Page 104 of Wedding Crasher

‘Is Marla still there?’

Dan nodded.

Gabe pulled himself up from the kerb, the two beer bottles in one hand.

‘Get rid of these, bud.’ He handed the empties to Dan. ‘There’s something I need to do.’

Marla kicked off her heels and poured herself a well-earned brandy from one of the many half-empty bottles in the kitchen. She’d just closed the door on the last of the mourners, and Emily and Tom had taken a rather worse-for-wear Ivan home with them for the evening. At times it had felt as if the day would never end, and the lure of a strong drink and a quiet five minutes was irresistible. She’d flopped down into a chair when she heard the chapel door open again.

‘Marla?’

She closed her eyes and wished for strength as Gabe’s voice echoed around the chapel. Being around him was always such hard work, and she was so tired.

‘In the kitchen,’ she called out, not bothering to get up.

He appeared around the doorway, and the weary look on his face mirrored her own feelings so closely that she couldn’t be annoyed by his interruption anymore. She waved an arm towards the empty seats around her in invitation.

‘Come on in.’

He collapsed into the chair next to her. One glance at his troubled expression was enough to make her reach for the brandy bottle and an extra glass.

She poured him a drinker’s measure and slid it across the table towards him.

‘You’re the second person to think I need a drink today,’ he said, as he wrapped his fingers around the glass.

Marla breathed in deeply, and a heady mix of smoke and Gabe assailed her nostrils.

‘I’m not surprised. You have every right to get drunk after the day you’ve had.’

She touched her glass lightly against his then swallowed a good glug of brandy. The heat stung the back of her throat, and, feeling fortified, she met his eyes.

‘Is it as bad as it looks over there?’

Gabe humphed.

‘Worse.’

He knocked back half of his brandy.

Marla grimaced.

‘Was there anybody in there? Anybodies,I mean?’

She had to ask. The macabre question had been on her mind ever since the crass comments made by the crowds earlier. ‘Sorry … it’s just …’ She tailed off, struggling to find the right words. What had happened was hideous on so many levels, both practically and emotionally for Gabe. Dora’s funeral had been heart-wrenching, and the afternoon had been shocking beyond belief.

‘No. Thanks to your ex-boyfriend, business had gone extremely quiet.’

Gabe’s mouth twisted into a line of distaste and he drained his glass. The mention of Rupert frayed Marla’s already-tattered nerves.

She handed Gabe the brandy bottle and watched him pour himself a refill.

She looked away, blindsided by the need to make it better for him.

It had been a day of high emotion and drama, and her feelings for Gabe were a jumbled mess. On the one hand, he was damaging her business, and she still harboured a hulking great iceberg of hurt and resentment over the exposé in the newspaper. There was no denying the evidence, and he’d certainly failed to mention that he had been married.

But then in the next breath he’d turn around and do something so intrinsically decent that he’d make her question her judgment all over again. How could anyone but a good man stand up and represent Ivan as movingly as Gabe had today?

He was good. He was bad. He was a threat.

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