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

by Holly Martin

  ‘Pasta OK?’

  ‘Yes, that’s fine,’ Melody said, following him in. ‘So, marks out of ten for my course?’

  ‘Well, as a paying customer, I had a bloody great time tonight.’ He gave her a mischievous grin over his shoulder as he was chopping a pepper.

  ‘I set fire to you,’ Melody protested.

  ‘I set fire to myself. That was my own stupid fault. Anyone with half a brain would think about the possibility of the spray-on varnish being flammable. Besides, I was talking about the special one-on-one attention I got before the incident and the amazing conclusion to the lesson after I set fire to myself.’

  She smiled at him. ‘You always see the positive in our dates.’

  He turned to her and frowned. ‘And you always focus on the negatives.’

  ‘It’s hard not to, they’ve been a disaster.’

  His frown deepened even more. ‘I don’t see that at all. I’ve had three dates which have included kissing you and holding you, time spent with you chatting and laughing. That sounds pretty perfect to me.’

  She smiled sadly that he was kind enough to look past all her imperfections, clumsiness and inherent ability to somehow attract accidents and hazards everywhere she went.

  ‘You don’t see your worth, do you?’ Jamie said, softly. ‘Why is that, I wonder.’

  She flinched inside. That was a sore nerve she hadn’t really thought about for many years. She didn’t realise that wound was still there.

  ‘Is this to do with your mum?’

  ‘No, why do you think that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe because she had nothing positive to say to you since you were a teenager, you started to think there is nothing positive about you at all.’

  ‘I’m happy with who I am,’ Melody said, but she couldn’t help the defensive tone seeping into her voice.

  He cocked his head slightly as he studied her. ‘But you’re not, are you? You don’t see what I see at all.’

  ‘A walking disaster zone?’

  ‘You have so many more qualities than that.’

  ‘Being clumsy and accident-prone is not a quality,’ Melody said.

  He smiled. ‘It is, it’s very endearing. But as I said, there is so much more to you than that.’

  ‘I’m good at making jewellery.’ Melody tried to see what Jamie could see. She did have good points, she knew that.

  ‘You are, but that is the tip of the iceberg.’ He paused as he stepped up to her. ‘I’m going to show you what I see, but not today. I have a plan. But this…’ he laid his hand over her heart, ‘…is the thing I adore most of all.’

  Her little romantic heart soared at that.

  ‘Come here tomorrow night, I have an idea for a date that can’t possibly go wrong,’ Jamie said.

  She grinned. ‘Now that, I have to see.’

  16

  Jamie stood outside his shop the next day in the tiny courtyard, kissing Melody goodbye. They’d been there, kissing for the last five minutes. Other shop owners had walked around them to get to their own shops and he didn’t care. He was more than happy taking his time with it because he really bloody enjoyed kissing her. It didn’t matter that he was going to see her tonight; he could honestly spend the whole day kissing her and never get tired of it.

  She pulled back slightly with a big smile on her face. ‘I need to get to work and so do you.’

  ‘Spoilsport,’ Jamie said, giving her another brief kiss.

  She waved goodbye to him and he watched her go. It was safe to say he was well and truly smitten.

  He walked into his art studio knowing he was wearing the biggest grin on his face. Klaus was already waiting for him, two mugs of coffee in his hands, a huge smirk playing on his lips.

  Klaus handed him his mug. ‘Happy Birthday!’

  Jamie’s smile slipped slightly. He never really wanted to celebrate his birthday so he tried to keep quiet about it, but that didn’t stop his friends and family wanting to celebrate for him.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It seems like you’ve already had a great start to your day.’ Klaus nodded towards Melody’s shop. ‘God, I thought I might have to surgically separate you both, you guys were kissing for so long.’

  Jamie smiled and sat down at his desk, noticing the neatly wrapped present. Klaus hovered; evidently this conversation was nowhere near finished.

  ‘So it’s going well then?’ Klaus said, grabbing a chair and sitting down opposite Jamie.

