Page 93 of Wedding Crasher

Maybe Dora had got up, after all.

He nipped up the path to double-check and let himself in through the unlocked side gate. Dora would no doubt be in the kitchen in a flap because she was running late.

He’d pop in quickly to reassure her that there was no need to rush anymore.

A quick glance through the kitchen window showed it to be empty, but the kettle on the lit gas stove was screaming for attention. Gabe frowned as he tried the door. Finding it open, he stepped inside and flicked off the shrill noise.

‘Dora?’

He called out just loud enough to be heard, but not so loud that he’d startle her.

Silence answered him, and the ball of unease returned tenfold to his gut.

‘Dora?’

He tried again. A little louder, a little more urgent.

Still no answer.

He went through into the hallway, not certain of the unfamiliar layout of the quiet cottage. He stuck his head around the first of the two doorways, and found a small, neat-as-a-pin dining room, but no Dora.

He moved along the carpeted hallway and stepped just inside the opposite doorway to the little front room.

To the untrained eye, Dora might have been sleeping in her cheery yellow chintz armchair.

But Gabe knew differently the moment he saw her. His wasn’t the untrained eye.

‘Oh, Dora,’ he whispered. ‘No.’

He crossed the room and dropped down on his haunches in front of her, then reached out and held her cool hands for a few moments. He brushed his fingertips gently over her eyes to fully close them, a tight ball of pain in his chest.

Dora wasn’t snoozing.

She’d passed away.

A couple of hours later, the ambulance bearing Dora’s body rumbled off up the lane, and Ivan, still in his dressing gown, sat in his small living room with Marla and Gabe, and also Ruth, who lived two doors down.

They drank sweet tea, and Gabe found a bottle of whisky in the dining-room sideboard to help steady Ivan’s nerves. Waking the old man with such devastating news had been heartbreakingly difficult, and all of the funeral director training in the world hadn’t made it any easier to watch the shell-shocked pensioner cry like a child.

He’d called Marla without a second thought, because he wanted to tell her himself, and also to ask if she’d come and be with him and Ivan while they waited for the ambulance. She’d been there in a heartbeat, shaken and red-eyed, but also amazingly strong and beautiful as she spoke quietly to Ivan and gripped his shaking hand.

Gabe followed her into the kitchen when she excused herself to make a fresh pot of tea. She picked up the kettle to fill it, but just stood at the sink with the tap running, her mind on Dora.

‘I can’t believe she’s gone, Gabe,’ she said softly. Gabe turned off the tap and placed the kettle down on the side, the crack in her voice too much for him to take.

‘Come here.’ He gathered Marla against him, holding her close with his chin resting on the top of her head, as she cried in his arms. She hugged him hard, giving him solace as much as drawing it from him. Dora had been Gabe’s true friend and ally, and he hated the thought that he’d added to her burden of stress by asking for her help with Marla.

Marla in turn hated the prospect of Beckleberry without Dora at its heart, or the unbearably sad thought of Ivan having to find a way to live without the love of his life.

They held each other like that for long, precious minutes, all of their usual barriers down in the face of their overwhelming sadness. Marla closed her eyes and breathed in the familiar scent of Gabe’s skin, the smoothness of his neck treacherously close to her salty, damp lips.

Gabe wanted more than anything to kiss the woman in his arms. To kiss her endlessly, and tell her how much he loved her, that she filled his heart up so much that it hurt. His lips rested against her hair, and his emotions led him to stroke a hand down her back. She was real, and here, and his. He needed to tell her. Maybe it was entirely the wrong time, but then maybe it was the best time of all.

And then the back gate banged and Marla jolted away from him a second or two before Emily, Jonny and Tom appeared, stricken, at the kitchen door.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

‘Would you drop these over to the funeral parlour please, Em?’

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