“No,” he answered. “You are. Long as you’re here, I’d rather not have to do it myself.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“No, just my fingers.”

“Please just let me take you to the hospital.”

“This’ll work.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw it in Braveheart.”

“Braveheart? Are you kidding?”

“You burn the wounds, they close right up.” He spat on the tip of the iron, waited twenty seconds, then spat again. This time there was a hiss. He sat on the top step and held out the iron to her. “We’ll do ’em one at a time. Press hard. And be quick about it.”

“Oh, right. As if.” She folded her arms across her chest and turned away.

“Come on,” he said. “It’ll give your story a nice little gory detail.” He slipped his belt from the loops of his jeans and folded it over on itself. “Come on, I don’t have all day!”

“I said I’m not doing it! I don’t want to be responsible for permanently damaging your hand.”

“It’s permanently damaged already. If you don’t help me close up these wounds, I can’t play tonight. Would you rather be responsible for that?”

“Cole, there are plastic surgeons these days who can reattach your fingers, make you good as new.”

“I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”

“Why?”

“Because the shitheads that did this took my fingers with them. And no plastic surgeon can take care of this before kickoff tonight, so come on.”

Savannah just shook her head.

“Fine. I’ll do it myself.”

He squeezed his wrist between his knees to keep his arm from recoiling when the iron made contact. He placed the belt between his teeth and bit down hard enough to hear the leather crack. Then he brought the iron down toward his hand. It was less than an inch away, close enough to feel its heat, when Savannah spoke.

“Hey, Braveheart.”

He spat out the belt. “Jesus, what is it now?”

She nodded toward the trees. Cole followed her gaze. A squad car was approaching quickly, just a couple of hundred yards up the road.

“Damnit!” He ripped the cord from the wall and flung it and the soldering iron down the porch.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“We?”

“I’m in as much trouble here as you, remember?”

There wasn’t time to argue the point. “Shit, come on!”

He led her down the steps. They sprinted across the drive and into the woods to the top of a rise about forty yards inside the tree line. When they were over the crest, Cole pulled her to the ground beside him. He rolled onto his stomach and stayed low as the squad car pulled up next to her Honda. Curtis’s Stetson was easy to recognize behind the wheel.