Undertaking Love (17 page)

Stuck-up cow
.

Emily dumped the detritus of her bag onto the desk, including the minty green spare pair of granny knickers she carried around at all times these days because some pregnancy know-it-all on TV told her she needed to.

‘And this has been sitting in your file, too. Should have been given to you a while back. Not sure what happened there.’ The receptionist dangled a brown envelope from her shell-pink fingertips, not willing to risk direct contact with anything connected to such a blatant Jezebel. She shrugged and turned away to tap on her computer keyboard. ‘Sorry.’

Emily glowered at her. She didn’t look very sorry. She tucked the extra paperwork underneath her chin as she gave up on the phone and swept her belongings back into the Tardis. It was probably only some shonky salesman on the flip side of the globe trying to sell her something she didn’t need, anyway.

Outside, she made a dash for her Micra, barely noticing as she passed beneath a window cleaner’s ladder. She flung the offensive bag into the passenger side and hurled the brown envelope down on top of it. Back in the relative safety of her seat, she placed her hands in the ten to two position on the wheel and breathed out slowly. Back in again. Out again nice and easy, eyes closed as she tried to connect with her inner peace, or whatever it was the smug TV pregnancy guru insisted on at least twice a day for the baby’s well-being. Her eyes snapped open in surprise as someone rapped hard on the window. The whistling window cleaner, his chamois in one hand and something pale green in the other.

Oh, God. No. Just, no.

Emily inched the window down a fraction and squinted at him, her cheeks already fiery with humiliation.

‘You dropped yer knickers, darlin’.

Evil git-bag. He was having a good old laugh at her expense.

‘Thank you.’ Emily squeaked. ‘They
are
clean.’

Ground, swallow me up
.

She yanked them through the gap and whizzed the window up again as he sauntered away, shoulders still shaking with laughter.

The accuracy of his words, however, wasn’t wasted on her. How she wished she hadn’t dropped her knickers. She wouldn’t be in this mess then. The smug TV guru wouldn't have been impressed by the way Emily thumped her forehead against the steering wheel and cursed like a navvy as she pulled out of the car park in tears.

Marla placed the outrageously large arrangement of crimson roses on the windowsill in her office, then changed her mind and moved them over onto the desk. Two seconds later she got up again and took them out of the office altogether, balancing them on the landing shelf. They’d be better off out there anyway; it was cooler, and she wouldn’t have to look at them all the time. She had to award Rupert a ten out of ten for effort over the last few weeks. He’d sent flowers. Three times. He’d rung and apologised. Daily. And just five minutes ago he’d emailed to let her know that he’d reserved a table at her favourite restaurant for this Saturday evening. She grimaced and bit down so hard on the end of her pencil that shards of wood splintered into her mouth.

Try as she might, she just couldn’t untangle Rupert from Bluey’s death in her mind. Whenever she thought about him she got an uncomfortable sensation of dread in the pit of her stomach and had to think about something else. It would pass, she was sure. She’d go to dinner with him on Saturday and get things back on track.

Gabe on the other hand had made himself conspicuous by his absence since the funeral, and boy was she glad. Shame made her hide her face in her hands whenever she thought about the way she’d flung herself at him on her doorstep.

She spat the shards of wooden pencil into the waste paper bin and tried to will her way back into the easy groove she’d worn for herself before Gabriel had turned up and rucked his way through it rough-shod.

Cupcakes.

It would have all been
so
perfect if it had only been a cupcake bakery.

Okay, so maybe they’d all have been letting out their belts a little by now, but her business would have been safe and her sanity would still be intact. Her rock-solid world seemed to have tipped on its axis, sand slipped under her feet whenever she tried to get a grip.

She rubbed the pale blue ribbon from Bluey’s funeral that she kept on her desk. Dora was continually tidying it away into the drawer, but Marla kept pulling it back out again like a child with their comfort blanket.

Darling Bluey. Her mind tracked back over the same painful loop every time she thought of him. If only she’d taken him home. If only she’d stopped Rupert from opening the chapel door in time. If only she’d managed to catch hold of his collar.

If only.

Sometimes, in the darkness of the middle of the night, she even managed to hang the blame on Gabe’s shoulders. Without him there would have been no need for a campaign, no public meetings, and she’d never have met Rupert. She didn’t dwell on the fact that the idea of life without Rupert stirred a distinct lack of emotion in her.

