Mont straightened up, a stack of notebooks in his hands. “All right, listen up. I don’t know if Jake got a chance to mention it before you ran him over—”

Wow. Okay, they were being blunt, then. She could respect that.

“—but we were chasing after you to give you the job.” When Eve stared blankly in response, Mont added, “The chef job. Here. Jacob figured out a couple seconds after you’d gone that you’re pretty much our only hope, so yeah.”

Was Eve imagining things, or was the guilt being piled rather high in this conversation?

“Then things went left,” Mont continued, “and now I’m a little worried you don’t intend to take the job you apparently wanted so badly. I’m especially worried because of this Gingerbread Festival thing, which he’s worked incredibly fucking hard for—and because, if you waltz off and leave us in the lurch, you’re also leaving Jacob in an even worse position than he was in before. What with the fractured wrist, and all. So. That’d be fucked up. Right?”

Eve wasn’t mistaken at all; the guilt pile was indeed high, and it was working.

Cooking at Castell Cottage was, logically speaking, a horrible idea: Eve had no clue what she was doing, the owner had hated her on sight, and that was before she’d run him over. Plus, she was employed by Florence now—or she would be, come September. But the weight of her need to atone pressed heavier and heavier, squeezing an unauthorized reply from her throat.

“Of course I’m taking the job,” she croaked.

And immediately wanted to kick herself.

Mont brightened. “You are?”

I’m not. “I am.”

“Oh, perfect. Thank you. That’s—really, thanks, because we’re in a bit of a bind here. Now, I hate to throw you in at the deep end, but Jacob’s got a concussion and a fractured wrist and a seriously bruised arse—”

Eve wrestled with an involuntary wince.

“—so he’s not exactly going to be better in the morning. Do you think you could . . . take over for a little while, just while he’s recovering?”

Eve blinked. “Take over? But I—I only interviewed for the chef position.”

“Yeah, but then you hit Jacob with your car.”

“Well—doesn’t he have any other staff?!”

“No.”

“No?!”

“No,” Mont repeated calmly, striding across the room toward her with his mysterious pile of papers. “Here. These should help.”

Eve opened the first notebook to find a handwritten title page in impressive calligraphy.

HOW NOT TO FUCK UP MY HEALTH RATING

By Jacob Wayne

She stared. “Are these . . . employee handbooks?”

“Basically.”

“That he . . . that he made himself?”

“Yep,” Mont said. “Now, I need to see to the pub, and you need to be prepared for breakfast tomorrow morning, so—”

A thought struck Eve on a wave of horror. “What time is breakfast tomorrow morning?”

Mont ignored her. “So I’m going to rush you through the ropes. Okay?”

Okay? Okay? A very large part of Eve wanted to scream that no, this was not okay—mostly because holy shit, there were seven notebooks piled in her arms, and this bed-and-breakfast seemed properly run and generally good and therefore intimidating, and she already knew she couldn’t possibly take over in a manner that would please the Prince of Perfection Jacob Wayne.