  ‘It’s so much better than I could possibly have imagined. I don’t know why I held back for so long.’

  ‘Tell me everything, what’s the sex like? Is it amazing? With a smile that big she’s got to be good in bed. Does she…’ He made an obscene gesture.

  ‘I’m not telling you those details,’ Jamie objected. He wasn’t a prude, but he didn’t talk about his sex life with anyone. That was private.

  ‘Ah come on, my sex life is completely lacking at the moment, but I can live vicariously through you. What was the first time like? I think you can tell a lot about a relationship from the first time you sleep with someone. Was it passionate, sweet, was it swinging from the chandeliers?’

  Jamie laughed. ‘My relationship with Melody is wonderful and she makes me very happy, but it’s also private.’

  ‘You just snogged her face off for the last five minutes in front of everyone; you were caught on the beach the other night in the throes of passion. This doesn’t sound very private to me. Just tell me something, one little snippet, anything,’ Klaus pleaded.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please. Pleeeeeeeeaaaase!’ Klaus begged.

  ‘There’s nothing to tell,’ Jamie said, getting frustrated.

  Klaus’s face fell. ‘Nothing to tell? You haven’t slept together yet?’

  Jamie sighed, wishing he hadn’t said that. ‘We’re taking things slowly.’

  ‘Do you not want to sleep with her?’ Klaus pushed.

  ‘Of course I bloody do,’ Jamie snapped. ‘But we… have this friend arrangement.’

  ‘Friends with benefits?’ Klaus asked, in confusion.

  ‘No, sort of. No, it’s not that—’

  ‘Not if you’re not shagging it’s not, it’s just friends.’

  Jamie rubbed his head. ‘No, we’re friends who are dating so there’s no pressure to try to be super romantic or wear a suit on a date. We’re just going to be ourselves and have fun as we always do and date as well.’

  ‘And have sex, right? If you’re going to have a friends with benefits arrangement, you have to have the benefits as well.’

  ‘She wants to wait.’

  His face fell even more. ‘Till marriage?’

  ‘No, just… we’ve not even been dating a week yet, and none of our dates have exactly been smooth sailing. I think she’s just waiting for the right time.’

  ‘There is no right time. It’s sex, not buying a house.’

  ‘The right time is when she is ready for it,’ Jamie said, defensively. ‘And I’m happy to wait as long as she needs.’

  Klaus obviously realised this conversation was over as he stood up. ‘All right mate, no need to get tetchy. Clearly the lack of sex is making you really frustrated.’

  Jamie decided not to mention that it was Klaus that was making him really frustrated, not Melody. He motioned his head towards the present.

  ‘Thank you for this.’

  Klaus shrugged but Jamie could tell he wasn’t really upset.

  ‘Can you do me a favour actually? Melody is doing her workshop on Monday. Could you go over and set up a projector and camera for her so she can do close hand work?’

  ‘Yeah, no problem. I can do that, I’ll pop over later.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Klaus went over to his side of the studio and started work. Jamie sipped his coffee for a few minutes as he thought about his new addition to the sculpture he was working on for the competition that weekend.

  The studio door opened and Jamie looked
up and saw that it was Carolyn, Melody’s mum. Well, that was a bit of a surprise.

  He stood up and went over to greet her. ‘Hello Carolyn, how are you doing today?’

  ‘I’m good. I’m looking to buy one of your sculptures for a friend. We came past here the other day and he mentioned how much he loved the horse in the window. I thought I’d buy it for him.’

  ‘That’s very nice of you,’ Jamie said, noticing that his tone of voice held an element of surprise. He cleared his throat. ‘Do you want to take it now or shall I have it delivered?’

  ‘Oh, a delivery would be great,’ Carolyn said.

  He gestured for her to come over to the till and took payment from her, writing down her details.

  ‘Thank you, he’s going to be so pleased when he sees it,’ Carolyn said, excitedly.

  She turned to go but Jamie suddenly had an idea.

  ‘Carolyn?’

  She turned back to face him.

  ‘I wonder if I might trouble you for a few moments of your time.’

