Page 96 of Once Upon a Fall

“Did you even sit down once today?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Not one time. Except for now.”

“You should go to bed.” My mind briefly wanders to that night in her room, which somehow feels like it happened months ago instead of a few weeks.

“I can’t,” she says through a yawn. “I have to make sure everything is ready for Family Fun Day.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“No.” She gives me an appreciative smile and puts a hand on my arm. “Thanks for dinner.”

She eats the last bite, then she’s gone again.

Tuesday is more of the same. Rosie running around doing things for the festival while I play concierge and bellhop in between the things I need to do for the farm to get it ready to sell.

Next up is the septic tank inspection.

A man named Bernie meets me at the farm, and I watch as he pries the lid off the septic tank and rattles off words I’ve never heard before in my life. Leach field. Baffle. He says something about solid levels. He could have been speaking another language for all I know.

The verdict, as far as I understand it: the tank works, it needs pumping, and there’s no permit on file because it went in before anyone thought permits were necessary. I’ll have to disclose all of it.

Bernie says it’ll come off the price. But everything about this place is going to come off the price.

For dinner, I make a chicken-and-rice casserole my grandma used to make for me. I hadn’t thought about it in years, but when I was at the house today, going through the kitchen, I found the old casserole dish she always used—a white one with yellow flowers around the edge.

I brought it back to the inn without really thinking about why. And tonight, I found myself making her casserole in it.

“This is so good,” Rosie says, standing at the counter, shoveling food into her mouth.

She’s in a hurry because she has to make sure everything is ready for Pumpkin Day tomorrow, and apparently it’s supposed to rain tonight, so she has to get everyone prepared for it.

“I know you’re just sharing your meals with me, but I hope you know how much I appreciate it,” she says, after taking the last bite.

“You’d have your pot pies,” I tell her, giving her a smile.

“My sad pot pies,” she says. Then she runs over to me and plants a kiss on my cheek. “You’re the best.”

Then she’s off again, and I tell myself there’s no reason I should still be aware of the exact spot where her lips touched my cheek.

The next morning, I come downstairs to find Willa talking to the couple staying in the Beauty and the Beast room.

The Cottles—Henry and Betty. Yes, we are on a first-name basis now.

“Slight problem,” Willa says when I approach them to see what’s going on.

“Our bed appears to be broken,” Betty says.

“I tried to look underneath it and I think the base of it might have cracked,” Henry says.

“What do we do?” Willa asks.

I’m not sure Willa knows that I don’t actually work here and that I’m also a paying guest.

But like the good little bellhop and concierge I am, I turn to the Cottles, giving them my best customer service smile.

“We’ll take care of it,” I tell them. “You go and enjoy Pumpkin Day at the festival, and when you come back, it will be fixed.”

“Thank you so much,” Betty says.