by Nora Roberts
charcoal sketch of Venice on the wall beside her. “Like Bianca.”
“Not even close, but thanks.”
“You got these columns on the ends.” Sal peered over his reading glasses. “Fancy.”
“More Italian.”
“More money.”
Bo lifted a shoulder, decided to eat the salad. “He can always go with treated posts. Either way, I’d paint them. Strong colors. Festive.”
“One thing to draw pictures, another to build. You got any samples of your work?”
“I’ve got a portfolio.”
“In the briefcase?”
Bo nodded, kept eating, and Sal made another come-ahead gesture.
“Gib’s busy, but he’ll be over in a minute.” Bianca slid into the booth beside her brother. “Oh, the sketches. These are wonderful, Bo. You’ve got a lovely hand.”
“An artist,” Grace said with a firm nod. “Sal’s browbeating him.”
“Of course he is,” Bianca agreed, and managed to elbow her brother and pick up a sketch at the same time. “It’s more than I imagined, more than I planned.”
“We can always adjust to—”
“No, no.” She waved Bo’s words aside. “Better than I imagined. Do you see, Sal? You and Grace could be sitting out there tonight, the pretty little lights, the vines, the warm air.”
“Sweating in August.”
“We’ll sell more bottled water that way.”
“A separate kitchen. More help, more expense, more trouble.”
“More business.” There was challenge on her face as she swiveled full-on to her brother. “Who’s run this place for the last thirty-five years? You or me?”
His eyebrows went up and down in a facial shrug.
They argued—or so he assumed, since part of the byplay was in rapid Italian with lots of dramatic gestures. Bo played it safe and concentrated on his salad.
Moments later, it was scooped away, and a plate of baked spaghetti set in its place. Gib dragged over a chair, sat at the end of the booth. “Where’s my daughter?” he asked Bo.
“Ah . . . I don’t know. I haven’t been home yet, but she said she’d probably be working late.”
“Look, Gib. Look at what Bo is building us.”
Gib took the sketches, took a pair of reading glasses out of his shirt pocket. Lips pursed, he studied them. “Columns?”
“You can go with posts.”
“I want the columns,” Bianca said definitely, and jabbed a finger in her brother’s face when he opened his mouth. “Basta!”
“It’s more than I thought.”
“Better,” Bianca said, and her eyes narrowed on Gib’s face. “What, you need new glasses? You can’t see what’s in front of your face?”
“I don’t see a price in front of my face.”
Saying nothing, Bo opened his briefcase again, took out an estimate sheet. And had the pleasure of seeing Gib’s eyes widen.
“This is pretty steep.” He passed the sheet to Sal, who had his hand out.
“This is top-dollar labor rates.”
“I’m worth top dollar,” Bo said easily. “But I’m not opposed to bartering. This is great spaghetti, Bianca.”
“Thank you. Enjoy.”
“Bartering what?” Gib demanded.
“Meals, wine.” He grinned at Bianca. “Will work for cannoli. Word of mouth. I’m just getting established in this neighborhood. I can give you the material at my cost. Plus if you provide some of the grunt work—hauling, painting—that cuts it back.”
Gib breathed through his nose. “How much does that cut it back?”
Bo took a second estimate sheet out of his case, handed it to Gib.
Gib took a long look. “You must really like cannoli.” Once again he passed the sheet toward Sal, but this time Bianca snatched it. “Idiot,” she said in Italian. “What he likes is your daughter.”
Gib sat back, drummed his fingers on the table. “How soon can you start?” he asked. And offered his hand.
23
“Bo, I don’t want you to feel obligated to cut your profit like this, to work for below your going rate just because it’s my family.”
“Hmm.” He kept his eyes closed, continued to stroke his hand along her bare leg. “Did you say something? I’m in a cannoli coma complicated by a sexual haze.”
Understandable, she thought, since he had had three of her mother’s outrageous cannolis before they’d—finally—done justice to his kitchen floor.
“You do good work, and you deserve to get paid for it.”
“I’m getting paid for it. I just ate most of my initial deposit. It’s good business,” he continued, anticipating her. “Sirico’s is a neighborhood landmark. This job will show off my work, get people talking. Your parents are leaders in the word-of-mouth department.”
“Are you saying we’re blabbermouths?”
“You guys sure can talk. My ears have been ringing since dinner. In a good way,” he added, and yawned. “I think I even won your uncle over by the time it was done.”
“Uncle Sal, oldest son, renowned cheapskate. We love him anyway.”
“So, they get a bargain, I get to do a job I’ll enjoy—and reap the advertising. And, oh God, eat your mother’s cooking until I die.”
“You forgot the sexual bonus.”
