Timothy thought about it, and then pointed at the clouds in the sky. “What does that cloud look like, Elizabeth?” he asked, pointing.
Elizabeth watched it shift and transform into the face of her husband. “It looks like Ethan,” she answered, examining the facial structure that she’d fallen in love with the day she met him.
“And now look at the cloud right beside it. What does that cloud remind you of?” he inquired, softly.
Elizabeth watched that one shift too, just as the other had and take shape. This time it reminded her of Callen. “It looks like Cal,” she answered.
“Correct.”
It still wasn’t connecting in her mind. It was like there was a tiny hole sucking in the information that she desperately needed to complete the puzzle.
“I don’t get it, Granddad. Help me get it.”
“Brothers and sisters often look the same on the outside, but sometimes it only takes one feature to connect them, and find the family relation. Ethan and Callen look nothing alike, different hair colors, different eye color, but they have a feature or two to make them brothers.”
“Lips,” she answered. “They have the same lips.”
“Yes, I do believe you’re an expert at that feature,” he said, laughing.
Elizabeth grinned. “I can’t help it, they may be different on the outside, but they have the same father and grandfather. I’m a sucker for Blackhawk DNA.”
He looked over at her with his very wise eyes. “Exactly, Elizabeth, the DNA.”
She stared into his face, waiting for him to say more.
“Now, I must go. You need to finish this up and head back home to my great-grandson and son. They need their family.” Timothy Blackhawk stood and offered her a hand, helping her to her feet to stand beside him.
“Tell my boys that I miss them. Tell Ethan that inside a book in the chest is, the first picture he ever drew of the woman he was going to marry. He was twelve at the time, and I think he should remember it, because she looks like you.”
“I will Granddad.”
“Tell Callen that I kept the first book he wrote as a child. It was about a dog named Red. Both are there waiting for them to just remember.”
“Okay Granddad.”
He started walking towards the trees, and a woman with braids stepped from behind the biggest one. He paused and looked back. “Elizabeth, tomorrow wear your vest, or you’ll be seeing me again, and not in a dream.”
“Will I see you again?” she asked, watching the woman walk towards Granddad. They held hands, linking fingers much like she and Callen did. It caught her breath in her chest.
“You’ll see me again, sweetheart, but you have a long life ahead of you yet.”
The woman smiled and blew her a kiss. On her left hand sat the wedding ring that Elizabeth had been wearing, while awake. It was the one that Callen had given her. On the top of her hand was a birthmark, in the shape of a blotch. Elizabeth stared down at the rings on her finger, and the family one was suspiciously missing.
“I love you, Granddad! I always will, and thank you for the year you gave me. I’ll never forget you,” she sobbed, as he walked away.
“Go back to the men, Elizabeth, and remember the eyes don’t lie.”
With that, they walked into the trees and disappeared.
~ Chapter Eighteen ~
Elizabeth sat up, gasping for air and fighting to be free of the arms that were wrapped around her.
“Baby! Are you okay?” Ethan asked in alarm. His wife just pulled all three of them from sleep, scaring the hell out of him.
Callen was also awake, and running his hands up and down her arm. “Shhhhh. We’re right here, angel. It was just a dream.”
“It was more than a dream,” she stated, laughing. Elizabeth climbed out of bed and glanced down at her hand. The family ring was back on her hand and she grinned.
Both men were staring at her like she was out of her mind. “Ethan, I need that paper that Desdemona gave you months ago with the list of all the men she had relationships with. I also need those journal entries.”
“Okay,” he said, climbing out of bed. “Are you sure you feel okay?” he asked again, watching her carefully.
“I think I know who killed Trinity Adare. I just need to see if I’m right.”
Elizabeth grabbed the tablet on the table. On it she pulled up Desdemona Adare’s driver’s license. She took the papers from her husband and knelt on the floor, spreading them around her and looking for the specific paper.
“Okay, you’re acting really bizarre. What happened that lit up the light bulb?” asked Blackhawk, sitting on the side of the bed.
“I was dreaming about granddad, and he told me how to figure it out.”
Ethan smiled gently. “Baby, you just worked it out in your subconscious.”
She looked up at him. “He told me to tell you that he kept the first picture you drew of the woman you were going to marry. What were you, twelve?” she asked, watching his brother stare over at him with a look on his face.
“I remember that picture,” said Whitefox. “It was taped to our bedroom wall.” Now that he remembered, it dawned on him. “It looked just like…”
“I’m aware, Cal,” he cut him off, uncomfortable with the meaning.
Elizabeth continued. “I didn’t know you wrote, Callen. He told me he kept your first story about a dog named ‘Red’.”
Now, both men looked at her like she was possessed.
“How did you know that?” he asked, knowing he’d never told her about it. Callen never told anyone that his secret dream was to be a writer.
“I told you. Granddad told me.” Elizabeth scanned the papers and highlighted the information that she needed.
“Elizabeth, you're telling me you had a dream with granddad, and he told you all of this?” Whitefox was freaked out, because he remembered that book he wrote. He even colored a picture of the dog and named him Red, because he couldn’t think of a better name.
