“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 . . . ?”