a hand over my face to get it out of my eyes, only after which I realized I had just probably smeared grease all over my cheek and forehead. Fan-frigging-tastic.
My breath puffed out in little white clouds as I slogged up the hill. Shouldn’t have had that ice cream in my coffee. Or the second helping of Shepard’s pie the night before. Or the big glass of red wine that I’d had with it.
Holy crap, was I ever out of shape.
“Diet. Starts. First. Thing. Tomorrow,” I huffed as I slogged ever upwards. My Olympic hopeful self would have kicked my middle aged-kiester if she could see my sorry state. I was breathing so hard that I didn’t notice the point when I crested the hill. I did however notice when the road came to an abrupt halt by dead-ending at a massive oak. I paused and took in my surroundings.
“Hello? Is anyone here?” I scanned frantically for any signs of human habitation but nothing. No vehicle, no cute little cottage, or newly finished mansion. At that point, I would have given my left boob for the dreaded yurt.
Was that want ad some sort of joke? If so, it might prove to be deadly.
“What sort of sick bastard—?”
“Hey, what’s all the shrieking about?” A male voice said from above me.
I craned my neck and locked gazes with a pair of brilliant blue eyes for the second time that day. “Robin Goodfellow?”
“In the flesh.” He smirked as though it was some sort of joke. He stood on a platform that jutted out from the trunk of the tree about thirty feet above my head and was leaning over the railing, peering down at me.
“Joey Whitmore, right? The woman who wants to change October 3rd, 1996. What are you doing here?”
Odd that he remembered the date. Then again, meeting me was probably the strangest part of his day. “My”–behemoth gas guzzler—“car died.”
“I recall.” The lines around his eyes crinkled with amusement. “You look cold. Hold on a sec, I’ll be right down.”
“Okay,” I said because really, what else was I going to say?
The sound of footsteps came from inside the tree. And then a door shaped like an upside-down acorn that I hadn’t even realized was there swung inward. He appeared, silhouetted by an amber glow. “Come on in.”
Something was unsettling about Robin Goodfellow. He seemed amused like there was a private joke and he was the only one in on it. Deep-seated instinct warned that I would be an idiot to trust him.
“Where’s your client from earlier? Is she here?” Maybe I wouldn’t be alone with him.
He shook his head and his golden locks tussled in the breeze. “Nah, she had some stuff to work out at her place.”
So much for that hope. “You said you were doing some work for her. Like, life-coaching work?”
A slow smile spread across his lips in a secretive grin. “In a manner of speaking.”
I swallowed. If I had known that he was the life coach, I wouldn’t have come. Good looking men unnerved me ever since high school….
I slammed the door on that train of thought.
But my situation was dire. I hadn’t told anyone where I was going. Grammy knew I had Earl. Darcy would be looking for me for Margarita Monday. My mother might see my laptop was open and check to see what I had been looking at. They might piece my location together. With a dead cell phone, would they get the sheriff to track me before I froze into a human popsicle?
Then again, if Robin Goodfellow was some sort of weirdo serial killer that lived in a tree, they probably couldn’t help me before he started making his woman-skin suit out of my hide.
A gust of icy wind from the north cut through my clothes and made the decision for me.
Feeling like the dumb broad in every horror movie I had ever seen, I crossed the threshold into the handsome stranger’s treehouse.
As soon as the door shut, I felt immediately warmer. The cozy golden light spilled down from some unseen source. Before us sat a spiral staircase that seemed to be carved out of the tree itself. Like the inside of a lighthouse but made completely out of wood.
“Coffee? Tea?” Robin asked and turned toward the stairs.
“Anything hot.” After a moment’s hesitation, I followed him. In for a penny in for a pound.
He smirked at me over his shoulder as he trudged ever upward. “You know some males would make a lewd