Undertaking Love

Chapter 8

A few Mondays later, Gabe flipped the front door key over in his hand and looked at the clock. 8.55 a.m. He was officially opening for business in five minutes time.

Melanie perched behind the reception desk. The sunshine-yellow tulips Gabe had given her this morning had been awarded pride of place beside her books. In actual fact he’d bought them to make the reception area more welcoming, rather than for Melanie in particular, but it would have been embarrassing for both of them if he’d corrected her innocent assumption. She’d blushed pink with pleasure when she’d found them on the desk earlier, and fluttered off to make coffee.

‘Ready?’ He turned and smiled at her, key poised by the lock.

She nodded.

‘You?’

‘I sure am. Let’s do this thing.’

He winked at her and turned the key, then swung the door back on its hinges once or twice to make sure it was definitely unlocked. He turned the little black and silver sign on the door over to declare them open, and almost felt the warm hand of encouragement from his Da on his shoulder.

‘Time to grow up, Gabe.’

It was all quiet on the street outside, still sleepy apart from the odd pensioner pulling a trolley and a young mum pushing a pram. Not that he’d expected a stampede. It wasn’t the kind of business that attracted a queue.

He glanced at the chapel. Earlier, Marla had dashed by as usual, robbed of her opportunity to snarl at his bike because he’d parked it out of sight around the back. It was hardly a suitable advert for the funeral parlour. Just as he was an unsuitable advert for the wedding chapel, he acknowledged with a flicker of a frown.

He hadn’t had a chance to speak to her since the public meeting. Just thinking about that evening made him wince. He'd never actually intended to stand up and speak, but he’d been so incensed by the injustice of it all that he’d found himself on his feet before he’d had a chance to think it through.

The Shropshire Herald had ripped him to shreds as a result, and the battle lines between the chapel and the funeral parlour were now marked out as clearly as if they’d been painted in bold white lines across the pavement.

***

From behind the blind of her office window, Marla watched Gabe swing his freshly painted black door open, then stand still and cast his eyes skywards for a few seconds. Was he weather watching, or praying, even? If he needed a sign, he should have said. She would have hurled a bucket of cold water over him.

It was the first time she’d seen him out of jeans and leathers, and, although if quizzed she would have hotly denied the thought had even entered her head, the sight of him in a close-fitting suit did something strange to her insides. Of course it could be the ill effects of the omelette that Rupert had attempted to cook for breakfast. Marla grimaced at the memory. Cooking certainly wasn't one of Rupert's strong points, but she was willing to overlook it because he'd turned out to be pretty hot at other things, not least laughing her into bed. Marla appreciated his humour and his candour, and had found herself happy to accept his offer to stay over after their dinner date. He was her ideal man of the moment; easy on the eye, accomplished in bed, and with no expectations of a messy, complicated love affair.

Whichever. Rupert's omelette or Gabe's hotness in a suit, it was immaterial. The grim fact was that the funeral parlour was now officially open for business, which meant that the chapel was officially a step closer to closing down.

Marla huffed, and kicked the desk leg with frustration. Jonny had assured her that the petition was going great guns, and that in no time they’d have enough signatures to present to the council. He’d better hurry up about it, because every day with the funeral parlour as a neighbour was a day closer to bankruptcy.