Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3)(20)

There was a windowlike hatch in the kitchen wall, and the employee handbooks had revealed that it was meant to be opened. Eve had done so when she came down that morning and discovered the window let her see into the dining room, sort of like an olden-days shop front. Now that window was occupied by what appeared to be—shudder—a guest.

“Hello in there,” he said brightly. He was a man of middling age, pink cheeked and gray haired, with far too friendly a smile for this time of day and a waterproof parka covering his torso. “Bit early for breakfast, am I?” he asked cheerfully.

Eve stared at him in disbelief. Who in God’s name was early for a 6:30 A.M. breakfast? “Yes,” she said faintly, then rallied. HOW NOT TO PISS OFF MY CUSTOMERS: Chapter Three, Section B: Harmless rule breakers are to be humored, however much it might pain you. “But I’m sure we can accommodate you, sir. The pastries are still in the oven, but I can take an order for a cooked breakfast?” Eve approached the window, produced her little notepad, and steeled her spine. Do not fuck up. Do not fuck up. Do not fuck up.

But already, she was starting to doubt her memory of the employee handbooks. She knew she’d memorized them, but she also knew she had a tendency to mess things up at vital moments, and therefore her memories of memorizing were not to be trusted, and—

Oh Christ, the man was talking. “—sunny-side up, and the stewed tomatoes, ta.”

Eve scribbled dutifully and hoped like hell she’d just caught the tail end of a request for a Full English. Because that’s what the poor bastard was getting. “Right. If you’d like to take a seat, I’ll bring it right out.”

“Cheers, my darling,” he said, but he did not take a seat. Why didn’t he take a seat? “This hatch wasn’t open yesterday,” he went on conversationally.

Eve froze in the act of reaching for some eggs. “It wasn’t?” But it was supposed to be open, wasn’t it? Or had she misread, misunderstood, mis—

“Nor the day before, when I arrived. Nice to see what’s going on behind the scenes, though. Say, where’s Jacob this morning?”

Oh dear. This particular question was the one Eve had been dreading. She’d hoped no one would miss the man’s icy presence and she therefore wouldn’t be asked about him, but apparently, no such luck. “Jacob is, erm, indisposed.”

“Indisposed, is it?” The man chuckled. “If it were anyone else, I’d think that was code for a hangover.”

Eve laughed nervously. “Right. But not Jacob!”

“Lord, no, not him. So what’s up with him?”

“Erm . . .”

“I hope he’s not poorly. He’s a lovely lad, he is.”

Eve blinked. “Erm . . .”

“This here’s the only place that guarantees us a ground-floor room every time. My Sharon’s got dicky joints, bless her. Puts us on a special list, he does.”

Eve’s sister Chloe required similar accommodations, so Eve knew some people were horribly unreasonable about that sort of thing. But apparently, not Jacob. Typical. She’d feel much better about her rather shocking sins toward him if he could be a little bit evil. The bastard.

“Barry?” A voice trilled from the dining room doorway, out of sight. The man in the window turned toward it, his smile growing impossibly wider.

“There y’are, Shaz! Sleepyhead. I’ve ordered my breakfast, babe, didn’t know what you wanted.”

A woman appeared in the hatch, as smiley and pink faced as the man. “Hiya, darling,” she beamed at Eve. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

Of course she would. “Right,” Eve stammered. “Which, er, which is . . . I mean, rather, would you like your eggs—”

“Sunny-side up, thank you!”

“Fabulous.” Eve stared at the couple with a rictus grin she hoped they might find encouraging. Any further instructions? No? Fine. “Can I get you anything to drink? Tea? Juice? We have a selection of both this morning.”

IT’S NOT JUST BED AND BREAKFAST: Chapter Two, Section F: There’s no such thing as too much.

“I’ll have a coffee,” the woman said. “He’ll take a green tea.”

“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—