Blue Smoke

on by something as petty as a broken fingernail wasn’t the point. And that was unkind—and untrue—Reena admitted. Bella wasn’t quite that ridiculous. Close, but not quite.
    It might be something about the kids, though it was more likely she’d have half a dozen calls from relatives if that were the case. Her parents would have called on her cell if there was an emergency.
    And what did it say about her that she was dawdling this way over a simple return call to her sister?
    Reena picked up the phone, hit her sister’s number on memory.
    She wasn’t certain if she was relieved or irritated when the housekeeper informed her Bella was at the salon. Which could still mean there was a crisis, Reena thought as she hung up. Her sister shot to the salon the way other people rushed to the ER.
    She was about to head upstairs but detoured at the knock on her front door. She felt the tingle along her ribs as she wondered if it was Bo. Instead she opened the door to an exuberant and six-months-pregnant Gina.
    “Steve said you should be home. I just had to see how you were.” She threw her arms around Reena for a huge hug. “What a night, huh? You okay? You look tired. You should take a nap.”
    “Now there’s an idea,” Reena said as Gina strolled in.
    “Well, let’s sit down. My mother’s got the kids for a couple hours. God bless her with eternal youth and beauty.” She plopped, patted a hand on her rounded belly, then grinned around the room at walls the last owners had painted a kind of strange kiwi green.
    “Picked out your colors yet? You ought to get on that in this nice weather, so you can leave the windows open, cut back on the painty smell. Steve will give you a hand with the work.”
    “Appreciate it. I haven’t really settled on anything. I’m thinking something a little more classic than this.”

    “Anything would be. I can help you. I love picking out colors. It’s like toys. Am I cheering you up?”
    “Do I look like I need it?”
    “Steve tells me things, Reene. Don’t worry, I haven’t said anything to your family, to anyone. I won’t if you don’t want me to. I’ll just worry about you all by myself.”
    “You don’t have to worry.”
    “Of course not. Just because some fire maniac is obsessed with my best friend, enough to all but burn out our elementary school.”
    Reena sighed, then rose to go to the kitchen and pour them both tall glasses of San Pellegrino.
    “Got anything to go with that?” Gina asked from behind her. “Something containing large quantities of sugar?”
    Reena took out the remains of a coffee cake. “It’s a few days old,” she warned.
    “Yeah, that matters.” Laughing, Gina broke off a hunk. “I’d eat tree bark if it had sugar poured on it.” She sat at the old butcher block Reena was using as a kitchen table. “Okay, I’ve been busy, you’ve been busy. Now it’s time for me to get all the deets on this carpenter. My mother got from your mother that you knew him in college. I knew who you knew, and I don’t remember some hunky guy named Goodnight.”
    “Because we didn’t know him. Or I didn’t. He saw me when we were in college. When you and I were in college.”
    “My mother never gets it straight.” Gina broke off another piece. “Sit and spill.”
    She did, and the leading edge of fatigue dulled when Gina punctuated the recitation with gasps and Oh my God s and dramatic slaps of her hand to her heart.
    “He saw you across the room, and he never forgot you. He carried you inside him all—”
    “Ick.”
    “Oh, shut up. This is so romantic. It’s Heathcliff and Catherine romantic.”
    “They were crazy.”

    “For God’s sake. Okay, it’s Sleepless in Seattle romantic. You know how I love that movie.”
    “Sure, except for the fact we don’t live on opposite coasts, I’m not engaged to someone else, and he’s not a widower with a kid, it’s just exactly the same.”
    Gina jabbed a finger. “You’re not going to spoil this for me. I’ve been married six years, I’m on my third kid. I don’t get that much sappy romance these days. So, how good-looking is he?”
    “Really. He’s built. Some of it probably comes from the kind of work he does. All that manual labor.”
    “Now the grit. How’s the sex?”
    “Did I say I’ve had sex with him?”
    “How long have I known you?”
    “Damn. Got me there. It’s off the scale.”
    On a blink, Gina sat back. “You’ve never said that before.”
    “Said