Undertaking Love Page 0,13

had promised to try and make it, but she would have been more surprised by his presence than his absence.

Half an hour later it was apparent that no one else was going to turn up. The only people to come through the door since Dora and Ivan had been Kevin, the village plumber and occasional Elvis impersonator at the chapel, and Ruth the florist, who needed to stay abreast of the village gossip in order to keep her customers happy and spending their pennies.

Jonny made his way up to the lectern with a resigned look on his suntanned face.

‘Right, then. Let’s make a start, shall we?’

‘Hang on! I think there’s someone coming!’ Ruth called out, and an expectant hush fell over the small crowd as they stared at the door with bated breath.

It swung open, and a dramatic gasp rippled around the room as Gabe and Dan strode in.

Marla shot to her feet in panic as Jonny’s eyes popped out on stalks. He had yet to meet either of the men in the flesh, and his tongue was practically hanging out.

Gabe nodded in greeting towards Marla. ‘Don’t mind us. We’ll just sit at the back.’

He relaxed into a seat in the final row and smiled genially around at everyone, as if he’d just entered his local pub rather than a meeting held with the sole intention of running him out of town.

‘Yeah. And heckle loudly,’ Dan muttered as he slid into the seat next to Gabe with a mutinous look on his face. He couldn’t stand the way Gabe was being treated by the villagers, and he fully intended on letting the small-minded nimbys have it both barrels at some point this evening.

Marla alerted Jonny to the fact that the two sex-gods on the back row were in fact the opposition party, crushing his hopes of dragging them into the vestry later on to drink the crate of left over chardonnay.

He stood up at the front and cleared his throat. Marla took her seat and nodded in encouragement, though she privately felt this was a wasted evening that could have been better spent treating Emily to dinner at the pub.

‘Right then ...’ Jonny held up his hands to shut down the low-level chatter around the room. ‘We’re here tonight to discuss the effect that the proposed funeral home next door will have on our local community.’

Marla’s toes curled and her eyes hit the floor. Gabe infuriated the hell out of her. Why on earth had he come here tonight? She wished with all of her heart that he’d stayed away, because his presence in the room changed everything. Even Jonny had been rendered polite by uncharacteristic nerves. Gabe raised his hand.

‘Just for the sake of clarity, I should say at this point that it’s approved, not proposed.’

Dan snickered next to him, but fell silent again as Emily turned around and caught his eye. Ruth the florist, who’d once again been press-ganged into the role of reluctant minute taker, struck out ‘proposed’ and wrote ‘approved’ above it in dark letters instead.

Jonny’s lip curled at Gabe’s direct attempt to undermine him. Marla saw his confidence click back into place as he threw his chin up and rolled his broad shoulders. She held her breath for the onslaught.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, you all know why we’re here.’ Jonny planted his hands on his hips as his cat-like eyes flashed. ‘If we don’t do something sharpish to stop the Addams Family from opening up their frickin’ freak show next door, then this village will be going to hell in a handcart. Capisce?’

Gabe laughed out loud and threw his hands up in the air, whilst Dan’s chair scraped loudly against the flagstones as he shot to his feet in temper. ‘What the fuck is going on here, people? A witch hunt?’

Gabe stood and laid a hand on Dan’s arm. ‘Let the people speak, Dan. I want to hear what they have to say.’

They both sat down again, and Jonny faltered. Such a blatant display of rampant testosterone was something he’d normally pay good money to see.

‘Marla, would, err, you like to say something?’ he croaked, and stepped down from the lectern without waiting for her reply.

She shot him daggers as she walked past him. This hadn’t been part of their carefully worked out plan, he was supposed to be the front man of the operation. She was thrown even further off her stride when the reporter stood up and flashed his camera in her face.

‘First of