There, Ken stood talking with a woman.
Libbie watched from the far end of the aisle as the woman tried to rub herself against Ken as she kissed him. Without thinking, Libbie shifted everything to one arm and fumbled her phone from her pocket with her free hand. She quickly snapped a couple of pictures.
He can’t deny it and say I was wrong. He can’t lie and say I imagined it.
No bullshitting his way out of it. And she wouldn’t be tempted to pretend she was mistaken. She’d already caught them in one whopper of a lie, that they weren’t gay.
Okay, not that it was a bad lie, because damn, she benefitted from the truth.
And she had ignored the fact that their truck hadn’t had a Nebraska plate on the front when they arrived. Maybe they did hit the DMV office like they’d said. And the weird feeling that Charles had lied when she questioned him about his knowledge of Cuban sandwiches.
And what about Charles? Was he lying the same way Ken was? What else had they lied about?
Who’s to say what they might lie to me about?
It felt like a block of ice now resided where her heart had strongly beat for the men.
And I was stupid enough to fall in love with them.
She stepped out of the aisle and into a different one to get herself under control. She’d sworn she wouldn’t do it, that she wouldn’t lose her heart to them. That it would be about fun and sex and getting some help in the shop in the bargain and extra money to help pay the bills every month.
But that she wouldn’t fall in love with the men. Either of them.
As hot tears threatened to sting her eyes, she knew that was exactly what she had done—fallen in love.
With both of them. On Halloween night, the first time they’d made love to her, she’d lost her heart to them even though she wouldn’t open herself to more pain by admitting it to them.
How fucking stupid am I?
After a few minutes of deep breaths to calm her shaky nerves, she returned to the aisle where he was and found him alone, looking over the pen selections as if he hadn’t just had another woman in his arms.
Two can play that game.
She dumped her stuff in the cart.
“You all right?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’m fine. Let’s get this done and over with.”
They got the rest of the items on her list. Any time he spoke to her, she kept her answers short, monosyllabic when possible. Staying in front of him the entire way, she swiped her credit card at the register and let him deal with loading the bags in the cart. Then she briskly marched in front of him all the way to the car, waiting while he unlocked the door for her and let her in. He rounded the car to pop the trunk and start the car so the heater would run for her.
Libbie pressed her lips tightly together to keep the scream locked inside her throat. If she started, she feared she might not be able to stop.
They might have shattered her trust, but they wouldn’t take her dignity from her. She’d wait until she was home and alone and safely locked behind a closed door before breaking down and crying.
She heard Ken close the trunk. When he walked around to the driver’s door and got in, she turned to the passenger window, unable to look at him.
He didn’t put the car in gear. Despite the heavy silence, she kept her eyes fixed on the bank building at the far end of the parking lot.
“What’s wrong?” he softly asked.
She shook her head, still not trusting her voice.
She felt him touch the back of her left hand and forced herself not to flinch. “Libbie, talk to me, sweetheart. What happened? What’s going on? Something happened in the store, and I want you to tell me what.”
With pain building inside her chest, she finally let go of it and allowed it to burst from her. “I saw you. I saw you with that woman in there. I saw her all over you and saw her kiss you. And I heard her call you Allan. Take me home. Now.”
“Libbie, listen to—”
“I’m done listening. You guys aren’t gay. You aren’t from Nebraska, either, probably. You have a girl. The lies stop here and now. I’m done. I—”
“Libbie!”
She jumped at the force and depth of his voice. Her head involuntarily swung around, her eyes meeting his. She thought he was going to say something else, but instead, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Opening it, he laid it in her lap without a sound.
The badge cast a shine in the late afternoon sunlight. Blinking, she looked up and stared at him.
“Go ahead,” he quietly said. “Then we can talk. It’s time you know it all, I guess. We never planned to get involved with you. We didn’t want to put anyone at risk.”
With her fingers trembling, she silently read the inscription on the badge. Miami-Dade. She flipped past that and saw another driver’s license. The picture with Ken’s blue eyes, but with shaggy, dark hair and his face covered with a dark beard and moustache.
Benjamin Donohue, with a Miami address.
A Florida concealed carry permit, with the same picture and name. A photo ID from the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office.
She flipped through it. Credit cards, a bank card, Social Security card, voter registration card.
All in the name of Benjamin Donohue.
Trying to catch her breath, she slowly looked at him. Both his hands rested on the top of the steering wheel, his gaze transfixed somewhere out in the distance ahead of them.
“Who are you really?” she whispered.
Without looking at her, his voice sounding tired and drawn, he softly said, “Detective Benjamin Donohue, Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office. I spent three years in deep undercover to bring down the Bianco crime family.”
She looked back at his wallet, once again flipped open to the badge. “Why are you here?”
“We’re in hiding.”
“We?” She closed her eyes. “Duh. You and Charles.”
“Allan,” he softly corrected.
She felt her heart clench. “That woman in there called you Allan.”
He slowly nodded, then finally looked at her. “We’re not cousins. We’re identical twins. Allan is an assistant state’s attorney on the team prosecuting the case. She thought I was him because when we went into hiding I made myself look like him and made him totally change his appearance.”
Her mind swam with questions. She suddenly remembered the night she’d heard Charles…
Allan
, call Ken…
dammit
…Ben “bro” while they were making love to her.
The only word she could give voice to was, “Why?”
He released the steering wheel and she allowed him to carefully take her hands in his. He brought them up to his chest and tucked them into his jacket. Beneath his shirt, she felt his heart pounding. “Let’s get the groceries home and I promise I’ll tell you everything. Okay? No more lies. The whole truth.”
