A Snowfall by the Sea

by Isla Gordon

Genres: Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

The brand-new heart-warming seasonal romance from Isla Gordon. This is the perfect festive treat for fans of Sarah Morgan and Heidi Swain!

'Heart-warming and full of hope' HEIDI SWAIN on A Season in the Snow

Cleo loves winter in Wavebreak Bay. The tourists leave as the temperatures drop, the fairy lights go up and it really starts to feel like home again. It also happens to be the time of year that her best friend Eliot comes back from San Francisco.

Though the seasons change, not much else in Cleo's life does. She's in a people-pleasing rut taking the worst shifts at the family restaurant, pet-sitting for her parents and making little time for herself. Cleo has spent so long thinking about everyone around her that she's lost sight of what she wants. And she wants Eliot. And she's decided that, this year, she's finally going to tell him.

But as the snow settles on Wavebreak Bay, Cleo's Christmas-for-two is disrupted by the arrival of her entire family - and more guests keep arriving. As Cleo works hard to make sure everyone else is having the most wonderful time of the year, will she finally pluck up the courage to stand up for herself . . . and to follow her heart?

Filled with beach walks, hot chocolates and a will-they-won't-they romance, this is the perfect festive treat for fans of Sarah Morgan and Heidi Swain.

Praise for ISLA GORDON:

'The most beautiful, heart-warming story. Gorgeously cosy, uplifting . . . utterly lovely book' HOLLY MARTIN, bestselling author

'Dogs + snow + romance = Sunday afternoon bliss!' - Fabulous

'A warm, beautiful read full of hope and friendship - of both the two-legged and the four-legged kind' Laura Bambrey, author of The Beginners Guide to Loneliness

Release date: November 24, 2022

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 90000

Sample

~ Now ~

October

Sometimes, wishing for change and wishing for things to stay the same could be as blended as sand in waves.

Cleo felt it all at once. The temperature of the seawater as it first washed over her bare feet (freezing). The exposure of standing there in her swimming costume for the first time in years (excruciating). How the expanse of ocean seemed before her (massive). The joy of being here on her own, without any interruptions, scratching against the concern that there was nobody else about, and what if something went wrong? How her soul was telling her it was time, while her brain was telling her maybe it wasn’t.

The mid-October sun prickled at her skin even at this early hour of the morning, as if it didn’t know autumn had started, as if it hadn’t had the memo that the leaves were turning red and jumper dresses were being pulled out of the back of wardrobes to air out, ready for sweater weather. Even so, the same sun hadn’t had a chance to heat the seawater yet today, and tiny, cold waves lapped at Cleo’s ankles before dragging sand and small stones back past her toes.

She moved her feet, flexing the soles, and wrapped her arms around her, covering herself up a bit, a barrier between her and the ocean.

‘Come on, then, you big chicken. It’s only a bit of cold water. You could just get in, you know,’ she muttered to herself, her words muffled by the seaside sounds, as soft as they were.

There was nobody on the beach at this time in the morning, at this time of year. She had total freedom to dip into the water, unwatched, unjudged. And she’d done the hardest thing, right? She was down here. When the alarm she’d been setting herself every day since the beginning of the month had gone off, she’d actually dragged herself out of bed, and come down here. All the other days she’d switched it off, too tired after an evening shift. Or she’d got as far as checking the sea conditions via Wavebreak Bay’s beach webcams and had changed her mind. Or she’d detected a cold wind in the air, one that surely would be tickling the shore by the time she’d walked down there from her flat.

But today she was here, and the sky was yellows and blues and the sea a swirl of crystal-clear topaz and mint, and there was no wind, and no reason she couldn’t break this apathy she’d been living under. All she had to do was dive in.

Cleo took an extra step forward, an icy wave foaming over her shin, and she let out a little swear as a seagull swooped past and, probably, rolled its eyes at her. It was cold, though. Had it always been this cold? Maybe she should come back down to the beach a bit later, when the water might have warmed up a bit.

A memory swam into Cleo’s mind of being a kid, maybe aged seven, and coming onto this beach for the first time.

‘Look at the water!’ she’d cried to Gabriela, her twin sister, as they’d raced down the cliff path from the house their parents had just moved them into.

