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

by Holly Martin

  He watched as she slipped out of her robe, letting it fall to the floor. She looked magnificent, her damp hair tumbling down her back, her skin all pink and flushed from the orgasm he’d just given her.

  She held out her hand. ‘Join me.’

  He scrambled out of his chair faster than he’d ever stood up in his life. He took her hand and she lay down on the rug, pulling him down next to her. He wrestled himself out of his robe and kissed her again, rolling on top of her and pinning her to the floor. He snatched his mouth from hers for a second as he tore the condom open with his teeth and quickly rolled it on and as he kissed her again he slid carefully inside her. Her kisses became frantic and urgent, her hands down his back urging him on. He pulled back slightly to watch her come undone, capturing her hands and pinning them over her head, her fingers clasped tightly between his. She wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him in deeper, but it was the look of complete love in her eyes that brought him to the very edge.

  From here on in, he was going to believe in the man she saw. He was going to let go of his past and move forward with his future. She was his future now and he was going to take it.

  ‘Marry me?’ he said.

  She smiled, tears welling in her eyes. ‘Don’t stop asking me, Leo Jackson. One day soon, I’m going to say yes.’

  He’d take that.

  He kissed her, moving against her harder and faster, and he felt her body tremble beneath him as she cried out his name and then his orgasm was ripping through him too.

  He collapsed on top of her and couldn’t help smiling against her neck. One day soon, she was going to be his wife.

  Isla woke the next day with Leo’s arms wrapped tightly round her, and his hand stroking through her hair.

  ‘What a lovely way to wake up,’ Isla murmured.

  ‘Were you sad again last night, Isla?’ Elliot said.

  Isla’s eyes flew open. She saw Elliot standing next to the bed and realised it was him stroking her hair.

  Crap.

  They were going to scar this poor boy for life. Even worse, she and Leo were both stark naked and the only thing preserving their modesty was a thin bit of sheet that felt like it was barely covering her bum.

  ‘Morning beautiful boy,’ Isla said. ‘No, I wasn’t sad last night.’

  ‘Then why are you in bed with Leo again?’

  ‘Because cuddling Leo makes me happy,’ Isla said.

  ‘It makes me very happy too,’ Leo said, clearly just waking up himself. ‘Hey buddy.’

  ‘Why are you both naked?’ Elliot asked.

  ‘Um, we got a bit hot last night?’ Isla said, which was the truth, although no need to explain quite why they were hot and sweaty. She could see that Leo was suppressing a smile.

  ‘What’s this?’ Elliot picked up a condom in its foil packet from the top of the bedside drawers. ‘It’s squishy.’

  Oh god.

  ‘That’s, erm…’ Isla started but she literally had nothing.

  ‘Elliot!’ came Emily’s voice as she walked along the hall. ‘I don’t think they’re here.’

  Oh crap, this was just getting worse. Isla fumbled around for the sheet but it was caught up between their legs and a second later Emily appeared in the doorway, followed by Luke.

  ‘Oh shit, sorry.’ Emily quickly shielded her eyes and turned away.

  Elliot giggled. ‘Emily swore.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Emily said. ‘We thought we’d give you guys a bit of a lie-in this morning. I didn’t think you’d still be in bed at this time.’

  Isla frowned and looked at the clock. It was already half past ten. She had never slept that late, well at least not since she had started looking after Elliot. Although the night before had been quite… energetic.

  ‘Elliot, why don’t you show me your room and how you’ve decorated it for Halloween and we can leave Isla and Leo to finish off… I mean, finish getting ready,’ Emily said.

  Elliot was easily distracted and he quickly ran out the room to show Emily his Halloween paraphernalia, although to Isla’s horror, he took the condom with him.

  ‘What’s this, Emily?’ Elliot asked, proffering the treasure up in the air.

  Isla giggled at Emily’s mortified expression as she ushered Elliot and Luke out of the room.

  ‘That’s… um. Actually, I’m not really sure, probably best to ask Isla about it later on. Come on, which one is your room?’

