Undertaking Love (11 page)

‘I now pronounce you husband and wife,’ Jonny declared, then threw back his hood and hurled his fake scythe to the floor to join in the thunderous applause.

The ghoulish congregation were packing the chapel almost to its spooky rafters, and from her standpoint at the side of the room, Marla had a clear view of the pure love in Alaric’s heavily kohled eyes as he pulled his new wife into his arms.
The Herald
photographer whizzed from position to position in the background, keen to capture the wedding from every angle. She could see why: it would certainly make an eye-catching splash. The whole production had been like
Gone with the Wind
crossed with
The
Addams Family
– it throbbed with a vein of true love that challenged Marla’s mistrust of marriage in a way that few of the more conventional weddings she had organised ever had.

Much as she loved the chapel, she’d fallen out of love with the institution of marriage a long time ago. Her parents had provided her with a close-up view of the reality of marriage throughout her childhood; at best, it was a soap opera with an ever-changing cast of principal players. She’d had several step-parents whom she’d never even met, because their appointment had been so brief. If she’d taken one lesson away from her parents’ example, it was that marriage was only ever to be regarded as a temporary arrangement. ‘’Till death us do part’ was nothing more than a fairytale, and she wasn’t a little girl anymore. She was all grown up and marriage was for other people.

Outside on the chapel lawns, ghoul-faced guests posed by the fake rusty railings and blood-splattered mock headstones that Jonny had organised to create the perfect ‘fright night’ backdrop for the photos.

‘You haven’t got a coffin, have you?’

Marla shook her head at the guy who lay on top of one of the fake graves. ‘Sorry, no.’

‘I bet
they
would,’ Alaric said, eyeing the funeral parlour.

A whoop went up around the crowd.

‘I’ll ask them! They can’t turn a bride down on her wedding day.’ Gelvira hitched up her scarlet velvet skirts and ran out across the pavement, hotly followed by her new husband and a motley trail of ghouls and ghosts.

Marla watched in horror, well aware that she didn’t stand a hope in hell of halting the stampede. She could only cross her fingers and pray that Gabe wouldn’t be there at this hour on a Saturday afternoon. He shouldn’t be. She knew that much, because she’d surreptitiously checked the sign on the door earlier. It was well after four, so god willing he’d be off in the pub with his jack-the-lad mate. Or sleeping in one of his coffins to avoid the sunlight. Or whatever else it was he did for kicks in his spare time.

The small flicker of hope died as Gelvira and Alaric disappeared through the black and silver doorway
. Damn it!
Why was he still open? Marla leaned back against the porch and groaned. Just when it had all been going so well.

Several minutes later the wedding party spilled back out onto the pavement. Gelvira’s boobs frothed over the top of her corset as she laughed and led her gothic troupe back over to the chapel.

‘Man, this is the best day of my life!’ Gelvira flung her arms around Marla in delight.

‘He’s bringing over a couple of coffins in a minute. Can you fetch loads of those black rose petals, please? I want to lie down inside one in my wedding dress.’

Inside the chapel, Marla could have screamed with frustration as she grabbed one of Emily’s huge rose displays from the altar. She took her temper out on the flowers as she yanked the petals off, managing to prick her finger on a thorn in the process.

Bloody Gabriel Ryan. Why couldn’t he have just said no?

She sucked the blood from her finger and watched through the window as Gabe, assisted by one of the bridal party, deposited the first coffin onto the grass and strode back over to his lair to fetch a second one. He’d fit right in with this crowd, she thought, not quite able to take her eyes off the sight of his retreating denim-clad backside.

Once they’d set the second coffin down on the grass, Gabe shook Alaric’s hand. His eyes flicked over the groom’s shoulder to Marla as she struggled through the doorway with a huge cardboard box in her arms. Even amongst the impressive display of gothic cleavage that surrounded him, her relatively demure black lace dress clung to her curves in a way that rendered it indecent. Gelvira jiggled up and down with excitement next to him and waved her arms at Marla.

‘Over here!’

Gabe clocked Marla’s gritted teeth through her smile as she headed their way. He grinned, happy in the knowledge of how much it would grieve her that her guests had chosen to call on his help.

‘Marla. This is an unexpected pleasure.’

