A Knight in Central Park(5)

“You’re not worried about your car, are you?” Shelly whispered behind him.

“Of course not.”

Shelly sighed. “I think my heart stopped for a minute there.”

“Yeah, another foot into the street,” Joe said, “and she wouldn’t have had a chance.”

They both watched the woman continue her detailed inspection of his Explorer. She pushed a few buttons, causing the sunroof to slide open and the windshield wipers to squeak against the glass.

Joe looked at Shelly with concern. “Did you hear her speak?”

“Maybe she knocked her head when you hit her,” Shelly said before moving to the woman’s side. “Her teeth are chattering. She’s freezing.” Shelly turned to him. “Give me your coat.”

He pulled off his jacket and handed it to her.

Shelly placed his coat over the woman’s shoulders. They both watched the woman rub her cheek against the soft fabric.

Joe glanced at his watch. What was taking the ambulance so long?

“Help is on the way,” Shelly told the woman. “Do you know your name?”

The woman frowned. “Only a dim-witted idiot would fail to remember his own name.”

“Okay,” Shelly said. “What is it then?”

“Alexandra Adrienna Dunn.”

“That’s some name.”

“My mother’s doing. She was certain she was having twins and thus could not bear to surrender either name when she had only one babe.”

“Fascinating,” Shelly said in earnest. “Now how many fingers am I holding up?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You think I have had no schooling? I may not be of noble birth, but do not assume I cannot read nor write.”

“No, of course not,” Shelly interrupted. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t hit your head when the Professor ran into you, that’s all.”

The woman’s eyes flashed as she glanced past Shelly to look at him instead, peering deep into his eyes, making Joe feel as if he were hiding some deep dark secret.

Joe jangled the change in his pocket, relieved to hear sirens. The woman flinched at the high-pitched sound, but she continued to stare at him with an intensity that made him nervous. The ambulance weaved through traffic. A police car pulled up to the curb behind them.

As Shelly went to talk to the paramedics, the woman’s attention returned to the interior of his car. Her face was smudged with dirt and it was difficult to determine the color of her hair because it was matted to her head and half covered with muck. Without much thought to what he was doing he reached his hand into the car and removed a leaf from behind her ear.

She slapped his arm.

“Ow! What did you do that for?”

“For touching me...and for kissing me earlier.”

An incredulous laugh escaped him. If not for her long hair and the small bones of her wrists, he would’ve thought she was a boy. And here she had the audacity to accuse him of kissing her of all things. “I wasn’t kissing you,” he said. “I tried to feel for your pulse, and when I couldn’t find one, I...”

She gazed downward, touching herself as if to make sure he hadn’t done any damage.

He rolled his eyes. “I was trying to breathe air into your lungs.”

“Do it again and I shall scream.”

“Well, this is just great,” he muttered, thankful to see Shelly heading back with the EMT’s. “They’ll take you to the hospital,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll stay here and fill out an accident report.”

Even beneath the dirt he could see her face pale considerably. “You don’t have to worry about payment,” he said, figuring money was the reason for her concern, “I’ll take care of it.”

“I have not the time to go with those people. I must find the man on wheels.”

Joe glanced around. “I didn’t see a man on wheels.”

“Nay, I do not suppose you did.”

Her sarcasm rang clear. “Now look here, I can see just fine. My car skidded on the ice. There was nothing I could do. It was an accident.”

Her eyes widened. Once again she peered deeply into his eyes as if she were trying to determine if they’d met before. She pointed a finger at him. “It is you!”

Joe grimaced. He could see personal injury lawsuit written all over her face. “Yes, it was me...my fault.”