Lucy moved ahead of her to hold the front door open. “Wrong idea.”

Temple wasn’t fazed by Lucy’s cool response. “As long as he does the job I hired him for”—she angled her cargo through the doorway—“I don’t care what the two of you do the rest of the time.”

Lucy wasn’t used to being addressed as anyone’s underling, but before she could fire back, the Evil Queen and her load of bedrails had disappeared down the front steps.

Lucy had discovered a padlock on the pantry door when she’d gone into the kitchen for breakfast, and since she hadn’t been up to doing battle with Panda on an empty stomach, she’d settled for coffee. But now she was hungry. She located a carton of black cherry yogurt and a cold hot dog. Before she could finish either one, she heard a truck pulling into the drive, followed almost immediately by the sound of a door slamming upstairs, presumably Temple hiding from sight. Soon Panda and the driver were unloading what proved to be gym equipment.

Lucy had planned to bake bread for Bree and Toby, but after last night’s pork chop incident, she couldn’t see that happening, and she rode to the farm stand empty-handed.

Bree stood on a ladder, painting a colorful ribbon garland across the top of the farm stand’s pale yellow frame, the kind of whimsical decoration that might be seen on a carousel. The colors coordinated with the old-fashioned moss-green quilt she’d tossed over the counter to showcase a row of three-bottle honey pyramids.

Toby popped out from behind the stand as Lucy got off her bike. “I saw Panda’s car go by yesterday. You got a job for me?”

Toby was a complication she hadn’t thought through. “Not for a while. One of my … girlfriends is visiting. We’re going to be hanging out, so it’ll be boring.” The idea of the Evil Queen as a girlfriend made her shudder, but she needed to lay some groundwork in case Toby showed up unexpectedly at the house, which he would almost certainly do.

“But I can still come over and do stuff, right?”

“Toby, please stop harassing her.” Bree gave Lucy a tired smile as she got down off the ladder, leaving her tray of paint pots balanced on top. Although the morning was warming up, Bree didn’t have any body fat, and she wore a lightweight gray sweater over her T-shirt. Neither the tan she was acquiring nor the fresh sprinkle of freckles across her cheekbones concealed her exhaustion. “I’ll do my best to keep him from bothering you.”