Sunlight over Crystal Sands: A gorgeous uplifting romantic comedy perfect to escape with this summer

by Holly Martin

  Lyra shook her head and then found herself holding her breath waiting for Nix to answer. Please don’t let him be married, she couldn’t handle that.

  ‘No, not married, and… no children,’ Nix said.

  He seemed almost sad about that. Something the others around the table seemed to pick up on as well.

  ‘Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,’ Aria quickly backtracked. ‘We’re obviously a family-run hotel here and I’m always happy to meet other people’s partners and families.’

  ‘No it’s fine, don’t worry,’ Nix said with a smile, though it didn’t quite meet his eyes.

  There was an awkward silence for a few moments and Lyra quickly leaned forward to fill it. She wasn’t sure why, but she suddenly wanted to protect Nix from feeling uncomfortable.

  ‘Is it just the three of you in your family?’ Lyra asked the sisters. ‘Or are there any other brothers and sisters?’

  ‘Just the three of us,’ Clover said.

  ‘Eight of us,’ Orla corrected. ‘When Bea is here. And there will be two more babies soon.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Aria said. ‘You’ll have lots of cousins soon.’

  Lyra smiled as Orla continued with her colouring, clearly happy she had set the record straight.

  ‘I come from a big family,’ Lyra said. ‘I have five brothers and sisters. I’m the eldest.’

  ‘Oh, I imagine that was wonderful growing up with such a big family,’ Skye said, giving Jesse a hopeful look.

  He grinned, resting a hand on her bump. ‘Let’s just concentrate on this one first.’

  Skye smiled before turning her attention back to Lyra, who realised she’d now have to come up with an answer about how great it was to have so many brothers and sisters.

  ‘It was certainly a lot of fun when I was younger. When we all hit the teenage years, things were… different. But now it’s certainly nice to have a team in your corner. When you have a problem there’s always someone there to listen to you.’

  ‘Or interfere?’ Nix said, with a smile. ‘I only have one brother but he has an opinion on everything in my life.’

  Lyra nodded. ‘Yes, there is definitely an element of that. The last man I was involved with, they certainly had a lot to say about him.’

  His eyes widened in surprise. ‘That doesn’t sound good.’

  Lyra shrugged, trying to downplay it. This wasn’t something she wanted to discuss in front of the others. She turned her attention back to the three sisters. ‘You know what siblings are like, they want what’s best for you.’

  They all nodded.

  ‘And what brought you to Jewel Island specifically?’ Aria said. ‘We’re quite far off the beaten path down here.’

  Lyra wondered what Nix would say. He had the co-ordinates of Jewel Island tattooed on his arm, so it must have had some significance for him, although whether or not he would share it was another matter.

  ‘Jewel Island has always been a special place to me for various reasons,’ Nix said. ‘I actually came on holiday here when I was a child.’

  Lyra gasped. ‘I did too.’

  Nix fixed her with a look. ‘That’s interesting.’

  Lyra focussed her attention on her napkin. ‘I doubt we were here at the same time.’

  ‘How funny that you both came here,’ Clover said. ‘Did you stay here in the hotel?’

  Nix shook his head. ‘Mostly we’d stay in a holiday cottage on the far side of the island.’

  ‘We used to camp here,’ Lyra said. ‘Not many places could accommodate a family as big as ours. I have such fond memories of those times.’

  She frowned because, just a few years, later everything changed.

  ‘Me too,’ Nix said, softly.

  She glanced at him to see he was watching her and she quickly looked away again.

  ‘Lots of good things have happened to me here,’ Nix said. ‘I’ve always wanted to live here. I was… quite ill a few years ago and it kind of hit home for me that I really needed to make my dreams come true. I don’t want to look back on my life and wish that I’d done this or that. So I knew I needed to stop wishing for it and instead make it happen.’

  Just then the food arrived and everyone tucked in. Lyra frowned, wondering what he meant when he said he’d been ill. She hoped it wasn’t something horrible like cancer. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Her own sister, Kitty, had recovered from lymphoma years before; it had been a very stressful and upsetting time but it had completely changed the way Kitty looked at her life and what she wanted from it. Having a brush with death had a tendency to do that. But whatever Nix had gone through, it would have had to be something serious for him to decide he needed to make his dreams come true.

