“I hear you on that. This place”—she pointed to the ceiling to indicate the inn—“is going to pay off my student loans.” If it doesn’t bankrupt me first. “But it’s not like you’re going to get halfway through an engineering degree and decide to run off and join the circus.”

Clara looked thoughtful. “You said earlier that university was partly for figuring out what you wanted to be when you grow up. What’s the other part?”

“The social part. And I don’t mean parties and stuff like that so much as—I know this is going to sound cliché—widening your horizons.”

“Meeting new kinds of people.”

Clara had said that last bit with a strange sort of vehemence. Eve eyed her. “Yes.”

“I want to meet those people.”

“And you will. So in that sense, it doesn’t matter where you go.”

“But if you want to meet certain sorts of people you need to go to places they’re likely to be.”

Hmm. What was going on here? Eve was about to ask, but Clara heaved a sigh. “This is all good advice. You’re making me feel much better. Thanks.”

“No problem. Come by anytime you want to talk.”

“I will take you up on that!” She picked up her phone and started texting. “But not now. I gotta go soon. I’m meeting my brother.”

“So…” She shouldn’t ask. Clara looked up, her eyebrows raised. “How was it, growing up here…with your brother?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I know Sawyer raising me when he was a kid himself is not that normal, but to me it’s normal.”

Eve had so many questions. She wanted to know about this apartment Clara had referenced before. How did Sawyer afford it? When did he go to police school? How did he do it all? It wasn’t like she would have expected Sawyer and Clara to be living in the gutter, but they were so clearly thriving. But she couldn’t say that, so she settled for, “I was a bit surprised he’s chief of police at his age. How’d he manage that?”

There was a rap at the front door, and Clara hopped up. “You can ask him yourself. I told him to meet me here.”

Oh, crap.

“Hi!” Clara swung the door open to reveal an off-duty Sawyer. He was wearing those same perfect jeans and a black T-shirt.

Eve, by contrast, was wearing the infamously ratty yoga pants and a shirt that said, “Librarian: The Original Search Engine.”

“Sawyer, Eve wants to know how you became chief of police at such a young age.”

A startled look flickered over Sawyer’s features, but he recovered quickly and one corner of his mouth turned up. “She does, does she?”