Time Thief: A Time Thief Novel by MacAlister Katie

apologize for something, but it appears you do.”
    “No,” she said with a surprisingly wolfish grin. “I was being wildly inappropriate to a potential customer, though, and that’s something that Vic would have a hissy over.”
    “Vic?” Peter ceased being annoyed, and threw himself wholeheartedly into confused. He was tired of being annoyed by everything. Confusion might not be the ideal state to find oneself, but there were worse things that could befall him. Besides, he’d always been rather good at untangling chaos, and this young woman’s verbal acrobatics offered him an opportunity to do just that. “Vic is the owner of the motel?”
    “You know him? He’s not here right now. He’s off fishing at Crescent Lake for a few days. He left me in charge. Do you want a single room or a double room? We only have four rooms total, and three are doubles, so I hope it’s the latter because there’s a Goth in the single and a pair of hikers in one of the doubles.”
    “A pair of hikers?”
    “Yeah, an older guy and a younger one. They said they’re father and son, but I don’t think they are.” She winked at him. “I think they’re having a romantic getaway.”
    “Ah. Just so. And what about the Goth?” Peter leaned his shoulder against the wall marking one of the four rooms. What a bizarre place this was. He felt oddly at home. He wondered if the woman from the forest would like it, as well, then quelled the thought instantly. He didn’t care what his cousin’s wife thought. She was nothing to him. Less than nothing. As of that moment, she ceased to exist for him.
    Her eyes lit up when she smiled. He’d read about such things, but never actually seen it happen. It was as if her whole being glowed with an inner illumination.
    “He’s a Goth.” Alison shrugged. “You know, the people who are dark, and depressing, and mope around thinking black thoughts. They wear black and never crack a smile.”
    He never smiled. His life was dark and depressing, and mope-worthy. Did the woman in the forest ever mope? He doubted it. She was all sunshine and freckles and warm, silken skin that he bet tasted of wildflowers. “I wouldn’t imagine that Goths find a room in a church motel to be particularly pleasing on an aesthetic level, but I could be wrong. However, such a thing begs the question of what a Goth would be doing in a remote town in the middle of nowhere.”
    Alison giggled, and stuck her hand into her jeans pocket to dig out a set of keys. “I know, right? It’s just what I said. I asked him what he was doing here. He said something about having his picture taken in a tree for some Web site, and then went off to be emo somewhere. Your friend isn’t here, but I can give you the bridal suite if you like. Not that I hope you have a bride along with you, because I am single and all, but still, you look like you could do with a nice room. It’s along here. It’s not much of a bridal suite, but it does have a queen-size bed, and its own entrance on the side of the building. It’s forty-five bucks a night, breakfast included, pay in advance if you’re staying less than three nights.”
    Peter allowed himself to be escorted to the room in question, noting with not a lot of interest that the room was sparsely furnished for a honeymoon suite. The room itself was small, but had the high-vaulted ceiling of the church to compensate. The furnishings consisted of a bed, two chairs that sat at a chess table, and in a small separate room, an antique claw-footed bathtub. A door with accompanying side panels of stained glass depicting the beheading and subsequent drawing and quartering of a saint were the only other sights to be seen.
    “Toilet’s just off the TV room,” Alison said from the doorway,gesturing toward the dark area under the balcony. “But you have your own tub, which is nice. I hate knowing someone else’s butt has sat in my tub, don’t you? I mean, you don’t know where that butt has been!