“Well.” Eve fidgeted on the spot. “It seemed as if there were things to discuss.”
Mont arched an eyebrow. “Interesting. And here I had you for a runner.”
“A runner?” she repeated with all the righteous outrage of a woman who had totally been moments away from running. “Never.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Right.” He grinned. “Then what I’m about to say won’t bother you at all.”
Eve experienced a deep and powerful sense of foreboding. “Have at it.” Her voice squeaked on the last word. Oops.
“Come in,” Mont ordered—and it clearly was an order. Eve stepped through the doorway, jumping a little when he closed the door behind her. She looked around to find herself in what could only be described as Jacob’s quarters. This section of hallway had five doors: one that showed a glimpse of bathroom counter and neatly folded towels, one open cupboard with a washer-dryer thrumming away, two doors that remained neatly closed, and one at the end of the corridor that was slightly ajar—but not enough to see through it.
Eve’s nosiness was therefore thwarted.
Mont led her to one of the closed doors, which turned out to be locked. He produced a key and she found herself ushered into the most anal-retentive office she’d ever seen in her life. It was a box room with a desk set in front of tall, wide windows, a trio of filing cabinets lining the magnolia walls, and absolutely nothing else. No books, no photographs, not even any of the old, jazzy rugs thrown about elsewhere in Castell Cottage. A blank slate.
“Is this—Jacob’s office?” she managed.
Mont, who was already standing behind the desk rifling through drawers, shot her a look. “It helps him focus.”
Well, Eve bloody bet it did. The only possible distraction in this room was the window, and Jacob apparently sat with his back to it.
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.
Didn’t they realize she wasn’t up to much? Didn’t they know she never quite got things right? Putting her in charge of anything would be a mistake, but putting her in charge of this—
And yet . . . who else was going to do it?
Eve bit her lip as realizations racked up in her head. The basic facts were these: Jacob was out of commission. It was her fault. And even before all this happened, he’d been woefully down on staff.
Someone needed to step up here, and it looked like she was the only otherwise unoccupied person around.
“Fine,” she said. Her voice was slightly shaky, but it was clear. “Fine. I’ll do it. So show me the ropes.”
* * *
God, sleep was good.
As he snuggled deeper into his nest of pillows and blankets, Jacob wondered fuzzily why he insisted on getting up at 5 A.M. every morning. Something something, work, something something, routine. He had a vague recollection of doing push-ups before breakfast, or some such bullshit. But right now, he couldn’t comprehend why any sensible human would ever do any of that when they could just . . .
Stay in bed . . .
Forever.
Even better: when they could sleep forever. He’d been in the middle of a bloody brilliant dream about devouring an orange, segment by sweet, juicy segment, when something had woken him up. Hmm. Should probably investigate that.
Scowling, he opened his eyes.
The barest hint of moonlight trickled through his curtains, but the darkness didn’t matter; without his glasses, Jacob couldn’t see for shit, anyway. It was sound that made him realize someone was in his room: the creak of slow, easy footsteps, the steady huff of gentle breaths. He clenched his right hand into a fist, or tried to. But it turned out his right arm was still broken—had that really happened?—so he ended up shouting in pain. Also known as completely giving himself away to his possible murderer.
“Jacob?” the murderer said, her whisper all velvet and smoke.