"So, they used the phone to what, track the girl? Did they find her?"

He gave her hand a squeeze and turned to look at her.  "They sure did. Turns out her uncle was more a sugar daddy drug lord than he was a relative. I don't mean to be a sexist, but apparently, she really is a dumb blonde. Good thing she wasn't smart enough to use a burner phone to call Pauli. They tracked her location and found her and her sugar daddy "In flagrante delicto." Legally speaking, in the act of doing something illegal, not colloquially in the sexual act. They were loading up an SUV with what appeared to be all clothes and drugs they could carry."

"Was it the drugs from the warehouse?"

"No, those haven't been picked up yet. Apparently, meth from the same batch and cook has a unique signature and once the forensics team is finished, they'll prove the drugs they were loading came from the same cook as the ones in the warehouse. Not only that, but the drug lord should have chosen his girlfriend better. I understand she's singing like a canary. She has already admitted to kidnapping Jeff because her boyfriend thought Jeff might have seen something at the meth house. She lured Pauli in so they could see if the police had the warehouse staked out. She's hoping to make a deal, but she'd already confessed to kidnapping Jeff before she lawyered up. At least Pauli changed from being a suspect to being a material witness, so the police released him. Mama would have killed me if he'd been arrested."

"So, where's Pauli now? Did he go home?"

"No, he's in my shower washing off the police station smell. I'm not letting that kid out of my sight yet. He already picked the girl out of a line-up. I'm sure they'll want Jeff to confirm too. They'll either do a photo line-up for him or have him go to the station tomorrow if he's out of the hospital. Of course, if she is able to cut a deal, maybe neither Pauli nor Jeff will have to do anything else."

"Yo, Ben have you got something I can put on?" Lane looked up to see the back of a naked Pauli Bellini standing in the middle of Ben's room with a towel over his head. Lane reached up and covered her eyes with her right hand.

"Pauli. Cover yourself, we aren't alone."

Pauli moved the towel from his head, wrapped it around his waist, and turned around. "What do you mean we aren't alone?" He looked up to see his brother in the adjoining room sitting on a bed next to a really hot red head. He needed to take lessons from his brother. How had Ben found a woman, so hot, so fast? How long had he been in the shower anyway?

Ben looked at Lane. "Lane, may I present my brother Paolo Raffaelle Bellini. Pauli, this is my friend Lane Parker.

Lane held out her hand thinking washboard abs and dark curly chest hair must run in the Bellini family. Pauli approached the bed.

"That's Dr. Bellini." He said as he flashed a smile not unlike the one she called Ben's perfect smile. He shook her hand. "I apologize for my appearance. Ms. Parker."

Lane smiled. "Think nothing of it Dr. Bellini; I've often met doctors not wearing much more myself. I must say it's nice to finally have the tables turned."

Ben laughed. "Let me get some clothes for you." He said as he got up and urged his brother to follow him.

"Ben, I've got two queen sized beds in here, and you've just got that king do you want to trade rooms?"

The truth was what he really wanted was to share her bed and leave Pauli alone. But, he was sure that even if they had been sleeping together that she wouldn't have shared his bed under the circumstances. He pulled some clothes from his suitcase, shoved them toward his brother, and motioned him toward the bathroom. He turned back to Lane's room. She'd gotten out of bed and stood there in a nightshirt that barely covered her ass. He covered the distance in three strides, pulled her to him, and kissed her. She had her arms around him in a nano-second and her hands in his hair a heartbeat later.

Which is how Pauli found them when he emerged from the bathroom wearing a pair of Ben's sweats as he pulled a t-shirt over his head. He heard Lane moan. He'd never had a woman moan just from kissing him. He really did need to take lessons from his older brother. Ben was the oldest of five children, four boys and a girl in the middle. The brothers had grown up knowing that Ben drew beautiful women like flowers drew honeybees. Pauli had never witnessed his brother in action though. While he felt like he was intruding, he couldn't look away, nor did he want to make any noise to disturb them but he turned away and cleared his throat.

He heard Ben whisper hoarsely "Don't you have a robe or something? You can't parade around in front of Pauli like that."

Lane laughed. "The hell I can't, he paraded around in less." She said as she walked past Pauli into the room with the bigger bed, pulled the covers back and climbed into the bed.

"We can trade rooms back in the morning so I can shower and get dressed." As he turned around, he heard her say, "Turn off the lights, and close the door on your way out, will you Dr. Bellini?"

Chapter 11

All's well that ends well

Lane woke the next morning to sounds of someone quietly rummaging through luggage. There was no light coming through the curtains as she turned to see Ben bent over his suitcase no doubt grabbing workout clothes.

She threw a pillow at his backside and whispered, "What are you doing? It's o-dark-thirty." She ducked and laughed as the pillow came back at her. She had thrown another pillow before she heard a voice booming not so happily from the other room.

"What's going on? Lane are you okay?"

Uh-oh, the boxer clad behind that she'd been having a pillow fight with was Pauli. She turned on the bedside lamp and looked up to find Ben standing in the doorway looking very unhappily at his brother who held a pillow in his hand.

He pointed to Pauli.  "You, get the sweats and get out." He pointed to Lane as he approached the bed. "And, you, stop flirting with my brother."

She smiled. "In my defense, counselor all I saw was a tall dark handsome muscular man wearing nothing but boxers bending over your suitcase. Naturally, I thought it was you."

He was at the bed in a flash. "And if I'd been two minutes later, would you have invited him into bed with you?" He said as he sat on the edge of the bed and turned off the bedside lamp.

"You know better than that, counselor." She laughed.

Pauli grabbed the sweats and turned to leave "I'm going to need someone's room key to get into the gym and back into the rooms. Lane leaned around Ben who was holding her in his arms. "Use mine; it's on the dresser in there."

As Pauli walked toward the room where he'd spent the night he heard his brother call out to him, "Close the door on your way out, will you Dr. Bellini?"

Pauli closed the door. Definitely, he needed to get his brother to give him lessons. He heard the family talk about Ben's friend Lane Parker. As he recalled, his grandparents had met her when they were in Kansas City during the Christmas holidays a few months earlier. He remembered Nonno saying something about a "bella donna dai capelli rossi", a beautiful red haired woman. Guess he knew now what or whom his grandfather was talking about and Pauli had to agree, she was certainly a beautiful red haired woman. Ben had introduced her as his friend but it sure didn't look to him like they were just friends. Friends with benefits maybe. Yep, lessons, he needed lessons.