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 opened 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.
She glanced up at Gabe again through her lashes.
‘I don’t know what to say. This is …’ she touched the basket and shaded her eyes with her hand. ‘I love it. Thank you. You didn’t make all this stuff yourself, did you?’
He nodded just for a second, and then cracked into laughter. ‘Did you really think I might have?’
She shrugged. ‘I honestly never know what to expect with you.’
‘Okay, well, it was my idea, but someone else much cleverer put it together for me after I bumped into your mum yesterday.’
‘Yesterday? Someone made this overnight?’
He nodded, and she mulled over his reply for a couple of seconds.
‘What if I’d refused to let you in?’
‘Then I’d have had one hell of an interesting dinner.’
She laughed. Gabe had a way of making everything sound so uncomplicated, and right now, uncomplicated was good. She drained the last of her champagne and her stomach growled in noisy protest at the lack of food and overload of fizz.
She scooted back on the blanket and pulled the basket with her. ‘I’m starving. Let’s eat.’
‘You’re sure? You don’t need to rush out? Only, earlier you said...’ he trailed off with a knowing gleam in his eye.
She leaned back on her hands with her chin jutting out and eyed him beadily.
‘If you’ve spoken to my mother, then you know perfectly well that I don’t have plans.’
He shrugged non-committally. ‘She might have said something along those lines, yeah.’
He was practically laughing, but she could hardly blame him.
‘Right. So now that’s sorted, get down here and eat.’
He emptied the last of the champagne into their glasses with a mock salute, then joined her as she unpacked the basket on the stars and