When Eve had gotten to town last night, she’d been glad about the rain—the outdoor kind—because it meant she hadn’t had to interact with anyone besides Jason Sims, the lawyer who’d handled Lucille’s estate. Eve didn’t know Jason. He must have moved to town sometime in the past ten years. As he’d handed her the keys, he’d warned her that the Mermaid was a little the worse for wear. “Lucille couldn’t keep up with it toward the end,” he’d said, his words a dagger to Eve’s guilty heart. Eve’s determination never to set foot in Moonflower Bay again after that summer ten years ago had been matched by Lucille’s devotion to the place. That meant Eve had only seen her beloved great-aunt a couple of times a year over the last decade, usually on holidays when Eve’s father had driven to pick up Lucille and bring her to Toronto for the day.

Eve had spent the last decade telling herself that she could be a devoted great-niece from afar. She sent presents, and she and Lucille talked on the phone a lot. She knew things—she’d thought.

But Lucille hadn’t said anything about having trouble maintaining the inn.

She hadn’t said anything about her heart condition, either.

Or about leaving the Mermaid to Eve in her freaking will.

Okay, Eve knew nothing.

Except that she needed a plumber, stat. Or a roofer. Or…whatever kind of person you called when it was raining inside.

She started making a mental list. She was a librarian, and categorizing things came naturally.

Either that or her fondness for list making was about making her feel more in control of what remained, essentially, uncontrollable. Potato-potahto.

People to Call

1. Plumber.

2. Roofer.

Also, the most important one:

3. Real estate agent.

Preferably one from Grand View, the next town over, because she didn’t need her business spread all over town. Everyone was always up in each other’s business here. She wasn’t getting mixed up in any of that. She was going to be in and out as quickly and efficiently as possible. Like a spy.

Or, you know, a scaredy-cat.

She pushed down a niggle of guilt at the idea of selling the place that had been Lucille’s pride and joy, the place that had been Eve’s own beloved summer home for so many years.

She told herself she wasn’t feeling guilty so much as overwhelmed. Lucille was dead, and Eve was back in Moonflower Bay.

And it was grossly humid. Way too hot for this early in the morning. Way too hot for any time of day for a town on the shores of a massive lake. Time to get back inside to the air-conditioning.