Undertaking Love Read Free

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. Truth be told, there
was
something ever so slightly grungy about him. But cool, louche, stubbly grunge, rather than the patchouli-soaked rocker-in-need-of-a-bath kind.
    He was smokin’ hot, and Marla didn’t have a fire extinguisher. Pity he was a funeral director.
Eeew
. Not to mention the fact that he was in danger of killing her business stone dead. The double reality check was enough to make his halo slip down to his throat, and Marla was only sad it wasn’t tight enough to pose a full on choking hazard. Gabriel Ryan might be easy on the eye, but as far as she was concerned, he was trouble in all the wrong ways.
    His face cracked open into a big, easy smile as he lounged against the door frame and held out a chipped, empty mug.
    ‘Not heather, but any chance I could borrow a cup of sugar please?’
    The ‘cup of sugar’ line again. He wasn’t even original. Marla leaned ever so slightly forward and gazed into the empty, tea-stained mug for a long moment before raising her eyes back up to his.
    ‘You must be Gabriel.’
    He pushed his spare hand through his hair and assaulted her with that slow smile again.
    Jeez, he had perfect teeth.
    Marla was American.
    Teeth mattered.
    ‘Guilty as charged. But please, it’s just Gabe.’
    ‘Gabe.’
    His name felt treacherously good on her lips. A shiver ran down her backbone as he held her gaze for a second longer than strictly necessary. Invisible to the naked eye, a gossamer spider web of attraction spun around them, and undetectable to the human ear, Mother Nature’s wicked laugh tinkled off the chapel’s stained glass windows.
    Marla swallowed hard. It was her move, but somehow it didn’t feel safe to invite him over the threshold. He was like a vampire trying to glamour her into submission, and he was doing a pretty good job of it. She gave herself a mental slap and swung the door wide. ‘Come on through.’
    He stepped past her into the chapel, and as she closed the door she