‘This beach is all ours,’ screeched Gabriela, not quite accurately, cartwheeling in the sand in a way Cleo never managed but always tried anyway. The girls, having only experienced beaches a handful of times on family holidays, couldn’t believe their luck that they now lived right next to one.

‘I’m going to play in the sea every day,’ Cleo had declared, picked herself up and ran to the water’s edge before she skid to a halt to watch tiny pools of foam swirl on the surface of the shallow tide.

Cleo – now – was looking down at the same thing before her eyes. Morning sun glinting off the same ocean.

Back then, that first day, Gabriela hadn’t wanted to get in the water. She’d shied away, unsure if it was safe, unsure if they should without their mum or dad to supervise. But Cleo could see their mum leaning over their garden fence on the cliff, overlooking the beach, waving at them.

‘We can do this,’ she’d told Gabriela. Cleo had taken her hand and the two had skipped and splashed a little way into the water, keeping within sight of their mum, close to the shore, only staying in the sea for a couple of minutes.

A couple of minutes was all it had taken for them to transform into water babies, beginning a love of the ocean for the twins that hadn’t faded for years. Gabriela’s interest had waned when she’d moved away to Cambridge University. Cleo’s had remained up until a few years ago, when she’d begun to push aside her joy, saving it for a rainy day. Now it just seemed … easier … to stay on dry land.

Perhaps if she just ran into the ocean again, like she had as a little girl, it would all come back and she would be fixed—

Behind her, a little further along the beach, came the sound of someone stepping down from the esplanade and onto the big, round pebbles, the stones knocking against each other as they dislodged and shifted.

‘Cleo!’ called a voice, just as a chocolate brown Labrador pelted into her legs. ‘Bloody hell, are you going in? You’re brave!’ It was Clarissa, from work, out for a morning walk with her dog, Plop.

‘Yep. First swim of the season,’ Cleo called back, not specifying which season, in which year. ‘Wish me luck.’

Plop’s wet tail was thwacking against her leg, while a tennis ball bobbed in the wave before her.

‘You couldn’t throw that ball for him, could you?’ Clarissa asked, stepping closer, her pregnant belly visible through the slit in her jacket.

You know, maybe tomorrow would be a better day to swim. Cleo would be back down at the beach anyway, working the brunch shift at the restaurant – perhaps she could take a dip afterwards. Then the sun would have warmed swirls just below the surface, and it would be much more pleasant. She could even remember to bring her wetsuit (if it still fitted).

Besides, it would be good to give Clarissa a bit of company on her walk, especially since Plop kept dropping his ball in the ocean.

Yes, good idea. She wanted her first swim back in the sea, after years of feeling unmotivated, to be a gorgeous experience. Tomorrow.

Cleo turned back out of the ocean, having thrown Plop’s ball, and slipped her shorts and sweater back on, pulling salt crystals up the lengths of her shins. After strolling the beach with her friend for half an hour, she made her way back up the pebbles and onto the esplanade, then began her walk home.

Opening the door to her studio flat, which sat on the top floor of an old Regency home overlooking the tennis courts, her foot stepped on the morning’s post, already lying on the floor.

A bank statement, clothing catalogue, and … Cleo smiled.

Dropping the other mail back on the floor, she looked at the picture on the front of the postcard. It showed a black-and-white photo of ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly (the gangster, not the musician) with a Welcome to Alcatraz, San Francisco! stamp across the lower half.

Cleo carried the postcard into her kitchen corner, where her fridge was covered in magnets holding up picture postcards from Northern California, and sat down on a stool to savour the words.

San Francisco, California

1st October

Dear Cleo,

Get ready, because it’s nearly time! That sounds a bit threatening, especially on a postcard with Alcatraz on the front.

My San Fran summer has pretty much come to a close again. One day you should join me. I know you love Wavebreak Bay but the SF Bay is cool too, I promise.

Wish you were here, but not really, because I’m about to come over there!

Love, Eliot x

Eliot spent each summer away, and always took time to send her postcards filled with cute and funny thoughts, tales of the things he’d seen and the flavours he’d tasted and the sights he’d visited. Cleo made sure to send him postcards too, but hers always lacked a similar sense of adventure.

Nevertheless, forgetting about her failed mission to leap into the sea, she smiled. He was finally coming home.

