The Cottage on Sunshine Beach: An utterly gorgeous feel-good romantic comedy

by Holly Martin

  ‘Kevin dumped me because I dropped his laptop.’

  ‘Kevin was a cock. Could you honestly see yourself spending the rest of your life with him?’

  ‘No, definitely not. Even before that, cracks were starting to show.’

  ‘You’re the loveliest person I know. It’s not a case of you not being good enough for them, but them not being good enough for you. You shouldn’t define yourself by your clumsiness. Those who love you don’t care about that.’

  ‘My dad cared about it. So did my mum in the end,’ Melody said quietly.

  ‘Your dad had a short temper about most things, not specifically about you being a bit accident-prone. Don’t bring that on yourself. And your mum was angry with the entire world once your dad left. Again, that wasn’t to do with you.’

  ‘I know. But it doesn’t stop me being scared of men saying no if I was to ask them out.’

  ‘You’re such an amazing person, you just don’t see that.’

  ‘I’m not exactly beating off all the men with a stick,’ Melody said.

  ‘That’s because you keep your head down when you’re around new people, men especially. You withdraw. That makes it hard for a man to engage with you. Keep your chin up; show everyone how beautiful you are, inside and out.’

  Melody smiled at this loyalty from her friend.

  Rocky stirred below the table and both Melody and Tori looked underneath it to check on him. He yawned and went back to sleep.

  ‘How are your dogs settling in?’ Melody asked.

  Tori and Aidan had adopted Beauty, the mum of the massive litter of puppies, after looking after her in the weeks after the birth. They’d also taken in Spike, one of the smallest puppies.

  ‘Beauty is still scared of her own shadow, but she trusts us and she’s slowly becoming more confident. Beast is still visiting her every day and Aidan hopes he might be able to persuade him to call Heartberry Farm his home eventually, instead of wandering the streets. Spike is the complete opposite of his mum, wants to investigate everything. He’s brave and bold and hilarious to watch. I love having them around. It’s like… we’re a proper little family now. And maybe a few years down the line, we’ll have our own children.’

  Melody smiled at that thought. She and Aidan would make such wonderful parents.

  ‘How’s the advert going?’ Melody asked.

  ‘Good so far.’ Tori’s face lit up at talk of her other job.

  Melody loved hearing her talk about her work. As an animator using plasticine models, Tori was in her element making little adverts for companies. She’d been involved in big animated films and TV programmes over the years, but her heart was in the little jobs she could see through from the very beginning to the end. She’d recently made an advert for Aidan’s fruit farm, starring a cute little heartberry called Max.

  ‘It went out on all social media about two weeks ago and already we’ve seen an uptake on sales,’ Tori continued. ‘I’m just about to finish one starring more of the fruit from the farm. We’ve seen some great merchandise sales too. It will take a while to build but I can see we could do a whole range of adverts, with each of the fruit taking a leading role. I have several other adverts for other companies I’m in the middle of making too, so the Heartberry Farm ones will have to wait a while. Plus, I’ll do one for when Aidan is ready to release his range of fruit pies on the world. Emily is already stocking the pies he is making here, and people seem to love them. He’s so excited about it all but it will be a while before we are ready to do it on a professional basis. We have to get all the certificates but I’m so happy he wants to go down this road. It’s something he’s wanted to do for a while.’

  Emily came over then to take their order as Tori finished off her cake.

  ‘Are you talking about my brother’s pies? The customers love them. Aidan has always been good at cooking, so it’s no surprise his pies have been such a big hit.’

  Tori’s smile lit her face. ‘I can’t tell you how proud I am of him for making this work.’

  Emily nodded. ‘You’ve definitely had a positive influence on him.’ She rubbed her belly unconsciously and Melody smiled. At four months pregnant, she was already starting to show, but she knew that Emily would probably be working in the café right up to the very end.

  ‘You’re busy today,’ Melody said, looking around the packed little café.

