Page 132 of Just One Little Bargain

“She has to be. Polite women get volunteered for committees.” She adjusts one flower jutting beneath my chin, then reaches between the stems and pulls out a cream envelope. “There’s a card in there. Don’t let her bury it beneath a stack of invoices.”

“What is it?”

“County Independent Stay of the Year. It isn’t as impressive as all this.” She gestures at Zia and all the assistants. “The winner gets circulated through every tourism office, visitor center, wedding planner, and local guide.”

“And Evie applied for that?”

“Have you met her?” Caroline’s eyebrows climb. “Tell her you’re helping and she’ll produce a ledger, calculate the value of your time down to the minute, and try to reimburse you before you’ve finished offering.”

That’s painfully accurate. I’ve watched her do a version of it to me, standing in her own kitchen, insisting she didn’t need me to reach the top shelf while balanced on a chair with a bad ankle. I remember thinking I’d met demons in Hell less committed to their own suffering.

“She once tried to pay Daisy for designing the brochures,” Caroline adds. “Daisy sent the money back in an envelope full of glitter.”

I laugh, though a part of me winces on Evie’s behalf. I can picture her opening it, glitter spilling across her spotless counter. For a woman who alphabetizes her spice rack, it was probably less a prank than a small act of psychological warfare.

“Everyone in Brindlewood wants the inn full,” Caroline goes on, all the teasing gone now. “Not because we think she can’t manage it. Because she’s managed it alone for too long, and it shows, and we’re tired of watching it. So we nominated her. Every local business signed the application. Daisy wrote the supporting statement because she can make sheer damn stubbornness sound like resilience without technically lying.”

“And nobody told Evie?”

“We tried subtle encouragement first.” Her mouth twists. “I mentioned it to her over the counter one morning. She told me that awards were expensive nonsense invented to make business owners buy plaques for their walls.”

“That sounds like her.”

“She would’ve found twelve reasons not to submit it and blamed herself for all of them. So we took her out of the equation.” She says it without a shred of guilt. “Sometimes the only way to do something kind for Evie is to do it before she can talk you out of it.”

There’s a ruthless efficiency to Brindlewood’s affection. They don’t ask Evie to accept help. They construct it behind her back, secure the result, then present it when escape is no longer practical.

Caroline taps the envelope against my arm. “Make sure she reads it.”

Then she’s gone, striding down the path with one hand raised toward Evie, who waves back without slowing her instructions. I’m left standing in the doorway holding a bouquet and a card, thinking that Evie has no idea how loved she is.

With the flowers settled in the green vase, I pocket the card to give Evie later. That’s when Marmalade appears in the archway. He sits down and stares at me. I refuse to look away. The contest outlasts my dignity.

Eventually, he crosses the room and deposits something small and pale beside me. Then he leaves with his tail raised, as though whatever message he intended to deliver should have been clear.

I glance down at Julian Ashford’s business card. A cat delivering someone’s contact details is odd, so I pick it up and turn it over to see if he’s chewed it. That’s when the smell reaches me.

Sulfur.

I stare at Julian’s name and start assembling every harmless explanation I can think of, because the obvious one is the only one I can’t bear to accept.

But if the card smells of sulfur, then the man who handed it to Evie can’t be a magazine editor from the city who happened to fall in love with a little inn on a hill. And if he isn’t who he claimed, then the feature making Evie glow all morning—the break she finally let herself believe she’d earned—isn’t a gift. It’s bait.

But I have to be wrong.

Sulfur clings to me often enough that maybe I contaminated the card just by touching it, though even I know how weak that explanation is. Or perhaps it came from Marmalade. Whatever he is, he isn’t an ordinary cat.

I hold on to that because the alternative means taking another suspicion to Evie and watching it ruin her day. This isn’t enough proof that something is wrong, even though every instinct is warning me that it is.

Chapter 38

Evie

Maddie finds us near the cider stand, where the copper vat is throwing off clove and hot apple, thick enough to taste. Steam curls into the cold air while someone nearby turns sausages over a smoking grill, and the brass band on the green keeps losing its fight to shrieking children and the rattle of the fairground rides. Milo’s hand stays warm around mine through all of it, his thumb resting against my knuckles.

I’m starting to understand why people make such a fuss about this. The hand-holding itself is almost beside the point. It’s being here with him, moving through the noise and crowds with his body close to mine, knowing I can reach for him without having to invent a reason.

He looks good beneath the strings of festival lights. The wind has mussed his curls, pushing them over the frames of his glasses. Every time he pushes them back up with one finger, my attention catches on his mouth instead. His brown corduroy jacket sits open over a faded striped shirt tucked into worn jeans. The look should be harmless. Instead, it makes me want him backed against the nearest wall with my hands under his clothes.