The following day, Cleo was staring out of the window of her flat, down towards the deserted tennis courts below, waiting for her twin sister to call her back. She’d been waiting for so long, gazing out of that window, that she felt like a woman from an old novel waiting for her lover – Eliot – to come home from sea.

Her friend. Her friend Eliot.

Either way, he still wouldn’t be back in the UK for another couple of weeks. Although, who knows, maybe she’d still be waiting on her sister even then?

Eliot was Cleo’s best friend, if best-friendship was defined by the person who knew the real you better than anyone, and actually seemed to like you for it. Even though he left Wavebreak Bay every year to spend the six spring and summery months in San Francisco, it was always effortless to fall back into what they had every time he returned.

There was one thing he didn’t know about Cleo, though. Quite a big thing.

Her phone began tinkling with an incoming FaceTime.

‘Hey, sorry about that,’ Gabriela said, her phone propped up on her recipe holder while she did something on her laptop.

‘No problem at all!’ Cleo said, just happy to be having a catch-up with her sister. ‘I was just watching the hang-gliders over the beach.’

‘Beach’ was a stretch – from her flat she could see just a small snip of blue ocean. But even that was better than nothing. And she’d adored this flat the moment she’d stepped inside it.

‘I will never understand how you can still stare at sea for hours on end.’

‘Haha, I know, it’s weird, isn’t it?’ Cleo replied. For Gabriela, this seaside town was too sleepy for her nowadays, especially during the off-season, and, though she’d once loved the sea nearly as much as her sister, she had never felt the pull to move back.

‘Are you pleased “Cleo-Season” is back?’ her twin asked, looking into the screen with an amused, but fond, smile on her face, referring to Wavebreak Bay’s typically quieter winters.

When September ended, that, to Cleo, was the real end of summer in their seaside town on Devon’s Jurassic coast. Sure, every year the August bank holiday was heaving, but in Wavebreak Bay, nearly as many visitors swarmed the town the month after the kids went back to school. Everybody else trying to catch that summer sun before it faded away for the winter. If you can imagine what the last day of a self-catering holiday feels like, when you’re trying to fit in all the final activities, eat all the food, play in the sea one last time, that’s what the last weekend in September always felt like, except on a whole-town scale.

The seafood restaurant that Cleo worked in, Coacean, which sat on stilts above one end of the long beach, brimmed with customers from sunrise to the final sunset of September, and that’s when Cleo-Season (as Gabriela had referred to it since they were kids, with summer being ‘Gabriela-Season’) could begin.

‘I am so pleased,’ Cleo replied, already feeling like she had a little more breathing space.

‘Mum said Eliot is coming home again soon?’ Gabriela asked.

‘Yeah, it should be really nice.’

‘I wonder if he’s bagged a hot American girlfriend yet. How would you feel about that?’

Cleo shrugged, feigning indifference. ‘I mean, if he was happy … ’

Gabriela rolled her eyes. ‘You can say you’d hate it, you know. But seriously, one day he’s going to bring back some stunning, volleyball-playing, American girlfriend, who will also be absolutely lovely so you’ll feel compelled to become her best friend and next thing you know, you’ll be watching TikTok videos of their romantic city breaks across Europe. And you’ll be all, that could have been meeeeee.’

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Cleo protested, though Gabriela was probably right.

‘Or, he won’t come back at all.’

The words floated in the air between them like particles of dust. Every winter she worried it would be Eliot’s last coming back to Wavebreak Bay. Every year she swore she would admit her feelings for him, and then every year, without fail, time would drift by in a happy haze while he was here and then she’d be waving him goodbye again. Putting her life on hold, again.

And in fact, last winter he had come home with a hot American girlfriend. In a way. He’d started seeing somebody during the summer, early days, casual, he’d said, until she’d shown up here to surprise him in the New Year. She’d been none too pleased with the presence of Cleo, so Cleo had kept her distance until she’d gone, but when she’d spoken to Eliot during his first few days back in San Francisco again, he’d admitted they’d split up, and that she wasn’t right for him. But maybe the next girl would be.

Gabriela spoke again. ‘It’s been years. He’s thirty-one now. You’re thirty. What are you waiting for?’

