and fluffy and… Then Karla smiled.
“I have a pink Easter Bunny suit in my closet,” said Karla suddenly.
“Somehow I’m not surprised,” said George. “But I don’t—”
“Did you know that tonight is Dickie’s bachelor party?”
“Not surprised about that, either.”
“He’ll be drunk, and he’ll probably be very high by the wee hours of the morning. And if he isn’t, everyone will think he was. Nobody will believe him.”
“Believe him about what?”
“The Peeps!” she said, grinning. “Imagine a dark alley, he’s stumbling home, and then BAM, something hits him. It’s cold. A snowball on a warm summer night. He’s freaked out—”
“Where do we get snow?”
“I have a snow-cone machine. Then, two furry monsters with floppy ears and large incisors step out of the dark. They proceed to convince him to skip the wedding. Or they break his knees if he doesn’t. Do you break knees? Or just fingers?”
“I can do either, but isn’t it still a felony?”
“Sure, but they’ll be looking for pink snowbunnies from hell. It’s the perfect crime!”
Camille LaGuire is working on the first cozy mystery about Karla, who has a tendency to solve mysteries, and George, who has a tendency to… well, get into trouble with spontaneous rescues. Check out The Man Who Did Too Much, coming this Fall, or visit her blog, The Daring Novelist. http://daringnovelist.blogspot.com/ .
Love in a Time of Bunnies
By Coral Moore
There wasn’t much I wouldn’t have traded just then for a drink. I wrapped a bandage around the burned fingers of my right hand, gritting my teeth at the pain from the cloth rubbing against my blistered skin. “Fluffy pink snowbunnies will ski in hell before I try that again.”
Jeremy looked up from the hole he was digging. A crease wrinkled his dirty forehead. “Is that like a snowball’s chance in hell?”
“No.” I made a disapproving sound and gestured for him to continue. “It’s more like when pigs fly.”
He muttered, “That doesn’t make much sense.” The muscles of his tanned back flexed as he lifted another shovelful of dirt out of the four-foot-deep hole.
“Because everything about this situation makes sense.” I scanned the area around us. Nothing but bare earth for twenty yards in every direction, thanks to my exploits with the flame thrower. We’d see them coming this time. I flexed my scorched fingers and winced.
“I just think it’s in poor taste, considering.”
I sighed. This was why I’d broken up with him. He had zero sense of humor. “Considering that we’re being hunted by mutated rabbits that run as fast as cheetahs and eat anything made out of meat?”
“They’re hares.” When I scowled, his expression turned into a full-fledged pout. He was lucky he’d been born so damned good-looking. It was hard to stay mad at him when an adorable set of dimples showed up every time he’d done something wrong.
“Anyway, a snowbunny isn’t a rabbit or a hare. It’s one of those girls that hangs out on the ski slopes.”
He was thinking so hard he looked like he was going to strain that huge brain of his. “What about the fluffy thing?”
“It was a multi-layered metaphor.” I shouldn’t have bothered trying to explain. He had the creativity of dough that refuses to rise, the kind that sticks to your fingers when you knead it. “Never mind. Want me to dig for a while?”
He looked me over with a quick sweep of his eyes and nodded at the bandage. “How’s your hand?”
“Good enough.” Actually, it still hurt like hell, but it wasn’t fair to make him do all the work. I pushed myself to my feet and dropped into the hole.
As he passed me the shovel, a shy smile curved his mouth.
“Stop flirting,” I said, a little sharper than I really meant. “I’m not taking you back.”
Just like that, the pout was back. “Even if we’re the last two people left alive?”
I pushed the blade of the shovel
Matt Baglio, Antonio Mendez