Her eyes flashed with ill-concealed fury. ‘Thank you, Gabriel. For your help, I mean.’

He could see that the outwardly cordial words cost her dearly. He leaned over to lift the box from her arms and took the opportunity to whisper in her ear.

‘See? I told you. Good things
can
happen when we work together.’

He heard her sharp intake of breath and winked imperceptibly as he pulled back and upended the petals all over a laughing Gelvira, who had climbed into the coffin.

‘Bluey, no!’ Emily’s frantic shout rang out across the grass as the over-enthusiastic Great Dane bounded past her out of the side doorway of the chapel to join in the festivities. He made a beeline for the coffins and jumped straight into the empty one next to Gelvira on the grass.

‘Here, boy!’ Marla called out, aware that the sheer size of her fur boy was enough to spook most people. Even spooks. But Alaric, thankfully, fell instantly for the big hound with his droopy jaws and comic sense of timing. He stole a top hat from one of the guests and placed it on Bluey’s huge head, as someone else unwound their black tie and placed it around the dog’s neck. To everyone’s amusement, Bluey posed solemnly between the happy couple in their coffins.

‘One for the album,’ Gabe murmured to Jonny, who grinned and turned pink beneath his theatrical make up. He couldn’t help it. It might be fraternising with the enemy, but he was high on the success of the wedding and Gabe was too hot to freeze out.

Emily leaned against the porch and laughed, right up to the moment when Dan pulled up in the hearse at which point she promptly threw up behind the nearest mock-headstone.

Alaric and Gelvira finally roared off into the sunset on a Harley, whilst their guests splintered off to scare the locals and boost the pub’s coffers. Jonny vanished with a transvestite bride of Dracula and Marla packed off a still-distinctly-green-around-the-gills Emily off home to bed.

Which just left Gabe.

‘I guess I should say thank you again.’

Gabe followed her along the aisle into the kitchen. ‘Go on then. I’m all ears.’

Marla reached for the coffee jar, but then thought better of it and grabbed a bottle of wine down out of the cupboard instead. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

Why did saying thank you have to feel like such a huge admission of defeat?

She knew she owed him that much: he hadn’t called the police about the window last week, and now he’d gone undeniably out of his way to make Alaric and Gelvira’s wedding day perfect.

‘You’re welcome, Marla.’ His soft laugh excused her reluctance to verbalise the apology, but somehow it made it worse too. Did he have to keep displaying that vein of decency and making her feel like a fool?

She reached down a glass from the top shelf, sighed and reached for a second.

‘I believe you, by the way,’ he said, as he leaned back in his chair. ‘About the window, I mean.’

‘Thank you. I may want your business closed down, Gabe, but I’d never stoop that low.’

She turned from the counter and held out a glass towards him.

‘What’s this, an olive branch?’

Marla sank down into the chair opposite him and kicked off her heels with a heavy sigh. The cool stone of the kitchen floor felt fabulous against her tired feet. It had been a long, long day and she was done in.

‘Nothing’s changed, Gabe, but we don’t have to be archenemies either, do we? We can be grown up about our differences.’

He clinked his glass against hers. ‘I like the sound of being grown up.’

Marla suddenly felt bolt awake. She wound her fingers around her glass to stop them from shaking, and took a swig of wine for good measure. Gabe’s accent was enough make a nun’s knicker elastic twang, so she could easily justify her own physical reaction to him. It didn’t really
mean
anything. Besides, she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. The butterflies in her stomach had more to do with lack of calories than Gabe’s edibleness.

‘Have you lived in the UK for long?’

Marla cast her mind back, glad that he’d steered the conversation into more serene waters.

‘Fifteen years or so, I guess? My mother married a doctor and followed him here under the delusion of becoming lady of the manor.’

‘I take it it didn’t work out then?’

‘It was never going to,’ Marla answered. ‘Robert was husband number five. He’s lovely actually, I still meet him every now and then for coffee. He’s a specialist over at the general.’

She sighed. ‘It’s a shame Mom couldn’t settle here. She grew sick of the weather and decamped back to the States within four years.’

‘But you stayed?’

She nodded. ‘I was studying by then. And … other stuff.’ She shrugged. ‘You know how it is.’