Cleo didn’t have the answer. She was waiting for him to make a move? She was waiting for the right moment? She was afraid he was going to reject her and then she’d lose the him she held on to tightly, even from across an ocean? So she was waiting, because waiting was easier than knowing?

She changed the subject. ‘How are you? How’s Derek?’

Gabriela leaned away from the camera at that moment and said something to someone near her, presumably her fiancé. ‘He’s fine,’ she answered, facing the screen again. ‘He wanted to tell you to watch Orphan: First Kill because he thought you might like it.’

‘Oh great, I’ll check it out!’ Cleo enthused, dying inside just a little. She’d accidentally got herself into a pattern of watching horror movies after listening, with perhaps a little too much interest, to Derek discuss one the first time she’d met him. Now he kept suggesting new ones and then wanting to get her thoughts, and she didn’t really enjoy them, but didn’t want to be rude or hurt his feelings, when they were clearly a big deal for him.

And let’s face it, Derek wasn’t often one for extolling the virtues of things. Or places. Or people.

Gabriela and Cleo talked a little longer, about Gabriela’s wedding plans for next year, about their parents’ semi-retirement, about the girl Cleo saw in the restaurant the other day who they both went to school with, and who was now speaking with a faux-Australian accent for some reason.

‘Are you coming home any time before Christmas?’ Cleo asked, just before they rang off.

‘Maybe. I presume you’ll be around the whole time if I do, as usual?’

‘Yeah, probably, as usual. Miss you, sis!’

Cleo said goodbye and pressed the button to end the call, her flat falling into silence again. Maybe in a couple of weeks she could have Eliot over and they could have a big catch-up.

She soon found herself lost in a daydream of Eliot returning, walking across the beach, taking her in his arms, not saying a word, and sweeping her into the kiss she’d played out in her mind a hundred times or more.

That thing he didn’t know about her was that she’d fallen for him, and that the spark she held had ignited long, long ago.

~ Then ~

Summer 2007

The first time Cleo Clearwater saw Eliot Ambrose was over the low, moss-covered stone wall that separated her garden from the house next door. In the fifteen years she’d grown up on this cliff above Wavebreak Bay, she’d never seen anyone occupy the compact, square neighbouring garden other than the older couple who lived there, who seemed to have always been grey, and were often frowning.

But now, the woman was by her back door, a smile on her face that made her seem brighter, as a teenage boy stepped out past her into the sunshine.

Cleo swallowed, watching, and tried to silence her unremitting hay-fever-induced sniffles.

There was a warm, light breeze that day that flipped at the pages of the magazine she’d found on the bus, while she sat on the swinging seat overlooking the crowded beach below. The magazine had the words SEXY TIME emblazoned upon it in a large, purple font, something that both enthralled and embarrassed Cleo, and she kept it firmly face down whenever either of her parents came outside.

It was the first day of the school summer holidays, which meant, combined with today’s low tide, the exposed sand was awash with hundreds-and-thousands sprinkles of beach umbrellas, bathing suits, body boards, towels and picnics. The sea winds that rose upwards were saturated with the sounds of laughter and chatting and lapping waves, but Cleo was glad to be up here, away from the crowd.

The boy next door walked to the end of the garden, his profile to Cleo, and looked out across the sea. He had mid-brown hair, the colour of hazelnut ice cream, which waved in the breeze, and she could tell by how the wall only came up to his hips that he must be a little taller than her. His turquoise T-shirt was billowing in the warm air, and his hands were in the pockets of his shorts, like he was trying to make himself small, but even from her seat she could see there was a smile on his face.

He was the most delicious thing she’d ever seen and he was right there, practically in her garden. Just the knowledge of that caused a blush to creep in under her freckles.

‘Urgh, what are you reading?’ screeched a voice from behind Cleo, making her jump and tip out of the swinging seat onto the grass.

Gabriela plucked the magazine from, which lay face down on the ground, and flipped it over to where it was open, spread-eagle, on a page about how to have an amazing time in bed.

‘I didn’t … I wasn’t … the wind kept turning the pages.’ Cleo scrabbled to her feet and tried to grab at the magazine, only succeeding in ripping off the cover.

‘Get off,’ her twin sister said, turning her back, now engrossed in the article. ‘You shouldn’t be reading about this stuff—’

At that moment, Gabriela raised her eyes towards the neighbouring garden and stopped.

