Undertaking Love

Chapter Twenty-Six




Marla left the cottage before her mother and Brynn had a chance to surface on Monday morning. If she’d had to stomach any more wedding talk she’d have thrown up her muesli all over the kitchen table.

She stirred sugar into her coffee in the quiet chapel kitchen and wondered why Cecilia seemed to have completely forgotten about Marla’s profession as a wedding coordinator and insisted on taking over. But then, her mother did have far more personal experience in the matter than most women, she mused uncharitably as she made her way upstairs to her office.

Marla couldn’t handle any more questions.

Dresses. Bridesmaids. Cupcake tower or traditional wedding cake?

She had ended up drinking too much red wine and lurking in her room like a teenager.

Not the most auspicious start to an engagement, she admitted to Jonny when he arrived half an hour later and listened to her grumble over tea and HobNobs.

‘Marla, darling.’ He crossed his legs gracefully and screwed up his nose. ‘Do you actually want to marry Henry?’

‘Rupert,’ Marla corrected with a frown.

‘Sorry, he’s Hooray Henry in my head.’ Jonny was completely unabashed by his mistake and fixed her with a beady glare. ‘Do you love him?’

Oh jeez, not the love question. She felt her muesli made a break for freedom.

‘Jonny, it’s way too early for a heart to heart. We’ll talk later, okay?’

‘Why? To give you a chance to work on your evasive answers some more?’ He arched his eyebrows and smirked as headed out. ‘Pub after work. And no “buts”,’ he shouted ominously as he took the stairs two at a time.

Marla shook her head.

She had plenty of buts.

But I don’t want a big meringue dress.

But I don’t care whether the napkins match the seat covers.

But I’ve always hated red roses.

But I don’t want to get married.

Not to Rupert, nor to anyone else.

Jonny would regret dragging her to the pub when she got started on that little lot.

She placed her empty mug down and spotted the corner of a little envelope hidden beneath her mouse mat. A little tug and a quick rack of her brains, and it came back to her. It was the note she’d taken from the funeral parlour the night that Bluey died, the one with her own name scrawled across the front. She’d stashed it beneath her mouse mat, unsure if it was right to open it or not, but as she turned it over in her fingers, she reached a decision.

It was her name written across the front of it. It was intended for her.

What harm could it do, really? It was just a scrap of paper that would probably be nothing. She ripped the envelope across the top and eased the little card out.



Dear Marla,

Something to help make your July 4th go with a bang, and to say I hope we can enjoy a less explosive friendship from here on in.



Yours,

Gabe

X


She frowned and read it twice over, still none the wiser. What did he mean, July 4th? Bang? She gasped out loud and clamped her fingers over her mouth as the tinkling penny stopped spinning in the air and began to drop, flipping over several times in slow motion before it landed with a dull thud of realisation.

The fireworks.

But how could they have been from Gabe? Rupert had brought them over; she’d seen him with her own eyes. She tapped her nose as she mentally rewound back to when Rupert walked into the chapel on July 4th. It was a day she’d prefer never to think of again.

Yes. She was one hundred per cent certain that Rupert had expressly said that the fireworks were his gift to her.

Hadn’t he?

And if he hadn’t said it, he’d definitely encouraged her to think it.

How could she ever know for sure?

She could hardly come right out and ask Rupert, because the mere mention of Gabe’s name was enough to give him a coronary. And she couldn’t ask Gabe either because a) they weren’t on speaking terms, and b) even if they were, she’d sound a deranged fool.

‘Hey, Gabe. I stole this note from your desk, and now I need to know if my boyfriend passed your gift off as his own.’

It sounded absurd and she knew it, but what else could ‘something to help make your July 4th go with a bang’ possibly mean? Unless he’d sent a bomb, which would be more in keeping given the general state of affairs between them.

She frowned out of the window at the funeral parlour. The constant ‘push me, pull me’ nature of her relationship with Gabe was draining. Their basic chemical reaction to each other made everything more complicated than it needed to be. If only he were pig ugly, it would make it so much easier to hate him.



‘A bottle of red and three glasses, please, whenever you’re ready, Bill.’

Jonny winked at the landlord before gesturing Marla and Emily to a quiet table in the pub.

‘Make that two glasses. I’ll stick to OJ,’ Emily added as she stood on tiptoes to lift her growing bump over the back of a chair.

They flopped down on the low sofas with a collective groan. It’d been a hectic day of preparations for a mid-week Las Vegas style wedding, and the Elvis impersonator had dropped out at the eleventh hour, causing pandemonium. It was all sorted now, thanks to a desperate runner up from Stars in their Eyes who still craved his five minutes in the spotlight. He was prepared to make the two-hundred-mile round trip in order to don his star-spangled spandex again.

‘Emily, do you think Marla should marry Henry?’ Jonny poured the wine and got stuck straight into his intended topic of conversation.