She nodded, not understanding why he now sounded so sad.
And worried what it meant.
* * * *
Despite the countless questions swirling through her mind, Libbie kept herself quiet all the way home. When they got there, Ken—
Ben
, she reminded herself—helped her upstairs to her apartment before going back for the groceries.
When he got everything put away, he went to his apartment and brought back a laptop. Settling next to her on her couch, he brought up
The Miami Herald
’s website, keyed in a search, then handed the laptop to her.
BIANCO FAMILY TRIAL TO PROCEED
read the headline. The story, a Sunday feature piece from several months earlier, detailed how undercover detectives had gathered enough evidence to make an arrest of a mob family member, which led to even more charges on the state and federal level. While Ben wasn’t mentioned in the article, it did have a picture of one of the lead prosecutors in the case.
And while he looked like Ben, she could tell from the expression in his eyes it wasn’t, that it was Charles. Or Allan, or whatever his real name was. The cutline under the picture identified him as Allan Donohue.
Ben remained silent while she read. When she finished, she returned the laptop. “So, where is he? Charles. I mean Allan. Where did he really go today?”
He closed the laptop and set it aside. “He’s on his way back from Orlando by now, I imagine. He really did go there, but not for art supplies, although I’m sure he’ll come back with some. He had to be on conference calls with the prosecution team today.”
“Why Orlando?”
“We use disposable cell phones and put at least fifty miles between here and wherever we call from.” She heard his deep sigh. “It’s paranoid, but I don’t want anyone able to track us back here to Brooksville. I don’t know that woman who saw me today,” he said. “Obviously, she’s a friend of Allan’s. I haven’t had a girlfriend in a couple of years, since before I went in undercover with the Biancos. I couldn’t risk it while I was undercover.” He looked down at his hands. “I’m sorry.”
At war within her, anger and love and dread. “How many more lies are there?”
He shook his head, not meeting her gaze. “That’s the full truth.”
“Why Nebraska?”
“Because I’ve got a friend in the DEA at their Omaha office. I went to college with him. He was able to set me up with some quick IDs and backgrounds and I knew he was clean. I trusted him not to tell anyone who we were or where we were living. It was either that, or we would have been forced into protective custody, and no way in hell was I doing that.”
“So…all this has been one big lie? Everything?”
The way he shook his head surprised her. He turned to her and took her hands again. “
No
. How I feel about you isn’t a lie. I’m sorry you got pulled into this. I never meant for you to get hurt. I didn’t want to fall in love with you, but I did. I’ve never felt about someone the way I feel about you. I love you, Libbie.”
Her mouth snapped closed at his words, nearly biting her tongue in the process. As she stared into his eyes, she realized she no longer gave a damn about protecting her heart. It had already jumped the walls without her permission, running straight to the men a long time ago.
“I love you, too,” she whispered, relieved to finally be able to admit it out loud. “Both of you.”
She felt even more relieved to know he felt the same way.
His expression softened as he opened his arms to her. She crawled into them, letting out a content sigh as she closed her eyes and breathed in his scent.
He kissed the top of her head. “I don’t know where to go from here,” he said. “All three of us. He loves you every bit as much as I do.”
“That’s why you said six months when you first got here, isn’t it?” she asked, the fact hitting her squarely between the eyes. “Because that’s when the trial starts?”
“Yeah.” His breath felt warm against her scalp.
“So when the trial starts, you’ll both leave, won’t you?”
When he didn’t answer her right away, she thought maybe he hadn’t heard her. As she was about to ask again, he whispered, “Yeah.”
She kept her eyes closed. She didn’t want to think about losing him.
Of losing
them
.
“What happens then?”
His hand tenderly gripped her chin and tilted her face up to his. His lips brushed hers before he touched his forehead to hers. “I don’t know about him,” he said, his voice sounding choked. “After the trial, I plan on moving.”
“Moving?”
When his thumb stroked her cheek, she opened her eyes to find him staring into hers. “Yeah. Moving here. I can’t lose you.” He studied her. “If you’ll have me.”
“What about Allan?”
“That’s for him to decide. If he wants to pick up stakes and move here, then fine. If not…” He let out a sigh she couldn’t interpret. “Then I guess it’d be the two of us.” He kissed her again. “But the trial is going to be a long one. Several months or longer. I won’t have to testify that whole time, but Allan needs to be there to work with the team and I can’t leave him on his own, unguarded. I’d feel horrible if Bianco got to him because I wasn’t there watching his back.”
“Can you come here on the weekends? Or I could go there.”
He vigorously shook his head. “I won’t put you in harm’s way. Those people are vicious. They wouldn’t hesitate to stoop to hurting you, especially if they found out how much you mean to both of us. I won’t do it. I won’t risk it. I don’t want you anywhere near Miami.”
She clutched at his shirt. “I can’t lose you. I love you.” She wanted to say it all the time now, to never stop saying it in hopes it would keep both of them forever by her side.
He stood, then easily scooped her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. When she tried to speak again, he shushed her with a finger to her lips. “I love you,” he said, then kissed her.
He slowly undressed her before tossing his own clothes to the floor. While most of her encounters with the men were with both of them together, there was something even more special about having one of them to herself.
Ben rolled a condom onto his cock and slowly entered her. Then he laced his fingers through hers, holding them above her head and leaving her feeling like she was in a safe cocoon formed by his body.