Summer at Buttercup Beach: A gorgeously uplifting and heartwarming romance Read online

  He focussed his attention back on the town. He loved to run at this time of night, when the rest of the island was tucked up in their homes for the night. There was barely a soul to be seen apart from a few stragglers coming out of the pub and going home. It was so quiet and peaceful and it allowed him time to think. He had been doing a lot of that lately, mostly about what he wanted from his life.

  Things were going great right now. He had a job he loved and thanks to his best friend, Freya Greene, the company was a huge success. His family were happy, his little sister was in love, which was something he’d never thought would happen, and Eden’s shop seemed to be busy and thriving. But his personal life was… was it fair to say it was lacking? That didn’t seem right when he had a best friend who he thought the world of. He and Freya spent almost every spare second together and there was no one he enjoyed spending time with as much as he loved being with her. She made him laugh, they could talk for hours and never draw breath. He had gone out on barely any dates recently because he would much rather spend time with her. She made him really happy but he knew in his heart there was something missing from his life. He missed being in a proper relationship.

  After Paige had died he hadn’t wanted another relationship; had been too fearful to fall in love again because the pain of losing her had been too much to bear. He had guarded his heart and that had worked just fine for him. But recently he had been thinking that maybe it was time to move on from the past.

  His sister Bella had been equally protective over her heart, although for completely different reasons. After her parents had abandoned her as a child and she was adopted and raised by his parents, her aunt and uncle, she had shied away from falling in love in case she was rejected all over again. But she had opened her heart to Isaac earlier that year, she had taken a risk and it had paid off; he had never seen her so deliriously happy in his whole life before. He wanted that too, that wonderful feeling of being in love again.

  His thoughts turned to Freya again as they had many times over the last few months. If he was honest, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He wasn’t sure how he would describe his feelings for Freya. He knew they were far from just being platonic, they never had been. But they were so different to how he’d felt for Paige. His time with Paige had been fuelled by sex, a passion that was fierce and urgent and demanding. It had been six years since she’d died and his memories of her were fading. They’d had a good laugh, they’d talked about the future in that vague way where neither of them really knew what the future would hold for them. They’d spoken about when they would get married but never about having children as if they both knew that was way too serious for what they had. That was telling in itself. Rome had always wanted children. But their conversations had never ventured into anything that could be considered deep. Looking back he wasn’t sure if they’d ever really had anything more than amazing sex.

  His feelings for Freya went way beyond that. He cared for her so deeply, just the thought of her made him smile, the fact that he wanted to spend all his time with her and missed her when they were apart spoke volumes. He craved her too. He wanted to kiss her, dreamed about making love to her and it scared him to death. If he was honest with himself, he’d always had these feelings for Freya but had never been willing to do anything about it. A fear of getting hurt again, a fear of ruining the beautiful friendship they shared had stopped him from taking it any further. He had denied his feelings to anyone who asked and for the longest time denied them to himself. He knew he had to talk to her about it but he had been putting it off for some time. Maybe it was time to take a risk. Though if he did take that risk, what if she didn’t feel the same way? He had no idea what women were thinking and, while there had been many looks or comments from Freya over the last few years that suggested she had feelings for him too, he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t just projecting what he wanted to see.

  Down in the town, he spotted Bella’s distinctive red hair as she walked alongside Isaac back towards his house overlooking Blueberry Bay. He knew that the girls had spent the evening together and if Bella had left it probably meant the evening had come to an end, and Freya would be leaving Eden’s soon too. His heart leapt that he might see her again and he shook his head. He was behaving like a schoolboy with a silly crush.

  He scanned the houses until he found Eden’s cottage with her distinctive pink front door and, sure enough, the door opened and he saw the glow of gold as Freya’s hair caught in the moonlight. She hugged Eden goodbye and stepped out onto the street.

  He ran down the hill and headed towards the high street where he knew Freya would be heading too as she made her way home. Once he was down in the town, he lost sight of her and, as he moved into the high street, he wasn’t sure if he was now ahead of her or behind. He cast around the deserted street and then saw her staring through one of the shop windows. As he moved closer, he realised it was the jewellery shop and she was staring at the engagement and wedding rings.

  Freya was probably the least romantic out of the three girls and he didn’t take her for someone who had fairy tale dreams of love and romance. But of course she would want a happy ending with someone too. He suddenly remembered that tomorrow would have been her second anniversary of marrying Jake and maybe she was thinking about that. How different would her life have been if she hadn’t walked in on her fiancé cheating on her a few days before her wedding? Would they have stayed together, would they have been happy?

  He swallowed the sudden lump of emotion in his throat. How different would his life have been if he hadn’t met her? Would he still have been grieving over Paige? Even if he had managed to snap out of his period of mourning, his life would have been empty without Freya. The thought of not having her in his life made him feel sick. She had given him so much. He had simply existed before, but now he felt alive. She brought so much energy to his life that he knew he would miss her if she was gone.

