Page 97 of Wedding Crasher

He picked up his helmet, and the staff parted like the crowds of Galilee, clearing a path for him.

Jonny kicked open the funeral parlour door and eyed Melanie with distaste. ‘Get Gabriel.’

Fake regret dripped from Melanie’s every pore as she shook her head.

‘Sorry. He’s unavailable.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

Melanie looked momentarily disconcerted by Jonny’s bald confrontational manner, before she recovered herself and lifted a nonchalant shoulder.

‘Sorry. Do you want to leave a message?’

‘With you?’ Jonny laughed. ‘Er, hello? I don’t think so, honey. You have a nasty little habit of not passing messages on, don’t you?’

Melanie stared at him with a bland expression, but Jonny noticed the agitated way she fidgeted with her pencil. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

‘Really?’ Jonny spat back and shot her daggers across the desk. ‘Only I think you knowexactlywhat I’m talking about.’ He didn’t hear the door open behind him.

‘If I said fireworks, July 4th and dead dogs, would that jog your memory, I wonder? And what about a certain wedding–funeral clash that Dora definitely mentioned to you?’ He wagged his finger at her and gave her his Oprah-inspired neck wiggle. ‘I’m onto you, lady.’

A hand landed on Jonny’s shoulder, and he whipped around to find himself face to face with Gabe.

‘What’s going on here?’ Gabe asked quietly.

‘Nothing,’ Melanie said with a smooth smile. ‘Jonny was just leaving.’

‘No, I wasn’t.’ Jonny turned to Gabe. ‘Marla asked me to do a last run-through with you, make sure everything is clockwork for tomorrow.’

Gabe nodded. ‘Sure. Come on through.’

‘I can do it, Gabe,’ Melanie jumped in. ‘Really.’ She picked up a grey folder and tapped it. ‘I have all of the info right here …’

‘Thank you.’ Gabe took the file from her fingers. ‘But I’d rather do this myself.’

‘But …’

Gabe dismissed her protests with a curt shake of his head and waved for Jonny to follow him through. ‘Come up to the office.’

Jonny couldn’t resist a victory wink at Melanie, and she met his eyes with a look of malice that would have rattled a mass murderer.

Gabe sat alone in his office for some time after Jonny left.

The preparations for Dora’s funeral were watertight; it was the knowledge of Melanie’s duplicity that held him despondent in his seat. The smokescreen she’d cloaked herself in had blown away on the winds of truth, and the additional information Jonny had just revealed about the note from the fireworks had been the final nail in the coffin.

It came at a great cost to Gabe. He’d been determined to think the best of her, and it unnerved him that he could have got her so wrong.

When had his judgment become so skewed?

He dropped his head into his hands and pushed his palms into his eye sockets.

He was starting to wish he’d never set foot in this place.

This thing with Marla was going nowhere, and he missed Dora’s unique brand of acerbic humour around the place more than he’d care to admit. The realisation that Melanie had played him for a fool felt like one blow too many, and for the first time he questioned the wisdom of doggedly sticking it out when everyone in the village was so obviously against him.

He’d had just about a gutful of Beckleberry.

What was the point?

---