Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston Page B

sense—especially if he worked for a security firm. She tried to picture him wearing an ill-fitting rent-a-cop uniform with scratchy gray polyester pants and decided, just for the sake of her own imagination, that he worked plainclothes.
    They took the path that led east around Bethesda Fountain and down through a leafy stone archway, skirting the north side of Conservatory Water. Usually there was a smattering of toy-boat hobbyists, sailing remote-controlled yachts on the shallow pond, but it was deserted so late in the day. Kelley hugged her elbows.
    “It’s going to be chilly again tonight,” she said.
    Sonny froze in his tracks as if she’d uttered some kind ofcurse or spell. He turned his face from her, shoulders stiffening. Kelley was startled by his sudden change.
    “Damn it,” he muttered under his breath.
    She looked around but couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out what was wrong. Everything seemed utterly still and silent in the park.
    In the distance, a dog howled.
    “You shouldn’t be here,” Sonny said, his voice harsh, as he looked off in the direction from which the sound had come. He seemed a thousand miles distant. Closed off. Hard.
    The abruptness of Sonny’s mood shift caught Kelley off guard and swung her sharply back into defensive mode. Had she offended him somehow? How?
    Still, she tried to keep her tone light. “You know, the last time I checked, this was a public park. I”—she pointed to herself—“am public.”
    The dog howled again, closer this time. Kelley knew it was a dog because she was standing in the middle of one of the largest cities in North America. If she’d been back at home in the Catskills, she would have said it was a coyote.
    Sonny turned to her, his gray eyes dark. He pointed very deliberately to the west. “The sun is going down.”
    Kelley crossed her arms. “It does that, I’ve noticed.”
    He suddenly seemed years older. He frightened her. “I’m glad. Now you should go before you get yourself into any more trouble. Like you did the other night.”
    “What? That was not my fault!” Kelley was flabbergasted enough not to bother questioning how he knew about her near drowning. “How was that somehow my fault?”
    “Whose fault was it then?”
    She glared at him pointedly.
    “What?” he yelped, jarred for an instant from his menacing attitude. “You can’t possibly think to blame me for…I’m not even sure what you’re blaming me for.”
    Kelley was irate. “Okay. You see, if you hadn’t been all Mr. Chivalry in the first place—with the romantic gesture and the rose and the lilty voice and the eyes and everything—then I never would have hung around here long enough to have found Lucky and he wouldn’t be standing in my bathtub and I”—Kelley dug through her bag and pulled out the slightly rumpled pink sheets she was supposed to be posting—“wouldn’t have had to come back here with these stupid fliers. Which means we wouldn’t have run into each other again, and I’m starting to think that would be a really good thing!”
    “‘Lucky’?” Sonny looked lost.
    “He’s a horse.” Kelley shook the handful of fliers at him angrily.
    “Of course.”
    “ Don’t start that.”
    “I’m not starting anything. Wait…” Sonny’s eyes went wide. “Do you mean to say you have a horse in your bathtub ?”
    “Don’t look at me like that. Animal Control didn’t believe me either.”
    “Is there water in the tub?”
    “Yes!” Kelley blurted, surprised. “How did you know? Every time I try to pull the plug and drain the bath, he nips at me and manages to turn on the taps with his nose. I think he’s a circus horse or something. But I worry he’ll get hoof rot!”
    “He’ll be fine. I mean, as far as his hooves are concerned, anyway…. You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into!”
    Kelley snorted and shook her head, refusing to indulge any more of this kind of crap. She turned sharply on her heel, heading north