  She looked surprised but she nodded.

  ‘I’m doing a sculpture for the competition this weekend.’ He paused because no one ever saw his work before it was finished, but this would work so much better if Carolyn saw it. ‘It’s not finished yet but… would you like to see it?’

  She nodded keenly. He pulled back the curtain and she stepped up to look.

  She gasped when she saw it. ‘Oh… God, it’s… beautiful.’

  He knew straight away that he had done the right thing.

  ‘Thank you. It’s not quite finished and I have an idea for what I can do to finish it off. Maybe you can help me?’

  Melody added the last piece of glass to her mosaic for the sculpture competition on Sunday and stood back to admire it. It looked great and she was really pleased with how it had turned out.

  She had been glad of the distraction that morning. All she had been able to think about was that incredibly hot kiss the night before, the way Jamie had tugged her clothes off with a desperation for her. No one had ever done that before. In fact Kevin had taken his own clothes off and folded them neatly on the chair, encouraging her to do the same. But with Jamie, there had been this urgency to be with her. Her dress flung across the room, he had ripped his own shirt off in his need to be skin to skin with her. And when she had stopped him from taking off any more clothes, he had spent hours kissing her, caressing and stroking her all over. God, she wanted to be with him now, but she wanted it to be the right time too. In her mind, it would be super romantic and perfect, though she wasn’t sure what she should do to achieve that.

  The shop door opened and Emily walked in. She was always so busy in the café that Melody didn’t see her outside of it very often, let alone two days in a row. She knew Emily would be taking a few days off here and there over the summer to spend with Marigold; fortunately, as Emily owned her own café, she had the flexibility to do that.

  ‘Oh hey, has your boss given you another day off?’ Melody teased as she mixed the grout ready for applying to the mosaic.

  ‘She’s a hard taskmaster, that one,’ Emily said. ‘Always works me to the bone, but today I’ve managed to wangle a day off. We’re going to the fun pool over in Meadow Bay. Marigold is very excited because there’s a slide called the Death Star which apparently we have to go on.’

  Melody laughed. ‘Where is she?’

  Emily pointed over to Jamie’s studio and Melody could see Jamie playing with her.

  ‘I just popped in because I need some gemstones for my sculpture for Sunday.’

  ‘Oh, OK, what are you thinking of?’

  ‘Well, gemstones have different meanings, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes, they do. What are you looking for?’

  ‘Do you have one for happiness?’

  Melody nodded. ‘Alexandrite is for joy.’

  ‘That works.’

  Melody pulled out her box of stones and fished out an alexandrite stone.

  ‘That’s lovely. I also need one for creativity and imagination.’

  ‘Um, citrine is supposed to represent imagination and diopside is good for creativity.’

  ‘I’ll take both. And can you label each one somehow, so I know which one is which?’

  ‘I can wrap each one in tissue paper and write on that.’

  ‘That sounds good, I’ll have forgotten which one is citrus and alexander by the time I get back home.’

  Melody smiled and didn’t bother to correct her.

  Emily pulled out a sheet of paper from her pocket, which looked like it held a list.

  ‘I’ll also need one for bravery and courage, one for friendship, generosity, patience, passion, persistence, compassion, warmth, wisdom, empowerment, integrity, loyalty, honesty, energy and—’

  ‘You want a gemstone for each of these meanings?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are you making?’

  Emily visibly panicked. ‘It’s a surprise. You’ll see it when it is revealed to the village along with everyone else’s.’

  ‘Right, OK.’

  ‘This is kind of something for Marigold. These are the qualities I hope for her,’ Emily said, vaguely.

  ‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ Melody said, not entirely convinced that Emily was telling the truth. ‘This is going to work out quite expensive though.’

  Even if she charged Emily cost price, it would still cost her a lot.

  ‘Oh, it’s OK, money is no object apparently,’ she said, dryly, as if she didn’t entirely agree with that sentiment.