  ‘Yes, and Marigold breaks up from school today so I will need to take a few days off here and there so I can do things with her. Although she’s just happy playing with our puppy, Leia. Actually, I was going to come along to your jewellery course next week. Would it be suitable for Marigold too?’

  Melody thought about the course she was running. This was the first time she had done anything like this and it was all a bit up in the air at the moment. She hadn’t quite figured out what she would actually try to teach people in that hour.

  ‘There might be a few things she’d find fiddly and we use a blow torch for some of it, but you could do that part for her. She’d definitely enjoy using the silver clay, anyone can do that.’

  ‘That’s fab, thanks,’ Emily said. ‘I need to find some things I can do with her this holiday. I’ll bring her here too. She loves helping out, which means I can work in our busiest period and spend time with her. I have a few girls who are home from university for the summer who are helping out too, so we’ll manage.’

  ‘You don’t want to take a few months off for maternity leave, put your feet up before the baby comes?’ Tori asked.

  Emily laughed. ‘I haven’t got time for that! Besides, there’ll be lots of time for resting once the little one arrives.’

  Melody doubted that, but she didn’t say anything.

  ‘Anyway, what can I get you both?’ Emily asked.

  ‘I’ll have a sausage sandwich, please,’ Tori said, licking the icing from her fingers.

  Melody laughed. ‘The red velvet cake was your starter, was it?’

  ‘That was just a little snack, I’m starving.’

  ‘I’ll have a cheese and chicken toastie, please,’ Melody said.

  Emily scribbled it all down and hurried off back round the counter.

  ‘So, enough about me and the farm,’ Tori said. ‘Tell me more of your news.’

  Melody looked surreptitiously over at Agatha, who seemed to be engrossed in her book.

  ‘I do have some news actually.’ She glanced over at Agatha again. ‘I did it.’

  Tori, of course, knew of her plans to ask Jamie out, though hadn't known she was going to do it that morning. To be fair, they had been talking about how to do it for the last few weeks and Tori probably thought it was never going to happen. Tori looked confused for a few moments and Melody inclined her head towards Agatha to help her out.

  Tori’s face cleared, a huge smile spreading on her face.

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes,’ Melody said. No need to mention that it had been far more casual than she had intended. She has asked Jamie to dinner and he had said yes. That was a tick in her book. ‘And it was a positive result.’

  ‘Ah that’s great, I knew it would be,’ Tori said, attempting to be vague for Agatha’s benefit. ‘I’m really happy for you.’

  Melody sighed inwardly. She wished she could share her friend’s optimism. Jamie was probably going to turn up at her house that night with no idea he was on a date.

  ‘And, um… what will you wear to the… event?’ Tori said.

  ‘I have a silver dress I bought from the charity shop last week, thought that might suit the occasion.’ She chanced a glance at Agatha only to find she was staring right back at her.

  Giving up any pretence of not listening to their conversation, Agatha got up and came and joined them at their table.

  ‘What’s all this then?’ Agatha asked.

  Tori smirked. She knew what Agatha’s interfering was like. She had stuck her oar in at every available opportunity when Tori was first dating Aidan. Now they were happily loved
-up and living together, Agatha had turned her attention to getting her other two nephews married off. She had set her sights on getting Melody together with Jamie and she was desperate to see Melody’s sister Isla together with Leo Jackson.

  ‘Oh, nothing important,’ Melody said.

  ‘What’s this event that you’ll be wearing a silver dress to?’

  ‘It’s a jewellery thing,’ Tori said, desperately. ‘An exhibition, craft fair type thing where jewellers will showcase their wares. Melody didn’t think she should go and I encouraged her to go for it.’

  Agatha narrowed her eyes, obviously not believing this for one moment. But there was a jewellery fair over in Penzance. Melody had talked with Tori about how she might go the previous week. She quickly delved in her bag and luckily found the leaflet. She pulled it out and laid it on the table triumphantly. It was an exclusive event and she hadn’t been sure whether her pieces that were popular with the tourists would fit in.

  Agatha studied the leaflet and then sighed. ‘I thought you might have finally plucked up the courage to ask Jamie out. I heard all about the two of you canoodling on the beach this morning.’

