Undertaking Love

Chapter Six




Emily looked at her watch. Ten to eight. In a little over four hours, she’d be thirty. There were no balloons or banners, just a small clutch of cards arranged in a sad little line on the fireplace. She got up and scraped her barely touched ready meal into the recycling bin and reached down for the bottle of Shiraz she’d stashed in the wine rack earlier on in the week. It was gone. Crap! Bloody Tom, he’d probably stuck it in his bag for his business trip. Pity he couldn’t have given as much thought to being here for her birthday, rather than at a conference somewhere up in the wilds of Scotland. But then, he was away more than he was at home these days so she shouldn’t really have been surprised. She glanced down at her pyjama bottoms and Uggs, and made a snap decision. They’d have to do for a run around to the corner shop, because there was no way she was leaving her twenties stone-cold sober.

She grabbed her purse and keys and let herself out, breaking into a desperate half-jog to get there before Bob and Audrey closed up for the evening. They were famously erratic, prone to shutting up shop early to watch the soaps.

Bugger.

The lights were off. The door was locked. Horror of all horrors, the sodding bloody shop was shut, and Emily could just hear the strains of the Eastenders duffers floating down from the open upstairs window. She rested her forehead against the cool glass, defeated and stupidly close to tears. She didn’t hear the car come to a standstill next to her, but suddenly she felt a warm hand on her shoulder.

‘Hey, Emily from the chapel.’

She turned around and found herself looking right into Dan’s crystal clear blue eyes. Several thoughts flashed through her head at once. Christ, he’s gorgeous. Shit, I’m wearing PJs. I’m going to cry if he’s nice to me. ‘You’re out of luck if you wanted beer. They’re shut.’

Dan didn’t want beer. He’d been on his way to drop the hearse back at the funeral parlour when he’d spotted Emily and hit the brakes.

‘Pity. You look like a girl who really needs a drink.’

Emily sighed and leaned her back against the glass. ‘Is it that obvious?’

‘The pyjamas kind of give you away.’

She looked at the floor and half-shrugged, half-laughed. He must think she was a total flake. First she’d cried on his shoulder, and now he’d caught her running around the street in her nightwear like a desperate alcoholic.

‘Listen … I could run you out to the supermarket if you like?’

She cast an apprehensive glance towards the hearse. ‘In that?’

‘It’s just a car, Emily.’ He laughed, opening the passenger door in invitation. ‘Your chariot awaits.’ He performed a low bow.

Emily knew full well in the back of her mind it wasn’t just a car, and this wasn’t just a mercy mission to the supermarket. But faced with the lonely alternative of an empty house, an empty wine glass and an empty bed, she willingly climbed into the passenger seat. Dan got in and clunked his door shut, and Emily noticed that he wasn’t in oil-splattered jeans tonight. Jeans, yes, but clean, and there was a woody, warm hint of masculine shower gel about him.

‘Were you going out?’

‘Nowhere special.’ Dan grinned. Gabe was a big boy; he’d be fine on his own in the pub for a while. This was a far more interesting option.

Emily fell silent as Dan turned out of the village towards the supermarket.

‘So, Emily from the chapel. What makes you desperate enough to cry over wine?’

Emily sighed and twizzled her rings around on her fingers as she debated how to answer. Because I’m thirty in a few hours?

Because I just felt like throwing myself an almighty pity party?

Because I can’t get pregnant?

Because my marriage is dead in the water?

‘Can we just not talk about it?’ she eventually managed.

‘Not talk about the serious stuff?’ Dan grinned. ‘You’re talking my language, lady.’ He turned INXS up loud on the stereo and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘I can go in for you, if you like.’ He cast a pointed look at her pyjamas as he manoeuvred the hearse into a parking space. Emily grimaced. She really didn’t want to cruise the aisles of Sainsbury’s in pale pink fluffy trousers with love hearts on them, but then she didn’t especially want to be on her own in the hearse either.

‘What will I do?’

‘Stay here and creep out the locals.’ Dan jumped out and jogged across the car park without giving Emily a moment to protest. She sat for a few seconds and tried to be rational. It is just a car. An estate car, maybe, with lots of room in the back for shopping. She screwed up her courage and glanced over her shoulder, half-expecting to see a coffin, even though she’d double-checked it was empty before she got in.

Still empty.

When she looked forward again she spotted Kev, the chapel’s part-time Elvis impersonator heading out of the supermarket stuffing biscuits into his face. Did the man not know anything about tempting fate? He’d be keeling over on the toilet next if he wasn’t careful. She ducked as he passed her window so he wouldn’t spot her fraternizing with the enemy and mention it to Marla.

Or, God forbid, to Tom.

She breathed a sigh of relief when Dan slid back into the driving seat and passed her a bag clinking with bottles. ‘Red, white and sparkling. My treat.’

Emily laughed. ‘Now you’re talking my language.’

Dan winked and gunned the engine. ‘Do you want me to take you home?’

His directness caught her off guard and the smile slipped from her face. He might have kept his tone deliberately light, but the subtext behind his question was clear. ‘I don’t know.’ She looked down at her lap. ‘No.’