Marla spluttered as she unwound her Missoni scarf. ‘Excuse me?’

Emily shifted cagily in her seat and turned anxious eyes on Marla. ‘Do you want to?’

‘I …’ Marla flailed around for the right words. Her sense of loyalty insisted that Rupert really ought to be first to hear that there wasn’t going to be a wedding.

‘See? Told you! She didn’t jump straight in there with a big fat “yes”, did she?’

Jonny wagged his finger, clearly something else he’d learned from his many hours dedicated to watching Oprah. He stopped just short of adding ‘girrlfreeend’ on the end of his sentence, but then he was still warming up.

Marla fixed him with a measured stare.

‘Just quit it with the inquisition, will you? I’m fine.’

Jonny took a leisurely sip of his wine and ignored her plea. ‘I asked you a question this morning.’

Emily looked at Jonny non plussed as Marla shrugged non-committally.

‘Did you?’

‘I asked you if you loved Rupert.’

Emily’s head swivelled back to Marla, agog.

‘So?’ Marla folded her arms across her chest and glared at Jonny squarely across the table.

‘So, do you?’

The weight of both of their expectant stares proved too heavy. Marla slumped, elbows on the table and her face buried in her hands.

‘No. I’m fond of him, but I don’t love him. And no, I don’t want to marry him, either.’

Jonny rubbed her back, immediately contrite.

‘Poor baby, I knew it.’ He shot a pained look of horror over her head at Emily.

‘You have to tell him it’s off, darling, and sooner rather than later,’ Jonny advised, making Marla howl behind her fingers.

‘But why did you say yes?’ Emily whispered, fishing a tissue out of her massive tote bag and pushing it into Marla’s hands.

Marla lifted her head and ripped the tissue slowly into ribbons.

‘Did I? You were there. Did I actually say yes?’

Jonny and Emily exchanged troubled glances.

‘It sort of looked like you did, yeah. You nodded, and then you burst into tears,’ Emily said.

‘I nodded. You’re sure?’

‘’Fraid you did, sugar,’ Jonny confirmed.

‘And to think I thought it was all so romantic,’ Emily marvelled with wide eyes. ‘Are you sure? That you don’t love him, I mean?’

Marla took a good slug of wine and nodded.

‘He’s fun company and he makes me laugh. We have a good time together.’

She balled the shredded tissue up.

Emily’s face said all Marla needed to know.

‘He doesn’t make your heart miss a beat when he looks at you?’ Emily asked. ‘He doesn’t make you melt?’

Marla smiled sadly and patted Emily’s hand. ‘We can’t all be as lucky as you, Em.’

She registered the shadow that passed across her friend’s eyes.

‘Well, that’s that then. You can’t marry him if you don’t love him.’ Emily placed her other hand over Marla’s. ‘Marriage is hard enough when you do love each other, so it’d be a complete disaster if you don’t.’

‘Is everything okay with you and Tom?’ Marla asked, partly out of concern and partly because she badly wanted to change the subject.

Emily batted the question away with a wave of her hand. ‘We’re fine. Ignore me. It’s just hormones.’

Marla debated for a second before reaching for her handbag. She pulled out her diary, and extricated the note she’d found on Gabe’s desk from between its pages. Jonny and Emily stared at the innocuous little envelope in silence as Marla slid it towards the centre of the table.

‘There’s this, too.’

‘What is it?’ Emily asked.

‘It’s a note I never received.’

Marla took the card out of its envelope and passed it to Emily who, clearly confused, read it with a frown then handed it on to Jonny.

‘I found it by accident on Gabe’s desk the night that Bluey died,’ Marla said quietly.

‘I don’t understand …’ Emily shrugged, her face a picture of frustration.

‘No? Well I bloody do!’ Jonny burst out as he slammed the card down on the table a few seconds later. Marla chewed her lip and waited in silence to see if Jonny’s conclusion tallied with her own.

‘I knew that jumped-up twatbag couldn’t have come up with anything so thoughtful on his own!’

‘Tell me what’s going on!’ Emily hissed at them.

Marla placed a hand on Jonny’s arm to stop him from shouting again, then turned to Emily.

‘I think the note should have been attached to the fireworks.’

‘But Rupert gave you the firewo— Oh my god!’

Emily’s mouth dropped into a perfect ‘O’ as realisation dawned.

Jonny drummed his fingers on the tabletop in an attempt to control his temper. ‘Have you said anything to Rupert about this yet?’

Marla shook her head. ‘I only read it today.’

‘Good. Let me tell him. Or, better yet, let me smack his teeth down his throat for you.’

Marla covered Jonny’s tightly balled fist with her own hand, grateful to have him in her corner, even if he had temporarily morphed into Bruce Willis from the ‘Die Hard’ years.