  ‘I actually own a bit of land up by Crystal Stream,’ Nix said. ‘And although I don’t intend to use it for property or anything like that, it’s nice to be close to it.’

  ‘Oh, the land borders the back of the hotel grounds,’ Aria said. ‘I always wondered what the new owner intended to do with it once it sold a few years ago. Do you plan to keep animals on it?’

  Nix cleared his throat and Lyra smiled into her food as she thought about George and his family, sitting up there in the stream, probably chewing a branch right now.

  ‘Yes, I… um… definitely want to do that at some point. Sometimes it’s just nice to have your own bit of space.’

  ‘I get that,’ Angel said. ‘I always wanted to have my own plot of land. Have some horses, maybe some goats, pigs and sheep. We have the horses – although technically they’re not ours, we sort of look after them – and a cow, plus there’s also a donkey, but no luck on the pigs, goats and sheep yet. Or the land. I always fancied myself as a bit of a farmer.’

  Nix nodded. ‘I like the sound of that.’

  Clover smiled at her husband. ‘Well at least I know what to get you for your next birthday.’

  Angel grinned.

  ‘I’d like to be a farmer too,’ Orla said as she coloured in a picture of a cow. ‘I’d have llamas on my farm and hedgehogs too.’

  ‘That sounds like a fun farm,’ Nix said.

  ‘And what about you, Lyra?’ Noah asked. ‘What brings you to Jewel Island?’

  ‘Well, similar to Nix in a way. We used to come here so often as a child and me and my sister, Michelle, she’s the one closest to me in age, always used to plan how we would live here when we grew up, which cottages we would live in and how we planned to marry Leonardo DiCaprio or Will Smith. And when we were teenagers and things were… difficult at home, we talked about this place like it was some pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I didn’t honestly believe we’d end up here. But Michelle moved here a few months ago and we’ve always been close. She has a little boy who I adore and I don’t want to miss out on him growing up. I missed her like crazy too. When this job came up, I knew I had to apply. And here I am, living the dream.’

  Apart from the fact that the man next to her had sort of taken the shine off all of that.

  ‘Well I’m so glad we managed to make your dreams come true,’ Clover said.

  Lyra glanced at Nix and mentally shook her head. The week before, her dreams for the future involved him, which was ridiculous. Now she just had to focus on the original plan: move to Jewel Island, start a new life. Getting involved with a man was not part of that.

  Lyra had spoken to Jack and Heather and, as they lived locally, they’d been able to pop down that afternoon. They were every inch the loved-up couple she had imagined them to be. They held hands as Lyra escorted them through the gardens, Heather excitedly talking about their wedding, Jack looking at her adoringly. It made Lyra’s heart hurt to watch them together.

  ‘So you two met at Cones at the Cove?’ Lyra asked, feeling like she was torturing herself asking for details.

  ‘Yes, and we just hit off right away,’ Heather said.

  Jack smiled at his fiancée. ‘I knew, as soon as we met, I knew then we were going to get married. We had this… connecti
on, this spark that I’d never felt before.’

  Heather blushed. ‘It was incredible. It wasn’t like we’d just met, it was like we’d found each other again, our other half. We spent the whole day talking to each other, in the café, on walks down on the beach, and then he came back to mine and… well, the chemistry was off the charts.’

  ‘I moved in with her a week later,’ Jack said. ‘Our family and friends all thought we were crazy. Mine especially, as the morning I’d met Heather, my divorce had finally come through. I wasn’t ready for another relationship, I certainly wasn’t looking for one, and then there was Heather and I knew she was going to change my life.’

  ‘It was fate. I had an unexpected day off and I’d seen adverts for Cones at the Cove so thought I’d treat myself to a dessert. Jack was only staying at the hotel because the one he was supposed to be staying at had double-booked. Six months ago, if you’d asked me if I believed in the stars aligning or some divine power watching over us, I’d have laughed you out the door, but I know we were supposed to meet that day. We were exactly where we were meant to be.’