  Elliot’s voice faded away as he took her to the room down the hall and Isla propped herself up to look at Leo.

  ‘Wow. We’re never going to live that down.’

  ‘I don’t even care,’ Leo said, a wonderful relaxed smile on his face. ‘I had the best night of my life and nothing is going to change my good mood this morning.’

  Isla smiled. But despite the wonderful night they had spent together, it still hadn’t come with any kind of declaration of love. She’d told herself she didn’t need to hear the words, she knew how Leo felt, but in reality she did need confirmation of his feelings. But she couldn’t exactly be angry that he hadn’t said what she wanted to hear when she hadn’t managed to say the words herself.

  Her relationship with Daniel had hurt a lot more than she acknowledged. He had let her down spectacularly and he had often told her he loved her. But what kind of love meant you could walk away from someone so abruptly? They hadn’t fallen out of love with each other, in fact the night before Matthew had died they had made love and it had been as good as always. There had been no affair or arguments. But a life with a child that wasn’t his was not the life he wanted. For Daniel, he clearly didn’t believe in for better or worse, and for the longest time after they’d broken up she just didn’t know what to do with that.

  If he could walk away from her so easily, then maybe he had never loved her at all. She was scared of handing her heart over on a plate to someone only to have it thrown back in her face again.

  She trusted Leo and in her heart she knew he loved her, but everything was suddenly happening so quickly. She felt like she needed some confirmation that she was doing the right thing.

  He stroked down her back, his face suddenly filling with concern. ‘Listen, last night, Thomas texted me. Sadie didn’t sign the consent form, giving parental responsibility to you.’

  Her heart leapt in chest. ‘She didn’t? But she said she had no interest in Elliot. Why would she not sign?’

  ‘She said she wanted to think about it.’

  ‘What is there to think about?’

  ‘Probably how much money she can gain from this.’

  She sighed and got out of bed. She looked around frantically for some clothes, that sense of panic that had faded away the night before well and truly back now. Sadie really was like those characters in the horror films, she kept coming back to take more of her pound of flesh. And where the bloody hell were her clothes?

  Leo was suddenly there, jeans on, passing her one of his shirts, which made it look really bloody obvious that they had spent the night getting up to all sorts. Though as Emily had already caught them naked in bed together there was no point in being coy now.

  She yanked it on, doing up the buttons on the shirt wrong in her haste.

  Christ, she would just go down to the bank and remortgage her house and give Sadie half in return for giving her parental responsibility and pissing off for good. Quite how she was going to pay back the monthly mortgage she didn’t know, but she had a job now. It was a regular salary even if her part-time hours meant that there wouldn’t be much coming in. She hadn’t even talked about a salary with Leo. God, what if the bank looked at her finances and decided she wasn’t earning enough to give her a new mortgage? Maybe she should sell the house instead.

  But could she really move in here? Would Leo really want her to? Being a full-time dad was a big responsibility. Leo was wonderful with Elliot but there was a big difference between having Elliot stay over for a few days or once a week and having him here all the time. Her nephew had so much
stuff, so many toys and it seemed to spread out from his bedroom and take over the whole house. If Daniel didn’t want the responsibility of raising a child with her after two and half years together, would Leo really want that when they’d only been together in reality for one night? Was it too much to ask? But Leo had asked her to marry him so many times with that end in mind. Maybe he had considered what life would be like. He’d said the night before how much he loved Elliot. Maybe he really did want this life with her. She shook her head. But in reality, she didn’t need Leo. Her half of the money would be enough to get her a tiny one-bedroom flat on the furthest reaches of town, or if she went further inland, left Sandcastle Bay, she might be able to afford something a little bigger. It would be a small price to pay as long as she was able to keep Elliot.

  ‘Stop panicking,’ Leo said, gently.

  ‘This is Elliot, for Christ’s sake,’ Isla snapped. ‘I don’t care about the house, I just want him.’ She knew she was being unfair to Leo, but fear was taking over and she couldn’t think rationally.

