Page 7 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

“Christ, you scared the life out of me, little fella.” I put a hand on my chest and try to calm the rush of adrenaline causing it to pound.

“Oh my gosh. Look at him.” Natalie says. “So beautiful.”

“He’d eat you for breakfast though.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, not taking her eyes off the fox.

“They hunt rabbits.”

“Very funny,” she says. “Anyway, how do you know that, city boy?”

“What makes you think I’m a city boy?”

The fox comes to its senses, shakes the flakes from its fur, continues its journey across the road, and disappears into a snow-covered hedge on the other side.

I ease my foot off the brake to slowly let the tires regain traction as we head on our way.

“Well, there’s this.” She picks up a business card in the center console. “‘Horatio Detailing, Hudson Street, New York City.’ Plus this is a very city SUV, not a practical one. And you’re wearing a New York Apollos cap.”

“You’re quite theSherlock, aren’t you?”

“I knew it.” She slaps her shapely thigh in triumph. “So what made you buy a hou?—”

“Are you Warm Springs born and bred?” I cut her off because, although I’m not hugely interested in this woman’s life history, hearing about it would be marginally less bad than answering questions about my own.

She drops back in her seat. “I feel like I am. I’m really from Queens. But when I was a kid, I spent a lot of time with my aunt who lives here.”

“At the retirement home.”

“She didn’t live there then. She was a psychiatrist. Got burned out about ten years ago and quit to run Senior Central instead. That’s what the locals call the retirement village—Senior Central. Anyway…” She straightens and zips up her coat. “What do you?—”

“The control for your seat heat is here.” The incessant talking is bad enough, but not as bad as an interrogation. I tap a button on the dash. “You’re probably cold now that you’re wearing clothing not shaped like an animal.”

“Aw, look at you all concerned for my welfare.” She says it in a sarcastic baby voice. “Anyway, what do?—”

“What doyoudo here? For a living, I mean. In a small town like this.”

“I’m a teacher.”

“Let me guess.” I tap my lips in mock thought as I ease my foot onto the brake to prevent us from gathering too much downhill speed. “Given your skills with flashing lights and animatronics, some kind of science?”

“Oh, you’re funny as well as sad, lonely and a bully.”

“Literally fifteen minutes and under not the best of circumstances, but you have me pegged as sad and lonely?”

“You don’t care about the ‘bully’ part?”

I shrug, and flinch at the twinge in my shoulder. Bully is an assumption so rife in my line of work that I don’t even worry about it anymore.

“And yes. Yes, I do have you pegged as that.” She says it with a case-closed tone. “And nope, not science. Drama.”

“Ah, yes. Of course. The costume. Of course.”

My shoulder throbs dully. That jolt when we avoided the fox better not have made it worse. I give it a rub.

“I manage and teach public classes for the town.” Her voice gets even brighter, filled with enthusiasm. “Mainly kids. But sometimes adults too. And I coach auditions for the teenagers applying for drama schools and university theater programs.”

“Let me guess again, you wanted to be an actress, but it didn’t work out, so you moved back here with your aunt to teach.”

---