Free Room for Love by Sophie Pembroke

at least a shady commission.
    “Ever.” Carrie stood, a sudden sense of surety in her blood. She was home, and she was staying. “Now, Anna, what about a tour?”
    Anna nodded, and she and Mr. Norton got to their feet.
    “Where are we going to start?” Anna asked, and Carrie thought, With teaching Izzie how to identify actual staff members on sight.
    “The dining room,” she said, instead. Anna was just going to love the carpet.
    * * * *
    “A health farm?” Stan’s voice was getting squeaky and high, and Cyb worried about the vein bulging at his temple. He wasn’t getting any younger. But Stan always liked to be told the truth, upfront and straightforward.
    “Or a rehabilitation facility,” she repeated, and the vein turned bright purple. “That’s what the lawyer said.”
    Across the pub table, Nate put down his pint and shook his head. “I can’t see Carrie selling the Avalon. She’s got plans for it. I told you. She’s trying to convince her boss, right now.”
    Stan scoffed, so loudly that the Red Lion staff looked over from the bar. “Is she? Really? How do we know? We were all banished for the day, weren’t we? Sheer chance that the woman arrived early and Cyb was still there.”
    Nate winced.
    “Exactly. We can’t afford to give her the benefit of the doubt just because you’ve got a little crush, boy.”
    “I have not got a–”
    “Besides,” Stan said, “maybe the survey will have changed her mind. Now she knows how much work there really is.” He shook his head. “Not sure she’s the sort who likes hard work. Not like her grandmother.”
    “She was talking to Izzie about the reservation thing on the computer yesterday,” Moira said. “Would she really do that if she was planning on selling?”
    “I have no idea what goes on inside young women’s heads these days.” Stan’s face grew redder and redder. Cyb moved his pint glass farther away, in case he decided to bang his fist on the table again. A passionate man, Stan. She looked at him, considering. Maybe it was time to find a better use for all that passion, once this mess at the inn was sorted out.
    “We could just ask her what she’s going to do,” Cyb suggested, in what she thought was a reasonable manner.
    Stan obviously thought otherwise. “Just ask? And what, exactly, is going to ensure she tells us the truth?” He grabbed his ale and drained the quarter of a pint left in the glass. Cyb motioned to a nearby member of the bar staff and indicated the empty glass. The Red Lion didn’t offer table service, but they weren’t very busy and Cyb had found them to be very accommodating to a group of senior citizens. Moira had suggested they were just afraid one of them might slip on the pools of stale beer that tended to form by the bar and sue the pub to cover their hip replacements.
    “Unless...” Stan tapped the side of his empty glass. “Nate, boy, I have a job for you.”
    “No,” Nate said, firmly. “I’ve already told you everything she told me.”
    “Wait a moment,” Cyb said, willing her forehead to unfurrow. Anti-wrinkle cream could only do so much. “I don’t understand. What’s the job?”
    “He wants me to get close to Carrie, win her trust and find out if her plans have changed now her boss is here,” Nate explained. Obviously he didn’t want to say ‘seduce the truth out of her’ in front of his grandmother.
    “Well, would that be so bad?” Cyb asked, still confused. It had seemed to her Nate wanted to get close to Carrie Archer.
    “If she found out I was only doing it because Stan told me to?” Nate shook his head. “Hell, yes. Look, I’ll talk to her some more, I’ll ask her. But I’m not going to pretend anything.”
    Stan gave a heavy sigh, and Cyb wondered where the bar staff were with his second pint. He was always more manageable when he’d relaxed a bit. “Play it any way you want, Nate. But remember, it’s your livelihood at stake here, too.”
    Cyb was watching Nate,