Tymber Dalton - It's a Sweet Life

“No, I’ll quit. I can shove what few cases I have over onto someone else.”

“Then we’ll both friggin quit.”

They stared at each other over her sleeping form. Stalemate.

“You can’t quit,” Ben said. “Not yet. They need you.”

“She needs me more.”

“If Bianco skates, we’ll never be able to stop looking over our shoulders and you know it.”

Another stalemate.

Ben finally nodded. “Look, I’ll take a leave of absence. Personal leave. That way I’m still on the force and it avoids a ton of bullshit.

Not to mention I have something crazy like two months’ worth of vacation time built up. When I’m due in for testimony, I’ll come down. But you need to start carrying and wearing a vest all the time.

Promise? Deal?”

Allan stroked her forehead. He had a carry permit and Ben had trained him personally, but he didn’t like guns and hated using them.

He would, however, do whatever he had to for Libbie’s sake. “Deal,”

240 Tymber

Dalton

he softly said.

Once sure she was deeply asleep. Allan carefully climbed out of bed and motioned Ben to do the same. Going into the bathroom, Allan shut the door and kept his voice low so it wouldn’t carry into the bedroom. “I need to call the office and tell them I’m not going to be in.”

“You have to go in. Witness statements this afternoon.”

“Crap.” He ran a hand through his hair. Upon doing so, he turned to the mirror and stared at his reflection. His dark roots were showing.

One of the things he hated most was dying his hair.

“It’s time for me to go back to being me.” He met Ben’s gaze in the mirror. “You don’t need to protect me. I need you to protect and take care of her.” He studied his reflection again. “There’s a place across the street. I’ll go there right now and have them put me back.

And new rules. No more bullshit about her not being able to call when she wants or needs to. If those assholes are truly that tech savvy, we’re screwed regardless. It’s more important for her to be able to talk to us. What if she’d broke down on the Alley on her way over here and couldn’t call for help because the crap-ass phone we gave her couldn’t pick up a signal?”

Ben nodded. Allan had expected at least token resistance to his demands, but Ben seemed broken, hollow. “Agreed,” Ben wearily replied. “And there are some of your suits down in the trunk of your car. I grabbed a few more while I was at the house.”

Allan grabbed the wallet in his pocket and handed it to Ben, who did the same. “So we’re back to being us again,” he said.

A soft snort escaped Ben.

“What?” Allan asked.

“I have a feeling Libbie won’t have any trouble at all telling us apart. Just like we couldn’t fool Mom, no matter how we tried.”

“Yeah.”

He looked at Allan. “We’re in agreement that we marry her, right?”

It’s a Sweet Life

241

“Bigamy is illegal in Florida.”

“Dumb-ass. We can have one of those handfasting ceremonies Mandaline was talking about at New Year’s.”

“I’m impressed. I didn’t think you were paying attention that night.”

“I’m a cop. I pay more attention than you think I do. Are we in agreement?”

“Yeah. How do we decide who legally marries her? Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock?” He smiled.

Ben rolled his eyes. “Libbie gets to decide that.” A brief frown crossed his lips. “Well, we need to propose to her and make sure she actually says yes.” He thought about it. “Then again, which of us has the better health plan?”

“Are you serious?”

“Damn serious. The first thing I want to happen once the ink is dry on the marriage certificate is for her to get put on someone’s health insurance so we can make her get taken care of properly.”

“You don’t think making decisions for her like that will piss her off?”

Ben was through arguing and justifying. “She’s going to learn to stop fighting us and let us take care of her so she can focus all of her energies on taking care of herself. And the baby.”

His throat grew tight, a lump swelling in it at that thought. “Our baby.” He stared at Allan. “If I tell you something, you have to promise not to make fun of me.”

One eyebrow arched. “That’s not an easy promise to make.”

“I’m serious.”

“Fine.”

He gathered his thoughts. “Back in college, I used to think it’d be nice if the two of us could find a woman we could settle down with 242 Tymber Dalton

together. And now we have.”

His brother’s expression softened, and he wasn’t prepared when Allan pulled him in for a brotherly bear hug. “You rat bastard, why didn’t you tell me before? I used to think that, too. I didn’t think back then that you’d want to share someone all the time.”

“So we’re agreed? Our wife, our baby, no matter what the paperwork says?”

Allan let him go, a grin on his face. “Yep. As long as she’ll have us two losers.”

He let Allan out of the room and locked the door behind him.

Then he found the TV remote, kicked off his shoes, and curled up next to Libbie to watch TV.

He wanted to giggle, but didn’t want to disturb her.

I’m going to be a dad. We’re going to be dads.

He wouldn’t let thoughts of Bianco spoil this for him.

It’s a Sweet Life

243

“How fucking hard can it be to find a cop and an attorney for chrissake?”

Bianco stared at the three men standing before him in the Cracker Barrel men’s room. He had Feds on his tail every minute of the day, and suspected they were using wiretaps and other electronic surveillance to track his every word. Even Enrique couldn’t go anywhere without an unmarked car pulling out behind him.

“It’s not easy,” Florio said. “They’re not staying in one place. I can’t even find a permanent address for Ben Donohue, even with my sources in the department. And Allan Donohue is never at his home anymore. We can’t keep it staked out because it would look suspicious. That cop, though, he’s fucking cagy.”

“You know where his fucking office is. Find someone in there to get you information. And keep trying his home. He can’t stay away permanently.”

Florio nervously looked at Steve and Carlo, who kept glancing at the floor every time Bianco looked at them. “Is that clear?” Bianco ordered.

“Yes, boss,” Florio said. The other two nodded.

“You know which car is his. Find it, have someone on it all the time until you figure out where the fuck their cave is and smoke them the hell out. I’m running out of time here. I can’t believe no one has wanted to pick up the fucking bounty I’ve got on their heads. Can’t we put one of those fucking GPS trackers on his car or something?”

Florio shook his head. “It’s not like on TV, it’s—”

“I don’t fucking care if it’s like on TV or not, track his 244 Tymber Dalton

goddamned ass even if it means duct-taping a guy under his fucking car with a damn cell phone in his hand, you got me?”

All three men nodded. He dismissed them with a wave of his hand. Then he turned to the mirror. If he wasn’t under constant surveillance himself, he’d be happy to personally wait for Allan Donohue to get off work and have a little talk with him about his brother’s whereabouts before putting a bullet through his brainpan.

He washed his hands. I need them out of the picture now .

Libbie thought she was dreaming when she awoke to see two Allans standing, softly talking, on the far side of the room with their backs to the bed.