Page 15 of Jewel in the Rough

“And yet, here you are.”

Benny pointed at himself. “Track star in high school, big guy. This gay boy was never caught by the rampant homophobes who lived in my hometown. I split out of that alley like I was being chased by… well, murdering assholes. It was pure luck that a patrol car saw me bolt out of there. It’s kind of a blur, all I remember is seeing the cops and chasing the car down the street until it stopped. They let me in the back but I’m screaming ‘pedal to the metal, pedal to the metal’ because I don’t have a death wish. The rest is history.”

“And why aren’t you in protective custody?”

“Witness protection? No way in hell.” Benny’s eyes blazed. “I’ve fought too hard for my life to change names and disappear and rebuild it all. It’s not l like I have any family to speak of, anyway. There’s only one of me.”

“No, family, sisters, brothers, mom, dad?”

Benny peered at him with one eye squeezed shut. “I was allowed to stay in the family home until I graduated high school, but after my grandma passed and once I went to college, it was understood I wouldn’t be coming back.”

Teagan leaned back in his chair. “Shit. I’m sorry.” Even though Teagan and his dad had never had the gay talk, or the questioning-his-sexuality talk, Teagan had never once worried Fletcher might turn him away if they did. They weren’t a family that talked about sex much, or anything at all, really. That had been his mom’s job, and she’d passed when Teagan was in middle school.

“Teagan, don’t stick your dick where it doesn’t belong,” had been the extent of his dad’s gruff birds-and-bees talk. Since Teagan, unlike his high school buddies, didn’t really want to stick his dick anywhere, all was good.

Another thought occurred to him, one he’d been meaning to ask. “Howdoyou know Ciara?”

When Benny glanced across the table at him, Teagan thought he looked possibly embarrassed. At the very least, slightly uncomfortable.

“We went to The Evergreen College at the same time.”

“You did? Huh. Ciara had some pretty wild times there. Once when I was up here visiting my dad, I had to drive three fucking hours down to Olympia and bail her ass out of jail. Not fun.”

“Mm, well, Evergreen can be pretty over the top. Anything that may have happened there should be forgiven.” He shifted in his chair looking even more… guilty.

Teagan stared at his guest, the cards figuratively falling into place. He would have figured it out earlier, but they’d been so busy, and truthfully, small talk was not one of Teagan’s strong points.

“Youwere the one, the accomplice.”

“I plead the fifth. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Does running naked through the middle of downtown Olympia while high as a kite ring a bell?”

“Gosh, no. Let’s talk more about witness protection. That’s a fun conversation. And even if something like that supposedly happened, it was years ago and should be forgiven. LSD is just not that fun, I gotta say.”

Teagan stared at him. Benny stared defiantly back.

“Back to the Sureños.”

Benny sighed and broke eye contact, crossing his arms over his chest. He was clearly ready to be done with this conversation, but then, so was Teagan. He hated having it.

He hated that he had the urge to protect Benny with every fiber of his banged-up body. Every cop instinct he still had told him Benny was bringing trouble right to his door. And Teagan wasn’t sure his body could keep Benny safe.

“What precautions did you take when you left Vegas?”

Teagan’s thigh throbbed and he automatically began rubbing it.

“I packed what I could fit in my car and vamoosed out of there.”

“And you just drove straight here.”

“Yes, but no one was following me, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Benny insisted. “Come on, we’re one thousand miles from Vegas. I’m just not that important.”

Teagan wanted to reassure Benny he was that important, in a way Teagan hadn’t fully defined for himself. But his damn cell phone began ringing and something else caught his attention—a scrape, a rustle, maybe it was thetooquietfrom outside. Teagan’s cop senses alerted him to danger for the first time in a year. But his instincts were rusty, and he barely had time to hit the ground before the kitchen window blew out, spewing shards of glass everywhere. Bullets smacked through the farmer’s almanac calendar hanging on the wall opposite the window, and it hung there for a moment before the shredded pages slid to the floor with a plop. Benny gaped at Teagan, his dark eyes wide with fear and confusion.

Another window exploded.

They had to assume the house was surrounded. Talache wouldn’t send just one thug to do the job. Benny was a loose thread that needed to be removed for Talache to survive.

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