  Melody couldn’t resist rolling her eyes. ‘We were not canoodling, I sort of fell and he caught me.’

  Agatha shook her head. ‘He adores you, you know that.’

  ‘We’re friends,’ Melody said. ‘Maybe that’s all we’ll ever be.’

  ‘You are destined to be together,’ Agatha said, her voice taking on a mystical tone.

  Melody suppressed a smirk. Agatha was well known for predicting who was going to marry who, with not much success so far. She was so confident in her ‘psychic’ abilities, despite a large lack of results, that five minutes after Aidan had met Tori for the first time, Agatha had bet Aidan fifty pounds that he would be walking Tori down the aisle within a year of them meeting. She’d also predicted that Melody would be marrying Jamie, which she couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  ‘If you’re so sure he has feelings for me, why hasn’t he asked me out himself?’ Melody asked.

  Agatha shook his head. ‘Jamie won’t do that. He’s been hurt and rejected badly in the past. He’s not looking for a relationship.’

  ‘Then what’s the point in me asking him out?’ Melody said.

  ‘It’s up to you to show him what he’s missing, that being in love is a wonderful thing.’

  Melody sighed. It seemed like a lot of hard work. Surely a relationship should be both parties going into it willingly rather than one more enthusiastically than the other? The heroines in the romance stories she loved so much never seemed to have this problem. The men seemed to go after their women with passion and determination.

  ‘Have you seen your mum lately?’ Agatha asked, seemingly changing subject so fast that Melody nearly got whiplash.

  ‘Um, no, not really,’ Melody said, feeling guilty that she hadn’t.

  Tori smiled at her sympathetically. She knew Melody had a difficult relationship with her mum. After her dad had an affair and walked out on them when Melody was only thirteen, her mum had been angry at everything and everyone, including her, Isla and Matthew. That anger with the world had never really gone away.

  For several years, Melody had wondered if it had been her fault her dad had left. Had she not been clever enough, arty enough, sporty enough? Were her skills as a dancer not impressive enough to make him want to stay? Had she been too clumsy? He always got so frustrated with her whenever she knocked a drink over or dropped a glass or bowl. She’d wondered if that had been the final straw in the end? Her mum had never reassured her otherwise. She spent the next few years studying hard, working hard, trying to excel at every subject. No matter how hard she worked, she never came top of any class. She was distinctly average at everything. Looking back, Melody didn’t know if she was trying to prove her worth to her dad, her mum or to herself, but she never got any praise from her parents. Her dad was absent for most of her teenage years and her mum was wrapped up in her own anger. That had driven a wedge between them that had never been repaired.

  It was only later, when she was older, that she was able to see that her dad left because he fell out of love with her mum, that it had very little or nothing to do with her or her siblings. Maybe her mum’s anger with her dad had always been there, which might have pushed him away.

  After Matthew had been killed in that car accident, her mum’s grief had manifested itself as anger too. When Melody and her mum had moved to Sandcastle Bay to help Isla with the task of raising Matthew’s son, her mum made sure that anyone who listened knew what a sacrifice it had been coming here. Melody had spent a lot of time trying to build bridges when they’d first moved down here. Life was too short to hold a grudge. But she always came away from seeing her mum feeling so frustrated and hurt that eventually the visits had stopped. It was a small village and she bumped into her mum from time to time. Melody was always polite and civil, but she would never go out of her way to visit her.

  ‘Carolyn’s dating again,’ Agatha said.

  ‘What?’ Melody said, in shock, her voice carrying over the whole café so everyone turned and looked at her.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Tori asked.

  Agatha nodded, and Melody couldn’t believe that Agatha knew before she did.

  ‘Trevor Harris,’ Agatha said, knowledgably.

  ‘The policeman?’ Melody asked. He was such a serious man and not someone she would have picked for her mum. But then she never thought her mum would ever find love with anyone again so this was definitely a step in the right direction, no matter who it was with.

