried about stuff like this.

  ‘Why are you worried about the house?’

  He stared at her incredulously. ‘Because Sadie still owns half of it. Despite the fact that she walked out on Matthew and Elliot just a few months after they bought the house, and even though he lived in it alone for three years, raising their child by himself, and it was his life insurance that helped pay off the mortgage after he died, she still has a claim to it. Thank god that, when they bought it, they weren’t joint tenants, otherwise she’d own the house outright after his death. Thankfully Matthew had the good sense to make sure they were named as tenants in common, which means she only has a claim to half the house. But that’s still half your home, how can you not be worried about that?’

  She shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t think Sadie is ever coming back. She’s in deepest Australia or Thailand somewhere, probably having the time of her life. No one knows where she is, no one can contact her. The courts have tried everything to find her, to try to get her to sign over parental responsibility of Elliot to me, and they have been unable to trace her. She probably doesn’t want to be found. Though I’ll never understand how a person can just vanish – surely she has friends or family who know where she is.’

  Leo shook his head. ‘She didn’t grow up round here. She turned up here for a seasonal job in the summer and that was when she met Matthew. I don’t think she ever had any plans of staying. I do know that she was in foster care when she was growing up, several different foster homes in fact. I don’t think she has any knowledge of who her parents were.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  They hadn’t really spoken about Sadie very often; she wasn’t someone that Isla wanted to think about much. She’d only met her a few times before she ran away. Isla didn’t have a very high opinion of her after she abandoned her own son and Isla’s brother, but hearing this information about her made Isla almost feel sorry for her.

  ‘Why would she come back?’ Isla said. ‘She has no interest in Elliot, she proved that when she walked out on him when he was one year old, and if she had any interest in Sandcastle Bay she would never have left.’

  ‘But if she did come back?’ Leo said.

  ‘If she did, then I suppose I would have to sell the house. We’d have to go to court and the judge would decide how much of the house sale she would be entitled to. But solicitors I’ve spoken to about this are hopeful that she wouldn’t get half because of the money that Matthew paid into it over the years. She might get something like twenty or twenty-five percent. But if she did get half that would still leave me with enough to buy a small one-bedroom flat at the very back end of the village. So, whatever happens, we’d cope, we’d be OK,’ Isla said, nonchalantly. ‘I’m not going to worry about the what-ifs and I’m not going to marry my best friend just so I don’t have to worry about money. What will be, will be.’

  A smile spread across his face. ‘I’m your best friend?’

  ‘You know you are. You’re round here every day, playing with Elliot, having meals with us, going out with us. I absolutely adore you.’

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’

  ‘Because, Leo Jackson, if one day I do get married, it will be for love. I will be head over heels in love with my husband and he will be crazy in love with me.’

  ‘And I don’t fit that bill?’ he said, the smile fading away.

  She cocked her head and looked at him. ‘I suppose that depends. Do you love me?’

  He frowned and his eyes cast down to the table. She’d take that as a no.

  ‘I don’t deserve to have you,’ he said quietly.

  She stared at him in shock.

  Elliot came running in from the conservatory. ‘Leo, I need help with the top of the window. I can’t put the bricks on top of nothing.’

  ‘No, we’d need to add some kind of beam over the top to support the weight of the rest of the house,’ Leo said, seamlessly. He downed the rest of his tea and stood up. ‘Come on then, buddy, let’s go and have a look.’ He flashed her a small smile.
‘Thanks for lunch.’

  And then he left her alone, as he talked with Elliot about what they could do about the Lego window.

  I don’t deserve to have you.

  She had no idea what he meant by that and didn’t know what to say to it either. He was the most wonderful, generous man she knew, how could he possibly even think otherwise?

  She had fallen a little bit in love with him after that wonderful night they’d spent together and, if she was honest with herself, those feelings had never gone away. In fact, they had intensified a lot since she’d moved down here last year. She’d often thought about telling him how she felt but she always held back. Despite her protests, she was finding it increasingly hard to keep saying no to his crazy proposals.

