Page 69 of Once Upon a Fall

“You think we have to pay for Sadie’s maple treats?” Edna G. says, her dyed yellow hair looking extra yellow today.

“She’s been spending quite a bit of time with that James Carver, you know,” says Edna B.

“How can I help you, ladies?” I ask, nipping wherever that was going in the bud. James’s family owns Carver Farms, and I don’t think he’d appreciate having his name bandied all over town.

“We came for pie tins,” Edna G. declares, as if this was a planned thing that I had on my calendar.

I did not.

“You’re supposed to drop them off,” Edna B. says, as if it were in the handbook that doesn’t exist. “But I know how busy you’ve been with the inn.” She pats me on the arm.

“Thank you,” I reply. I didn’t even know these two were planning to help. I assumed their official festival duties were circulating rumors and pointing out everything everyone else had done wrong.

“We like to make pies in advance and freeze them.”

Doing something in advance so you weren’t scrambling to finish it at the last minute? What might that be like? I fear I will never know.

“Have you met the dentist who’s renovating next door? He’s a single dad, has a cute little girl named Penny,” Edna G. says.

“I haven’t. Let me grab those pie tins for you,” I tell them. That’s how you handle the Ednas. You have to keep bringing them back to the task at hand, or before you know it, you’ll be set up with someone’s divorced nephew.

Ask me how I know.

I rush through the kitchen and into the laundry room where I shoved the box of pie tins, only to remember I moved them to the garage the other day. I run outside, find the box, grab as many as I can carry, and hurry back inside.

But when I get there, my front entry is empty.

“Ednas?” I call out.

Did they leave?

“Up here, dear,” I hear the voice coming from upstairs, and my heart drops to my feet.

I drop the tins on my check-in desk and take the stairs two at a time, racing to the Snow White room, scared of what I’ll find there.

“Look what we found,” Edna G. says when I skid to a stop in front of the door.

It’s just as I feared. Autumn Ridge’s senior surveillance team, standing in the unfinished Snow White room, talking to Dean Alden.

He’s got his hands in his pockets, giving them his full attention.

“We heard something fall,” Edna B. says, not looking at me. No, both of them only have eyes for the handsome man in front of them.

Also, I know for a fact nothing fell. I’d bet my entire fortune on it. Which, if this inn doesn’t get done in time, will be a very large negative balance.

“Your grandmother made a lemon meringue people still talk about,” Edna G. says to Dean.

“What are you doing with the property?” asks Edna B.

“Selling it,” Dean says.

This is my fault. I didn’t get a chance to coach him on how to handle the Ednas. He doesn’t even know he’s feeding them exactly what keeps them alive: fresh information.

“Selling it?” Edna B. repeats, in a tone that says this will be all over town by dinner.

“That’s a shame,” says Edna G. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-three,” he says.