Page 97 of Once Upon a Fall

Henry reaches in his pocket and pulls out a couple of dollars and hands them to me.

“Thank you, young man,” he says, before following his wife out the door.

“I’ll call Rosie,” Willa says once the door shuts behind them.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Let me see if I can fix it first.”

I run upstairs to the room and quickly assess the damage.

At first glance, the mattress is definitely dipping in the middle, but that’s hardly enough evidence to declare it broken. At this inn, that’s practically a design feature.

So, I get down on my hands and knees with my phone flashlight and look under the bed.

It’s easy to spot the problem. There’s a split running most of the length of the center board, and a little wooden leg lying flat underneath it.

I could YouTube it. It shouldn’t be that hard to fix. But I need to do this quickly, so Rosie doesn’t see it. She’d be too worried about it, and she’s already got too much on her plate with the festival.

Yesterday, I heard her telling some guests about the festival activities and she called it “Funly Fam Day” not once, but three times.

Rosie needs to focus on other things.

Who I really need right now is Dominic.

But I don’t have a way to get a hold of him. I don’t have his number, and I’m not going to ask Rosie for it.

I decide to try my luck at the festival, hoping he’s there.

It’s busy today, but as luck would have it, I see him talking to someone at a booth with the sign Carver Maple Farms above it.

Weaving my way through the crowd, I approach him.

“Hey, Dominic,” I say, totally interrupting his conversation.

“Yeah?” He turns, giving me raised eyebrows when he sees me. “Dean? I thought you left for Burlington.”

“Change of plans,” I tell him. There’s no time for the full story. “The bed in the Beauty and the Beast room is broken. Do you think you could help me fix it?”

“Sure,” he says before telling the man he was talking to goodbye.

“I’m glad I found you,” I tell him as we walk back to the inn. “I didn’t want to bother Rosie about it.”

“She would freak,” he says.

“Exactly,” I reply.

It takes us about forty minutes, with Dominic making a quick trip home for a piece of wood to replace the broken one. Before long, the bed is fixed, and I’m making it back up like nothing ever happened.

“Thanks again,” I tell him when everything is done.

He looks at the bed. “Is it me? Or is it still dipping in the center?”

“It’s not you.”

He huffs out a laugh. Then he stands there a second, wiping his hands on his jeans.

“Let’s not mention this to her,” I say.

“Good idea,” he says.