Peaches

hardwood, tentative, thoughtful. Tiny dogs’ paws.
    Murphy sucked in her breath and stayed still for a few seconds, listening to the silence. A few seconds later she tried to move soundlessly, stepping toward the archway into the hall. The floor creaked beneath her.
    “Yip yip yip!” Tap tap tap tap. Now she could hear the dogs—more than one—moving across the floor above in a dead-straight line, their little footsteps slipping and sliding as they tripped over what sounded like the beginning of stairs, yipping in unison. A sound of heavy feet hitting the hardwood overhead followed.
    Murphy dashed down the hall as quietly as she could and hung a hard right into the dining room, hearing the dogs slip and slide down the stairs, frantic now. She clasped the crème de menthe to her breasts with one arm while holding her balance on the sill with the other, flinging one leg out the window.
    The dogs hit the ground floor with more yips.
    Murphy dove through the window, scraping her side against the molding, and yanked herself out with her free hand, planting it on the deck and pulling her other leg out.
    “Hey!” a male voice thundered from deep inside the house. Murphy didn’t look back. She jumped onto her feet. Gavin stood on the grass in front of her, his eyes wide.
    “Not a problem,” Murphy hissed, leaping over the three stairs that led from the deck to the grass. She broke into a run as soon as her bare feet touched down. Gavin raced after her. She could hear his breath behind her as he tried to keep up and the sound of the front door of the house opening.
    “Get back here!” the voice called from behind them. After that there was silence for a second, then the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being cocked. Oh God.
    They started really running now, Murphy’s heels practically kicking her butt as they sprinted between the trees. She looked back once, her heart pounding, and saw a tall, broad man behind them, lumbering after her. Out ahead of him on the ground, yipping away and moving across the grass as fast as their skinny little legs could carry them, were two of the tiniest dogs Murphy had ever seen, their huge ears flapping.
    But three-inch legs could only move so far, so fast. She and Gavin were pulling way out in front. Up ahead, through the gap in the trees, she could see Gavin’s beat-up old Honda parked on the grass. She looked back again to reassure herself they were going to make it.
    Umph!
    Murphy’s foot hooked into the bridge of a protruding root. She landed with her upper body sprawling across the train tracks. Underneath her, the crème de menthe shattered and stabbed at her through her short overalls. At the same time, her ankle exploded with unbelievable pain.
    “Help!” Murphy called. Gavin had landed on the other side of the tracks and turned to look at her, then beyond her.
    “Yip yip yip!”
    “Help me up!”
    Gavin seemed to be considering.
    Murphy stared at him, helpless and disbelieving. “Come on!”
    “Sorry,” Gavin said, then turned and sprinted. Murphy watched him hop into his car, the engine of the Honda roaringto life. Without lights, he peeled out, sending gravel flying up behind him. In another second the sound of the engine faded into the distance.
    “’Ooser,” she slurred into the bit of metal that was up against her mouth, trying to roll over. But her foot was still stuck in the root, and it just made another arrow of pain shoot up her leg. “Shtupid shree.” She let her body relax into the tracks again, only stirring when she felt something wet on her cheek. Two something wets.
    “Uck,” Murphy mumbled, trying to wave her arms to swat away the tiny dogs. She managed to flip onto her back and sit up just in time to see the two big bare feet of Walter Darlington as they arrived next to her own.
    Walter, gray at the temples and big boned, held his rifle over his shoulder like a fishing pole, looking both extremely pissed off and extremely satisfied, and took in the shattered glass surrounding Murphy’s butt, the cuts on her hands, the last of the crème de menthe seeping into the rocks. Behind him, just arriving and panting from the run, was the Darlingtons’ fleshy, puppy-like teenage daughter. She swooped down beside Murphy immediately and snatched up the dogs, one in each arm, her big brown eyes wide and staring.
    “Your tree tripped me,” Murphy murmured, ready to make the case that she could sue. It was the tree that was at fault, not