Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3)(21)

Frazzled. To say the least.

But she was also trying, and that should count for something. So Eve cleared her throat, lifted her chin, and turned around—to find that Jacob wasn’t standing in the doorway after all. No; Eve had been joined by a tall, slender woman with sharp blue eyes, her graying blond hair pulled into a no-nonsense ponytail and her jacket open over a uniform apron of some sort.

The woman stared at Eve. Eve stared at the woman.

Then the woman said, “You’re not my nephew.”

Eve blinked rapidly. “Erm,” she replied, “no. No, I’m not.” Hadn’t Jacob mentioned an aunt, yesterday? Yes, he had. What was her name? Laura, Lisa, Lilian—

Aunt Someone gave Eve a very searching look. Really, it felt rather like an x-ray. “Well,” she barked, “where is he, then?”

“Lucy,” Eve blurted.

The aunt raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Er, sorry, I meant, erm . . .” Eve didn’t think she’d ermed so much in her life. “I believe he’s in bed. He was last I saw, anyway.”

A beat passed. Lucy’s other eyebrow arched to join the first.

“Not,” Eve said quickly, “that I was—that I saw him because—what I meant was that—”

“Go steady, girl, before you swallow your tongue.” The ghost of a smile passed the woman’s fine mouth. “What’s your name?”

“Eve,” Eve mumbled. Then a thought hit, and she spun around. “Shit, my sausages.”

“I’m Lucy Castell, which you seem to know already. New chef, are you?”

Castell. Hm. So Jacob had named his bed-and-breakfast after his aunt? That had to be dull and uncreative or weird and sinister, somehow. Because if it wasn’t either of those things, it might be cute.

“Yes, I’m the new chef,” Eve tossed over her shoulder, snagging a tin of tomatoes from the pantry. Christ, now her timings were all off.

“And Jacob’s in bed because . . . ?”

Eve wondered if she could politely elect not to answer.

“Is he ill?” Lucy nudged. Lord, the woman was like a diamond drill.

“Not exactly,” Eve murmured, pouring tomatoes into a saucepan and opening up the spice rack. “He just—well, he got a little bit run over—”

Lucy’s air of calm evaporated. “He what?”

Eve spun around to face the other woman, hoping her own guilt wasn’t patently obvious. “Oh, it’s nothing to worry about. Just a broken wrist and a very mild concussion, so—”

“Run over by who?” Lucy demanded. Diamond. Drill.

“Erm,” Eve squeaked. “Me?”

Lucy stared in a very violent manner.

Eve began mentally cataloging all the knives in the kitchen and their whereabouts in relation to Lucy’s hands.

After a tense moment, the older woman said, “Are you . . . are you trying to tell me that my nephew, your employer, is currently in bed because you hit him with your car?”

A new guest popped up at the window like a video-game toadstool. “What’s that? Someone hit Jacob with a car?”

“No,” Eve said.

“Apparently,” Lucy said.

“Blimey. Any hash browns going?” asked the guest.

Eve bit her lip. “I’m—I’m certain I can whip some up if you give me just a—”

Lucy held up a hand. “Please, don’t let me keep you. I will be upstairs, checking my nephew’s still alive.” She swept out of the room.

Oh dear.

Eve supposed, all things considered, she’d better do a damned good job with this breakfast.

*

“Why in God’s name didn’t you call me?!”

Leaning against his dresser, Jacob squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his thumbs to his temples. Didn’t help: his headache still flared in time with every outraged lilt in Aunt Lucy’s voice. He sighed and opened a drawer, rifling through it for his spare glasses. “Because you were busy.”

“Busy?! A couple of clients and a weekly book club is not busy, Jacob!”

“I didn’t want you to worry.” He found his old case and pulled out a pair of glasses identical to his current frames, except for the fact that these were undamaged, and also weaker by 0.75 in the right eye. Sliding them on, he blinked until the slight blurriness became almost unnoticeable. These would do, for now.

“It’s my job to worry about you, you plonker,” Aunt Lucy said. He turned to face her, and this time, he could see her furrowed brow and pale cheeks clearly. His gut squeezed with guilt. And with a little pain from the ache in his skull and his back and his stomach. The stomach was hunger. But he hadn’t even managed to shower yet, so hunger would have to wait.

“Sorry,” he said, because he knew from experience that she wouldn’t leave him in peace until he apologized. “But in my defense, I was concussed when I told Mont not to tell you.”

“Ha! I’ll be having a word with young Eric soon enough,” Lucy said, looking menacing.

Sorry, Mont.

“But first—what on earth is the woman who hit you doing in the kitchen? I mean, I’m all for forgive and forget, babe, really, I am, but I know very well that you aren’t.”

Jacob opened his mouth, then closed it. The woman who—? “I’m sorry, what?”