  The echoes of what Nix had said to her rang in Lyra’s ears. The morning after the night she’d spent with him, as she lay in his arms, she’d have said that she was exactly where she was meant to be too. That somehow she and Nix had found each other, despite all the odds. Look at how badly that had turned out. God, she was such an idiot. Why did she let herself fall in love so quickly? Why did she never learn?

  ‘That’s very romantic,’ Lyra forced herself to say.

  They were now approaching Cones at the Cove, which was closed again for the short lull between lunch and dinner. Skye was busy cleaning the tables when they walked in but her face lit up at seeing Jack and Heather. She came over and hugged them both.

  ‘Hello again. I’m so excited you guys are getting married and that we might be able to help here in some small way.’

  ‘We were kind of hoping it would be in a big way,’ Heather said, looking at Jack. ‘We talked about it on the drive over here and this place is so special to us. It’s where we met, where we got engaged, and although it’d be nice if we could hold our reception here, we’d actually really like to get married here too.’

  ‘I would love that,’ Skye said. ‘But I don’t think legally you can.’

  ‘There are ways round it,’ Lyra said. ‘The hotel is licensed to hold weddings in two of our rooms, and the Diamond Lounge is the one most commonly used. We legally can’t hold a wedding in a room unless we have a licence for that particular room. However, most registrars will be happy to perform a ceremony anywhere you want – on the beach, here in the café – as long as you do the legal bit in one of the licensed rooms either before or after the big ceremony. It really is just a formality; a few questions, a few legal statements, you’d be in and out before they started serving the ice cream. But at least you can then have the real ceremony how you want it.’

  ‘What do you think?’ Jack asked Heather.

  ‘I like the sound of it. Even if we got married in a church, we’d have to go off and sign the certificate and do the formal bit. This is no different. And the registrars would be willing to do a full ceremony in here after?’

  ‘Me and Jesse did that for our wedding,’ Skye said. ‘We did the legal bit first at the hotel and then got married down in Emerald Cove at sunset. It was beautiful.’

  Lyra nodded. ‘This is more normal than you think, many people get married this way.’

  Heather squealed a little in excitement. ‘We could get married over there by the windows, overlooking Emerald Cove.’

  Lyra started writing things down on her notepad. ‘We can borrow some chairs from the hotel and can push those doors back if it’s a nice day – make the space a bit bigger.’

  ‘Maybe we can hang up some fairy lights,’ Heather said. ‘Have some flowers around the place. Keep it simple.’

  ‘Skye suggested we have a marquee outside for the dancing. The hotel owns one so it wouldn’t be a problem,’ Lyra said.

  ‘Oh yes, I like that idea. What do you think, Jack?’

  ‘I like the idea too. But whatever makes you happy. As long as I get to call you my wife, we can do this any way you want.’

  They talked for a bit longer about how they’d like to set up for the ceremony and how best to utilise the space, and then, while Jack and Heather were in such an accommodating mood, Lyra thought she might try to tie them down to a few other decisions too.

  ‘So I wonder if you’ve had a chance to look at the menu choices that Clover sent over?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, but to be honest none of them were quite what we were looking for,’ Jack said.

  Lyra’s heart sank. She’d dealt with customers before who wanted something completely different to eat and, while that was normally fine, she knew indecisive ones would take weeks of taste-testing to come to a decision. In Jack and Heather’s case, they just didn’t have that time.

  Heather giggled. ‘We just want fish and chips. It was the meal we had after leaving here the first time we met – we wandered into town and bought fish and chips and sat on the beach and ate them. And then for dessert, we’d really like it if people could build their own desserts, just like the normal customers do here. They can choose which flavour ice cream they want, add their own toppings. We just want a really simple affair.’

  Lyra smiled in relief. ‘I’m sure we can do that.’

  ‘I hate to throw a spanner in the works but we’re primarily a dessert café, we don’t have fat fryers here,’ Skye said.

  ‘That’s not a problem,’ Lyra said. ‘I’m pretty sure we can hire them. Let me look into prices and possible solutions. Are you wanting some kind of buffet for the night time?’