  She picked up her mug and nursed it to her chest, watching her two favourite boys play together.

  Surely, love shouldn’t be this complicated.

  Chapter Two

  Isla pushed open the door of The Cherry on Top, her favourite café in Sandcastle Bay, and saw that her friend Tori and her sister Melody were already waiting for her. Despite it being the end of October, it was still quite busy, the café seemingly doing great business all year round.

  She glanced out of the window at the glorious view of Sunshine Beach, the sea today an inky blue under a mackerel sky. The parasols outside on the beach were flapping in a gentle breeze. From here she could see the handful of houses that lined the beach, most of them thatched with brightly coloured front doors and flowers and trees tumbling over the sea wall. Melody’s home, Apple Tree Cottage, with its yellow front door, could be seen down the beach. A little way up the beach was Sprinkles, the village ice cream shop that sold the most amazing ice cream in the most incredible flavours. She loved it here in Sandcastle Bay and that view probably had something to do with the café’s popularity. That and the amazing food.

  She scanned the café tables for Agatha, Leo’s crazy, meddlesome aunt, but for once she didn’t seem to be here. Isla might actually be able to talk to Melody and Tori without any interference. Although Elsie West from the chemist, one of Agatha’s closest friends, was in the corner, so they probably couldn’t talk that freely.

  Isla moved to the table and greeted them both with a hug and a kiss. At just over four months pregnant, Tori was just starting to show a tiny bump underneath her jumper dress, although it didn’t really look like she was pregnant yet.

  ‘How are you both?’ Isla asked, as she sat down, although the question seemed somewhat redundant; they both looked like they were glowing with happiness. Melody was completely loved-up with Jamie, Leo’s younger brother, and Tori was very happy with her fiancé, Aidan, Leo’s older brother. As far as Agatha was concerned, Isla just needed to hurry up and say yes to one of Leo’s proposals and then Agatha would have the complete set.

  ‘Good, I have my first baby scan this afternoon. It was put back a few weeks due to one thing or another but it’s finally happening today. I can’t tell you how excited I am!’ Tori said.

  ‘Will you get to know the sex?’ Isla asked.

  Tori shook her head. ‘Probably not. The baby books and online articles say you can usually tell around twelve weeks and we’re well past that, but they normally won’t confirm it until my twenty-week scan. I’m OK with not knowing. Aidan would really like to know though.’

  ‘I’m so excited that you’re going to have a baby,’ Melody said. ‘Jamie and I have been talking about children recently. I think he’d like a whole football team. He’s definitely getting broody watching Aidan getting all excited with your pregnancy and watching Leo with Elliot. Obviously we’re not planning on having children any time soon, but it’s nice that he’s planning for our future.’

  Isla watched as Melody touched the blue promise ring that he’d given her, so she would know they were on the same page in their relationship. Isla was pretty sure they would get engaged soon.

  ‘Oh, I saw a job advertised in Meadow Bay this morning while I was over there,’ Tori said, rooting around in her bag as she looked for the details. ‘They want someone to do tours of the caves down there, Clark’s Cavern, you know, that big tourist attraction.’

  Isla had been there with Elliot and he loved looking through all the nooks and crannies and hearing about the bears and other animals that used to live there thousands of years before.

  ‘Don’t you need some knowledge of history or geology or something like that?’ Isla said, doubtfully.

  She hated this lack of confidence in herself but she had been trying to find a job for the last twelve months with no success and she had started to doubt her abilities. Initially, when she had moved to Sandcastle Bay, she had wanted to be there for Elliot. They had both been dealing with their grief and she’d wanted to be around for him as much as possible. She knew it had made a big difference to him to be there when he came out of school and to put him to bed every night.

  She’d had money saved up from her wages in London and, when she sold the flat she’d shared with her ex, she got some money from that. Matthew’s life insurance had helped too, so she hadn’t been too worried at first. But after the first few months she had started looking for a job.