  ‘You don’t need to tell me what’s at stake here. There’s not one single thing I wouldn’t do to protect him,’ Leo said.

  ‘When did you know about Sadie not signing the form?’

  Leo let out a little sigh. ‘Last night before we went to the restaurant.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’ Isla protested.

  ‘I did think about it, but it’s not like we could do anything about it last night and I thought it would be nice for you not to worry for a few hours.’

  ‘So you could get laid,’ Isla said and regretted it immediately.

  His face turned to thunder.

  ‘No, so you could enjoy a nice meal out with friends. I didn’t realise we would end up in bed, that wasn’t part of my agenda at all.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Isla said, quietly.

  ‘I have to go to work. I’ll let you know if I hear any more updates from Thomas,’ Leo said. With that he left the room, without so much as a kiss goodbye.

  God, she was a cow. This whole thing with Sadie was stressing her out completely and now she was lashing out at the people she loved.

  She would apologise to him later when she went into work. She’d already asked her mum if she would look after Elliot that afternoon.

  She quickly found a pair of Leo’s shorts and went off to find Elliot and excuse Emily from any more awkward questions.

  She found them in Elliot’s room.

  ‘And this spider bounces, look,’ Elliot said, giving the spider a tug and then watching it bounce up on its spring. To Isla’s embarrassment, Elliot was still clutching the condom in his other hand. Obviously he wasn’t going to let that conversation go any time soon.

  ‘Hey Emily, thank you for having Elliot last night,’ Isla said as nonchalantly as she could, given only minutes ago Emily had walked in and found Isla and Leo naked in bed together.

  Emily turned round. ‘Oh, no problem. We had a lot of fun, though clearly not as much fun as you two.’

  Isla cleared her throat. ‘It was a very… enjoyable evening.’

  ‘I bet it was. I better go, I need to be at the café soon. Pop in later and maybe you might want to share a few more details.’

  ‘I think I’ve shared enough this morning to last a lifetime.’

  Emily grinned, gave her a hug and walked out.

  Isla turned back to Elliot. ‘Shall we have a bath in the hot tub again?’

  ‘Yay!’ Elliot said and she gave a little sigh of relief that he might be suitably distracted. ‘Isla, what’s this?’ He offered out the condom again.

  ‘It’s a condom,’ she said. She saw him wrinkle his little face up as he tried to remember if he’d come across that word before.

  Isla sighed and scooped him up and sat him on her lap on his bed.

  ‘You know how Emily is carrying a baby in her belly.’

  ‘Yes, Stanley gave her the baby.’

  ‘That’s right, he did. Well sometimes, when a man and a woman cuddle together in bed, the man might wear this to stop him accidentally giving her babies if she doesn’t want one.’

  Elliot wrinkled his little nose. She wasn’t sure if this was too much information, but as he had asked the question she knew she had to give him an honest answer.

  ‘Do you not want Leo to give you a baby?’ Elliot asked.

  God, this was getting worse. How was she supposed to answer that question? Because in reality she wanted that with Leo, to be married to him, make a proper family with him, Elliot and maybe children of their own one day.

  ‘Maybe, sometime in the future, I might have a baby. But now is not the right time.’

  ‘When is the right time?’

  ‘If Leo and I get married one day, then we might have a baby together then.’

  ‘When are you getting married?’

  ‘I’m not sure, we’re both a bit busy at the moment,’ Isla tried.

  ‘I’d like a baby sister,’ Elliot said.

  ‘I know you would,’ Isla said. It was something he had mentioned before.

  ‘So you need to hurry up and get married,’ Elliot said.

  She smiled. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  Elliot was clearly happy with this answer as he dumped the condom on the bed and ran out the bedroom, stripping clothes off as he headed for the bathroom.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Isla pushed open the door to The Cherry on Top and let Elliot run on ahead of her. Her mum, Carolyn, was waiting for her at a table, reading a book and looking… contented. It had been a long time since she had seen her mum look so peaceful and she liked seeing her that way. Obviously Trevor was having a positive influence on her.