  She suddenly caught sight of him in the reflection of the window and turned round to face him, a huge smile filling her face.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, moving closer.

  ‘Hey.’

  He gestured to the window. ‘Choosing your engagement ring?’

  Freya laughed, completely unabashed. ‘A girl can dream.’

  ‘Would you really get married after what happened with Jake?’

  ‘Of course. Just because the last guy was a complete tit, doesn’t mean the next one will be. I would never be scared of falling in love again. Real love is too precious and wonderful to hide away from.’

  He looked at her. She had as much right to be fearful of love as he did. Love could hurt you in so many different ways. Rejection, unrequited love, affairs, death. Being in love was so fraught with possible problems but his best friend didn’t see it that way. She was braver than he was.

  He stepped closer to the window and peered in. ‘Which would you choose if you were to get engaged again?’

  ‘Traditionally, it’s the man who would do the choosing. Which one would you choose for me?’ Freya challenged.

  He chuckled as he looked down at her. Her warm caramel brown eyes were like whisky; flecked with gold they sparkled in the streetlights. With her white-blonde hair, streaked with blue, she was uniquely beautiful.

  Realising he was staring, he glanced back into the window at all the diamonds. They glittered and twinkled in the light from the street, but there was nothing special about these rings.

  ‘None of these.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘They’re not unique enough.’

  He moved to her other side to look at the antique rings, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, but there was nothing that grabbed his attention. Getting the right engagement ring was a lot harder than he thought.

  But then he saw it. At the very bottom of the display, resting in the palm of a plaster-cast hand, was an opal ring. The shoulders of the ring were encrusted with diamonds, but the gold-looking opal was a startling array of colours. He squatted d
own to get a closer look at it, watching the facets of colour change as he moved. The ring looked like it was on fire as it glowed gold in the streetlights.

  ‘This one.’

  He stood up and looked at Freya.

  ‘I love opals. They’re so unique and beautiful,’ Freya said, softly, looking up at him, and he sensed something had shifted between them.

  ‘They’re quite rare, especially ones this colour,’ Rome said.

  Freya looked back at the ring. ‘I love it.’

  ‘Although if I’m honest, I think I would make you an engagement ring from fused glass. I would choose the perfect colours and tones and make something that no one else in the world had, something that celebrates how exceptional and special you really are.’

  She stared up at him, her eyes wide with surprise.

  ‘But it depends whether you’re a girl that prefers the expense of rubies and diamonds or someone who would appreciate that, although the ring is only made from glass, it’s something that was made specifically with you in mind.’

  Freya swallowed. ‘If it was the right man, it wouldn’t matter if it was a cheap plastic ring from the inside of a cracker, because marrying him would be the only thing that mattered. I love the idea of having a ring made just for me.’

  Rome suddenly realised how close they were standing. He took a step back. What was he doing? Choosing engagement rings with his best friend? They’d never even kissed and suddenly they had taken a big leap. It felt intimate and terrifying all at once.

  ‘Let me walk you home.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, it’s completely the opposite direction from your house.’

  Rome shrugged. ‘It’s not far. And you never know what unsavoury characters are hanging around at this time of night.’

  Freya laughed, knowing as well as he did that unsavoury characters on Hope Island were as unlikely as aliens coming down and kidnapping her. ‘I know. There I was looking at rings and then I see this creepy guy staring at me.’

  Rome laughed as she fell in at his side and started walking back towards her flat.

  ‘He was breathing heavily, obviously some right pervert.’

  Rome nudged her and she nudged him right back.

  They fell into an easy silence and as her hand briefly brushed against his, he had an overwhelming urge to suddenly slide his fingers through hers and hold her hand.

  ‘Did you have a good night with Eden and Bella?’ he asked, trying to distract himself from how close their fingers were. He couldn’t decide whether he was walking really close to her or if she was walking really close to him. They seemed to gravitate towards each other.

  ‘Yes, I love your sisters.’

  ‘They love you,’ Rome said, honestly. ‘All my family do.’

  ‘What did you do with your night?’ Freya asked.

  ‘Reading, went for a run.’

  She looked up at him, a smirk on her lips. ‘No hot date?’

  Rome shrugged. ‘It feels like a waste of my time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I want something more than just sex.’

  ‘You never give these girls a chance – you go out once, twice if they’re lucky, and you never see them again. Some of them could be something more if you’d let them.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m looking for someone special.’

  ‘What is it that you’re looking for?’

  ‘Someone who can make me laugh, someone I can talk to and who I enjoy spending time with.’

  She went quiet next to him and he realised he had pretty much described what he had with her. Had she recognised that too? He looked up to see that they were approaching the front door that led up to her flat above the shop.

  She put the key in the lock and then stepped inside, turning back to face him.

  ‘I’m very much looking forward to our dinner tomorrow night.’

  He smiled. ‘I am too. Don’t be late for work tomorrow. I know what that commute is like.’

  ‘Yes, those thirteen stairs are a killer.’

