Undertaking Love (23 page)

She turned, pausing to study her reflection in the dressing table mirror, appreciating the cleavage enhancing effect of the balconette bra. In a perfect world she’d like to have woken up that morning to find that her 34B boobs had gone up a cup size for her birthday, but in the absence of magic wishes, couture wizardry would do nicely.

The September sunshine warmed her skin through the window, and she bypassed the jeans she’d planned to wear, reaching instead for a white cotton sundress. With any luck she’d be in the garden drinking Bellinis this afternoon and the dress would be perfect for catching a few rays.

Spending your birthday alone may not be everyone’s idea of a barrel of laughs, but long spells alone as a child had equipped Marla with self-reliance by the bucketload. It was a feeling that went way deeper than being content with her own company; it was a visceral need for solitude that she had been denied since her mum and Brynn’s arrival, leaving her distinctly frayed around the edges.

Throw the debacle with Rupert into the mix and stir well, and it was hardly surprising that the prospect of a little peace and quiet held such allure.

A couple of sun-warmed and languid hours later, Marla's book slipped from her fingertips as she dozed, an empty champagne flute on the grass beside her lounger. Half awake and half asleep, she thought she heard someone call her name and struggled up through the hazy layers.

Had she dreamt it?

Nope, there was definitely someone calling her. A deep, male voice, with an unmistakable lilt and a delicious roll of the R in the middle of her name.

Jeez, what was Gabe doing here?

Marla scrabbled to her feet, her cheeks pink from the sun and two peach Bellinis.

She tiptoed through the back door into the kitchen and jumped as he rapped on the front door.

‘Come on Marla, I know you’re in there.’

How the frig did he know? She could be out. She could be shopping, or ice-skating, or even out with an actual real live man! How dare he assume that she would be home just because he’d deigned to visit?

She fell onto her knees commando-style and crawled around the edge of the living room, staying out of sight in case he looked through the window. Her dress snagged on the floorboards, and laughter at own absurdity bubbled in her throat.

He’d gone quiet at last.
Oh God
. Was he listening out for her?

She stopped dead by the hall doorway and eyeballed the front door. Crap, he was still there, she could see his silhouette through the glass. And double crap, he could probably see hers, at least enough to know she was skulking around on the floor like a burglar in her own home. She held her breath and debated her next move. The mature thing would be to stand up and answer the door. Could she make up some excuse about not having heard it? He would be too polite to point out that he’d spotted her doing her best canine impression, and she could get rid of him.

She squinted at his outline through the glass. He seemed to be messing around in his pockets, and she was just about to get up off all fours and bluff it out when he bent down too.

Shit! Oh God! Please don’t look through the letterbox!

Marla stayed glued to the spot in horror, but instead of peeping at her, he pushed a small folded piece of paper through. It skittered across the polished floor towards her, and she inched her arm forward to grab it. She stared at it in confusion. Why was he giving her his old petrol receipt? Was he trying to claim that she owed him reimbursement for fuel? She racked her woozy brain to no avail, until finally she noticed there were words scrawled across the back. She flipped it over.

‘I can see you. Open the damn door.’

Oh, the shame.
Marla let her head drop onto the wooden floor for a second and wished it would open up and swallow her. Then inspiration struck.

She opened the letterbox and tilted her head to the side next to it, which was no mean feat given that it was less than three inches off the floor.

‘I’m looking for my earring, if you must know,’ she yelled, and threw her arms around under the table in an exaggerated fashion to search for the non-existent missing jewellery. She heard him laugh, a rumble that shuddered through the door and all the way into her bones.

She hauled herself onto her feet and glanced in the hall mirror. Christ, her hair was a sight. It had dried naturally in the garden as she’d snoozed and turned into a holy red mess. She pushed it behind her ears and threw back her shoulders. If he would be so impertinent as to turn up on her doorstep uninvited, then he’d just have to take her as he found her. She swallowed hard and opened the door, braced for the inevitable chemical reaction.

Dark waves. Merry eyes. A dirty laugh. And whoops, there went her stomach.

