The Coastal Cottage – Part 2: Clearing

The rain stopped in the night.

Bethan woke to a blaze of light through the curtains. She stumbled to the window and gasped. The bay was a sheet of hammered silver. The sky was a clean washed blue. Seals lay on the rocks below like fat black commas. The whole coast sparkled.

"Gareth!"

"Mmph?"

"Look!"

They walked the coastal path after breakfast, hand in hand, over springy turf and between banks of gorse and thrift. The cliff edge fell away to the sea, deep green and white-flecked. Skylarks hung in the sky, singing. At every turn, the view opened wider, headland beyond headland, a glittering blue horizon.

They came, at noon, to a hidden cove, a crescent of shingle under high cliffs, empty but for a pair of oystercatchers. Gareth set down the rucksack. Bethan kicked off her boots and waded into the cold shallows, laughing.

"It's freezing!"

"Come out then."

"No!"

They ate sandwiches on a flat rock, shoulders touching, the sun warm on their faces. A seal bobbed up in the surf and watched them with big dark eyes. Bethan lay back on the warm stone, and Gareth lay beside her, and they looked at the sky.

"I'm happy," she said.

"So am I."

"I'd forgotten how."

"Can I ask you something?" said Gareth.

"Yes."

"May I kiss my wife? In front of the seal?"

"Yes," said Bethan. "And if I say stop, you must cook soup every night for a year."

"Burnt onions?"

"Burnt onions."

He kissed her, slow and salty, a big hand cupping her face. She kissed him back with all the fondness of twenty years, her fingers in his beard. The waves sighed on the shingle. The seal slid under the water and left them be.

When they parted, both of them were smiling.

"Green?" he asked.

"Green," said Bethan. "Very green."

They go back every October. It rains. The soup burns. They would not change a thing.

More married couple romance: The Cruise · Couples Retreat · The Second Honeymoon