She focused instead on the fact that no Rupert would have meant no fireworks, and no fireworks would have meant that her beloved Bluey would still be here. And there she was again, full circle, Rupert and Bluey tied together in her head.

She wound the blue ribbon around her fingers, her eyes on the funeral parlour.

If it had been a cupcake bakery, she’d never have met Gabe. She didn’t dwell, either, on the fact that this was a much more disconcerting thought than having never met Rupert.

Much to her own annoyance, her mind insisted on road testing the idea of Gabe as a cupcake baker rather than an undertaker, and however hard she tried, she couldn’t get the image of Gabe, naked except for a cooking apron, out of her head for the rest of the afternoon.

‘Are you sure you’re alright?’

Gabe cast a doubtful look at the neck brace Melanie had worn on and off since the accident had happened several weeks ago.

‘It’s fine, Gabe, honestly. It looks worse than it is.’

It was a small miracle that she hadn’t been badly injured, or worse. A big dog and a small car was a bad combination. He’d been concerned enough to call at her home the day afterwards to check on her, and although he was sure that he’d seen the net curtains twitch, no one had answered the door. Odd really, but just as he’d been on the verge of starting to wonder if she was inside and too ill to make it to the door, a text had blipped in from the lady herself.

Hi Gabe,

Thxs 4 ur help yday. Am fine, just at A&E to get neck strain double checked.

C U on Monday

M x

How fortunate that she’d chosen to text him at that precise moment. A less trusting man may have found it too convenient, but Gabe was determined to think the best of her. Melanie was a good worker, and she was loyal to the hilt. Too loyal sometimes maybe, but could that really be considered a fault?

Anyway, her explanation for being at the funeral parlour at that late hour had turned out to be perfectly watertight. After all, it was the first time she’d ever locked up for him. It was only logical that she might have had a little panic and nipped back to double check she’d locked the door properly. She was conscientious, that was all.

The dog had come from nowhere, she’d said.

Impossible to stop in time, she’d said.

It was patently clear that she felt wretched about it, and as far as he knew Marla didn’t wish there to be any further investigations. Why stir the already muddy waters with the suggestion that she may have been going a smidge over the speed limit? Truth be told, he hadn’t been able to look Marla in the eye either, given that he was the one who had sent the damn fireworks.

His father would no doubt have muttered ‘least said, soonest mended, son’ and in this case, he would have been one hundred per cent right. The harsh reality was that no amount of recriminations and arguments would bring Bluey back.

The other inescapable truth was that the whole sorry incident had made the fractious situation between the chapel and the funeral parlour even worse. He’d sent the fireworks, and then Melanie, the receptionist he’d hired, had killed Bluey.

Not to mention the fact that he’d knocked back Marla’s advances on her doorstep. He’d suffered for it every night since – memories of how she’d felt in his hands had been the only thing on his mind. She’d robbed him of sleep, turned him into a teenage boy. The old dear in the village shop had glared at him with unconcealed disapproval when he’d been in for the second box of man-size tissues last week.

Something had to give, and unfortunately, it was probably going to be his wrist.

Melanie stuck her head around the mortuary doorway a couple of hours later.

‘Fancy a coffee?’

Gabe glanced up with a distracted smile that warmed Melanie’s skin, despite the coolness of the room and the presence of the village’s most recently deceased resident, Gladys Macintyre.

‘You’re an angel.’

Melanie melted and retired to the kitchen, where she unsnapped the neck brace and rubbed her sore skin. The bloody thing was a pain. She’d dug it out of her dad’s wardrobe where he’d stashed it after his dubious whiplash-injury claim a few years back. Once she’d lied to Gabe about going to A&E, she figured she better have some kind of treatment to show for it. She’d had to think of something to text Gabe to get him to leave. She was 24 years old and still living at home with her Dad – that’s bound to be a turn off.

In truth she’d been remarkably lucky to not be injured at all apart from shock, but she could hardly parade that around, could she?

Besides, she was enjoying the extra fuss from Gabe.