‘You aren’t wearing any earrings. Rookie mistake.’

He laughed again as she guiltily touched her naked earlobes. Marla flicked her hair over her tell-tale ears and stared at him, wishing she hadn’t had a drink because it seemed to have amplified his beauty even more.

‘Did you want something?’

He nodded, completely unperturbed, that big, annoyingly gorgeous smile still plastered all over his face.

‘To say Happy Birthday.’

How the hell did he know it was her birthday?

‘Well, thank you. You’ve said it now, so you can leave.’

He raised his eyebrows in mock shock. ‘Aren’t you going to be polite and offer me a coffee?’

‘Let me think about that …’ Marla tapped the tip of her nose. ‘Nope.’

‘Shame. I brought you a gift too.’

‘Why would you do that?’

He studied her for a second with inscrutable eyes. ‘Because despite our professional differences Marla, I like you, and I want you to like me too.’

His honesty wrong-footed her, making her feel ungracious in the face of his charm offensive.

‘Fine. You can have coffee.’ She grumped. ‘But I have to go out soon, so …’ She tailed off in the hope that she’d said enough for him to make his visit a short one.

‘Really? That’s weird, because your mum said you were hiding out in here all day and pretending it wasn’t your birthday.’

She gasped. ‘I’m doing no such thing!’

Her mother
.
She might have guessed. That woman had some serious questions to answer when she came back on Monday.

She leaned sideways and glanced around him at the empty lane. ‘Where’s your bike?’

‘Not here. I hitched a lift with Dan.’

Marla tried not to visualise Dan and Gabe cruising down her lane in the hearse. She nodded for him to follow her through to the kitchen, where she reached for the coffee beans and swung open the fridge to grab the milk. Her eyes landed longingly on the open bottle of champagne lurking next to the milk carton. Her fingers lingered on the neck of the bottle. Offering Gabe anything more serious than coffee was a risk, and drinking anything other than coffee around him was riskier still. ‘Unless you’d rather have champagne?’
Jesus. The treacherous words actually came out aloud.

‘It would be rude to refuse you on your birthday.’ He grinned.

Marla reached down an extra champagne flute and grabbed the bottle. ‘Come on, let’s go outside.’

Gabe glanced back towards the front door. ‘You go on out. I’ll just grab your present.’

Marla dragged a second sun lounger from the shed and set it up a safe distance from her own, then pushed the table between the two chairs for extra protection. She heard Gabe close the front door as she poured the champagne, and a second or two later he appeared in the garden carrying a wicker basket tied with ivory ribbons.

‘Oh God! It’s not alive, is it?’ It reminded her of puppy baskets from schmaltzy American movies.

‘Relax.’ He laughed easily. ‘It’s not alive.’ He set it down on the grass and accepted the glass she held out. ‘To you. Happy birthday.’ He clinked the rim of his glass against hers and watched her over the top.

She smiled. What else could she do in the circumstances? He’d rumbled her cover story right away, so she could hardly knock the champagne back and run out the door. Besides, where would she go? She was slightly squiffy with wild hair and a crumpled sundress. The pub garden would be her only viable option, and there was something unbearably grim about drinking in the pub alone on your birthday. In your own garden, fine, but in public? No.

Besides, she wanted to stay in.

It had been her fabulous plan. She’d
loved
that plan.

But right now, curiosity was getting the better of her. She wanted to know what was in that basket. Gabe nudged it towards her as they perched on their respective loungers.

‘Open it, then.’ His dark eyes flashed as he took a long swig of his champagne.

Marla wrinkled her nose and placed her glass down carefully on the table. Sparkles of undeniable excitement bubbled in her belly. Her life hadn’t been big on presents up to now. As a child her parents had always encouraged her to pick out her own birthday gifts, more for their own convenience than her pleasure, she now realised. Hell, she’d even chosen her own card most years.

The ivory ribbons fell away with the gentlest of tugs, and she wound them around her fingers and placed them on the table beside her drink.

