He also didn’t tell him she was right there with him, because he suspected the last thing she needed was the tongue-lashing she knew Grover would rightfully give her for scaring the crap out of all of them.
It felt like forever before he heard Allan knock on the door. He checked before opening it, and Allan rushed in with a bag. “Okay, I got three different ones so we can tell for sure. They can’t all be wrong.” He emptied the bag onto the bed.
She sat up and wiped at her face. “I…” She sniffled. “Can one of you help me? I can’t…I can’t focus today. I’m sorry.” Ben worried most about her state of mind. She sounded weak, defeated.
He took her hand and helped her up. “Quit apologizing. You can’t help that you’re in a flare. And yes, of course we’ll both help you.” He shot Allan a warning look not to laugh while they opened and read the instructions for all three test kits, which were all two-packs.
“Okay,” Ben said. “This is logistically going to be difficult. I say we go with two of them for now. She’s not a racehorse with a gallon of pee in her.”
Sitting on the bathroom counter and looking even weaker in the fluorescent lighting, Libbie managed a wan smile. “I do have to pee.”
“All right,” Allan said, grabbing one. “Assume the position.” He reached for the second test stick. “Ben, you just stand there and take them from me. I don’t want you getting pee on my suit.”
That earned them a soft laugh that relieved Ben. And how it actually worked was Libbie started out holding one of the test strips, and then Allan made the switch with her while Ben took the first one and snapped the cap back on it and started keeping the time.
A few minutes later, all three of them stood there in silence. Ben wanted to jump up and down with joy. Allan, he suspected, was staying quiet until he read Libbie’s mood.
Ben knew there might be health considerations for both Libbie and the baby, but for now he didn’t want to think about that. He wanted to bask in his joy, something he’d all but given up hope of ever feeling.
Libbie stood in front of them, her full attention focused on the two plastic test sticks.
They both read positive.
Ben gently rubbed her shoulders. “Sweetheart, it’s your body and your decision. But Allan and I both want kids. So keep that in mind. And we promise we will be there for you, no matter how we need to manage it.”
She still didn’t say anything.
* * * *
Libbie didn’t know what to say. She stared dumbly at the two test strips, blinking and hoping they’d change to negative.
Then she thought about Mandaline’s words the other day in Many Blessings, how she’d called Libbie “mama” and said she was “glowing.”
Frak.
Yes, she’d always thought about maybe one day having kids, but at thirty-five, and without a husband, she’d pushed the thought to the back of her mind and forgotten about it.
The truth was staring her in the face. “What…what if something’s wrong with it?” She caught herself laying her palm against her belly.
“And what if it’s totally healthy?” Allan asked.
They made her turn to face them.
Ben asked the question. “Do you want an abortion?”
“No!” she answered immediately without even thinking about it. As she studied their faces, she realized they were both struggling not to smile. “What?”
“That was a pretty quick answer, don’t you think?” Allan queried. “Maybe the answer of a woman who’s made up her mind and just needs her men to reassure her everything’s going to be okay because they’re going to take charge and make it okay so she doesn’t have to shoulder the burden alone?”
She nodded, hating that the prickle of tears had returned again. But then their arms were around her and one or both of them helped her back into bed and she was lying, comfortably sandwiched between them, when she fell into the first truly solid sleep she’d had since they left.
* * * *
“What the hell do we do now, Brain?” Allan whispered so as not to wake her.
“She can’t stay here. We have to get her back to Brooksville.”
“I’ll go,” Allan said.
“You can’t. You’re needed here.”
“Then you go.”
“I can’t. You need me here.”
Allan loved his brother, but this was one of those times he wanted to smack him. “Then she stays here with us.”
“What part of ‘she can’t stay here’ don’t you understand?”
“Then what’s your plan?”
“I don’t have one!”
They both lowered their voices as she stirred a little in her sleep before settling again.
Allan looked at his brother. “This does it. I’m turning in my resignation and going back with her. I can use a secure phone to answer questions, but they don’t need me. I’m done.”
“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,” 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?”
“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 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.
“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 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.
“Is double vision a pregnancy or fibro thing, do you think?”
Both men immediately turned at the sound of her voice, identical concerned frowns on their faces.
She burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, but my fibro fog isn’t bad enough, now you’re trying to confuse me?”
“Sorry, babe,” both men said at the same time.
That only served to make her laugh harder. “How long was I asleep, anyway, that they perfected cloning?” she asked.
“Smart-ass,” the Allan on the right said, his smirk betraying him.
She pointed. “Aaand there’s my Benjamin.”
“How’d you know?”
“Your voice. And that little smirk you do.”
They both walked over. “We’ve come to a few decisions while you were out,” Ben said. He laid out their plan for Ben to accompany her back to Brooksville. Then he helped her stand, while both of them knelt in front of her, each holding a hand.