But right now, curiosity was getting the better of her. She wanted to know what was in that basket. Gabe nudged it towards her as they perched on their respective loungers.
‘Open it then.’ His dark eyes flashed, as he took a long swig of his champagne.
Marla wrinkled her nose and placed her glass down carefully on the table. Sparkles of undeniable excitement bubbled in her belly. Her life hadn’t been big on presents up to now. As a child her parents had always encouraged her to pick out her own birthday gifts, more for their own convenience than her pleasure, she now realised. Hell, she’d even chosen her own card most years.
The ivory ribbons fell away with the gentlest of tugs, and she wound them around her fingers and placed them on the table beside her drink.
Gabe sipped his champagne. ‘You’re one of those annoying people that opens their presents ridiculously slowly and folds the paper up, aren’t you?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea. I don’t usually get presents.’
His brow furrowed, and she scolded herself. She didn’t like the idea that she’d let her guard down. Bloody champagne.
She unbuckled the leather straps on the basket and lifted the lid.
Inside lay a folded-up blanket, its pattern so distinctive that a wide grin of appreciation spread instantly across her face. The stars and stripes.
‘Wow! Thank you!’ She hopped to her feet and spread it out over the short, dry grass to admire it properly.
Large and soft enough to snuggle under on a wintry evening, it moved her that he would put such thought into his gift. But then she already knew he was thoughtful when it came to presents, didn’t she?
‘I love it.’ She beamed at him as she dropped down in the middle of the blanket. He topped up her glass and handed it to her.
‘Hungry?’
He nodded towards the basket again, and she realised that the blanket had hidden further gifts from view.
She crawled towards the basket and stared at the contents in surprise.
Food. Lots of it. See-through containers with little American flags attached to them announcing their contents.
Chicken salad with ranch dressing. Florida coleslaw. BBQ ribs. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Pumpkin pie. Smores. Frosted cookies. The list went on and on, all American favourites – right down to the bottles of Budweiser to wash it all down.
Marla’s heart raced as she touched the lids one by one with reverential care, her lips moving as she silently read the labels.
This was, without exception, the loveliest thing anyone had ever done for her in her entire life. She cracked open the lid on the PBJ sandwich container and inhaled deeply. Their scent evoked an emotion so powerful that it whooshed out of nowhere and almost winded her, and tears prickled behind her eyes. Tears of longing for a home long gone, and tears of gratitude to Gabe, who was chewing his lip as he awaited her verdict on his gift.
She set the sandwich container down and sighed. Gabe was turning himself into a problem, and she didn’t quite know how to handle him.
On one level, the real threat he posed to her business made him the Freddie Krueger of her nightmares. She’d spent the majority of last week studying the books and trying to think of new ways to generate business, because their bookings for next year were worryingly scant compared to the previous year. The enquiries were rolling in just fine, but the visual effect of having a funeral director right next door was definitely putting people off when they came to look around. One glance of a coffin or a hearse cruising by and they hightailed it out of there, never to be seen again, and she couldn’t really say she blamed them.
But then on a whole different level, Gabe had developed an uncanny knack of being there when she needed him. He’d been her rock the night that Bluey died, and now here he was again, unceremoniously interrupting her lonesome birthday, knocking her sideways with his thoughtful gifts and ridiculously sexy backside. She’d noticed its peach-tasticness earlier and hadn’t been able to get it out of her mind since.
Which brought her on to the real problem.
Chemistry. The laws of attraction. Call it whatever you like.
The fact was she was overwhelmingly, outrageously attracted to him, and not in a little, manageable way.
That would have been okay.
Awkward, but okay.
No, this thing was way bigger.
The sight of him made her skin prickle, and the sound of him made her want to move to Ireland so she never had to hear anything but that beautiful brogue again. Being near him turned her into a human stick of dynamite, and he the flame she daren’t stand too close to. It was an entirely involuntary physical reaction, and as far as Marla was concerned, it was the biggest, brightest red flag in the world.
She’d watched her mother succumb time after time, but she was smarter. The way she saw it, she could either repeat her mother’s mistakes or she could learn from them. With a couple of near-misses already blotting her copybook, Marla knew she was on decidedly dodgy ground.