  He grinned. ‘Goodnight, Freya.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  He waited for her to close the door and then he turned back towards his own house. What was he doing?

  Chapter Four

  Rome was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming because he’d had this dream many times before. It varied slightly over the years but the basic crux of it was the same. However, knowing it was a dream didn’t stop the events from unfolding and it didn’t stop the heart-pounding, stomach-wrenching fear he felt every single time it happened.

  He was standing in the main high street talking to Freya, the sun was shining, he could hear children laughing and playing, when suddenly he knew he was being watched. And, like in all good horror films, when he turned his head to see, there was a hooded cloaked figure. Death. The grim reaper had come to claim him.

  Rome started to run, dragging Freya along with him in a desperate attempt to get away, but every time he looked over his shoulder, Death was getting closer and closer, seemingly with very little effort at all.

  ‘Run,’ he urged, panic gripping him, but Freya didn’t seem to see the urgency, she didn’t seem to see Death either. He kept on running but Death was closing on him with every step.

  Death reached out to grab Rome’s arm and he quickly pushed Freya behind him out of harm’s reach. He tried to fight Death off but his grip was unrelenting as he dragged Rome away from Freya, dragged him away from his home and everything he loved so dearly. He fought as hard as he could but it was no use. In a last desperate bid to stop him, Rome pushed back the hood of the figure and, with sickening dread, stared into the dead eyes and mutilated body of Paige.

  He woke with a jerk in the darkness and quickly leaned over and slammed on the bedside lamp.

  He was alone in his bedroom and he lay back on his pillow and stared at the ceiling as he tried to slow his breathing back to normal.

  His childhood had been plagued by these dreams. His gran had died when he was eight and he’d gone to her funeral, which had been open casket. He’d not been allowed in to see the body, instead waiting outside while everyone had gone in to pay their respects before the main service. But that hadn’t stopped him sneaking in while they all filed into the other room ready for the service. He’d stared at the dead body, finding it hard to fathom that his gran, who had been so full of life and spirit, was nothing more than this empty shell.

  After the funeral, he’d had a weird fascination with death and did a lot of research on it, how different cultures celebrated the lives or mourned the loss. But the one thing that had stuck with him had been the figure of the grim reaper who came to collect the souls of the living.

  For years after he would have nightmares of the grim reaper coming to take him away. He’d eventually grown out of it in his early teens. But after Paige had died, the dreams had returned. Same dreams but this time they always ended with Paige being the grim reaper that had come to take him away. In the dreams she was nothing more than this zombified corpse, horribly disfigured after the rollercoaster accident. He’d had them a lot after the accident – they had become less and less frequent over the years, but he still had them occasionally. Sometimes in the dreams, Paige came to take Eden or Bella or his parents away and Rome would try to hold onto them as Paige dragged them kicking and screaming away from him. There was nothing he could do to stop Paige from taking them.

  He rubbed his face and sat up. There was no way he was going to get back to sleep now and he didn’t want to if the zombified face of his ex was waiting for him.

  Poor Paige. She deserved better than to be remembered as a mutilated zombie. She had been beautiful and so sweet and kind.

  He got out of bed, washed his face, got dressed and slipped out onto the moonlit hillside. The island lay in darkness, only the twinkling streetlights showing any sign of life at all. He walked down his small road and then cut down the steps onto Buttercup Beach. The inky water lapped gently on the sand and
out on the horizon there was a thin glow of pink as the sun prepared to make its appearance.

  He walked along the shoreline and as his eyes became accustomed to the dark he could pick out the bright pinpricks above him, which he knew were planets.

  He walked the length of Buttercup Beach and sat down to watch the sun rise. Right on cue, a thin sliver of gold lit up the horizon and then slowly spread out across the sea and the clouds as it chased the nightmares away. It was going to be another glorious day.

  His thoughts turned to Freya as they constantly did. She always filled his thoughts; before he went to sleep, when he woke up, she was always there.

  He wanted to see her now, partly because just being with her made him feel so much better, but mostly because he wanted to check she was OK, which was completely irrational. It was a dream and he had been the one to get taken away by the grim reaper, not Freya.

  He glanced over towards the row of houses that was the start of the high street and looked up to where he knew her flat was. To his surprise, he could see her light was on. Her window was so easy to spot as it was one he had made himself. Although it was mostly clear glass so it didn’t hinder the view, there were blue waves and a dolphin jumping out of the water at the bottom.

  He scrambled up and walked up the steps to the high street and followed the little lane up to the door of her flat. He let himself in using his key and walked up the stairs. A feeling of contentment washed over him as soon as he stepped inside her flat – as if he was home, even though he’d never lived there. She was in the kitchen, singing to herself, and as he closed the door behind him, she poked her head out to see who it was. Her face erupted into a huge grin when she saw him. No questions or comments, no look of surprise at having him turn up in her home at six in the morning. He knew it wasn’t the first time but he wondered at what point it had become the norm for her.