hormone-addled echo self had gone off with him in the middle of the day. Because better to skip school than gymnastics.
I’d taken the Camaro out of the equation but Bill must have borrowed one of his cronies’ rides. But what was the hurry? Why had he pressed to get young Joey to the campground in the middle of the day when he had originally asked me out for that evening?
Then I recalled the way Robin had bumped into him and lifted the list. Damnit, I wasn’t the only one who was changing the timeline. Bill must have decided to accelerate his plans for me when his list vanished.
My fingers drummed on the wheel as I made the turn off the main road and onto the dirt lane that headed up to the campground. The BMW bumped along on the pitted drive until my head smacked hard into the ceiling.
I cussed and then screamed when a familiar figure appeared on the road in front of me. Both of my feet pounded on the brakes and I jerked the wheel so I wouldn’t hit the faery bastard.
The seatbelt caught me. Forcing the air from my lungs even as it held my body in place as the vehicle skidded to a halt. I blinked, and the door was yanked open. I was unceremoniously pulled up out of the car.
“Are you hurt?” Robin’s hands glided over me, presumably checking me for injury.
I knocked the questing appendages away and took a step back. “No thanks to you. What the hell were you thinking, popping in the middle of the road like that?”
He shrugged. “I’d never been here before. How was I supposed to know where the road is? And how did you get a car so quickly?”
“I sort of borrowed my dad’s.”
One eyebrow went up. “Sort of?”
I did a palms up gesture. “Okay, I took it. He saw me too, so the police shouldn’t be too far behind.”
He lifted my chin and searched my face. “Are you sure you are all right?”
No, I wasn’t. Fury churned deep in my belly, most of it directed myself. Both the current me who had made such a mess of things and echo Joey who had blown off school for Billy.
“Joey, look. I’m sorry about the bargain.”
I held up a hand. “Not now. I need to find Bill and my echo-self before it’s too late.”
The campground was made up of dozens of cabins that were little more than bunkhouses set in a semi-circle around a common green. The cleared space was dotted with battered picnic tables, tetherball poles, and a volleyball sandpit. There was no sign of another vehicle.
The first cabin we entered was empty. The mattresses on the bunks had been zippered into what looked like giant body bags. Same in the next and the one after that. And the one after that.
“What if this isn’t the place?” I fretted my bottom lip as we moved down the line. “What if he took me somewhere else?”
“Perhaps he did,” Robin said. “Can you tell me what the big deal is at least?”
“The big deal is I am not supposed to lose my virginity today.” I sat down on a stump. “Especially not to that tool.”
“No, you were supposed to get in a career-ending accident today,” Robin squatted before me.
“And I’m not even sure I prevented that.” Another reason to get me away from Billy. “What if instead of preventing the accident, I’ve made it worse?”
“You always knew that was a possibility.” He put a hand on the side of my face.
I leaned into the touch, desperately needing comfort. The sensible shrew shrieked without words, urging me not to lean on him. It didn’t matter how good or right he felt. Robin Goodfellow was hazardous to my mental health.
I blew out a breath and then stood and marched down the slope toward the lake. The still surface reflected the brilliant blue of the October sky along with the fiery reds and oranges of the maples along the bank.
“He’d want privacy, somewhere out of sight of the main road,” I murmured more to myself than to Robin. There. A glint of metal on the far side of the lake. I spied another wooden structure, this one larger than the cabins. “Somewhere like that.”
It would take several more minutes to backtrack to the BMW and there was no guarantee the sedan would be able to handle the lake road leading to the structure. Part of it might be washed out.