She patted the bed next to her. He pulled off his jacket and dropped it on the floor. Then he kicked off his shoes and settled next to her.
“We went to the store,” Ben said, sounding a little more awake.
“An acquaintance of yours thought I was you. She got friendly with me, and Libbie saw it. I didn’t have a choice but to come clean with her.” He brushed the hair away from the nape of her neck and kissed her, making her heart and her pussy flutter.
She poked Allan in the chest. “She’d better be a past acquaintance.”
“Who was it?” Allan asked.
“Some woman,” Ben said. “A Leeza something or other. Said she’ll hit you up on Facebook.”
Allan closed his eyes and groaned. “Shit. Leeza Maxwell?”
“Yeah. That was it.”
Allan looked at her. “Babe, I’m so sorry. She’s definitely a past acquaintance. She was a bartender I dated for a few weeks early last year. She moved and I didn’t keep in touch with her.”
Libbie arched an eyebrow at him. “Dated?”
“Slept with. All right?” He palmed her cheek. “But not now. Now, I don’t want to be with anyone but you.” His eyes searched her face as he waited for her to speak.
“He told me about the trial.”
“Yeah.” He glanced at Ben behind her before holding her gaze again. “It’s going to be a long one, unfortunately.”
“And I can’t see you guys while it’s going on?”
He shook his head. “It’d be too dangerous. Bianco is notorious for using whatever means necessary to get his way.”
200 Tymber
Dalton
“I thought mobsters didn’t mess with families.”
“They didn’t used to,” Allan said. “Years ago, that was taboo.
Now, they don’t care. And Bianco is too desperate, wants to make as much of this go away as possible. That’s why I’m taking a backseat and only doing support work on the trial, but I still have to be there during the trial. I know the entire case front to back. I’ve practically memorized the files, and no one in my office knows it the way I do.
We don’t want to give them any reason on appeal to use Ben and me being brothers to force a review or retrial for conflict of interest. The Feds have too much involved in this to let it get sunk like that. Our trial comes first, then the Feds are building on that for their case.”
“Then what?”
“What do you mean?”
She felt Ben’s arm tighten around her in support, but she forged ahead. “After the trial,” she softly said. “What happens then? What do you do?”
He smiled and leaned in, kissing her. “I’m thinking a private practice in a small, west central Florida town a little north of Tampa is just what I need now in my life.” His thumb stroked her cheek. “If you’ll have me.”
“Us,” Ben said.
Allan nodded. “Us. Both of us.”
Relief flooded her heart. She sat up and threw her arms around him. “Yes.”
It’s a Sweet Life
201
Chapter Nineteen
“We’ve got a tip,” Barry Conner softly said from the doorway.
Victor Bianco looked up from his papers at his resident computer geek standing in the doorway. Bianco had been reduced to holding court in the back room of an auto repair shop he owned and used to launder cash through. The air compressor for the shop was positioned five feet directly behind his desk. He flipped a switch that made it spring to life. The noise defeated any electronic surveillance the Feds might have used. He motioned for Barry to come closer and leaned in to hear and be heard. “Well?”
“Brooksville. North of Tampa. Apparently, some woman who used to date Allan Donohue tagged him on her Facebook wall yesterday.”
Victor Bianco leaned back and templed his fingers together.
“Really? I thought Donohue’s Facebook page was set to private and locked down tight.”
“Right. It is. She tagged him.” Bianco noticed the man held several pages of paper in his hand. He waved Barry closer to his desk, where Bianco took an offered piece of paper.
“Kelly, guess who I ran into in Wallyworld? Allan Donohue, ” he read. The comment was tagged onto a picture over eight months old, of Donohue, along with several others, taken at a bar.
“She checked in via Foursquare at the Brooksville Walmart a little while before she made the comment.”
“Brooksville, hmm?” Bianco mused as he studied the picture. “Do we know where this Leeza Maxwell lives?”
“Yep,” Barry said, handing him another piece of paper. “I tracked 202 Tymber Dalton
her down. She lives in Spring Hill, just west of Brooksville.”
Bianco smiled up at his man. “Excellent. You don’t disappoint, do you?”
Barry’s face turned pink. Bianco had quickly learned the young man wasn’t used to receiving praise. He’d discovered that soon after hiring him upon the young man’s release from jail for hacking into a bank. “Just doing my job, sir.”
“And you do it well. On your way out, please send Enrique in.”
Barry quickly turned and left. Bianco was still studying the papers in his hand when Enrique walked in.
“You wanted to see me, boss?”
Bianco nodded at the door. “Close it.”
Enrique did, quickly closing the distance to Bianco’s desk, where he leveraged his bulk into the chair in front of the desk and leaned forward so he could hear over the compressor noise. “Whatcha got?”
“Let me thank you again for scouting Barry. He is an asset to our organization.”
Enrique’s massive shoulders lurched in a shrug. “Easy way for him to pay off his vig. My cousin gets the credit for the tip.”
“That’s another thing I like about you. You share credit but accept full blame when something goes wrong. I like that I can count on you.” Bianco handed over the papers. “Find her. Find out everything she knows about Allan Donohue and his current whereabouts. And then lose her. Permanently. I don’t care how it’s done or what it’s made to look like, because she has no ties to us.”
Enrique pinched the papers between fingers like sausages and looked them over. “Will do. Any deadline?”
Bianco arched an eyebrow at Enrique. “As soon as possible.”
“I’ll personally get right on it.”
Bianco flipped the switch again, shutting down the compressor.
Enrique nodded and left the office without further comment, leaving Bianco to rub his temples. The compressor’s noise would drive him deaf or crazy if he couldn’t figure out a way to make the case go It’s a Sweet Life 203
away.
Ben sat at a table next to the front window of Many Blessings, sipping his coffee while reading the morning paper. He’d had an odd feeling ever since his run-in with Leeza Maxwell two days earlier.
And cabin fever wasn’t helping the situation.
After the unnerving brush with the blast from Allan’s past and confessing the full truth to Libbie, he wanted Allan and himself to stay as close to the bakery as possible, excluding their runs elsewhere for conference calls. Even Allan agreed, when they discussed it outside Libbie’s presence, that it would be best for them to keep their heads even lower than before.
Libbie wouldn’t reveal their secret. Ben felt a mixture of relief and guilt over their secret being out, yet her now bearing the additional burden of keeping it.
I won’t let her get hurt.
At least now they had their true feelings out in the open and he could release his guilt over lying to her. She not only didn’t send them packing, she seemed to bear a deeper, more peaceful air about her.