any family needed to wait at a time like that. And so the seed had been sown. A seed that grew with frightening speed, like a magic beanstalk leading Gabe towards his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
But I can’t afford it, he’d reasoned, and he’d smiled with relief that there was a bona fide reason to let himself wriggle off the hook. Which was all very well, until his brothers finally wised up to the fact that he really wasn’t coming home and bought him out of the family business as a birthday gift.
Still, he’d laughed when Dan shoved property details into his hands for some place that had just come back onto the market due to a deal falling through with a cupcake company. Cupcakes? How could a company hope to survive just selling cupcakes? No wonder the deal had fallen through, but he’d viewed the premises anyway to shut Dan up. It would be way too small. Cupcakes didn’t take up as much space as dead bodies.
Wrong again.
Gabe wasn’t much given to mystical flights of fancy, but had he been pushed, he’d probably have agreed that it seemed as if the planets had aligned obligingly just for him. He had the money. He had the experience. And now he had the perfect premises. ‘Go big or go home’ had been Dan’s sage advice over a pint in his prospective new local. And because going home wasn’t an option, Gabe had climbed the beanstalk and signed on the dotted line before he could let himself back out of it.
‘Time to grow up, Gabe.’
He picked his way between the stepladders and crisscross of extension cables and let himself through to the back. In the kitchen, his eyes fell on the bright yellow note gaffer taped to the bubble wrap around the newly delivered fridge.
‘The yank bird from across the way is on the warpath. Watch yer back, kid.’
He read it over twice more, still none the wiser about the note’s possible meaning. What yank bird? And why the hell would she be on the warpath already?
He glanced out of the window, half-expecting to see someone storming his way, but no warring harridans appeared to be beating a path to his door at this early hour. No doubt all would become apparent when Phil the Drill arrived. Late, of course. But what Phil lacked in time keeping skills, he more than made up for in fitting skills. He’d worked for the family undertakers in Ireland for over twenty-five years and knew their business inside out. He’d been more than happy to bring his boys on a jolly across the Irish Sea on the promise of decent money, good digs and as much beer as they could drink.
Impatient for his first caffeine shot of the day, Gabe rummaged around and managed to unearth the kettle from behind a pile of half-eaten packets of biscuits.
A blur of red caught his eye outside as he sat down with the steaming mug cradled in his hands. He rocked back on his chair legs to watch the girl outside as she struggled to find something in the bottom of the huge bag she was balancing on her knee. Why did girls always carry such huge handbags? Her hair whipped around her cheeks, heavy red waves that irritated her enough to make her brush them roughly away from her mouth. She found what she was searching for, straightened up and disappeared around the back of the weird chapel place next door.
Interesting. He added ‘attractive redhead working next door’ to the growing file of positive aspects to his new venture. He grinned as the caffeine seeped steadily into his system. Phil the Drill was wrong. Today was going to be a good day. He could feel it in his bones.
Chapter Two
Crap, crap and triple crap. Gabriel Ryan was divine. ‘Are you selling lucky heather?’
Marla knew she sounded surly, but come on. Really?
What else could he expect when he turned up on her doorstep uninvited, all rumpled with come-to-bed eyes? The man might hold the future of her business in the palm of his hand, but right at that very moment the only question on Marla’s mind was how on earth the sexiest man on the planet could possibly be an undertaker.
His gypsy-black hair would probably be given to curls if he let it grow, but as it was it had just reached that optimum run-your-fingers-through sexy length without veering too far into goth territory.