“That’s personal.” This time he walked his fingers up her thigh, down again. “Doesn’t factor. But since I’ve been fiddling with some plans for your place, you could always take me upstairs and bribe me with continued sexual favors.”
She rolled over on top of him, made him moan. More from excess pastry than desire. “You’ve been working on plans for me?”
“Fiddling. Haven’t had too much time. But your dining room table’s almost finished.”
“I want to see. I want to see everything.”
“Table’ll be done in another couple days. The sketches are rough yet.”
“I have to see.” She rolled off, tugged his hand. “Right now. Right now.”
He groaned, but sat up and reached for his pants. “Half of the plans are still in my head.”
“I want to see the other half.” She dragged on her own pants, grabbed her shirt. Then she grabbed his face, smacked her lips to his. “Thanks in advance.”
“Thank me after.” He pulled open the refrigerator for water, then frowned when the phone rang. “Who the hell’s calling me at one in the morning? Better not be Brad wanting me to bail him out of jail. Though to be fair that only happened once.”
“Don’t answer it yet. Wait.” With her shirt half buttoned, she dashed to the phone, studied the readout. “Do you know this number?”
“Not right off.” It clicked, she could see it on his face. “Shit. Shit. Do you think it’s him?”
“Let me answer it.” She picked it up, said, “Yes?”
“Ready for another surprise? I hate to repeat myself, but you gotta do what you gotta do.”
She nodded at Bo, then gestured for him to get her paper and pen. “I wondered when you’d call again. How’d you know to reach me here?”
“Because I know you’re a whore.”
“Because I slept with you?” she asked, and began to write down the conversation.
“Can you remember everybody you slept with, Reena?”
“I’ve got a pretty good memory for that sort of thing. Why don’t you give me a name, or a place? Then we’ll see how memorable it was.”
“Just think about it, you just think about it, about all the men you let fuck you. Right back to the first.”
Her hand jerked. “A woman never forgets her first. That’s not you.”
“We’re going to party, you and me. But right now, why don’t you take a little walk? See what I left for you.”
The phone clicked. “Bastard,” she muttered, hunting up her cell phone. “He’s done something close, within walking distance. Don’t hang that up,” she added, then picked up her weapon, holstered it on as she dialed from h
er cell.
“It’s Hale. I need you to triangulate this number.” She read it off. “It’s going to be a cell phone, and he’s probably mobile. I’m giving you the number he called, leaving that line open.” She rattled out Bo’s number as she walked out of the kitchen. “He may have set a fire in the vicinity of my house. I want a couple of patrols. I’m heading outside now to check it out. You can reach me . . . Son of a bitch!”
She heard Bo curse behind her, then take off running back to the kitchen. “I’ve got a vehicle fire, this address. Bastard. Call it in!”
Bo flew by her, armed with a fire extinguisher.
The hood of the truck was up, the engine spitting out fire. Smoke billowed out of the bed, and beneath, pools of gas shimmered with flame. The tires were smoldering and the acrid stench of burning rubber soiled the air. More flames danced over the hood, along the roof of the cab, aided by the pleasant summer breeze.
But fury turned to fear when she spotted the trailer of rags burning toward the open gas tank. Twisting out of the tank with them was a red linen napkin with the Sirico’s logo folded down at the corner.
“Get back!” She leaped at Bo, yanked the extinguisher out of his hands. There was either enough left, or there wasn’t, she thought dully, and aimed at the tank.
Foam spurted out. Smoke blinded her, choked her as the breeze waved it in her face. The flavor of fire filled her mouth again as, along the ground, the streams of burning gas slid closer.
“Forget the truck.” Bo grabbed her on the fly, dragged her with him as he sprinted across the street.
The explosion shot the rear of the truck into the air, slammed it back down as the punch of it knocked them off their feet. There was a firestorm of blazing metal, hot shrapnel that rained onto the street, over other vehicles as he rolled with her under the cover of a parked car.
“Are you hurt? Are you burned?”
He shook his head, stared at the inferno that had been his truck. His ears rang, his eyes stung, and his arm felt flame kissed. When he ran his hand over it, it came away bloody.
“I almost had it. Another few seconds—”
“You almost got yourself blown up for a goddamn Chevy pickup.”
“He played me. He timed it.” Fire danced in her eyes as she slammed her fist on the asphalt. “The engine, the bed, distractions. If I’d seen the fuse sooner . . . Jesus, Bo, you’re bleeding.”
“Scraped up my arm some when we hit.”
“Let me see it. Where’s my phone? Where’s my damn phone?” She crawled out, saw it lying broken on the street. “Here they come.” Sirens wailed, and people poured out of neighboring houses. “Sit down over here, let me look at your arm.”
“It’s okay. Let’s both sit down a minute.”
He wasn’t sure if he was shaking, or if she was. Maybe both of them, so he 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 bandaged his 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