Page 12 of Once Upon a Fall

“Oh,” I say, my heart dropping into my stomach with a thud. I can’t say I’m surprised, but also . . . I kind of am. This is the only place to stay in town.

I get up from the floor, wiping my hands on my overalls.

“Was it the shower curtain? I can’t apologize enough about that. I was in a hurry to finish the room because you were going to be here, and then I was worried if I let Dom drill a hole into the tile I worked so hard on that there was a good chance he would break it, and it would put a wedge in our relationship that I wasn’t sure we’d be able to come back from. Which is dumb in hindsight, but, you see, I had to start over twice on it and . . . I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

It’s rhetorical. I was definitely rambling. I feel my cheeks heat.

“It wasn’t the shower curtain,” he says. “I just need something a little less . . . busy right now.”

Right. I’ll take that to mean something that’s a little less of a hot mess.

Honestly? I get it. I made a lot of mistakes with my first guest experience. Starting with thinking I could actually have this done in time. Well, I’ve learned a lot from my less than twenty-four hours with Dean, and I’ll do better when my next guests arrive. I’ll chalk this all up to a learning experience. The trial-by-fire kind.

“Where will you go?” I ask him.

“I’m going to check out my grandparents’ property and see if it’s livable. If that doesn’t work, I’ll look in Burlington.”

“Well, no worries,” I say, even though I am, in fact, super worried.

I could beg, I suppose, and maybe tell him my sob story. But I’m not friends with Dean Alden. All I know about him is that he’s grumpy and doesn’t eat carbs for breakfast. He also has a fantastic upper body. And he’s leaving me in the lurch.

“Charge me for the week,” he says.

“Oh, I . . .”

I stop myself from objecting because my brain started going off on another tangent about how that’s not really the way I want to do business—charging people for nights they didn’t stay. But I’m not exactly in the position to do that, am I? One week is better than nothing.

It’s a win, I suppose. I get paid for the week at least, and I won’t have to see the straight line of disapproval ever again.

“Thanks,” I tell him. “Well, it was nice meeting you.”

“You too,” he says. He gives me another slight lift of his lips, as if he’s never smiled before and was letting himself give it a try. His smiling muscles have probably atrophied from lack of use.

He kind of is an ogre, after all.

Then he turns around, grabs the suitcase that I didn’t see behind him, and walks down the hallway.

I let my shoulders sag once his footsteps hit the stairs. I don’t have much wiggle room in my budget for that stupid balloon payment in November. I’m counting on every penny coming in. But I’ll figure something out. Who knows? Maybe someone will come to town and need a place to stay before leaf-peeping season. Crazier things have happened.

I turn and see the Cinderella room in various stages of disarray. Right now I’d like to just lie on the dusty half-finished floor and wallow, but there is no rest for the guestless inn owner. I don’t have time to dwell on things I can’t change. I’ve got work to do.

Dean

Finding the castle lacking, the prince set out to find his own lodgings. But what he found was also . . . lacking.

I feel sort of guilty as I drive away from the inn.

I’m not sure why. It’s not as if I signed a contract or promised I’d stay for the entire month. I should feel relieved to never have to see her or that place again after the whole shower-curtain debacle. Walking down those stairs, dripping wet, wrapped in frilly pink, isn’t something I’m going to forget for a long time. I’m still not sure how Rosie thought gluing the rod to the tile was her best option. It took me thirty seconds to drill it in.

Even so, I can’t seem to shake the guilt. I think it was the way she looked at me when I told her. Like I’d just broken something important of hers. Or smothered all her dreams. It was in the way her face fell, and how those eyes of hers turned down at the corners. She seemed fine when I offered to pay for a week. Relieved even.

But it’s just not going to work. The mattress was so uncomfortable that I hardly slept, and I now have a kink in my neck. Then there was the noise from the renovations this morning when I pulled out my laptop to do some follow-up for my last contract, not to mention the lack of breakfast. If she’s trying to run a business, that’s not how you do it. I realize I was her first guest, and I know she’s got a lot of things to iron out. I’m just not the guy to try things out on.

Actually, I sort of am, since I’m a consultant. And honestly, at three in the morning when I couldn’t sleep, I even made a list on my phone of ways she could improve the place. But I couldn’t bring myself to share it when I told her I wouldn’t be staying. I’m not that rude.

Anyway, she’ll be fine. I’m sure someone else will need a place to stay in Autumn Ridge in September.

Now I feel like I’m trying to make excuses. What is with all these feelings? I’m probably hungry. I should have snagged one of those pastries.