“He said that the picture and story are in the chest he left you, Ethan. You’ll find them in there.”
Neither man spoke.
“Your grandmother was there. Birthmark on her left hand about this big?” she pointed to the spot on her hand. “Weird shaped?”
Now both men knew she wouldn’t know that. There weren’t any pictures of the woman’s hand in granddad’s house.
“She met him, at the end of the dream, and they held hands like we do, Cal,” she said, smiling up at him.
Callen felt his heart skip in his chest. He was very aware. He used to watch his grandfather and grandmother hold hands when he was very young; it was his one memory of her. “I’m pretty freaked out about this.”
Elizabeth started laughing. “Well, then you’re really going to be freaked out when I tell you he’s seen us in bed.”
Both men looked downright ill.
“If it makes you feel better, he approves.” Elizabeth refocused her attention. “Desdemona Adare dated Vincent Delray,” she said, grabbing the other tablet from the floor. She accessed the driver’s license database and pulled up his picture too.
“At first, granddad told me ‘the eyes don’t lie’.” It helped Elizabeth see what she’d been missing. “He didn’t mean my eyes.”
Blackhawk looked confused.
“Granddad told me that brothers and sisters don’t always look exactly alike, you two were the case and point.” Elizabeth turned both tablets towards the men, and showed them what she saw. “You both have the same lips, but that’s really it. Same father, different mothers and all you got were the exact same lips.”
Blackhawk stared at the pictures.
“Oh shit,” mumbled Whitefox. “They have the same eyes.”
“The eyes don’t lie, boys,” Elizabeth grinned. Then she pulled up the picture of Jonathan Delray and showed them.
“They have the same ears.”
Elizabeth pulled up the picture of Cordelia and then Ivy and Holly Delray
and turned it around.
“One is tall and willowy like Cordelia, and the other has the same facial structure.”
Elizabeth picked up a page from the journal and read from it.
‘How I love sitting in church, as I’m filled with his love. From my seat I can watch him do miracles. My heart overflows.’
“The first three times I read that, I assumed it was some hyperbole for God. His mistake was telling us that he could see her in the third pew from where he stood,” she said. “Jefferson Delray was a married man, that is why Trinity Adare didn’t use names in the book, and that married man fathered her children.”
“Oh boy,” muttered Callen Whitefox. “Both women had sex with their brothers.”
“And that’s why Cordelia Adare was freaked out about the pregnancy, and why she wanted that genetic testing. Somehow she read her mother’s journal, or saw what we didn’t in the family resemblance. Jonathan Delray told us she got upset and stopped talking to him for a couple of days before she disappeared. He didn’t make her mad; the truth scared her to death.”
“Jefferson Delray sat in the church and lied right to our faces. He knew who Trinity was sleeping with the entire time.”
“I think at daybreak we head to the church and talk to Minister Delray.”
“Think he’ll admit to it?” asked Whitefox.
Elizabeth shrugged. “I don’t know, but we can run the DNA. We have Jonathan Delray’s skin from when he hit you, and we have Desdemona’s DNA on file, and Cordelia’s now too. I’m going to bet that they match, and if they do, he really can’t deny shit.”
“You’re going to go wake the tech team up and make them get to work, comparing DNA aren’t you?” asked her husband, grinning.
“Not the whole team, but yeah, I am. Anyone want to watch as I scare the shit out of our lab staff?”
“Oh baby, you know I do,” Blackhawk said, pulling on his shirt and slipping into his shoes.
“I love watching you work. It turns me right on and makes me want to make out with you.”
Elizabeth shrugged. What the hell? She was that damn happy that she pieced it together, that double kissy face sounded appealing.
Walking over to Callen Whitefox she went up on her toes and slowly kissed him, burying her hand in his ponytail and holding him to her mouth while she explored, showing him how much love she had for him. When he tightened against her and moaned, she slowly broke the kiss. “We will continue this later, sexy,” she whispered, stroking his cheek. His eyes were blurred with lust and love.
“I sure as hell hope so,” he answered.
Elizabeth turned and crossed to her husband, sliding up against his body. Its comfortable familiarity warmed her body and blood. His kiss was rough and hot, and she felt him come alive beneath her mouth. When she pulled his hair free and ran her hands through it, he moaned too. “Later, handsome.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and patted him on the ass. “I promise.”
He grinned down at his wife. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Then she broke away. “Come on boys, let’s wake up our team and make them do the grunt work.” Elizabeth winked at them both on her way to the door. “God I love my job.”
Neither man doubted that for a single second. Right then the biggest thing on both their minds was how Elizabeth knew about the picture, the book and their grandmother’s birthmark.
Maybe Timothy would always be there to watch over them after all.
* * *
Saturday Early Morning
When their bosses came knocking at three in the morning, it meant two things. They better get their asses moving, and something big was coming. If it couldn’t wait until dawn, it had to be pretty damn urgent.
Elizabeth gave instructions to her ME, and she knew he’d follow them and keep it quiet. If the DNA did indeed match, that meant that someone needed to tell Doctor Desdemona Adare the good and bad news.
She had more siblings, and that she and her sister had sexual relationships with their brothers.