  ‘Yes. They’re trying to keep it quiet, they don’t want the whole village to know. But I saw them in here the other day, they were holding hands under the table. She seems… happy.’

  Melody smiled. She liked the idea of her mum dating again. She didn’t know whether they would ever get back the closeness they’d had when she had been growing up – too much anger and bitterness had tainted that for them – but she wanted her mum to be happy again.

  ‘The point being that if someone like your mum, who has been so anti-love for so long, anti-everything by the sounds of it, can take a risk with her heart and find happiness again, then you can too.’

  Melody sighed. She looked over at Tori. Neither she nor Aidan wanted to get involved in a relationship, but they had, and it had worked out pretty well for them both in the end. Maybe it would be worth the risk.

  3

  Melody laid her new pieces in the display cabinet: two bracelets made from sea glass, a necklace with a pale-yellow amber heart, and a few silver clay earrings she had made the night before.

  She looked around her shop. It was an eclectic mix. Her shop in London had sold very classic pieces. The kind you could get from any high-end jewellery store. There had been pieces that had a few tiny twists or something different, but nothing abstract or outlandish like she had here. She felt freer here to express her love of jewellery in any way she wanted. There were still some traditional items as some people liked that sort of thing, but the rest of the shop was taken up with bright colours, unusually cut gemstones, pieces that were inspired by different countries or cultures. Some of the jewellery wasn’t hers. She loved scouring Etsy for something quirky, different, something that had never been seen before, and then she’d get in touch with the designers and offer to sell a selection in her shop for a small fee. It hardly made her any money, but people came in off the street because they saw something different or unique in her window and, once they were there, they would look at all the other pieces in the shop too.

  The door opened and her five-year-old nephew, Elliot, came running in wearing a top hat.

  She smiled. His dad, Matthew, would have been so proud of how Elliot was turning out. He was such a happy little boy and Melody knew that had a lot to do with how her sister Isla was now raising him.

  ‘Good morning, Sir,’ Melody said, formally. ‘How can I help you today? Are you here to buy a diamond
tiara for your wife perhaps, or maybe a sapphire brooch?’

  Elliot laughed, taking his hat off. ‘I’m not Sir, I’m Elliot.’

  ‘Oh, it is you, I didn’t recognise you under your very fine top hat,’ Melody said, as she came round the counter and swept him up in her arms.

  ‘I’m wearing a top hat because I’m a magician.’

  ‘You are? How fabulous. Can you show me some magic tricks?’

  ‘Yes. Leo bought me a magic set and it has over fifty different tricks inside. I’m still learning some of them and Leo is helping me, he said he’s going to be my assistant and most of my tricks are at home, but I took one to school today to show the rest of the class and the teacher said I was a little Paul Daniels. I’m not sure who that is but I think he is a great magician too.’

  ‘Yes, he was,’ Melody said. ‘Go on then, show me.’

  She put him down just as Isla appeared in the doorway with Luke, their little black puppy.

  ‘Are you going to show Melody your trick?’ Isla said, closing the door behind her and letting Luke off the lead. Rocky greeted his brother with a bark from his basket at the back of the shop and Luke went careening off to play with him.

  ‘I have to get ready first,’ Elliot said as he moved to her desk at the far side of the room and unpacked a few things from his rucksack.

  Melody turned her attention to Isla. ‘Leo bought him a magic set?’

  Isla smiled fondly. ‘You know what Leo Jackson is like, he adores him.’

  Melody checked on Elliot, who was still busy and most likely not in hearing distance. ‘Just marry him, will you?’ she said, quietly.

  ‘You know it’s not that simple.’

  ‘Don’t see why not, you’re crazy about him,’ Melody said, desperate to see her sister get the happy ending she deserved.

  ‘Because not one of his silly marriage proposals have ever come with those three little words. Is that too much to ask for?’

  Melody sighed. ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘And we haven’t even been on one date. Don’t you think we should do that before I walk down the aisle with him? We’re stuck in this weird friend zone and I don’t think that will ever change.’