Gabe sipped his champagne. ‘You’re one of those annoying people that opens their presents ridiculously slowly and folds the paper up, aren’t you?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea. I don’t usually get presents.’

His brow furrowed, and she scolded herself. She didn’t like the idea that she’d let her guard down. Bloody champagne.

She unbuckled the leather straps on the basket and lifted the lid.

Inside lay a folded up blanket, its pattern so distinctive that a wide grin of appreciation spread instantly across her face. The stars and stripes.

‘Wow! Thank you!’ She hopped to her feet and spread it out over the short, dry grass to admire it properly.

Large and soft enough to snuggle under on a wintry evening, it moved her that he would put such thought into his gift. But then she already knew he was a thoughtful when it came to presents, didn’t she?

‘I love it.’ She beamed at him as she dropped down in the middle of the blanket. He topped up her glass and handed it to her.

‘Hungry?’

He nodded towards the basket again, and she realised that the blanket had hidden further gifts from view.

She crawled towards the basket and stared at the contents in surprise.

Food. Lots of it. See-through containers with little American flags attached to them announcing their contents.

Chicken salad with ranch dressing. Florida coleslaw. BBQ ribs. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Pumpkin pie. S’mores. Frosted cookies. The list went on and on, all American favourites right down to the bottles of Budweiser to wash it all down.

Marla’s heart raced as she touched the lids one by one with reverential care, her lips moving as she silently read the labels.

This was, without exception, the loveliest thing anyone had ever done for her in her entire life. She cracked opened the lid on the PBJ sandwich container and inhaled deeply. Their scent evoked an emotion so powerful that it whooshed out of nowhere and almost winded her, and tears prickled behind her eyes. Tears of longing for a home long gone, and tears of gratitude to Gabe, who was chewing his lip as he awaited her verdict on his gift.

She set the sandwich container down and sighed. Gabe was turning himself into a problem, and she didn’t quite know how to handle him.

On one level, the real threat he posed to her business made him the Freddie Krueger of her nightmares. She’d spent the majority of last week studying the books and trying to think of new ways to generate business, because their bookings for next year were worryingly scant compared to the previous year. The enquiries were rolling in just fine, but the visual effect of having a funeral director right next door was definitely putting people off when they came to look around. One glance of a coffin or a hearse cruising by and they hightailed it out of there never to be seen again, and she couldn’t really say she blamed them.

But then, on a whole different level, Gabe had developed an uncanny knack of being there when she needed him. He’d been her rock the night that Bluey died, and now here he was again, unceremoniously interrupting her lonesome birthday, knocking her sideways with his thoughtful gifts and ridiculously sexy backside. She’d noticed its peach-tasticness earlier and hadn’t been able to get it out of her mind since.

Which brought her on to the real problem.

Chemistry. The laws of attraction. Call it whatever you like.

The fact was she was overwhelmingly, outrageously attracted to him, and not in a little, manageable way.

That would have been okay.

Awkward, but okay.

No, this thing was way bigger.

The sight of him made her skin prickle, and the sound of him made her want to move to Ireland so she never had to hear anything but that beautiful brogue again. Being near him turned her into a human stick of dynamite, and he the flame she daren’t stand too close to. It was an entirely involuntary physical reaction, and as far as Marla was concerned, it was the biggest, brightest red flag in the world.

She’d watched her mother succumb time after time, but she was smarter. The way she saw it, she could either repeat her mother’s mistakes or she could learn from them. With a couple of near misses already blotting her copybook, Marla knew she was on decidedly dodgy ground.

She glanced up at Gabe again through her lashes.

‘I don’t know what to say. This is …’ she touched the basket and shaded her eyes with her hand. ‘I love it. Thank you. You didn’t make all this stuff yourself, did you?’

He nodded just for a second, and then cracked into laughter. ‘Did you really think I might have?’

She shrugged. ‘I honestly never know what to expect with you.’

‘Okay, well, it was my idea, but someone else much cleverer put it together for me after I bumped into your mum yesterday.’

‘Yesterday? Someone made this overnight?’

He nodded, and she mulled over his reply for a couple of seconds.