It was going to sting and be brutal to carry the truth. Incest was never a pretty topic, but to find out about it later in life, that was going to be a wicked slap to the heart and mind.
No one was going to enjoy having that conversation, but someone had to do it. Elizabeth was willing to be the one who took one for the team. She figured out of the three of them, hearing it from her would be the least vicious.
Or so she hoped.
Elizabeth looked at her watch and by now the tech team should have the results.
“You’re wearing a hole in the carpet. Stop pacing,” her husband ordered, lying on their bed as he tried to relax.
“I can’t help it. I’m ready to go get the man and beat him into confessing.”
“Doctor Leonard told you that he’d call as soon as the results were in, and he will.”
“I’m restless,” she answered, truthfully. Again she started pacing again.
“I hear really crazy sex with two men you love can help distract and alleviate some of that restlessness,” suggested Whitefox.
“You don’t say?” she said, pausing and watching them lounging on the bed. Both men looked calm and really sexy. It was hard to pass up a morning romp.
“You should try everything at least once to test that hypothesis. Since there’s two of us, that’s like testing and retesting the theory all at the same time,” informed Whitefox. “You can start with either one of us and call it a scientific experiment.”
Blackhawk watched her predatorily, and his blue black eyes glittered in the room light.
Elizabeth started unbuttoning her shirt and kicked off her boots. When she tossed her shirt at Callen, he looked surprised.
“What?” she asked, unhooking her belt buckle. “You changed your mind about sex and distracting me?”
“I didn’t think that lame ass explanation had a snowballs chance in hell.” Now he started laughing, until she slid her jeans down her long legs and stood up. The laughter stopped and was replaced with pure unadulterated lust.
“God, I love a bad ass woman that wears little lacy panties and bras. It’s so erotic,” muttered her husband, as he sat up offering her his hand.
Whitefox did the same.
Elizabeth took both of their hands and crawled across the bed to stare down at both of them. “Boys, we don’t have much time. If you want wild sex, then I suggest you get naked and fast. First one back in bed gets me first.”
Both men moved so fast, she actually started laughing. Then they were naked and jumping back into bed at the same time. “Oh it looks like you both have to share my attention since it was a tie.”
“I love sharing,” answered Whitefox, swallowing.
Elizabeth winked at him and then leaned down to kiss her husband. It was hard and rough and she did everything that made him crazy and out of control. There was tongue and teeth, as she straddled him, trapping his already hard body between the junction where they met. Breaking away from her now breathless husband, she motioned to Whitefox. “Come here, Callen,” she whispered, and the man moved quickly to her side, waiting for her to just touch him.
“What do you want, Cal?” she asked softly, her lips a breath away from his, and still there was no contact. “Tell me what you need.”
He wasn’t sure if he could even speak, let alone think. Finally he put the words together. “I want to kiss you and touch you,” he stated.
Elizabeth placed her hand on the back of his neck, her fingers knotted into his hair, trapping him. “Then kiss and touch me, Callen,” she answered.
Whitefox dove into her mouth, taking all he could from the kiss. His hands slid across her body, across the erotically lacy bra, and then slid to her back to unfasten it. Once it was free of her body, he ran his hands over the treasure beneath.
Blackhawk was trapped beneath his wife and forced to watch the show going on above his body. All he wanted was to slide deep into her and take his wife. But he couldn’t move, and the entire thing
was just that damn erotic. When she slid her girly panty clad body across his erection he moaned and arched. It fueled his brother, making him hungrier, wilder and more exploratory with his hand and mouth.
It was maddening.
It was completely sinful.
And it was driving him out of his fucking mind.
“You're both killing me,” he muttered, watching his brother running his hands across her pale flesh. Elizabeth shifted again, and it was silk across flesh, and he needed to touch and feel. Running his fingers up her torso, he joined in with the exploration of rougher hands on silky skin.
Elizabeth broke away from the kiss, and leaned in to whisper in the man’s ear. “Very nice Mr. Whitefox. You have exceptional oral skills,” and then she ran her teeth over his earlobe and he shivered.
“Lose the panties, Elizabeth, before I lose them for you!” Blackhawk demanded, practically growling.
Elizabeth looked down at her husband. “I guess you’ll have to help me lose them, Ethan.”
It didn’t take long for him to accept the permission and tear them from her body. They ripped easily, and the sound of rendering fabric was completely shocking and erotic to both men.
“You're a very naughty boy, Ethan. I guess it’s a good thing I love very bad boys,” she whispered, lowering her mouth to his, as she began kissing him with teeth and tongue. Elizabeth shifted down, and her body was pressed to his, trapping him to the front of her. Elizabeth paused briefly to glance over at Callen. “From behind, Cal,” she grinned at him, licking her lips, drawing his complete attention to the action.
There was no way in hell she needed to say it twice. He stared as she went back to kissing his brother, and he moved to straddle his brother’s legs and leaned over her body, sliding deep into her warmth. “Oh God,” he muttered, resting his forehead against her back until he regained control. Her body welcomed him, but it was the visual that was so unbelievably hot. Here he was taking the love of his life, while she passionately kissed another man beneath her. Not just another man, but his brother.
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