“Nope,” Jacob said flatly. “Don’t want her.” He stopped midpace, noticing that one of the paintings on the aubergine wall—a landscape commissioned from a local artist—was slightly crooked. Scowling, he stalked over and adjusted it. Bloody doors banging all day, knocking things out of whack, that was the reason. “Can’t have a chef who slams my doors,” he muttered darkly. “Doesn’t create a restful atmosphere. Bastards.”

“Is that the issue with Claire?”

“What? Oh.” Jacob shook his head and went back to his pacing. “Claire knows how to shut a door properly, so far as I can tell. But she smiles too much. No one smiles that much. Pretty sure she’s on drugs.”

Mont gave Jacob the dirty look to end all dirty looks, which was a natural skill of his. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m always serious.”

“She’s sixty-four years old.”

Jacob rolled his eyes. “You think people stop making bad decisions when they hit sixty? Nope. Anyway, you remember before I moved to the city, she used to work at Betty’s? I ordered a slice of her apple pie once, and there was a hair in it.”

“That’s why you don’t want to invite her back?”

Jacob frowned at his friend. “Why are you using your Jacob’s being unreasonable voice? I don’t want hairy pie, Montrose. Do you want hairy pie? Because if you’re that hot for hairy pie, I will make you a hairy pie.”

“You couldn’t pay me to eat your cooking, which is kind of why we’re here.” Mont scrubbed a hand over his face and screwed his eyes shut for a second. “Come on, man. You moved years ago. You think she hasn’t learned how to wear a hairnet in five years? Call her back, let her cook for us, give her a chance.”

“No.” Jacob knew he sounded like a dick. He knew even Mont, who got him better than everyone, probably thought he was being a dick. But sometimes it was easier to keep his thought processes to himself because other people had trouble following them or thought they were unnecessarily blunt.

Bluntness was never unnecessary.

In the case of one Claire Penny: she was cheerful, she was gentle, and then there was that fucking pie. Jacob didn’t like poor cooking hygiene, he didn’t like working with nice people—too easy to accidentally hurt their feelings—and he didn’t like compromising at a time when he needed the absolute best. He had plans. Carefully laid, highly detailed, suddenly derailed because sod’s-bloody-law, plans. Plans that involved the upcoming Pemberton Gingerbread Festival, high-quality cooking, and a shit-ton of professional success. Entertaining a candidate who didn’t meet the criteria to fit those plans would be a waste of time, and he did not have time to waste.

“So what the hell are we going to do?” Mont demanded. “Because the festival is in four weeks, and—shit, isn’t there a meeting next week? If you don’t show up with a chef, you’re going to lose the opportunity.”

“I know,” Jacob gritted out. It was all he could think about. How typical that the one time he managed to wrangle something useful out of someone, his chef ruined it all by pissing off to Scotland.