  She had spent her life studying and learning the craft of being a visual merchandiser, taking every course she could, and had even got a master’s in it a few years before. She was an expert in her field but that meant nothing when faced with a tiny seaside town with only a handful of shops and cafés. To be honest, it was a little humiliating and more than a little worrying.

  There was no work down here unless she wanted to retrain as a bricklayer or JCB driver, something she had been seriously considering. Villages like Sandcastle Bay relied on tourists and when the season came to an end so did the money. But even the seasonal jobs were very few and far between. Of course, there would be jobs in some of the bigger towns but that meant quite a bit of travelling and she still wanted to take Elliot to school every morning and pick him up at the end of the day. Melody, Tori, Leo or her mum would obviously be happy to help out now and again but she couldn’t ask them to commit to doing it on a regular basis. It wasn’t fair and he was her responsibility. Jobs that ran inside school hours were almost impossible to find and she had applied for anything that did over the last year, but she was always turned down for either being overqualified or not having enough experience. This one would probably be no different. Money was now getting increasingly tight and, by the end of the year, it would all be gone. Her friends and family knew that the search was getting a bit desperate and had taken it upon themselves to tell her of any jobs they had seen or heard about. Her next-door neighbour, Annie, came round most days brandishing an advert for some job or other, most of them wildly unsuitable.

  Tori found her phone. ‘Here, I took a photo of the advert. It doesn’t mention anything about historical knowledge, just says you need to have good interpersonal skills, be confident and be able to deliver engaging presentations to visitors.’

  She could definitely do that.

  ‘I’ll send it to you,’ Tori said.

  ‘Thanks, I’ll take a look,’ Isla said.

  Emily, the owner of the café and Leo’s sister, came over then to take their order. At eight months pregnant with her second child, she looked ready to pop at any moment. She didn’t look tired though, in fact she was radiant. Isla guessed she would probably keep working there until her water broke, that was the sort of determined person Emily was.

  Isla quickly grabbed a menu as Tori and Melody rattled off their orders before Emily turned to her. ‘I’ll have the pancakes with bacon and sausages please.’

  Emily wrote it down. ‘So, you guys ready for the Halloween parade?’

  Isla smiled. The café was already decorated in little bats, skulls and spiders and she could see lots of pumpkin-topped cupcakes in the cake cabinet. As it was half term there were going to be lots of Halloween-themed and autumnal activities for the kids to do, culminating in a big fancy dress parade through the vi
llage and a bonfire party with a huge firework display at the weekend. As Leo owned his own firework display company, this time of year was always his busiest, but he made sure that he always had time for the fireworks in Sandcastle Bay.

  ‘It’s all Elliot’s been talking about for weeks,’ Isla said.

  ‘Marigold too. She still can’t decide what she wants to dress up as. She’s cutting it a bit fine for me to get something ready,’ Emily said.

  ‘The theme is Heroes and Villains, right?’ Melody asked.

  ‘Yes. I think she wants to go as Spiderwoman, which will be a pink and blue costume instead of red and blue, apparently.’

  ‘Is there a Spiderwoman character?’ Tori asked.

  ‘Marigold thinks there should be.’

  They all smiled. Marigold was Elliot’s best friend and she certainly had a mind of her own.

  ‘What are you all going as?’ Isla asked quickly, to try to avoid the question of what Elliot wanted to dress up as. They would make such a big deal out of it if they knew.

  ‘Hermione Granger,’ Emily said.

  ‘Princess Merida,’ Tori said. ‘I’m a bit short of red-haired heroines.’

  ‘No idea,’ Melody said. ‘I think me and Jamie might do something matching, like some kind of duo.’

  ‘What about Elliot?’ Emily asked.

  ‘Well,’ Isla said, slowly, as she faced the inevitable overreaction. ‘He has two ideas. He either wants to go as Batman and Leo will be Robin.’

  ‘Oh that’s so cute, would Leo be up for that?’ Melody said.

  Isla nodded. ‘You know he would do anything for Elliot, including being Robin to his Batman.’

  ‘What was the second idea?’ Tori asked.