He didn’t actually, but he’d very much like to.

‘Do you miss it? The States?’

‘Sometimes. On the holidays, mostly. Halloween, Thanksgiving, that sort of thing.’

She swallowed a mouthful of wine and stared out of the window. ‘But I’m pretty settled here now. The climate suits my skin. Unlike my mother’s.’

He looked at the luxurious red waves that fell around her shoulders and had to hold down the urge to wind them around his fingers.

‘I take it the red comes from your father’s side then?’

Marla smiled. ‘And the freckles.’

Gabe took her comment as an invitation to study her face, and this time he couldn’t hold back. He reached out and traced his fingertip lightly down the dusting of freckles on her nose. ‘I like your freckles.’ He refilled their glasses to cover the loaded silence that followed. ‘Do you see much of your dad?’

Marla laughed, slightly hysterical with misplaced lust. ‘You’re kidding. He’s always off on another exotic honeymoon.’

‘I’m starting to see why you opened a wedding chapel.’

‘He’s in Bermuda with wife number six at the moment. Or it could be Hawaii with number seven … I’ve lost track.’

Gabe whistled. ‘That must have made for interesting Christmases.’

Marla rolled her eyes. ‘You have no idea.’

She picked at the edge of the wooden kitchen table and winced as a rough splinter caught the tender cut on her finger from the rose thorn. ‘And are you upholding the family tradition with a string of ex-husbands littering your past, too?’

She flinched. ‘No. I’m breaking the pattern and staying single.’ He nodded slowly and dropped his gaze to their hands on the table. ‘You’re bleeding.’

They both stared at the little bloom of blood on her fingertip and knew what was supposed to happen next. There wasn’t a convenient box of tissues on hand to blot it, and no one interrupted them with a well-timed knock on the door. Gabe’s warm hand closed over hers, and Marla’s breath hitched in her throat. He lifted it to his lips and sucked her fingertip gently. He didn’t take his eyes off hers and for a few seconds Marla felt as if he could see right inside her head, see just how much she wanted him to carry on. She’d been right all along. He
was
a vampire, and he’d glamoured her into submission. This was not her fault.

Jesus, his mouth was hot. And wet. And way, way too sexy to pull away. Up until that moment in her life, Marla had no idea about the secret vein that ran directly from her fingertip to her clitoris. But as Gabe circled his tongue slowly around her to seal the wound, each little suck on her finger fired off an answering volt of electricity between her legs. She closed her eyes, afraid he’d be able to see it there.
Or did he know already?
Marla squirmed in her seat, too turned on to get her breath properly. Or to care. On an erotic scale of one to ten, it was an eleven. Twenty. To infinity and beyond. The knuckles of her hand bumped against his jaw, rough stubble against soft skin. She suddenly wanted to know exactly how good that stubble would feel against her skin in much more private places. Her inner thighs, for instance. She almost cried out in protest when he slid her finger from his mouth and placed a whisper kiss on her palm, a barely-there trail of his tongue against the vulnerable pulse point inside her wrist. She never wanted to open her eyes again.

But if she
had
, she’d have seen a very dejected Rupert turn and slope away from the window, where he’d just spent the most crushing five minutes of his entire life.

It was just after nine in the morning on the first Tuesday in May, and Emily lay curled in the crook of Tom’s shoulder and relished the decadent pleasure of a long and lazy extended bank holiday. Around them everyone else had gone back to work this morning, but they’d planned otherwise and closed the curtains against the world. She fuzzily contemplated getting up to make coffee as the hairs on Tom’s chest tickled her closer to wakefulness. He traced sleepy circles low on the hollow of her back with his thumb, halfway towards soothing her to sleep and halfway towards turning her on.

She wriggled closer, and he slid his hand between her legs to settle the question.

This was who they were.

Emily and Tom. Tom and Emily.

The coffee could wait.

Half an hour later and fully awake, she slipped out of the warm circle of Tom’s arms and padded downstairs to make coffee. She scooped up the newspaper and letters from the mat as she passed and dropped them on the kitchen table. The last couple of weeks had been amazing, like a second honeymoon. Except for one thing. One painfully huge, enormous elephant in the room.