Blue Smoke

gave in to his weakened legs and sank to the curb, pulled her down with him.
    “You’ve got a gash here.” At the sight of his blood, she forced her mind to go cold. “You’re going to need stitches.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Take off your shirt. We need to put some pressure on this. I can do a field dressing until the paramedics look at it.”
    Instead, he lifted his hip, pulled a bandanna out of his pocket.
    “That’ll do. I’m so sorry, Bo.”
    “Don’t. Don’t apologize.” He stared at his truck while she bandagedhis arm. The pain hadn’t gotten through yet. He imagined it would soon enough. But he had plenty of rage inside him as he stared at what had been his. “That takes it off him and puts it on you.”
    The response team leaped off their truck, began to smother the fire.
    When she was done with the field dressing, she rested her head against her updrawn knees for a moment, then sucked in a breath. “I have to go talk to these guys. I’ll send a paramedic over. Unless he says different, I’ll drive you to the ER, get that dealt with.”
    “Don’t worry about it.” He wasn’t in the mood for hospitals. He was in the mood to kick some ass. He rose, offered a hand. “Let’s go tell them what happened.”
    She’d barely finished giving the details when half the people she knew were crowded on the street and sidewalk. Her parents, Jack, Xander, Gina and Steve, Gina’s parents, old classmates, cousins of old classmates.
    She heard her father call Fran on his cell, tell her no one was hurt and ask her to relay the news to An.
    Bases covered, she thought wearily, and turned when O’Donnell pulled up.
    “We get a location?” she asked him.
    “Working on it. You hurt?”
    “No. Bruises where I hit the pavement. Bo played the hero, broke my fall.” She rubbed her eyes. “He let me keep him talking, gave him time to drive around, get the party started. He’d levered up the hood, doused it, dumped a bunch of mattress wadding in the bed, got that going for the smoke. Pools of gas under and around the truck, got the tires going. Big smoky stink, which distracted me long enough.”
    Almost too long, she thought. If Bo hadn’t dragged her off, it might have been more than his truck seriously damaged.
    “By the time I spotted the fuse—he’d hung one of Sirico’s dinner napkins out of the tank—we were on borrowed time. I started to deal with it, then Bo grabs me like I’m a football and he’s a tight end running for the goal line. Hard to say if he screwed himself out of a truck, and God knows how much in the tools he had in those lockboxes running along the bed, or if he saved my life.”

    “Called you at Goodnight’s. You check your machine yet––see if he tried there first?”
    “No, haven’t been back in yet.”
    “Why don’t you do that now?”
    “Yeah. Give me a minute.”
    She moved off, had a word with Xander, then walked toward her house.
    “Okay, pal.” Xander stepped over to Bo, gave Bo’s good shoulder a rub. “Let’s you and me walk on down to the clinic. I’ll fix you up.”
    “Gee, Doc, it’s only a scratch.”
    “Let me be the judge of that.”
    “You go with Xander, don’t argue.” Bianca laid down the law. “I’ll go in, get you a clean shirt.”
    Bo glanced toward his house. “Door’s open.”
    Bianca tilted her head, her eyes soft with sympathy. “Do you have your keys? I’ll lock up for you.”
    “No. I ran out without them.”
    “We’ll take care of it.” She cupped his face. “We take care of our own. Now you go with Alexander, like a good boy. And tomorrow, when you feel better, you go see my cousin Sal.”
    “I thought Sal was your brother.”
    “This one is a cousin, and he’s going to give you a good price on a new truck. A very good price. I’ll write it down for you.”
    “Jack, give Bianca a hand, will you?” Gib gave his wife a pat as he joined Xander and Bo. “I’ll walk along, make sure the patient doesn’t try to run for it.”
    “He just likes to see me stick needles in people,” Xander said, taking Bo’s good arm.
    “That’s heartening.” He looked for an escape route and found himself neatly flanked. “The paramedic said maybe a couple stitches. I can wait till the morning.”
    “No time like the present,” Xander said cheerfully. “Hey! You had a tetanus shot lately? I love giving those.”

    “Last year. Stay away from me.” He looked dubiously toward Gib. “I don’t need an honor