  To her confusion, Elliot ran straight towards the counter instead of towards Carolyn. There was no sign of Marigold, so he couldn’t be running off to see her.

  ‘Elliot, where are you going? Your nan is over here,’ Isla pointed.

  ‘I’m just going to tell Emily what a condom is, she didn’t know when I asked her before.’

  Isla blinked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary, Emily is very busy…’ she trailed off as Elliot ran round the back of the counter.

  Emily was busy making a milkshake for Mary Nightingale. Emily glanced over at the new arrival. ‘Oh hey, Elliot.’

  ‘Hey. I found out what a condom is, that squishy thing I found in Leo’s room. Men use it to stop giving babies to women,’ Elliot announced loudly.

  There were a few giggles from the people waiting at the counter as Isla stood there powerless to stop the car crash from happening.

  Emily blushed. ‘Oh, thanks Elliot, good to know.’

  ‘Oh, that is interesting,’ Mary Nightingale said, waggling her eyebrows in Isla’s direction. Isla sighed. As Mary was one of Agatha’s closest friends, this information was definitely getting back to her and probably to the rest of the village as well. ‘And you say that you found this condom in Leo’s room?’

  ‘Yes,’ Elliot said, keenly.

  ‘Was Isla in the bedroom with him when you found this condom?’ Mary Nightingale went on.

  ‘Yes, they were naked in bed together,’ Elliot said. ‘Isla said they were naked because they got very hot the night before.’

  ‘Ooh, I bet they did,’ Mary chortled.

  This was just getting worse and worse.

  ‘Isla says that she wants Leo to give her a baby but they can’t have one until they’re married and Leo isn’t going to marry her yet because he doesn’t love her enough, he only loves her like he loves chocolate which is a lot but not enough to get married so Leo has to use the condom so he doesn’t accidentally give Isla a baby when he cuddles her in bed,’ Elliot said.

  Wow, it had just got a lot worse.

  ‘No, honey, that’s not…’ Isla trailed off. Everyone was staring at them now, some of them were even looking at her with pity. Elliot hadn’t painted Leo in the best light there, but bless him, he was just repeating everything sh
e and Leo had said to him in the last few days, even if things had definitely moved on since she’d told Elliot that Leo loved her like chocolate. ‘That’s not how it is,’ Isla said, not really wanting to go into the specifics of her relationship with the whole village.

  ‘I’m going to say hello to Frankie,’ Elliot said, oblivious to the impact of his announcement. ‘Oh and Emily, if you don’t want any more babies, you need to get Stanley to wear a condom all the time.’

  Emily suppressed a smile. ‘I’ll pass that on.’

  Elliot pushed the door open on the kitchen and disappeared inside.

  ‘Well, that was certainly enlightening,’ Mary Nightingale said, her eyebrows still waggling mischievously.

  ‘I think Elliot misunderstood,’ Isla said, lamely.

  ‘No, he seems to have perfectly understood what a condom is for,’ Mary said.

  She looked around the café at all the faces watching her, some with amusement, some with sadness.

  ‘Me and Leo are doing fine, but it’s very early days yet,’ Isla said and then moved to the counter. ‘I’ll have a hot chocolate when you’re ready, Emily, and one for Elliot too.’ She turned round to address her mum. ‘Did you want anything?’ Her mum shook her head and Isla was thankful that conversation seemed to resume amongst the customers, even if she was quite sure that some of that conversation might be to do with her.

  Mary took her milkshake and went and sat down and Isla gave a little sigh of relief that the attention was over, at least for now.

  Emily clearly decided to give her a pass on quizzing her for more details after that embarrassing debacle and handed over the hot chocolates without any further comment.

  Isla went and sat down with her mum.

  ‘Your little man does make me laugh,’ Carolyn said as Isla leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘He has no filter and then just repeats everything he’s heard and not necessarily in the right order or context.’ Isla shook her head fondly, deposited her coat over the back of the chair and took a long sip of creamy hot chocolate.