  ‘Yes, but just sandwiches, chicken drumsticks, nothing too fancy,’ Heather said.

  ‘OK, I can send over some options for you to choose from,’ Lyra said, writing it all down. It was something of a relief that the couple knew exactly what they wanted from their special day, and they had quite simple tastes, but sometimes the simple things were the hardest to organise.

  Lyra rang the bell of her sister’s house and smiled when she saw the name card under the bell. ‘Mr and Mrs Olney’. Michelle had been so excited about taking Ben’s surname when they got married. She wanted everyone to know they were part of the same team. Lyra wondered what it would be like to be part of a team.

  Ben answered the door, Zach flung over his shoulder, giggling wildly.

  ‘Hey Lyra.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘Welcome back to the madhouse. Come in, my world-famous chicken pie is almost ready.’

  Lyra stepped inside and relieved Ben of his wiggling load.

  ‘I can never turn down one of your pies. Hello you,’ she said to Zach.

  ‘Ra!’ Zach said, grabbing hold of her lips. She smiled at his name for her. The word Lyra was too hard for Zach to get his little tongue around when he was still trying to perfect other words in the English language. In the end, he’d settled for Ra.

  ‘Leave Aunty Ra’s lips alone, she needs them.’ Ben ushered them both through to the kitchen and he returned to attempting to cook the dinner. Every pot, plate, pan and bowl had been used in the making of the famous pie, and Michelle was sitting at the table looking very calm about all the mess. Although she was sipping on a glass of wine, which might have had something to do with it.

  ‘Can I help you with anything, Ben?’

  ‘No, just keep that little one occupied for a few minutes,’ Ben said.

  Lyra kissed her sister on the cheek. ‘How was your day?’

  ‘Good. Well, busy.’

  ‘Tell her about your plans,’ Ben said, excitedly.

  ‘Oh, you have plans?’ Lyra said, sitting down with Zach on her lap. She grabbed a squeaky bear and gave it to her nephew to play with. He immediately shoved it in his mouth.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night about selling my brownies and cakes,’ Michelle said. ‘I
get so many of my friends requesting I make them batches for this and that, and ever since I’ve moved down here, I’ve had to post the cakes to them, which hasn’t always ended too well for the cakes. After a few trial and errors, I’ve found some packaging that can protect them through the post and now I’m thinking of making more of a business out of it. Selling my baked treats online. Ben has been helping me design a website and I’ve spent a lot of the day making small batches of different-flavoured cakes and biscuits and taking some nice photos of them to upload on the website and see what kind of interest I get from it.’

  ‘That sounds like a wonderful idea. Your cakes are amazing, you definitely should be making money out of it. Are you thinking about posting on places like Etsy or Not on the High Street too?’

  ‘Oh yes, I hadn’t thought of that. That’s a good idea.’

  ‘And if you need me to trial any new flavours, I’m more than happy to step up to the plate,’ Lyra said.

  Michelle laughed. ‘You’re so brave.’

  ‘Pie is ready,’ Ben said, coming over to the table with two plates of steaming hot chicken pie, served with mashed potatoes and gravy. He placed the dishes down. ‘Could you strap trouble into his high chair?’

  Lyra plonked Zach on her hip as she wrestled the high chair out from the corner of the room and Michelle started clearing away some of the debris from the table. To Lyra’s surprise, Zach went into his chair very easily, his hands greedily reaching out for the small plate of pie Ben was bringing over.

  Lyra sat down and tucked into her food. ‘Ben, this is delicious, as always.’

  ‘Thank you. How was your day?’ Ben asked.

  Lyra puffed her cheeks out and let out a big sigh. ‘Pretty crappy if I’m honest, which is a shame as I was really looking forward to this job.’

  ‘Is Nix that bad to work with?’ Michelle said, taking a big bite of her pie.

  ‘I just don’t know how to be with him. He seems really nice but then I remember what happened and I just can’t seem to let that go. And I don’t know what bothers me more, that it was just a one-night stand for him when it felt like so much more, or that he left without having the decency to say goodbye.’