  Melody started fishing through her stones pulling out the relevant ones. The Jacksons were not a particularly affluent family. They weren’t poor but definitely not rich either. She knew that Leo lived in a very large house, but she also knew he’d received a really big pay-out after his accident in the fire brigade cost him his job. His job in his own firework display company also gave him a good income. Jamie earned a ton of money for his sculptures and deservedly so, but she didn’t think that Emily was that well-off that she could afford to spend a few hundred pounds on gemstones for a sculpture that was only going to be on the beach for a few days. Unless this sudden generosity had come from her husband Stanley. She didn’t see Stanley very often because he worked out of town, but she knew he absolutely adored his daughter. Maybe this was his idea.

  ‘Can I see the list?’ Melody said, and her eyes widened when she saw how long it was. But doing something like this for Marigold was a lovely idea, even if the little girl might be a bit too young to appreciate it.

  ‘I can’t wait to see your sculpture,’ Melody said. ‘All of them actually. It will be interesting to see how different people have interpreted the theme.’

  ‘I think you’ll be surprised. People love Sandcastle Bay for lots of different reasons,’ Emily said. ‘I think you’ll love Jamie’s.’

  ‘He’s showed you?’

  ‘No, he never shows anyone, but I have a good idea what he’s done from the brief information he told me this morning.’

  Melody nodded. She couldn’t wait to see it; she knew it would be something amazing.

  ‘It’s exciting. What time does it all kick off on Sunday?’ Melody said, slowly working her way down the list.

  ‘Seven o’clock is the big reveal and the party and entertainment will happen after that.’

  ‘It should be a great night.’

  ‘I bet it will be super romantic as well,’ Emily said, dreamily. ‘The moon, stars, the fireworks, the sea lapping on the sand. It’s definitely a night for love and romance.’

  Melody looked at her, wondering if she was saying that purely for her benefit. But she was right. Sunday would be perfectly romantic and maybe, after a night of romance and dancing under the stars, it would be the perfect time to take her and Jamie’s relationship to the next level.

  Melody was just walking back from The Cherry on Top after lunch when she bumped into Klaus. He had the biggest ice cream she’d ever seen, a pale pink whipp
ed affair with sprinkles, and fruit and marshmallows covering it. She was surprised it didn’t have a cocktail umbrella too.

  ‘Hello my darling, you’re looking beautiful today.’

  Melody grinned. She really liked Klaus. He was completely over the top and as bad as Agatha for interfering, but he had a good heart.

  ‘Thank you, you’re not looking bad yourself.’ Melody nodded towards his bright turquoise Hawaiian shirt. Nobody looked good in a Hawaiian shirt any more, but somehow Klaus managed to pull it off.

  ‘Ah thank you, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, it’s definitely time to dig out the summer shirt. Have you tried these new ice creams from Sprinkles? They are to die for.’ He shoved it towards her for her to take a lick but she smiled and waved it away.

  ‘Thanks but I just had a big lunch with Tori.’

  ‘Ah, how are the young love birds?’

  ‘Very happy.’

  ‘And you and Jamie?’ He waggled his eyebrows mischievously. ‘Are you very happy too?’

  Melody couldn’t help the grin from spreading on her face.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes. He’s been telling me all about your little friends with benefits arrangement,’ Klaus said, taking a big lick of his ice cream.

  Her heart sank a little. ‘Is that what he called it?’

  ‘Um…’ Klaus said, clearly trying to think back. ‘Well yeah. Friends who date. I’m not totally sure I understand it myself. I mean, he’s not actually getting the “benefit” part, is he, so are you just friends that kiss?’

  Melody felt her cheeks flush that Jamie had discussed their lack of sex with Klaus.

  ‘He told you that we haven’t had sex yet?’ Melody asked, quietly, mortification crawling over her.

  ‘The boy is desperate to get you into bed; he’s like a rabid dog foaming at the mouth for you. He was very snappy with me this morning, obviously sexually frustrated,’ Klaus said knowingly. ‘Nothing worse than walking around with wood in your pants for days on end and not being able to do anything about it. You should totally put the poor boy out of his misery.’