Much to her relief, he’d been wonderful about the whole episode. Her fears that he might sack her had proved totally unfounded. If anything, the accident had solidified her place at the funeral parlour, rather than threatened it. She felt genuinely awful about Bluey, but then Marla really ought to have been more careful. She should have been more careful with her boyfriend too, for that matter. Rupert had been simply lovely to Melanie. He’d insisted that she go back to his apartment for a brandy to steady her shredded nerves. He’d joined her in a large one, then another, and then she’d joined him in his large bed. It had felt like an inevitable chain of events, one of those serendipitous things that it’s pointless to fight or question.

Gabe wandered into the kitchen and rinsed his hands at the sink. He shot her a grateful smile as he picked up his mug.

‘Thanks, love.’ He smiled and his black hair flopped over his brow in a way that made Melanie’s fingers itch to stroke it.

Love. He called me Love.

She watched his backside retreat from the room as he left and cast a glance out of the window towards the chapel.

It seemed the mighty were falling, after all.

A few short weeks ago, Marla had had them all. Gabe, Rupert and Bluey.

Since then, Melanie had managed to take them all away, one by one. Not on purpose of course, it had just happened that way. Poor little Yank girl. Melanie pouted her lip. Life was hard sometimes, eh?

‘Any chance of a cuppa, darlin’?’

Dan appeared in the doorway and grinned. Melanie couldn’t make her mind up about him – he unsettled her. He was too cocky, and she wasn’t sure if he’d guessed how she felt about Gabe. But then two could play at that game, because she’d noticed him making doe eyes at Marla’s sidekick over the road.

The way his gaze lingered on Melanie’s breasts annoyed her as she splashed a minuscule drop of milk in his coffee.

‘Does working in such a gloomy place never get to you?’ she asked with an innocent smile as she handed it over.

‘Not really.’ He shrugged. ‘Gabe’s a mate. Anyway, I don’t spend as much time here as you do. Maybe you should be more worried about your own happiness levels rather than mine.’

He grinned, and then winced as the coffee burnt his tongue. Served him right for being smart.

‘Yeah. Maybe I should apply for the job vacancy over at the chapel.’ Melanie flashed her eyes at him in direct challenge.

Confusion clouded his handsome expression. He really was an easy target to reel in, like a little goldfish flapping on the end of a very large hook. Melanie licked her lips in anticipation. This going in for the big kill thing was addictive.

‘Job vacancy?’

‘Yeah, Marla’s assistant’s bound to be leaving soon. At least I’m guessing so, anyway.’ She paused, leaning back against the kitchen counter. ‘Seeing as how she’s having a baby, and all.’

Dan placed his almost untouched coffee onto the kitchen table.

‘Emily’s pregnant?’

‘Well, I don’t mean Dora, do I?’

Melanie laughed with the pleasure of the big reveal.

It was almost painful to watch. Dan’s expression went from self-satisfied to bewildered, and then to something else, something she didn’t quite understand. It wasn’t surprise, and it definitely wasn’t the face of a man casually lamenting the loss of his favourite piece of eye-candy. She leaned in a little, keen to know what was going on behind his baby blues.

‘You okay, Dan? You’ve gone a bit pale.’

‘What? No. I mean yes, course I am. ’Scuse me, love.’

Dan hightailed it out of the kitchen, leaving Melanie alone with just her coffee and her thoughts.

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ she murmured, as her mind took the hop, skip and a jump towards the obvious conclusion.

As much as Emily knew that avoiding Dan wasn’t going to magic the problem away, she was still desperate not to have
the
conversation in the next few minutes. The park basked in the late afternoon sun, all dappled and lush. Glossy trees hid her from prying eyes. She’d suggested meeting here because it wasn’t her natural habitat and she hoped they wouldn’t run into anyone who knew them. Yet, give her a few months and no doubt it would become one of her regular stomping grounds.

She was just glad that she’d been alone when she’d answered the office telephone earlier. How the hell would she have explained her reaction to Marla or Jonny, or even worse, to Dora? She’d grown accustomed to carrying this secret around inside her, and every day it seemed to grow along with the baby. There was no denying her pregnancy now. She was, if the smug TV guru was to be listened to, ‘in her bloom’. Although, to be honest, she’d lost faith in the TV pregnancy guru some time back, right about the time that she’d started to bang on about the importance of involving ‘daddy’ in the pregnancy.