‘I still don’t get it though …’ Emily muttered.

‘I don’t either, really,’ Marla said. ‘Rupert definitely gave me those fireworks himself. How did he get hold of them, if they were actually from Gabe?’

Emily shook her head with a perplexed look at Jonny. ‘Well, I know one thing for sure. Gabe wouldn’t have given them to Rupert to pass on, since they can’t stand the sight of each other.’

Marla nodded. She’d arrived at that same stumbling block herself.

Jonny, however, was streets ahead of both of them.

‘You’re right. Gabe wouldn’t give them to Rupert. But you can bet your sweet ass that Melanie would,’ he said, slowly. They lapsed into silence and stared at each other.

‘Bitch,’ Jonny spat eventually.

‘But why would she take Gabe’s note off first?’

Jonny looked at Emily as if she were the village idiot.

‘Durr! Because she’s got the hots for him herself of course! Haven’t you noticed the way she moons over him?’

‘But why would Rupert not mention that they weren’t from him?’ Emily asked, her eyes flicking between Marla and Jonny.

Marla was silent – still turning the idea over in her head.

‘Because he’s a thieving opportunist shitbag. Why else?’

Marla cringed at Jonny’s typically harsh words. ‘Go easy, Jonny. Maybe he intended to tell me they were from Gabe, but then felt awkward when I was so thrilled.’

‘Yeah, right.’ Jonny laughed sourly. ‘Why are you determined to see the best in him?’

Marla shrugged. ‘I just know him better than you do. And anyway, since when did you become a fully paid up member of the Gabriel Ryan fan club?’

‘I’m not. I just don’t like people lying to you.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Emily asked, her chocolate eyes soft with sympathy.

Marla rubbed a hand across her forehead, then knocked what was left in her wine glass back in one go.

‘I don’t know yet. But one thing’s for sure. I’m not marrying Rupert.’

Marriage was number one on her ‘things not to do before I die’ list, so how the hell had she ended up with a bona fide fiancé? Let alone one who was already lying through his teeth before he’d even got a ring on her finger?



Over at Emily’s cottage, Tom unzipped the suit carrier that hung on the back of the spare bedroom door and felt around inside the jacket pocket of his linen wedding suit. It was still there, folded in half, just as it had been that night on the mantelpiece.

He clutched the pale green note and stared at it as if it might explode in his fingers.

The night he’d found it, he’d so wanted to destroy it, but something had held him back. Was today the day he would actually read it?

Was any day the right day to find out the real reason your wife planned to leave you?

His fingers touched the cool cotton of his jacket. If he reached into the pocket of the trousers, he knew he’d find powder soft Antiguan sand from the beach they’d married on. He’d never got around to having the suit dry cleaned, for fear that it would wash away some of the magical memories of that day.

Emily, barefoot and beautiful, an exotic flower tucked behind her ear. Of how she’d laughed at the way the wedding celebrant pronounced his surname, and how thrilled she’d been to finally share that name with him.

Of the love they’d made on that very same beach to consummate their marriage, beneath a blanket of stars so bright you could almost reach up to take one home as a souvenir.

He flipped the letter over again. He’d told Emily that he’d thrown it in the fire that night without reading it. He wished he had.

Did her really want to know what had driven Emily to the point of leaving him?

Did he want to rake it all up again, now that she was finally having a baby and they’d stepped back from the brink of disaster?

The baby.

He closed his eyes and sighed hard, the letter suddenly as lead-heavy as his heart. Inevitability swamped him. He already knew.

He traced his own name with his fingertip, scrawled across the front of the paper in Emily’s familiar round handwriting.

Today was the as good a day as any. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and opened the letter.



Dear Tom,

I’m so sorry that I’m not brave enough to do this face to face, but we seem to have lost the ability to talk to each other these days anyway, so maybe it’s for the best. I miss that so much. Talking, I mean. I miss you so much – even when you’re home, its like we’re strangers living under the same roof.

I’ve done something terrible, Tom, and it’s ripping me apart. I don’t even want to write it down because I know how much reading it will hurt you, but I have to because you deserve to know the truth.

I’ve slept with someone else. It was just once, and he means nothing to me, honestly, he doesn’t. I won’t try to make excuses, and I’m not asking for your forgiveness because I can’t forgive myself. I was just so desperately lonely, and he was kind to me. God, I wish I could wind the clock back and not do it, but life isn’t like that, is it?

I’m so sorry – for this, and for wanting a baby so much that I’ve let it rip our marriage apart. Jesus, Tom, how did it come to this?

You are the love of my life, it wasn’t supposed to end like this. I’m so ashamed of myself, and I won’t blame you if you decide that you can’t be with me anymore.

I’ve broken my own heart as well as yours, I’m sorry to the ends of the earth and back.

Love always,

Emily

x