Hare's Breadth (Mating Season Anthology) Excerpt

Robin put her car in park behind Kelly’s car in front of Boots. Her friend was leaning against the side of her car, smoking a cigarette, and looking like a fire-breathing Yeti in what Robin guessed was supposed to be a jacket.

Kelly barely waited for her to get out of the car when she rushed over. “First, where would ye like ta eat? Second, tell us everything.” They started walking, feet crunching in the melting snow.

“Let’s go to Rancho Pancho. I’m in the mood for a spinach quesadilla. A drink might be in order as well. We’re going shopping after lunch, right? So I’ll have time to walk it off. I’ll tell you all about it when we get there.” Robin let out a sigh and then raised an eyebrow. “What the bloody hell are you wearing? It looks like an albino yak.”

“Oh, thanks a lot, love. My mum gave it to us fer Christmas.” She stuck out her bottom lip at Robin. “I rather like it, makes us look like we should be in Vogue.” Kelly sucked in her cheeks and gave her best model’s pose, at which Robin snickered. “Of course we’re going shopping! How often is it that we have a day to ourselves?” She looked at her friend and stamped out her cigarette. “So, seriously, it sounds like things didn’t go too well.”

“Not at all, but it’s over with.” She was starting to drift back to the scene between herself and Steve. He had cried like she had never seen a man cry before. She was shocked but almost flattered that it appeared as if she meant that much to him. He soon showed his true colors, though, when he let her know that his friends would make fun of him if he was dumped by a girl like her. That was the end of her empathy for Steve, and she walked out on him.

The sounds of a fiddle, mandolin, and accordion caught her ears and shifted her back to the real world. They had passed through the Overgate Tunnel and were coming up to High Street, where the foreign melody was getting a bit louder. “Do you hear that?”

“Yeah, it’s probably just some street performers in City Square. There’s always someone playing there. Why?”

“It’s beautiful,” she said wistfully.

“Yeah, it’s nice,” Kelly rebutted dismissively and quickly hopped on to something else. “Oh, did I tell you what Julie Craig got caught doing?”

Robin slowed her pace a bit and came to a full stop when they were across the street from what looked like a band of exotic gypsies, four of them in all. Kelly’s voice faded into the background as Robin stood on the edge of the sidewalk and closed her eyes. She was entranced by the Mediterranean music. It moved through her and vibrated her soul. The small group of what she assumed to be family, two men, a boy, and an older woman, were starkly different from her brethren surrounding them. People were occasionally dropping coins or paper into an open guitar case. She stood fixed on them until a group of teenage girls stopped right in front of her, blocking her view.

“Excuse me.” She could barely hear herself, let alone the music, over the cackling and screeching. She decided to move around them and slipped off the curb, tweaking her ankle.

Robin had just narrowly missed being hit by a bus thanks to the quick actions of the man who had been playing the fiddle just moments before she closed her eyes. “What happened?”

The handsome stranger was still halfway lying on top of her. “The autolinea, she almost hit you, miss.”

“Um, I’m sorry, but what?” She wasn’t sure what he was talking about. As soon as she looked up at him, she was already getting lost in his eyes. They were so dark, reminding her of pools of black ink reflecting her face back to her. His skin was a slight hue of gold, unlike her pallid complexion. She caught the scent of spices emanating from him, and the combination of that plus his weight shifting between her legs made her heart pound a bit harder. His long black hair draped to one side and tickled her cheek. He seemed to linger longer than he should. She caught the slight flare of his nostrils, as if he were catching her scent. All of this combined cemented the vision of an escaped animal wandering streets that were not his own. He had a hunger in his eyes that excited her more than she thought it should have, and she blushed at what was going through her mind. He smiled at her, which made her face feel even hotter.

“Hey, you there, get off her! What the hell are ya doing?” Kelly’s words snapped Robin out of her trance. She looked toward her friend, who was pushing through the crowd. “Are you all right?”

The stranger got off of Robin and then extended a hand to help her up. “It’s okay, Kelly. Calm down. I’m fine. I actually think I owe my life to this gentleman, whose name I did not get.” But Kelly was smacking his hand away from her and moving in front of her.

“Oh, I am sorry to have scared you. My name is Vincenzo Esposito.” He was quite tall when he was standing, but made a deep bow with the introduction. “My family and I are traveling all de way froma Italy to bring our music to your fine country.” He grabbed Kelly’s hand and kissed it first, which sent her into a giggle fit, making her let go of Robin’s arm. “What a lovely friend you have, miss.” When he took Robin’s hand, he kissed it in a way that was straddling a marriage proposal and being obscene. Her heart raced and made a pounding sound in her ears. She hadn’t noticed that the music had stopped until the older woman with the group came over waving her arms and yelling, occasionally clutching her chest.

He looked worried. “This is my mama, Amelia. She is concerned how you are feeling.” He towered over his mother, who couldn’t have been more than four feet nine. Amelia looked warily at her and then fussed at Vincenzo in Italian. He had his head down looking at her and kept saying, “Sì, Mamma,” trying to calm her.

Robin decided to stop his public embarrassment and answer the woman’s question. “I am okay, thanks to your son’s bravery. I am deeply indebted to you and your family.” She extended her hand. “I’m Robin McGuire, and this is my friend Kelly Lamb.”

Amelia’s demeanor changed toward Robin almost instantly. “Oh, he is a good boy, raised well, and I thank you. We hava to go now. You look where you go, okay?” She smiled and pushed Robin’s hair out of her face, then immediately shot a look of disgust to her son, mumbled something foreign to him, and crossed the street again when the traffic cleared. He raised his hands and shoulders into a shrug, then looked back to Robin.

“I must go. I’m sorry about my mamma. She worry a lot. Please be safe.” Vincenzo kissed her hand again and, as quickly as he could, resumed his place with the small family of musicians.

She reluctantly limped after Kelly to the restaurant, brushing herself off as she walked. “I suddenly feel like having Italian.” If her friend heard, she didn’t let on. Robin kept looking back to where he was standing, playing that sweet music again, until she couldn’t see him anymore. A few times he was looking at her too. She rushed through lunch barely paying attention to her friend’s one-sided conversation. Robin was anxious to get back to City Square. She was more than a little disappointed that the little gypsy family was gone. She had been hoping for another glimpse of her rescuer or a chance to give him her phone number.

“It doesn’t matter how long you stare. He’s not going to appear.” Kelly laughed.

Robin could have sworn he did, though. She could almost make out his silhouette, and it moved a bit. “Did you see that?” It was too late. Her friend was already headed up the Wellgate Shopping Plaza. She looked from Kelly back to the spot where she had seen the specter, but it was gone. After a moment, she ran to catch up with her friend, who had stopped in front of a shoe shop.

“Oh, those are so cute. Do you see those pink ones? I have to go in and get them.” She looked over at Robin, who was staring into the window but not really looking at anything. “Are you all right? You look pale.”

“Yeah, I just saw . . . Well, I’m not sure what I saw or if my mind is just playing tricks on me. I probably shouldn’t have had that margarita.”

“Um, okay. So are you coming in with me to try on some cute pumps or not?”

“Yes.” Robin followed her into the store.