Page 2 of Renegade

“Aston, Summerfield, and Billings,” the female voice announced.

An insurance company, maybe?I cleared my throat. “Hello, this is Miguel Huerta from Trackers. I’m returning a call.”

“Ah,yes, Mr. Huerta. Mr. Aston has been expecting your call. I’ll put you right through.”

“Thank you.” I waited for only a few seconds before someone picked up.

“Is this Mr. Huerta from the Trackers recovery agency?” The deep male voice on the other line sounded like all business.

“Yes, this is Miguel Huerta. How can I help you?”

“Thank you for the return call, Mr. Huerta. My name is Gregory Aston. I’m an attorney representing the Flores estate, and we have need of your services.”

“I’m sorry…I’m not familiar with the Flores estate,” I replied, sipping my coffee as I leaned back in my leather chair. “How can we help you?”

“A priceless piece of jewelry has disappeared from our late client’s estate, and we’d like to talk to you and your partner about retrieving it, Mr. Huerta.”

“That’s fine.” Recovering stolen goods was what we did, so I didn’t hesitate. “When can we meet?”

I heard a throat clearing over the phone line. “First…let me ask you, Mr. Huerta…do you and your partner carry guns?”

I ran my hand through my hair, aware that my heartbeat was speeding up. “I—I…well, if necessary but I—”

“I only ask because we suspect the thief might be troublesome,” Aston said.

Troublesome. Well, that was one way to put it. “Mr. Aston, we normally carry pepper spray and TASERs but we’re both licensed to carry firearms.”

“Good! Well then, would you and Mr. Mathis be available to meet with me and Mrs. Flores later this afternoon?”

“Sure. What time and where?” I was very interested to find out why anyone would need to carry a gun just to retrieve a stolen item.

“There’s a place in Calabasas called Sagebrush Cantina with an outdoor seating area where we can be assured some privacy. My client would like to meet in a public setting where it’s safer.”

Safe from what?“Safer?”

“Yes,” Aston replied. “Let’s say we meet there at three?”

“Three is fine. Mr. Mathis and I will be there.”

“See you then. Please come armed.”

“Will do.”

He hung up and I pulled the phone away from my ear, staring at the receiver.What had I just agreed to?

Chapter One

RAVEN

When I walked into the office much later than I’d expected, Judy informed me she’d just made a fresh pot of coffee since Miguel had already polished off the firstby himself.

I was headed back to our shared office space where I knew the love of my life would be, wondering how jumpy he’d be after “polishing off” six cups, albeit small ones since that’s the only size mugs we had in the office. I made a mental note that we’d have to talk about his need for so much coffee. It just wasn’t healthy, and lord only knew he was nearly eight years older than my twenty-nine. He obnoxiously dispelled the notion about his vitality when he got up and ran five miles every morning before I even got out of bed, though. Having a body like Miguel’s didn’t happen on its own, after all.

Judy’s voice stopped me halfway out of the main office to tell me a new client had called, and Miguel had already spoken to them. I nodded and went back to our office, doing my best not to skip at this turn of events. We’d only recently placed an ad advertising our services, so having a new client was nice to hear. Though I didn’t share much about our finances with Miguel due to his nervousness about money and how he thought he was sponging off me, I’d become a little concerned when our client base wasn’t growing as rapidly as I’d hoped. I had a healthy amount of savings but not having jobs at hand was slightly worrying. The two piddly jobs we’d done over the last month since our grand opening, hadn’t given us a large influx of cash, so I welcomed the news of a new client.

“Hey, babe,” I said, breezing into the office and walking over to Miguel who sat behind his desk tapping a pen on the blotter and staring at the computer screen. I bent down and pecked him on the lips as I tossed my jacket in the general direction of my desk chair, situated several feet from his.

“Morning, Sunshine,” he replied, using the nickname that always made me feel warm inside. He kissed me and grabbed me around the waist, pulling me closer as I straightened. I ran my hand over the back of his short hair and smiled at him. “We have a new client.”

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