He nodded and turned out of the carpack in the opposite direction to the village.

They drove out into the countryside for a little while before Dan finally eased the hearse up a battered dirt track and came to rest in a sheltered copse. Beyond the trees Emily had a clear view of the full moon as it glittered over the placid waters of the River Severn.

‘This place is beautiful,’ she said softly, and wound down her window to drink in the night sounds and smells.

Dan nodded, his eyes on her profile instead of the view. ‘Beautiful.’

Emily fidgeted in her seat and the carrier bag tumbled over with a clink that reminded her of her need for wine.

‘I don’t suppose you happen to carry wine glasses in this thing, do you?’ She asked, glancing hopefully around the surprisingly plush interior of the hearse.

‘Sorry, Princess.’ Dan shook his head. ‘Although, hang on …’ he stretched an arm back between the two seats, fished around for a few seconds before coming up with a battered red KitKat mug.

‘I was working in the back this morning. Left this in there.’ Dan wiped the mug clean on the edge of his dark T-shirt.

Emily unscrewed the cap from the red wine and sloshed the mug half-full, then saluted him with it before taking a good long swig. It was a little cold, but she welcomed it all the same.

‘Better?’

‘A bit.’ She had another glug. ‘A lot.’ She grinned.

Dan laughed and refilled her mug.

Emily sighed heavily. ‘It’s my birthday tomorrow.’

‘No way! Let me guess …’ he turned her chin slightly towards him to study her face. ‘Twenty-four?’

‘I wish.’ Emily looked at her watch and groaned. ‘I’ve got exactly two hours left of my twenties.’

Dan whistled under his breath. ‘Well, here’s to you, Mrs Robinson.’

‘Don’t. You make me feel even older.’ She sipped her wine and idly wondered exactly how much younger than her he was. Couldn’t be much. A year. Two, maybe?

‘So … Is there anything you’ve always wanted to do before you hit the big 3-0?’

Emily shook her head, unwilling to allow herself to even think about the obvious baby-related answer to his question.

‘Skydive, maybe?’ he suggested. ‘Bungee jump?’

Emily wrinkled her nose with distaste at his daredevil suggestions. She preferred to get her kicks on terra firma; even domestic flights had her swigging rescue remedy in the airport loos.

‘How about wild sex in the back of a hearse?’ he added.

A charged silence crackled between them as his question hung in the air.

Emily had known where this was headed from the moment she’d got into the hearse back in the village. She hadn’t planned it, but then again, she hadn’t resisted it either.

And she didn’t resist now as Dan reached out to cradle her jaw, tracing her cheekbone with his thumb. She didn’t resist him because she couldn’t resist him. Instead, she turned her face into his hand and pressed her lips against his warm palm. A shiver of pleasure rocked through her at the intimacy of his unknown taste against her mouth, and she knew from the way his breath quickened that he’d felt the heat kick up a notch too. He took the mug from Emily’s fingers, slung it out of the open window, then promptly pulled her across onto his lap, leaving her in no doubt of exactly how much he wanted her.

He was different, he was exciting, and he made her feel like someone else. His kiss left her breathless, and Emily opened her mouth to let his tongue slide in.

Michael Hutchence had nothing on Dan when it came to sexy moans. Any last vestige of common sense followed the KitKat mug out of the window when his hands moved underneath her T-shirt to stroke her breasts through the lace of her bra.

She was lost in him. In how new and adored his hands made her feel. In how his ragged breathing gave away the extent of his arousal. In the erotic power of being wanted again.

Emily needed more. Right there and then she needed all of him, and she reached down to where he strained against the confines of the buttons of his jeans. He swore into her mouth, and in one swift move, he dropped the seat and hauled her over into the back of the hearse.

‘Dan! We can’t … not in here!’ she squeaked, and somewhere in her head, Emily actually meant it. It was scandalous on just about every level to steam up the windows of a hearse, but on the other hand, it was kind of perfectly proportioned for stretching out.

‘Oh yes we f*cking can,’ he muttered, pulling her T-shirt over her head without breaking their kiss, like a magician pulling out the table cloth without upsetting any teacups. He unfastened her bra with the ease of a practised man, and Emily’s protests dissolved as his warm hands and wet mouth roamed over her body. He licked and sucked until she gasped and begged. Somehow, he managed to wriggle off both her trousers and his own in one go and settle back over her, warm skin against warm skin. He was hard and heavy between her legs, but it was Dan’s kiss that tipped Emily’s world upside down.

Slow, sweet and exquisite over her mouth.

Feather gentle over her squeezed shut eyelids when he pushed himself all the way inside her. Outside, the hearse creaked to the rhythm of INXS and Emily and Dan’s efforts.

Inside, she buried her tear damp face in his neck and clung to his broad shoulders for safe harbour while he rocked her to the moon and back.

Some time later, Emily opened her eyes as Dan’s mouth traced a lazy pattern on the sensitive hollow below her ear. She gazed out at the moonlit river, still and serene despite the fact that three lives had just changed forever on her banks.