Page 60 of Wedding Crasher

‘How many more times are you going to use that line before we’re done?’

‘Oh, a lot more yet. You nearly closed us down. It’s a big debt.’ She gestured with her hands to demonstrate the size. ‘Huge.’

‘What do you want from me, little lady? Blood?’ He held his upturned wrists out to her, and she shook her head.

‘Cane?’ He turned around and presented her with his jeans-clad backside with an exaggerated sigh.

‘Not even close. Say you’ll come to dinner with my mother.’

Jonny put his head on one side, considering. ‘Will Prince-not-very-Charming be there too?’

‘Actually, Rupert can be very charming if you’d just give him a chance,’ Marla said.

‘I’ll have to take your word for it, toots, because I’m not seeing it. From where I’m standing he’s a long streak of hair, teeth and … and not much else.’ He drew his forked fingers sideways across his eyes. ‘Dead behind the eyes,’ he whispered, calling on his best am-dram skills.

‘That’s incredibly rude,’ Marla chided, not rising to his bait. ‘Come to dinner. He might just surprise you.’

‘Oh, go on then,’ Jonny grumbled. ‘Butonlybecause I don’t happen to have made other plans.’

He hummed ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ as he spun on his block-heeled cowboy boots and line-danced off down the aisle. They were preparing the chapel for a country and western themed wedding, and short of live horses to lasso, they were more or less on track.

Marla grinned at his retreating back. He was a true friend, and would have come on Saturday evening just because she needed him there, but she knew he was dying to meet her mother. Actually Brynn, to be precise. He’d howled with laughter when she’d relayed the conversation from the car, but all the same he couldn’t possibly have accepted her invitation outright. That would have been far too straightforward for Jonny.

Marla counted up the dinner guests in her head. Jonny, Emily and Tom, Rupert and herself, and of course her mother and Brynn. Seven ought to be enough to dilute the effect her mother had. Cecilia had insisted on a swish dinner at Franco’s, but the last thing Marla felt like was a cosy double date with her mother, Brynn and Rupert. The two men would have absolutely no common ground, and Lord knows Brynn could be relied on to stop a conversation in its tracks with a random comment about a female hippopotamus’ enormous lady bits. He appeared to specialise in huge animals, and after two days under the same roof, Marla knew far more than she ever wanted to about the anatomical complexities of lions and tigers and bears.

What was her mother thinking?There was every possibility that she would end her days stuffed, mounted and on display in Brynn’s travelling freak show, probably wedged somewhere between a giant panda and a Palomino.

Maybe he was rich.But then that wasn’t something that usually turned her mother’s head; Cecilia had enough independent wealth to not need to lean on anyone else.

Oh, God.A hideous thought crept into her mind.

Maybe he was awesome in the sack.

Marla fought to keep her lunch down at the idea and tried to banish it from her head. There had to be something though, and she was going to make it her business to find out what it was.

The chapel doors creaked open and Emily appeared, her arms loaded with red and white gingham. Marla started to laugh as she noticed what her friend was wearing.

‘Yeah, well. You try finding a country outfit for pregnant women,’ Emily grouched, dumping the gingham on the nearest bale of hay that had been delivered that morning from a local farm. They’d also contributed an old-fashioned wooden cart for the day, which now stood decorated in pride of place on the chapel lawns, ready for photographs after the ceremony.

Emily’s floor-sweeping scarlet dress fell in deep, lace-trimmed tiers, and she wore red ribbons in her short pig-tails.

‘I like it,’ Marla ventured. ‘It’s kinda cowgirl-boho.’

Emily rolled her eyes. ‘I’d rather be Daisy Duke.’

Jonny reappeared carrying two huge buckets of sunflowers and huge daisies. ‘Ruth dropped these off.’ He eyed Emily’s dress with sartorial alarm. ‘Whoa! Does Dora know you stole her curtains?’

Emily planted her hands on her hips and looked him up and down slowly as he placed the buckets down. Checked shirt shot through with threads of glitter. Chaps over his snug-fitting Levi’s. A huge gold and rhinestone-studded belt buckle bearing an American eagle. Stack-heeled cowboy boots. And crowning it all, a huge Stetson.

‘You come dressed as Howard Keel and you dare to criticise me?’

Jonny whistled. ‘Showing your age there, Sue-Ellen,’ he murmured, and then leaned into Marla and muttered, ‘hide the whisky,’ behind his hand. Both women rolled their eyes as Jonny cackled and rocked back on his heels to look out of the window at the funeral parlour. ‘And we needn’t look far for the poison dwarf,’ he said, then coughed, ‘Melanie,’ under his breath. ‘Ooh! Let’s cast Gabriel as Bobby!’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘I always had a thing for those dark curls.’

Emily sorted through the flowers as Jonny warmed to his theme. ‘Who shall we cast as JR?’

They all looked up as the door creaked open, and Rupert walked in. Jonny cracked up instantly and Marla swallowed hard and painted a newsreader’s smile on her face.

‘Rupert, you’re just in time.’

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