20. Chapter 20
Dean
The prince was mistaken for a bellhop and a concierge. He did not correct anyone.
Rosie’s mom’s name was Sally.
I found that out last night when Rosie told me she was leaving to be with her family for the anniversary of her mom’s death.
It’s a sweet tradition, but she dropped it into the middle of explaining that the teenager she hired—Willa Pickle—would be watching the inn while she was gone, and that I should make myself at home.
“What was her name?” I asked, after her ramble.
“Huh?” she asked.
“Your mom?”
“Oh.” She smiled. “Her name was Sally.”
This was after I watched her welcome all her new guests and helped bring up the suitcases. I even earned myself a tip from one of them. I think the husband thought I was the bellhop.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from the festival guests, but as they arrived and Rosie walked each couple upstairs, all of them gushing over their rooms, I started to notice a pattern. Autumn Ridge’s Fall Festival apparently draws an older crowd.
Rosie is in her element, though. Now that the rooms are done and that part is off her shoulders, she’s smiling and talking to the people staying here like they are friends she’s known her entire life.
They are totally eating it up, and Rosie has no idea she’s doing it.
“Hello,” the man who gave me a tip says when he comes downstairs. “I was looking for some recommendations for dinner.”
He looks at me, eyebrows raised.
I played the part of bellhop; I guess I can now be the concierge.
“There are two restaurants on Main Street,” I tell him. “The Beet and Barrel Café and the Maple Bar and Grill. If you go to the grill, I suggest trying the maple burger.”
“Thanks for the info, young man,” he says, tucking a few dollars into my hand.
“Thank you,” I say, wondering if I’m going to have to keep this up for the rest of the week.
Monday morning is a blur of Rosie running around, trying to get all the last-minute things for the festival done before the kickoff event, a community breakfast with the mayor.
Sometime halfway through her rush, she comes racing into the kitchen and starts tearing through the freezer, looking for bacon.
“We ran out,” she says, digging under pot pies and other frozen entrées she hasn’t touched since I’ve been here.
Her phone buzzes. She looks at the screen, yells, “Juliet took care of it!” and disappears again.
By midmorning, I decide to check out the festival for myself.
Main Street is closed to traffic, all the cars removed. I moved mine a street over a few days ago. Rosie parked hers in the garage the second the tables were gone, and she was far too pleased with herself about it.
I barely recognize the street. Rows of booths with hand-painted signs line both sides, hay bales are stacked at every corner, and pumpkins sit on nearly every step.
People smile and laugh as they wander between booths.
There’s a ring toss made out of witch hats and a trough where kids are hooking plastic ducks with sticks.
I’m impressed. I know what was happening behind the scenes. I basically got a play-by-play from Rosie, and somehow, despite all of that, this actually looks like a well-organized community event.
I buy a maple bar from Keller’s Bakehouse, which Rosie catches me doing. She gives me a smile and a quick shake of her head before waving at someone and taking off again.
Later that afternoon, while I’m at the farm waiting for someone to show up for the well test, I get a text.
Rosie: Do you know how to fix an apple cider press?
Me: I know what one is. That’s about it.
Rosie: Never mind, Dom can do it.
At some point there’s also an issue with a missing scale that I’m not sure ever gets resolved.
In between all of this, Rosie somehow finds time to be back at the inn, answering guest questions and giving Willa some direction. Willa, for the most part, doesn’t seem to have much to do and spends most of her time sitting at the check-in desk looking at her phone.
Word has apparently gotten around the inn that I’m the concierge now. I’ve been asked everything from where to find the wagon rides to what time festival events start, most of which I have absolutely no idea how to answer.
I do know where the candle-making class is happening, but only because the flyer has been sitting on the side table for the past month after Rosie never got around to hanging it up.
Still, I get a two-dollar tip for that answer.
“I’m so tired, I want to die,” Rosie says later that night, sitting next to me at the kitchen island. She’s got her head resting on one hand and pushes the last bite of spaghetti I made for dinner around her plate with the other.
“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.
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.