But already, she was starting to doubt her memory of the employee handbooks. She knew she’d memorized them, but she also knew she had a tendency to mess things up at vital moments, and therefore her memories of memorizing were not to be trusted, and—

Oh Christ, the man was talking. “—sunny-side up, and the stewed tomatoes, ta.”

Eve scribbled dutifully and hoped like hell she’d just caught the tail end of a request for a Full English. Because that’s what the poor bastard was getting. “Right. If you’d like to take a seat, I’ll bring it right out.”

“Cheers, my darling,” he said, but he did not take a seat. Why didn’t he take a seat? “This hatch wasn’t open yesterday,” he went on conversationally.

Eve froze in the act of reaching for some eggs. “It wasn’t?” But it was supposed to be open, wasn’t it? Or had she misread, misunderstood, mis—

“Nor the day before, when I arrived. Nice to see what’s going on behind the scenes, though. Say, where’s Jacob this morning?”

Oh dear. This particular question was the one Eve had been dreading. She’d hoped no one would miss the man’s icy presence and she therefore wouldn’t be asked about him, but apparently, no such luck. “Jacob is, erm, indisposed.”

“Indisposed, is it?” The man chuckled. “If it were anyone else, I’d think that was code for a hangover.”

Eve laughed nervously. “Right. But not Jacob!”

“Lord, no, not him. So what’s up with him?”

“Erm . . .”

“I hope he’s not poorly. He’s a lovely lad, he is.”

Eve blinked. “Erm . . .”

“This here’s the only place that guarantees us a ground-floor room every time. My Sharon’s got dicky joints, bless her. Puts us on a special list, he does.”

Eve’s sister Chloe required similar accommodations, so Eve knew some people were horribly unreasonable about that sort of thing. But apparently, not Jacob. Typical. She’d feel much better about her rather shocking sins toward him if he could be a little bit evil. The bastard.

“Barry?” A voice trilled from the dining room doorway, out of sight. The man in the window turned toward it, his smile growing impossibly wider.

“There y’are, Shaz! Sleepyhead. I’ve ordered my breakfast, babe, didn’t know what you wanted.”

A woman appeared in the hatch, as smiley and pink faced as the man. “Hiya, darling,” she beamed at Eve. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

Of course she would. “Right,” Eve stammered. “Which, er, which is . . . I mean, rather, would you like your eggs—”

“Sunny-side up, thank you!”

“Fabulous.” Eve stared at the couple with a rictus grin she hoped they might find encouraging. Any further instructions? No? Fine. “Can I get you anything to drink? Tea? Juice? We have a selection of both this morning.”

IT’S NOT JUST BED AND BREAKFAST: Chapter Two, Section F: There’s no such thing as too much.

“I’ll have a coffee,” the woman said. “He’ll take a green tea.”

“Shaz!”

“Don’t start.” She patted Barry’s chest, then linked her arm with his and tugged him off toward the tables. “Now, leave this poor woman to her work.”

Yes, thank you, Shaz. Eve waved them off with what she hoped was a sunny smile, then returned to anxiety-cooking as soon as their backs were turned.

Okay, Full English. She presumed.

Eve grabbed Jacob’s premium-grade, locally sourced pork sausages from the fridge—LOCALS LIKE MONEY: Chapter Eight, Section N: Skybriar’s butcher is named Peter, he is very old, do not question his maths or he will provide inferior sausage meat—and got started. She was, under ordinary circumstances, quite an excellent cook. Despite this fact, Eve stared at the sausages for a moment, gripped by the fear that she’d put the wrong oil in the pan. She was humming frantically along to the beat of Teyana Taylor’s “How You Want It?,” trying to recall the basics of cooking oil usage, when the kitchen door opened behind her.

She froze, dread catching her by the throat. Dear God. Jacob was awake. Jacob was here. And she was—

Frazzled. To say the least.

But she was also trying, and that should count for something. So Eve cleared her throat, lifted her chin, and turned around—to find that Jacob wasn’t standing in the doorway after all. No; Eve had been joined by a tall, slender woman with sharp blue eyes, her graying blond hair pulled into a no-nonsense ponytail and her jacket open over a uniform apron of some sort.

The woman stared at Eve. Eve stared at the woman.

Then the woman said, “You’re not my nephew.”

Eve blinked rapidly. “Erm,” she replied, “no. No, I’m not.” Hadn’t Jacob mentioned an aunt, yesterday? Yes, he had. What was her name? Laura, Lisa, Lilian—

Aunt Someone gave Eve a very searching look. Really, it felt rather like an x-ray. “Well,” she barked, “where is he, then?”

“Lucy,” Eve blurted.

The aunt raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Er, sorry, I meant, erm . . .” Eve didn’t think she’d ermed so much in her life. “I believe he’s in bed. He was last I saw, anyway.”

A beat passed. Lucy’s other eyebrow arched to join the first.

“Not,” Eve said quickly, “that I was—that I saw him because—what I meant was that—”

“Go steady, girl, before you swallow your tongue.” The ghost of a smile passed the woman’s fine mouth. “What’s your name?”

“Eve,” Eve mumbled. Then a thought hit, and she spun around. “Shit, my sausages.”

“I’m Lucy Castell, which you seem to know already. New chef, are you?”

Castell. Hm. So Jacob had named his bed-and-breakfast after his aunt? That had to be dull and uncreative or weird and sinister, somehow. Because if it wasn’t either of those things, it might be cute.

“Yes, I’m the new chef,” Eve tossed over her shoulder, snagging a tin of tomatoes from the pantry. Christ, now her timings were all off.

“And Jacob’s in bed because . . . ?”

Eve wondered if she could politely elect not to answer.

“Is he ill?” Lucy nudged. Lord, the woman was like a diamond drill.

“Not exactly,” Eve murmured, pouring tomatoes into a saucepan and opening up the spice rack. “He just—well, he got a little bit run over—”

Lucy’s air of calm evaporated. “He what?”

Eve spun around to face the other woman, hoping her own guilt wasn’t patently obvious. “Oh, it’s nothing to worry about. Just a broken wrist and a very mild concussion, so—”

“Run over by who?” Lucy demanded. Diamond. Drill.

“Erm,” Eve squeaked. “Me?”

Lucy stared in a very violent manner.

Eve began mentally cataloging all the knives in the kitchen and their whereabouts in relation to Lucy’s hands.

After a tense moment, the older woman said, “Are you . . . are you trying to tell me that my nephew, your employer, is currently in bed because you hit him with your car?”