Cleo, grassy knees, blushing face and clasping the mangled cover of her magazine, followed her sister’s gaze.

The boy was still standing at the end of the garden, the older woman thankfully nowhere to be seen, but he was now looking behind him, over at the twins. He pulled a hand from his pocket and waved. ‘Hiya,’ he said.

‘Hiya,’ Cleo mimicked, unintentionally parroting the boy.

‘Hello,’ Gabriela said, with her head tilted to the side as she took him in.

Cleo glanced at her sister and despite the biggest grin she’d slapped on her face, the one she’d practised in the mirror that showed all her teeth and went up to her eyes, her heart sank. He’d been hers, her fantasy, for two tiny minutes, but if Gabriela locked her sights on him, Cleo knew she couldn’t compete. There was just something about her sister, a quality she possessed that Cleo didn’t, a self-confidence like she’d figured out her identity long ago and was completely comfortable with it, and it drew people to her.

While Cleo searched her vocabulary for something to say – ‘my name is’ would have been a perfectly acceptable start, if she’d thought about it – Gabriela asked outright, ‘Who are you? Are you related to our neighbours?’

‘Yeah,’ added Cleo, as if she, too, had been on the brink of asking the same thing, rather than just following Gabriela. As usual.

The boy nodded. ‘I’m their grandson. I’m Eliot.’

‘I’m Gabriela; this is Cleo.’

‘Hi,’ he replied, then looked at Cleo directly and said it again. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ she answered, the blush returning. Maybe it never left.

Gabriela looked over at her twin now, clocking the blush, amusement at the corners of her lips. But thankfully, the one thing her sister never did was that mortifying squawk her friends were prone to of declaring loudly, ‘You’re blushing! She’s totally blushing!’

From Gabriela’s fingertips still dangled the offending magazine like she was waving a flag. Just as Cleo tried to snatch it back, her sister turned on her heel and said, ‘I’m telling Mum you’ve been reading this.’

Cleo watched Gabriela stalk back into the house, not wanting to make a scene in front of this boy, instead emitting a faux-chuckle, like it was all great larks. She and her sister had taken to having moments where they screamed at each other over things that, to most people, seemed insignificant. Other times they bickered for hours, grating at each other about why the other twin wasn’t more like them. Gabriela usually won, and Cleo backed down to keep the peace. But as quickly as those arguments came, they could dissipate, and the twins would be back to huddling close on the sofa, limbs tangled, Gabriela asking Cleo to plait her silky hair while she mesmerised her sister with details of her new, blossoming, snog-filled love life.

‘Um … ’ Cleo searched for something to say, now Eliot and she were alone, but all she could think was, I’m alone with a really cute boy and what if he leans over the wall to kiss me and I’d totally let him.

‘Are you twins?’ Eliot asked.

‘Yep,’ Cleo said, desperate to throw out a second syllable somewhere to show him she could. ‘How did you know?’

The sisters were non-identical, so a lot of people didn’t realise they were twins. But Cleo could see the gold of her auburn curls reflected in strands of her sister’s chestnut hair. She could see the matching freckles on both of their noses. When they were out on the water together, even as little girls, Cleo could see a similar sense of happy contentment reflected in Gabriela.

But Eliot saw it too. At least, he saw something in her. However, he just shrugged, a little shyly, and said, ‘I don’t know. Lucky guess.’

‘So, um, why are you here?’ Cleo asked. She’d meant, What brings you to Wavebreak Bay? Why haven’t I seen you at your grandparents’ house before? But, as her mum liked to say, Cleo had a long-standing infliction of foot-in-mouth disease so she rarely seemed to find the right words.

But Eliot didn’t seem offended, or even fazed. ‘I’m spending the summer with my grandparents.’

‘Oh.’ She nodded. And he nodded. And just as she was about to say something else – though she didn’t know what yet – he turned and walked back towards the bungalow.

‘OK, see you round.’

‘See you round,’ she parroted, again.

Finally, as the door closed to the bungalow next door, Cleo allowed herself to take a big, pollen-filled, snotty sniff, just as her own back door opened.

‘Cleo,’ her mother, Felicity, . . .