Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3)(7)

A sharp knock at the door interrupted their depressing conversation. Jacob frowned, sat up straighter in his chair, and called, “Who is it?”

The door opened a crack, which was fucking annoying, since he’d said Who is it? not Sure, help yourself, come in. But they weren’t expecting any more interview candidates today—Skybriar, while it had grown in recent years, was still a small town, and unemployed chefs weren’t exactly rolling through the hills like stray acorns. Which meant this could be a guest, come looking for him. So Jacob arranged his expression into something neutral (Mont had suggested he try friendly, but Jacob didn’t see the point of that with people who weren’t his friends) and waited.

After a moment’s hesitation, an unfamiliar face popped itself through the gap in the door. Jacob assumed the face was attached to a body, but all he could see right now was a head, a little bit of neck, and a whole lot of purple braids.

“Hello,” the floating head said. “I’m here for the interview.”

Assertive and straight to the point: good. Complete stranger, unscheduled: bad. The kind of crisp accent Jacob usually heard from the guests themselves: potential issue. Hovering in the door like a supernatural creature: undecided.

Since she wanted a job, Jacob started cataloging visible details. Big, dark, Disney princess eyes, purple braids, chubby cheeks, and smooth brown skin. She was young, which suggested unreliability. Orange lip gloss, which clashed with the purple hair, but since chefs weren’t front of house, he’d let it slide. She was smiling at him, which Jacob found infinitely suspicious, but then Mont kicked him under the table, and he remembered he was supposed to relax. Maybe her inane expression was a good thing: someone in this place needed to look approachable for guests, and clearly it wouldn’t be Jacob.

“Hi,” Mont said. “You want to come in?”

“Yes, thank you.” The head and neck became a complete person. She stepped into the room, shut the door behind her, and assaulted Jacob with her T-shirt. Bright orange like the lip gloss, with words written across her chest in turquoise block capitals: SORRY, BORED NOW.

Ironic clothing. Rude ironic clothing. Apathetic, rude ironic clothing. Bad, bad, bad. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. It was like a car crash. Even worse, it must be raining outside, because the T-shirt was wet. All of her was wet, her soft, bare arms gleaming obnoxiously. What, she’d gone out in the rain without a bloody coat? Ridiculous. Even more ridiculous, he could see the outline of her bra under the T-shirt. No one should let themselves get wet like that. She could catch her death. Then Mont kicked him again, and Jacob realized it probably looked like he was staring at an interviewee’s tits right now. Jesus Christ. He looked down at his notepad, cleared his throat, and scrawled down three Os and an X. Three positives, one negative. He’d given her an extra positive to make up for the chest-staring.

“My name is Eve Brown,” she said, coming to sit down. More confidence. Good. He circled one of the Os again.

“I’m Eric Montrose,” Mont said. “I run the Rose and Crown over on Friar’s Hill. And my silent friend here is the owner of Castell Cottage, Jacob Wayne.”

Silent? Oh, yeah. That was Jacob right now. He was just taking things in. He had things in his head. Eve Brown, she said her name was, but it seemed so unassuming compared to the lip gloss and the T-shirt and the way all those long, fine braids spilled over her shoulders. Very dramatic, was the spilling. And the wetness of her skin made it look less like skin and more like some kind of precious metal or silk or whatever. Her neck reminded him of a wood pigeon’s breast, that soft sort of curve. But no feathers here, he assumed. Just kind of velvety, the way they looked. He was still circling the O on his notepad. Crap.

Jacob put down his pen and cleared his throat. “Sorry. Autism. I occasionally hyperfocus.”

She nodded and kept her mouth shut. No thrilling stories about her sister’s husband’s cousin’s neighbor’s five-year-old autistic son. Wonderful. Another O.

Jacob made the mark, then got down to business. “Obviously, we weren’t expecting you.”

“No,” she smiled. Again. For what possible reason, Jacob couldn’t say. Perhaps she was trying to be charming? Definitely suspicious. “I was actually just passing through,” she went on, “when I saw the notice on your door.”

Jacob stiffened. Disorganized, unintentional, just passing through. Bad, bad, bad, X, X, X. “Do you often roam the Lakes, passing through random small towns, looking for work?”

“The Lakes?” She blinked, then smiled again. “Is that where we are? Good Lord, I drove quite far.”

Jacob had changed his mind. Her neck did not look like a wood pigeon’s breast. It looked like the rest of her: untrustworthy and highly annoying and possibly on drugs. He was allergic to coke-heads. He had been overexposed during his childhood, and now they made him leery. “You don’t even know where you are?”

Beneath the table, Montrose kicked him again. He followed it up with a glare, which Jacob knew from experience was code for, Tone, man. Eve, meanwhile, narrowed her eyes until they went from wide, innocent, puppy-dog things to flashing slits of night. Then they returned to normal, so fast he wondered if he’d imagined that moment. “I’m afraid not,” she said sweetly. “Or at least, I didn’t know before. Thank goodness you were so chevalier as to tell me.”