Page 82 of Once Upon a Fall

“Did you know Reese is back in town?” I ask Dominic.

Dom and Reese have a bit of a tumultuous history, and I assumed he’d want to talk to me about it when he found out she was back.

He nods. “Yeah, I know.”

“Is nobody telling me anything anymore?” I ask, looking from one sibling to the other.

“You have a lot going on right now with the inn and the festival,” Emma says.

“You don’t need to protect me,” I say, feeling defensive.

The annoying part is, they’re not entirely wrong. Another week of not knowing any of this probably would have been easier. But I still don’t like the idea of everyone around me deciding what I can and can’t handle.

I don’t like any of it.

I walk into the inn feeling drained, but also very full of cake.

Emma made us swear we wouldn’t bring it up at dinner and ruin our birthdays, and said that there would be a time and place for all of us to sit down and discuss it with him.

I thought a group text would be sufficient, since that way I could say my piece without seeing his face, but Emma just shook her head.

So I kept myself from talking about it by shoveling cake into my mouth.

Or maybe I was eating my feelings.

I want to talk to Dean about my dad. Not because he needs to know, but because I suddenly really want to tell someone who isn’t Emma or Dominic and won’t give me a speech about being reasonable.

“Dean?” I say, setting my purse down on the check-in desk.

“Up here,” he says from upstairs.

I need to change my clothes from jeans and a T-shirt back into my overalls so I can spend the night painting a Snow White–themed room.

We have a lot in common, Snow and I. She had an evil stepmother, and my dad is dating a woman who’s been divorced four times.

Okay, so that comparison is lacking. But still, there’s a woman threatening the status quo, and I’m not thrilled about it.

One thing is for sure—if Alvina offers me an apple, I will not be taking it.

When I get upstairs, I find Dean in the room, pulling blue tape off the window frame.

Why would he remove all the painter’s tape we put up the other night?

But then I notice that the drop cloths are off the floor, and the walls are painted. Every single corner is covered in fresh white paint.

“Dean?” I ask him, walking fully into the room.

“I figured you probably didn’t want to be painting all night on your birthday.”

“What?” I ask, my brain not fully grasping what he’s saying.

He painted the entire room?

“You painted? How did you get it done so fast, though? I’ve only been gone for a couple of hours.”

“I enlisted some help,” he says.

“Who?” I ask, turning around in my spot, taking in the immaculate painting job.