Undertaking Love

Chapter 2

Crap, crap and triple crap. Gabriel Ryan was divine. ‘Are you selling lucky heather?’

Marla knew she sounded surly, but come on. Really?

What else could he expect when he turned up on her doorstep uninvited, all rumpled with come-to-bed eyes? The man might hold the future of her business in the palm of his hand, but right at that very moment the only question on Marla’s mind was how on earth the sexiest man on the planet could possibly be an undertaker.

His gypsy-black hair would probably be given to curls if he let it grow, but as it was it had just reached that optimum run-your-fingers-through sexy length without veering too far into goth territory. Truth be told, there was something ever so slightly grungy about him. But cool, louche, stubbly grunge, rather than the patchouli-soaked rocker-in-need-of-a-bath kind.

He was smokin’ hot, and Marla didn’t have a fire extinguisher. Pity he was a funeral director. Eeew. Not to mention the fact that he was in danger of killing her business stone dead. The double reality check was enough to make his halo slip down to his throat, and Marla was only sad it wasn’t tight enough to pose a full-on choking hazard. Gabriel Ryan might be easy on the eye, but as far as she was concerned, he was trouble in all the wrong ways.

His face cracked open into a big, easy smile as he lounged against the door frame and held out a chipped, empty mug.

‘Not heather, but any chance I could borrow a cup of sugar please?’

The ‘cup of sugar’ line again. He wasn’t even original. Marla leaned ever-so-slightly forward and gazed into the empty, chipped mug for a long moment before raising her eyes back up to his.

‘You must be Gabriel.’

He pushed his spare hand through his hair and assaulted her with that slow smile again.

Jeez, he had perfect teeth.

Marla was American.

Teeth mattered.

‘Guilty as charged. But please, it’s just Gabe.’

‘Gabe.’

 His name felt treacherously good on her lips. A shiver ran down her backbone as he held her gaze for a second longer than strictly necessary. Invisible to the naked eye, a gossamer spider web of attraction spun around them, and undetectable to the human ear, Mother Nature’s wicked laugh tinkled off the chapel’s stained-glass windows.

Marla swallowed hard. It was her move, but somehow it didn’t feel safe to invite him over the threshold. He was like a vampire trying to glamour her into submission, and right at that moment he was doing a pretty good job of it. She gave herself a mental slap and swung the door wide. ‘Come on through.’     

He stepped past her into the chapel, and as she closed the door she couldn’t help but take a sly sniff of him.

Not a whiff of patchouli or dead bodies.

Phew.

In fact, he smelled really rather delicious, all lemony-spice shower gel and fresh coffee. Marla loved coffee. And lemons.

She led him into the small back kitchen and gestured for him to take a seat at the buttercup-yellow formica table. As she flicked the kettle on, she turned to him sceptically. ‘Do you really need sugar?’       

He grinned again. He needed to stop doing that. It was distracting.

‘Not especially. But I could murder a coffee.’

Marla made no move to take his bashed-up mug from him, but instead took down two pretty duck-egg blue cups from the cupboard and heaped coffee into them. They needed to talk. It might as well be civilized, over coffee. And at least here she had the advantage of being on home turf.