all tied up, as you can see.” Ruth cast a significant glance at her sister. Evan’s heart swelled, because he could tell that Ruth thought she was being extremely subtle. Her weighted tone and speaking looks actually had all the subtlety of a dying hippopotamus. She was, in a word, adorable.
“If you’re having plumbing trouble,” he said, taking in her damp hair, “I could take a look.”
Ruth wavered. She grimaced. Then she said, “The shower spit something vile at me. I really need a wash.”
“Use mine,” he said automatically.
Hannah made yet another garbled sound and sagged against the doorframe. She appeared to be having some sort of aneurysm. He ignored her.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Ruth murmured.
“Yes, you could. Use mine, and I’ll look at your shower until the plumber gets here. I might be able to help.”
After a long, long pause, and a flurry of hilariously obvious eye contact between the sisters, Ruth said, “Okay.”
Hannah said, “Ruth, love—”
And Evan said, “That’s settled.”
Hannah Kabbah’s constant hovering reminded Evan, strangely, of his mother.
She loomed in the doorway while he took a look at Ruth’s shower. Judging by the brown sludge gathering at the plughole, Ruth hadn’t been joking when she said it spat something vile. He was glad to know, thanks to the clunking of his own pipes through the wall, that she was having a long, hot shower right now.
Hannah cleared her throat for the third time in the last thirty seconds, and Evan stifled a sigh. He’d done his best, but he simply hadn’t been raised to ignore a woman.
Turning to look at Hannah’s oddly familiar face, he said, “Everything okay?”
She looked as if she’d been waiting, just waiting, for him to ask.
Straightening her spine, glaring down at him as a goddess might glare down on unworthy mortals, she said, “What are your intentions with my sister?”
Evan smiled. “You might want to keep your voice down. These walls are very thin.”
Hannah looked horrified. “How thin?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
She crossed her arms over her heaving chest. Evan bit his tongue, fighting back laughter. This was great. It was like watching Ruth get flustered times a thousand. How did such tiny women hold so much emotion?
“You’re friends with Daniel Burne,” she finally whispered, accusation making the words a hiss.
Evan stiffened, the smile wiped from his face. “I certainly am not.”
“Yes, you are. You’ve been seen together multiple times.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “What are you, the town spymaster?”
“I know what I need to know,” she said primly. “And I need to know why a man like you is sniffing around my sister.”
Evan sighed as he unscrewed Ruth’s showerhead “I am not sniffing around your sister. I am spending time with my neighbour, who is also a friend, because it makes me happy.”
“And what does Daniel think about that?” she demanded.
“What is he, her husband? I don’t give a shit. Why is everyone in this town so obsessed with Daniel Burne?” His mind distantly registered the fact that his pipes had stopped clunking. Ruth was out of the shower. He glared at the wall and muttered, “That wasn’t long enough.”
“You’re telling me,” Hannah tutted. “She didn’t even take the Dettol.”
He frowned. “Dettol?”
And she threw his own words back at him. “Don’t worry about it.”
Finally stepping fully into the bathroom, she approached him. Her gaze was still wary, her arms still folded. He wondered if all Kabbah women were this skittish, or if it just happened around him.
“Ruth isn’t what she seems,” Hannah murmured, her voice low. “She is very… fragile.”
Evan stared. “She seems fragile.”
“Hm. Most people don’t tend to notice that.”
“Most people,” Evan said, “have their heads up their arses. I’m not one of them. I care about Ruth.”
Hannah gave him a wry smile. “Lots of people care about Ruth. None of them treat her very well.”
“I treat her just fine,” he said, his voice mild. “Ask her.”
Hannah didn’t reply. The silence was deafening, and when he studied her face he found clear uncertainty there.
“You can’t ask her?” he prompted. “You know everything about everyone in this town, but you can’t ask your sister about me?”
Hannah shrugged, but the look in her eyes was anything but casual. “She’ll lie. She’s a good liar.”
“She’s a terrible liar. You just have to know what to look for.”
The front door opened and a loud voice carried down the hall, interrupting what had turned out to be a rather illuminating conversation.
“I thought you were Hannah, you know,” the strange voice boomed. “You always did look just like twins.”